QPR Report Friday: Hart's Prospects...Quiz: QPR Managers...Pellicori Leaving?...Championship Player Rankings

-
- QPR REPORT Available on TWITTER! ...Visit (and feel free to post on!) the cutting-edgeQPR Report Messageboard - with latest updates and posts throughout the day!

- Scroll Down For Earlier Posts re QPR and Harford in/Magilton out. Or click on QPR Report

- QPR's Amit Bhatia and Ishan Saksena Both Play (in Exhibit Match)!

- Next: Sheffield United -Previews and Flashbacks: Our Last Meeting

- QPR Marlon Harewood Interest?

- Updated Actim Index: Top-ranked players in the Championship: Routledge #19; Simpson #44; Cherny #68

- Two Year Flashback: QPR's Chief Scout Resigns

- On This Day...: QPR Drew with Chelsea, crushed Wolves lost at Reading and Gianni Paladini made a last-minute paymentto prevent club facing Winding up order

- Birthday for Les Ferdinand (43)

- The Conclusion of the (satirical/fictional) "The Magilton Diaries" - The Complete Diary

- Arsenal Sending Scouts to Watch Raheem Sterling

- Watford in Big Trouble (Good luck to them)

- Proposal to Ban Youth Players Moving from one country to another


Paul Warburton/Ealing Gazette- Pellicori poised for QPR exit
- ONE of the first casualties of the new Paul Hart-Mick Harford reign at QPR is expected to be Alessandro Pellicori.
- The 28-year-old Italian has failed to cut it since his arrival from Avellino on a free transfer in the summer, and the Rangers management were tearing their hair out when he failed to latch on to a simple pass in the dying seconds at West Brom on Monday.
- The ball winged its way up the other end and Albion equalised for 2-2 with the last kick of the game, one of the last moves for the man who has made only one start and nine appearances off the bench.
- Rangers will try and find Pellicori a club back home in Serie B in January. Ealing Gazette

- If the Pellicori on his way story is correct, that's an amazingly-speedy decision by the man in charge of transfers, Paul Hart! Meanwhile still waiting to find out who was responsible for signing Alessandro Pellicori and what the rationale was


Bet 365 QPR Specials: Will Paul Hart Last The Season?
* Yes 8/11
* No Evs
(QPR manager on final day of 2009/10 season)
Will Paul Hart Start 2010/11 Season As QPR Manager?
* Yes 11/8
* No 8/15
* QPR to be promoted 13/2 - Bet 365

The Guardian/Jacob Steinberg - Football quiz: QPR managers
Today's questions will last until next Tuesday...
1. Which QPR has taken charge of the most games under Flavio Briatore?
1. Jim Magilton
2. Paulo Sousa
3. Iain Dowie
4. Luigi De Canio
2.

2. Where is the midfielder Akos Buszaky, with whom Jim Magilton had an alleged dispute, from?
1. Greece
2. Romania
3. Hungary
4. Austria
3.

3. How many times has Gareth Ainsworth been pressed into caretaker duties at QPR?
1. Three times
2. Once
3. Twice
4. Never
4.

4. After Magilton was sacked, who was caretaker alongside Marc Bircham?
1. Danny Dichio
2. Martin Rowlands
3. Kevin Gallen
4. Rufus Brevett
5.

5. Who was QPR's first ever manager?
1. Ned Liddell
2. James Howie
3. James Cowan
4. Archie Mitchell
6.

6. Who was in charge when QPR were relegated from the Premier League in 1996?
1. John Hollins
2. Stewart Houston
3. Ray Wilkins
4. Gerry Francis
7.

7. From which club did QPR get De Canio?
1. Siena
2. Napoli
3. Udinese
4. Reggina
8.

8. Paulo Sousa has twice won the Champions League as a player - Juventus and ...?
1. Porto
2. Real Madrid
3. Borussia Dortmund
4. Bayern Munich
9.

9. Which team does Sousa manage now?
1. Espanyol
2. Swansea City
3. West Bromwich Albion
4. Blackpool
10.

10. At which team did Jim Magilton begin his playing career?
1. Southampton
2. Everton
3. Manchester United
4. Liverpool Guardian


The Times/Tom Dart - December 18, 2009
All change again at QPR as Paul Hart gives his affable nature a big test
- Paul Hart faced the key questions yesterday. Have Queens Park Rangers got what it takes to win promotion? Will there be money to spend in January? Have you ever head-butted anyone? “Not since I was a manager, no,” Hart joked.

Three weeks after being sacked by Portsmouth, he is back in the game, but the ringmaster of the Cirque du QPR was not at their training ground yesterday to introduce Jim Magilton’s replacement. having headhunted Hart to be the Coca-Cola Championship club’s fifth permanent manager in the past 26 months.

Late on Wednesday, QPR issued a statement saying that Magilton and his assistant, John Gorman, had left “by mutual consent”. Sources claim that the heated disagreement between Magilton and Akos Buzsaky in the dressing room after QPR’s 3-1 defeat by Watford on December 7 that precipitated the manager’s departure was blown out of proportion and that Magilton did not head-butt the midfield player, who was seen wandering around Vicarage Road with pride wounded but cranium intact.

QPR launched an internal investigation, although Wednesady’s announcement made no reference to the accusations against Magilton being proven or otherwise and said that he “completely denies the allegations”. There could be no argument that Magilton’s position had become untenable. QPR had won only one of their previous seven matches when he was suspended two days after the Watford game amid reports of player unrest.
- Anyway, Magilton lasted for 23 matches, which almost qualifies him for a QPR long-service award. A carriage clock with a ticking time bomb inside, perhaps.
- So QPR turn to Hart, football’s equivalent of the safety car. The 56-year-old has joined until the end of the season and he is as mellow as Magilton was intense. “This could well be a longer agreement but it suits at the moment to be what it is,” he said. “We feel we might cause a little bit of damage in the Championship.” Maybe even to other clubs.
- QPR are different. The plaything of millionaires — and one shareholder, Lakshmi Mittal, is a billionaire — yet they share their basic training ground with a university.
- In the press conference room yesterday, behind the sheet of sponsors’ logos — a Spanish bank, an Arabian airline, an Italian sportswear firm — was a wall-mounted wooden roll of honour listing the university’s cricket, hockey, tennis and football captains. A Miss N Pleaden was Ladies’ Sports Rep in 1966-67, when QPR won their only significant trophy, the League Cup.

To Hart’s right, on a shelf behind the bar, were four empty bottles of a brew called Old Farty Pants. In the car park were some vehicles worthy of Barclays Premier League stars, others that would qualify for the Government’s scrappage scheme.

How does Hart find Briatore? “Everybody I’ve met, I’ve got on well with — but then, I do,” he said. “Not an awful lot fazes me any more. The days of me looking over my shoulder and worrying about things I can’t be master of are gone. I work in an honest way, I’m up front, in return, I expect the same and that’s all. It’s always a two-way street.” Or is Loftus Road more of a dead end?

Changing of the guard
- Queens Park Rangers managers since the consortium including Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone agreed to buy the club in August 2007:
- John Gregory Sacked on October 1, 2007, with QPR bottom of the Coca-Cola Championship. Mick Harford, now back as Paul Hart’s assistant, took caretaker charge.
- Luigi De Canio The Italian, formerly coach of Napoli and Siena, took charge on October 29 but left the next May for personal reasons.
- Iain Dowie Lasted only 15 games, leaving in October last year. His departure sparked rumours that Briatore had interfered in team selection. Gareth Ainsworth replaced him as caretaker until mid-November.
- Paulo Sousa Manager for five months but started legal proceedings after his dismissal in April this year for, the club said, divulging “confidential and sensitive information”. Ainsworth again took temporary charge.
- Jim Magilton Left “by mutual consent” on Wednesday after 23 matches, after a dressing-room incident with Akos Buzsaky. Times


Mirror - What's the betting Paul Hart stays QPR boss until the end of the season? Odds here... By Derek McGovern in Betting Blog
- I’ve had girlfriends that have lasted longer than recent QPR managers. Goldfish, too. Paul Hart has become the eighth man to manage QPR since millionaires Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore took over in August 2007. I don’t even change my underpants that often.

The owners have admitted to making mistakes and given their full support and backing to Hart by handing him a contract to the end of the season. I think they mean winter.

Previous incumbent Jim Magilton was axed in mysterious circumstances. There are questions that need answering. Did he get the boot for poor performances? Did he get the boot for head butting one of his players? Or did he get the boot for failing to carry out Flavio Briatore’s orders by refusing to throw himself into the advertising hoardings?

Hart claims he will have a full and final say on all transfers. He said he’s keen to get some Chinese writing on his arm.

Hart hasn’t had any luck of late. His last board at Portsmouth were billionaires without any money and his board at QPR are millionaires who don’t like spending it. That's how they became millionaires in the first place.

Bet365 have little faith in Hart seeing out his contract. He’s 8-11 to be at the club at the end of the season and evens to go the same way as his hair – out on his ear. Mirror


Guardian/Barry Glendenning
- guardian.co.uk's tea-time take on the world of football The Sizzling QPR Managerial Hot Seat Barry Glendenning
- SMART HART?
When Queens Park Rangers announced that Paul Hart had been installed as their new manager at 10am this morning, the Fiver had a fair idea what today's main story would be: a few paragraphs about how it all went pear-shaped for the former Pompey boss by 10.07am, followed by idle speculation about who'd replace him in the wake of his dismissal at 10.08am. But in an unprecedented show of Fiver inaccuracy, Hart is already firmly on course to becoming the longest-serving of the nine men who've briefly warmed their buttocks on the sizzling Loftus Road managerial hot seat since pot-bellied Italian stallion Flavio Briatore and his goblin sidekick Bernie Ecclestone invested in the club in August 2007.

"We've got a strong squad of players and we feel we might cause a bit of damage in the Championship," said Hart, whose quest to wreak havoc will be aided by the presence of former Luton Town manager and one-man wrecking-ball Mick Harford alongside him in the dugout. "I am here for a short period," added Hart, who signed a six-month contract but already has one eye focused on the Sky Sports News Yellow Ticker Of Doom for the revelation that he's been sacked.

Hart takes over at Loftus Road from Jim Magilton, who parted company with QPR last night by "mutual consent" that appears to have been a lot more mutual on Briatore's part than it was on that of the former Norn Iron One Nil international. Magilton had been suspended from the club in the wake of an alleged dressing-room bust-up with midfielder Akos Buzasky who, it's claimed, was nutted in the face by Magilton, despite showing none of the tell-tale signs – two black eyes and pints of claret gushing from a broken nose – that feature on the Fiver's visage when we've been on the receiving end of our weekly Saturday-night assault outside the kebab house. Magilton denies any wrongdoing.

"The club would like to wish both [insert name of recently fired manager here] and [insert name of recently fired assistant manager here] good luck in the future and thank them for their hard work," droned the overworked template QPR use for announcing their managerial departures, shortly before a receptionist filled in the blanks and stuck it on the interweb last night." Guardian