The most moribund match of this Premier League season ended with both Reading’s and Queens Park Rangers’ relegation to the Championship being confirmed. While the Royals look well equipped on and off the field to challenge for an immediate return to the top-flight, the same is not true of their West London counterparts.
Across two largely miserable campaigns, since the high of promotion under Neil Warnock in 2011, this previously homely Shepherd’s Bush club has been the scene for the shredding of managerial and playing reputations. Correspondingly, outside perception of an outfit which once inspired a deal of goodwill has been markedly transformed.
There were few portents for the chaos that would ensue when Warnock’s first full term in charge saw the R’s accumulate 88 points, and lose just six of 46 matches, as they ran away with the Championship title. That momentous season was built on the unique talent of Adel Taarabt, Alejandro Faurlin’s midfield guile, the presence of a bustling forward in Heidar Helguson, and the grit and application of solid pros such as; Shaun Derry, Clint Hill, Jamie Mackie, and Paddy Kenny. The achievement of Warnock and his eclectic bunch was supposed to shed the club of the ‘laughing stock’ tag with which it was burdened, thanks to the well reported behind the scenes chaos that characterised daily life at Loftus Road.
With life in the big-league impending, Warnock didn’t seek to supplement that playing group with an excess of high-profile, high-earning individuals – the exceptions to his measured approach being a free-transfer gamble on Joey Barton and the near £4m acquisition of the enduringly erratic Shaun Wright-Phillips.
When the brash Yorkshireman was sacked 20 matches into QPR’s first Premier League season for fifteen years, the Loftus Road outfit sat a point and a place above the relegation zone. A little over four months and, a Mark Hughes influenced £15m transfer outlay later, that was the prevailing situation.
Congruous with a wretched 2011/2012 season, the R’s feisty last day display at the Etihad Stadium concluded with them taking the part of fall-guy in Manchester City’s great title winning day, and grateful to survive due to Bolton Wanderers’ inability to take three points at Stoke City.
There had been late-term occasions at a cacophonous Loftus Road – notably victories over Liverpool, Arsenal, and Tottenham Hotspur – to evoke memories of past glories. Present at those precious three-point winning days will have been supporters who could recall Dave Sexton’s team running Liverpool agonisingly close for the 1976 title, and the Gerry Francis led side which completed the inaugural 1992/1993 Premier League season in 5th spot – a feat which marked Rangers as London’s top performing club of the time.
Surely another summer of heavy spending, and the arrival of players with the calibre and repute of Esteban Granero, Julio Cesar, and Ji Sung-Park, would lead to a far more rewarding second top-flight year? With a squad already counting among its number; Bobby Zamora, Samba Diakite, Djibril Cisse, and the championship winning core, any repeat of their 2011/2012 struggles was considered unimaginable.
Furthermore, in Hughes, R’S chairman Tony Fernandes believed he had in his employ the manager to steer his club towards a life competing with rather more esteemed adversaries, as opposed to their being fated to a perennial squabble for survival with Wigan Athletic and Reading .
The Welsh boss clearly shared the vision of his Asian owner. He had left his previous role at Fulham – after only one season in charge – with the heady declaration that he wished to ‘further my experiences’ as ‘a young ambitious manager’.
It is safe to assume that relegation wasn’t on that particular agenda. When Fernandes called time on Hughes’ reign – and simultaneously cast the former Manchester United player into the light of managerial pariah – QPR hadn’t won any of their opening 12 fixtures.
If Hughes’ approval rating had suffered an inexorable decline, the men on the pitch weren’t far behind regarding the rate of their falling stock. Regardless of any personal opinion concerning Hughes’ bolshy personality or managerial prowess, there is no disputing that his wonderful playing career was grounded in a fiercely competitive and committed approach to his profession.
Those qualities were glaringly absent in many of the 49 year-old’s Rangers’ acquisitions. Granero, Wright-Phillips, Anton Ferdinand, Park, Armand Traore and Jose Bosingwa are among the number whose dedication to the cause was vehemently questioned.