Mark Hughes arrived in January and during his 10 month reign at the club failed to secure a single away victory. Furthermore, crucially after 12 games this season the R’s are currently rooted at the bottom of the table without a league win. Unrest had been growing amongst Rangers fans for some time and the cracks widened even further at Stoke with frustration and anger turning inwards amongst the travelling faithful.
As recently as last week and prior to another so called ‘must win’ game against Southampton, Hughes was quoted as saying: “My expectation is we will get the three points and we will start the long road back.” Adding: “Our hope was to finish in the top half and I still think that’s a possibility.”
After a humiliating home defeat last Saturday, rumours were flying around on Monday that Hughes was due to be sacked. Then the word was that the QPR Board might be split on the decision and we were then led to believe that he might well have been given four more games to turn it around !
Finally today, we were all put out of our misery when the club issued the following statement:
‘Queen’s Park Rangers Football Club has today (Friday) terminated the contract of manager Mark Hughes with immediate effect.
This decision has been taken after careful consideration by the Board of Directors, following numerous meetings over the last few days.
The Board of Directors wish to thank Mark for his commitment, hard work and dedication in his ten months in charge. Mark has shown integrity and professionalism throughout his time here, but ultimately the circumstances we find ourselves in have left the Board of Directors with little choice but to make a change.
The Board will now be working actively to put a new managerial structure in place as soon as possible.
Mark Bowen and Eddie Niedzwiecki will take charge of the R’s trip to Manchester United in the Barclays Premier League on Saturday afternoon.
The club will be making a further announcement in due course.’
Tony Fernandes defended his appointment to the end, but with mounting pressure from the fans he finally ran out of patience. Seemingly, the appointment of Harry Redknapp appears to be little more than a formality.
Steve Russell
I find it incredible that several old Man Utd players attending Ferguson’s statue unveiling trotted out the usual garbage in support of Hughes.
Are they blind to the facts which extend back to his appointment last season. The crowd got us the victories last season despite his input. So..take those away and you have an indefensible record.
We have paid the price for showing misguided loyalty (just look at the table) Judging the club’s actions is easy when you don’t have to pick the pieces up or pay the cost of not being in the Premiership.
I was hoping things would turn out better, I started the season full of hope and believed Hughes’s assertion that this season would not be like last season. He was right of course, it was worse.
I think behind the scenes the club has been set up a lot better than in the past 10 years or more. But the team needed to be doing the job on the field to make it all work for the long term.
As for his replacement, well, I am not a big “Harry fan”. I think his best days are behind him. I was hoping for someone younger and more ambitious – Ole GS for example.
Who knows what will happen, whether we stay up or not, I’ll still be a QPR fan. If we go down, I’m happy that I got to see my team “live” nearly every week for the past two seasons even if some of the alleged football was not pretty. To see Loftus Road again was nice. A sea of Blue & White Hoops.
Good bye hopeless Hughes.
Harry is the right man.
Lets get this season started !!