MARK HUGHES has been assured by Tony Fernandes he retains the full support of the Queens Park Rangers board and there will be no knee-jerk reaction to the club’s dismal start to the season. But the manager knows he needs results quickly, as he confronts a difficult sequence of matches and fears persist about the sustainability of the club’s business plan.
Hughes has been backed robustly by Fernandes and the chairman is able to see beyond the league table, which shows Rangers rooted to the bottom, with two draws and four defeats from six games. Hughes has restructured the coaching set-up, youth academy and scouting network, while he has even been involved in the planning for the proposed new training ground. Fernandes has supported him financially in every last detail, with the most high-profile and expensive being the 12 signings the club made during the summer. He has bought wholesale into Hughes’s vision, he badly wants him to succeed and, with the pair speaking four or five times a week, Hughes is aware he is in no immediate danger of the sack.
There is, however, mounting anxiety among the fans, a section of whom have never warmed to Hughes and, having scrutinised his Premier League record, which reads: P24 W6 D4 L14, wonder whether he ought to be dismissed. Harry Redknapp has been touted as the next QPR manager and, coincidentally, he was in the Loftus Road club executive suite on Monday to watch the team lose 2-1 to West Ham United.
Fernandes made plain his support for Hughes on Twitter after the West Ham defeat. “Mark will sort it out,” he said. “Look at his record. We would have won if we didn’t go down to 10 men [after Samba Diakite’s red card]. I am relaxed and confident. Let’s get all our players back and in form and fit and then let’s see. Keep calm.”
Hughes is accused of recruiting as if he were still at Manchester City, rather than Rangers. QPR recorded a financial loss last season when they were in the Premier League, after their promotion in May 2011, and that was before their spree in the summer, which saw big sums spent on the wages of signings such as Park Ji-sung, Jose Bosingwa, Andy Johnson, Junior Hoilett, Esteban Granero, Robert Green and Julio Cesar. Green is disgruntled after he signed only to see Cesar join on August 29th and take the jersey.
The club continue to pay a significant chunk of Joey Barton’s salary, who is on loan at Marseille, while Luke Young, DJ Campbell and Radek Cerny, who did not make Hughes’ 25-man squad, remain on the payroll.
QPR travel to sixth-placed West Bromwich Albion on Saturday and, after the international break, they face second-placed Everton at home and Arsenal away. Hughes has come to view the international break, when many of his players will not be away with their countries, as a time to regroup and work hard on defensive structure.
