Briatore To Meet With The Players to Disccuss QPR's Situation - And a View of The Briatore "Regime"

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Dave McIntyre/BBC - What's gone wrong?
- Flavio Briatore is to hold a meeting with the players to discuss recent results – and he’s likely to want answers.
Eleventh in the table and without a win in eight games, Rangers are almost out of the running for a play-off place and could even be sucked towards the opposite end of the table if things don’t improve.
- This wasn’t how it was supposed to be – especially after the sacking of Iain Dowie in October.
Briatore saw both the draw with Sheffield United and the defeat at Doncaster.
He has since been in Barcelona but is due to arrive in London on Thursday afternoon and is expected to head straight to a meeting with the Rangers squad.
These meetings aren’t unusual. Briatore addresses the players frequently, often on Thursdays, and this week’s scheduled get-together isn’t a direct response to Rangers’ alarming dip.
But this is the first time such a meeting will be held with Rangers so obviously heading in the wrong direction.
There have been plenty of problems since the Briatore-led takeover. Indeed, for a while after it Rangers were in the relegation zone.
But there has always been a feeling that “the project” was on course, despite issues along the way.
Now Rangers find themselves struggling to better last season’s 14th-placed finish; an outcome that would have seemed unthinkable to many - including the owners - last summer.
Where has it all gone wrong? This is a question supporters have been asking, and one that’s sure to be aired on Thursday.
Briatore’s regime is, to use his own word, a “dictatorship” and he doesn’t take kindly to criticism, so the team are almost certainly in line for an appraisal from him rather than the other way around.
But there is likely to be a chance for the players to air their views on where they think any problems lie. That could mean discussing anything from formations and selection policy to training methods.
- There is little reason to believe Paulo Sousa would have anything to worry about there.
- Players are generally quick to accept collective responsibility for poor results and that has certainly been the message coming out of the Rangers of late.
- Sousa’s position, although under scrutiny, should be safe until at least the end of the season barring a spectacular turn of events.
- Perhaps the simple answer to the question of what’s gone wrong would be to point at Messrs Buzsaky, Vine and Rowlands, who have been unavailable to Sousa.
- One thing is certain. No-one in the room will suggest the underlying problems are in some way down to Briatore himself" BBC606

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