QPR moved quickly this week to announce their new manager following Neil Warnock’s departure on Sunday just gone. Welshman Mark Hughes stepped into the role on a two-and-a-half year deal following a quiet seven-month period away from the game.
Firstly, Warnock’s departure raised quite a few eyebrows. Granted, the Rs haven’t had the best of times recently and find themselves a point off the bottom three following a torrid run of form, but he was never on one of those betting shortlists for the sack much like Martinez, Kean, Coyle et al. After all, he’d only been there just shy of two years and was just finding his feet again as a top flight manager.
But, as club chairman Tony Fernandes put it “The board’s commitment to retaining our Premier League status ultimately led to this decision.” This is a results business and Warnock wasn’t getting points on the board – therefore, the club wasted no time (36 hours in fact) in finding their replacement.
Mark Hughes, the man who was odds-on favourite to take the role, finds himself back in management after he left Fulham in the summer. Still a relative fledgling in the management game, Sparky can boast quite an impressive football CV.
Following his retirement from playing in 1999, he took up a post as Wales national manager – a role which he held for five years. In that spell he attempted to bring the team from the doldrums and brought them to within a whisker of qualifying for Euro 2004, losing out narrowly in a play-off to an impressive Russia side.
The highlight of his tenure was the memorable 2-1 win over the mighty Italy during that qualifying campaign – Wales’ first victory over a top football nation in 11 years.
Hughes left the role to take up a position as manager of Blackburn Rovers in September 2004. His initial aim was to steer the club clear of relegation and consolidate – he went one better by doing just that and guiding the Lancashire side to their first FA Cup semi final in 40 years. He took Rovers to the top six the following season and entry into the UEFA Cup, beating Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United along the way. Hughes continued to steer the club in the right direction in the years that followed, consistently finishing in and around the top ten. He also signed key players, including Christopher Samba (who still remains an integral part of Rovers’ squad), Roque Santa Cruz, Benni McCarthy and Ryan Nelson.
He took over at Manchester City at the start of the 2008-09 season following City’s sacking of Sven Goran Eriksson and guided them to a top ten position in his first campaign. However, he became a victim of City’s ruthless billionaire owners in the following season and, following a run of seven successive draws, he was shown the door. A sacking which bewildered many and questioned the role of wealthy benefactors and how much they truly know about our game.
His final post before rolling up at Loftus Road was at Fulham, a position which he held for just shy of a year. He steered the London club to eighth position in his first year and qualification for UEFA Cup football via the Fair Play league. He wasn’t to see out much more of his contract and, following a supposed disagreement with the club’s hierarchy (club owner Mohamed Al-Fayed referred to Hughes as a ‘flop’), he resigned in the summer, just before the start of the current season.
This conveniently leads him to the QPR hotseat and Hughes will be hoping for a similar mission statement to the one he set out and fulfilled at Blackburn. He is a calm, well-spoken and articulate man – he will take away some of the unwanted limelight the club had to endure under Warnock (complaints about officials etc) and will help to make the side much more organised and efficient.
The QPR board say that their ambitions are matched by Hughes – let’s hope they stay true to their word and give Sparky a fair crack of the whip and enough time to mould a squad that is (eventually) capable of a top ten push.
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