Greg Sangwine assesses the current situation at Loftus Road, and whether the club is making short term choices to the detriment of its long term prospects.

One of the biggest criticisms with any sort of business or government, is that their focus is only on the short term.

People don't see the big picture. Car insurance here in Zimbabwe is one of my most reasonable purchases. I can pay $113 per year or pay three instalments of $55. A huge saving but you'll find actually parting with over $100 is too much for people. They don't look at their cash flow long term, only in the short term. There's a lot of poverty in Zimbabwe but I actually know quite a few rich guys who still choose to pay in the three payment plan. Craziness, because that means they also need to visit the post office more regularly. The place does my head in. Once a year is enough.

Likewise when I was younger my dad told me a story. He said that the original guys who came up with the idea, and programmed Microsoft Power Point were offered $20,000 for the rights to their software or a 5% share in the company. They took the cash. They could have never worked again if they'd taken the shares. I'm sure they regret that decision now.

The short term focus is big chat in football these days, especially at our beloved QPR. Do we only focus on the short term or do we focus on the long term and build things? Everyone has an opinion. Chelsea have been very successful over the last few years under Roman Abramovich, who is happy to admit he thinks in the short term. I should think he's only thinking about who can win his next trophy. He has close to no sentiment, if one guy can't do it, then he's of. He even sacked his Champions League winning boss. His philosophy is widely criticised but they've won trophies and a whole heap of them. Contrast that to Manchester United's long term focus in hiring 'Steady Eddy' Moyes potentially leading to a barren period for them.

My opinion is that it's not so much the man in charge's responsibility to look to the long term. His job is the here and now. I'm not a business man but I'm certain that if your managing director isn't turning a nice profit for you or your top earner isn't doing his bit, then he'd find he was out of a job fairly quickly. The long term vision has to come from the top. The top in QPR's case is the widely liked, very approachable; Tony Fernandes. I'm very grateful for Mr Fernandes and the other directors caring so deeply and I couldn't be happier with the people who own our club.

The scratching point is that for all the talk of long term focus, academies, training grounds, new stadiums and a successful team on the field there's the constant element to please the bloke in charge. I may be way out of line, but it appears to me that first Neil Warnock, then Mark Hughes and then Harry Redknapp got exactly what they wanted and no questions were asked. All have been guilty of some highly questionable transfer activities and all have been criticised for it. I wonder if Fernandes has ever actually said; "no"? I think his weakness is in his need to please everyone. Read any QPR message board and everyone has an opinion on who should play, formation, kit, mascot, badge, captain, boot colours, pie taste, toilet comfort or even the songs that they play at half time. You can't please ten people let alone 15,000. Ultimately though do we all care at the end of the game if we saw a spirited, well drilled QPR team?

I think back in January 2012 when Fernandes sacked Warnock even though he was achieving his goal of staying out of the bottom three and hired Hughes - I believe this was for the long term. "Mark build us a club long term, but for now keep us up, what do you need?" I can imagine that's all he said in the interview and that's why it came across that Hughes interviewed him and not the other way around. That was fine with the majority of us at the time wasn't it? Hughes got what he wanted in the signings of Taye Taiwo, Samba Diakite, Djibril Cisse and Bobby Zamora and we stayed up. At home we played well and Hughes' team was the reason behind that. We did well to stay up. We forget that now.

In that summer though Fernandes should have still been focused on the long term. This is where the word; "no" should have been coming in to his speech. No, Park is past it. No, you can't have Johnson, he's old and crocked. No, you can't sign Fabio on loan when we could keep Taiwo rather than aiding the development of Manchester United players. He should have been adding a few players to our squad with the remit of building younger players and staying up as the goal. Adding Esteban Granero, Jose Bosingwa, Stephane Mbia and Julio Cesar was complete idiocy but I ask you right now, if your boss said you could have people who have achieved everything in the business to work for you would you reply ; "No thanks boss" ? If I was Hughes I wouldn't have turned down those players and I wouldn't have stopped asking either. Fernandes should have been saying no.

So he sacked Hughes and rightly so because the players Hughes had bought hung him out to dry. But he then made the same mistake with Redknapp. You don't hire people of Harry's age for the long term. He was a short term solution to paper over the cracks and we all knew it. We were fine with it too. I think the majority of Rangers fans were pleased Harry came in. Unfortunately the same happened again, Harry got what he asked for and more. I'm not going to write in great detail about these transfers but Harry's signings were just as wild as Hughes' and I still can't imagine that Fernandes was saying no too many times in those meetings. But do we as fans care? We were pleased with them and we all felt that we'd stay up.

Well, we didn't did we, and we became a Championship side and to begin with it appeared the long term focus was winning out. Fernandes was quoted as saying that he had 'learnt his lesson' and that 'those mistakes will not be repeated again' and he started well. Redknapp wanted Wayne Bridge but we didn't get him. Fernandes must have said no. Sensible additions were then added. Simpson, Austin and Phillips were all excellent signings and spoke of the short term goal of promotion to the Premier League marrying with a philosophy where we buy younger, hungrier, English players. Harry himself was also quoted as saying we need local lads in order to achieve our goals.

However all of this sensible work (and to that I would include the three deadline days of loans of Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Tom Carroll and Niko Krancjar) has since been outdone by crazy, panicky transfer dealings. Javier Chevanton, Oguchi Onyewu, Yossi Benayoun, Aaron Hughes, Dellatorre, Kevin Doyle, Will Keane, Mobido Maiga and now Ravel Morrison have all come in and are all very unlikely to play for Rangers next season. Between Redknapp, Fernandes and Phil Beard it seems to me they've destroyed all the spirit and togetherness that the club had at the start of the season. I can't help but feel we'd be getting better results if we didn't play any loan players at all. It would mean we'd need either Johnson or Zamora to play for the rest of this season which probably won't happen. But I think you get where I'm coming from.

To conclude, I would not sack Redknapp. That'd be madness. Four games ago he picked an attacking, exciting line up for the Burnley game and at that point we were three points clear of them and looking good for promotion. February's been disastrous but if someone else comes in now they'd never be given the chance to build the club we and Fernandes want. It'd be another short term solution to paper over the cracks of our continued transfer misdemeanours. Either he brings in Malky Mackay, or a similar long term appointment on a five year deal and keeps him whatever happens this season or he sticks with Redknapp until the end of the season.

Personally I'm more angry with Fernandes' tweet saying "we have done everything that was asked of us" than I am with the Charlton result. It proves to me he hasn't said no, and that's where we should be holding him accountable. He's covered his own back. Because if he hadn't replaced Austin and Phillips we'd have all been blaming him wouldn't we? If Fernandes had said to Redknapp; 'bad luck on those injuries but you have to make do with Tom Hitchcock, Bobby Zamora and Shaun Wright-Phillips' the majority of us would have then blamed Fernandes. I'd have applauded him.

He should be saying no more often and I hope no is a word I hear when he's asked if he's going to sack Redknapp.

Tweet @GSangwine

Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images

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