Six Men in Charge in Just Over a Year: Will the Club Make it Seven?

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- For a purely football focus, visit the QPR Report Messageboard. for a combination of quasi-blog and messageboard. - Stats: QPR Current Form and Compared to Last Season
Also: Leeds/Ken Bates Financial "revelations"....Greatest British Managers List (Updated).....Spurs Didn't Practice Penalties Before Final

- First came messageboard questions/rumours...and a couple of articles in the Daily Mail and also another London Daily. Now this from Ben Kosky/Kilburn Times. Reminder: In the past fifteen months, John Gregory, Mick Harford, Luigi De Canio, Iain Dowie, Gareth Ainsworth and Paulo Sousa have all been in charge of the QPR team (although maybe not in charge of player recruitment) under Chairman Briatore.

Ben Kosky/Kilburn Times - Play-off or pay-off for Paulo?
- DEFIANT Paulo Sousa believes QPR can still make the top six - even though his job hangs by a thread after Tuesday's defeat to Norwich.
- Sousa could be sacked if Rangers - now on their worst run of the season -fail to revive their flagging play-off hopes against Sheffield United on Saturday.
- Ruthless co-owner Flavio Briatore, who has already dismissed three managers in just 18 months, has made it clear that a third successive home loss will not be tolerated.
- Despite losing 1-0 to the struggling Canaries at a rain-soaked Loftus Road, Sousa insisted: "When you have the mathematical possibility, until that moment we need to believe.
- "Norwich made one shot and one goal. Sometimes football is like that - it doesn't give you what you deserve, but we lose with the heads held high.
- "We played great football with difficult conditions and I'm very proud of my team. When we start to score we will win the games, I have no doubt about that."
- Unfortunately Rangers fans are unlikely to share Sousa's confidence after watching a performance that was by no means their worst at home under the Portuguese, but still ranked as untidy and uninspiring.
- While Sousa is still popular with the majority of QPR supporters, the stark truth is that the team have gone NOWHERE since he took charge at the end of November.
- Rangers are actually a place lower in the table than they were when Sousa arrived and have taken 23 points from 18 league games in that time.
- In terms of points per game, that is an inferior return compared to the average during the brief reign of Iain Dowie - and, for that matter, the caretaker managership of Gareth Ainsworth. Kilburn Times

Two articles from the Daily Mail, published in the past few days:

Daily Mail/Neil Hallam - Give Sousa a chance, pleads Delaney
- Paulo Sousa's chances of a long managerial reign at QPR can hardly have been enhanced by a barren run that has produced only two wins in 11 League games, but his players are adamant he should be given time to 'get his message across'.
- Half a dozen managers have come and gone at QPR in the last 14 months but Republic of Ireland full back Damien Delaney, who headed in their first-half equaliser, insists he speaks for all the players in hoping the former Portugal star is not added to the disruptive procession of casualties.
- 'All the lads like and respect the manager and want him to be given time to put his ideas and methods into practice,' he said.
- Losing battle: Paulo Sousa is running out of time to convince QPR's bosses that he is the right man to guide them towards the Premier League after another loss
- 'He arrived in mid-season, which is always difficult, and he has had the job of trying to create stability after a lot of upheaval.
'This was only our second league defeat since early December and we all feel we are starting to get there as a team.'
- Sousa said he was instructed to build solid foundations in order to challenge for promotion next season but he added:
- 'We still have a chance of the play-offs this year. We have to go for it but it's difficult to be consistent while we are still building for the future....'


Daily Mail/Hatchet Man - QPR owners should give Sousa the time they were promising
- QPR’S owners have a chance over the next few months to prove they are not just trigger happy short-termists.
- After going through managers at a frightening rate, Paulo Sousa was brought in last November claiming that he had been hired for the long term.
Under pressure: Sousa has seen his side go on a poor run
For some reason, the young Portuguese insisted he would be given time to turn Rangers into a force for the Premier League in his first job in club management.
- Like Sousa’s title of first team coach rather than manager, it hardly seemed credible. He seemed naïve or deluded and already he is moving towards crunch time.
Rangers have not won in the last five matches and lots of talk already about hopes for next season must have eroded Sousa’s standing. The best he can aim at now is the play-offs, and that is beginning to look like an outside shot.
- QPR are six points off sixth place (and only nine above the relegation zone) and Sousa and his team must be making the owners’ trigger fingers itchy.
- But if they are not going to continue to be another set of clichéd, super-rich and impatient owners, they have to stand by the rookie they appointed