"Keane is Linked to QPR Hotseat" - A Look at The QPR Job

-
- The QPR Report Messageboard. Visit the completely-independent, free-thinking site for news and discussion about QPR and football-in-general....For a site, where only football matters are discussed...For a site where, differing opinions about QPR and football are welcomed without the ad-hominems and the shibboleths. QPR Report Messageboard : Post if you want; or just read, if you prefer. ALL perspectives encouraged!

- Posted Earlier on QPR Report Blog "Roy Keane?...QPR's Performance Manager Motivates...QPR's Relegation Anniversary ...De Canio and QPR...Camp to Nottingham ?...Mike Keen's Funeral

Among the articles recently posted on the QPR Report Messageboard: -
- Mike Keen's Funeral Service Was held Yesterday: A Couple of accounts of the service - Among those attending from 1967: Mark Lazarus, Tony Hazell and Rodney Marsh --- On This Day, Eight Years ago: That terrible, terrible day when QPR's Relegation back to "Division III" was confirmed --- Two Years Ago Today: Win Keeps John Gregory's QPR Up
--- One Year Ago Today: Leaked - QPR's New Crest--- Where Are They Now? Tim Flowers Scouting for England U-21s --- Ex-QPR Colin Clarke Update: Coaching Puerto Rico--- Life of a Loan Player "Loneliness of the Lower League Loan Star"
--- Al Fayed's Perspective --- Football Clubs: "Financial Doping" --- The Shame of Racism in Italian Football


- Evening Herald (Ireland) Paul Hyland- Keane is linked to QPR hotseat
- Just as Mick McCarthy earns another shot at Premier League, his old foe Roy could land Championship job

- THERE'S a certain synchronicity in the fact that Roy Keane's name is back on the mat at exactly the time Mick McCarthy lifts Wolves up by the bootstraps to a promotion that nobody would have predicted nine months ago.
- Keane and McCarthy seem fated to pass like lifts in a tall building -- as one heads for the sky, the other drops to a more modest level.
- McCarthy is still cantankerous and hungry enough to want to prove everyone wrong after all he's been through and he has done a mighty job with Wolves.
- Last summer, there were strong indications that McCarthy would be looking for a new club and that Wolves would cycle through a few more managers before they would find a way back to the Premier League.
- Once again it seemed McCarthy's club ambitions would be stymied by life on the margins where loaves and fishes make up the transfer budget.
Lash
- He's won himself another shot at the big time through clever work in the transfer market and his ability to motivate a squad. While he's in the Premier League mixing with the toffs, it looks like Keane is ready for another lash but once again, with a golden spoon attached.
- The word around Cork and London for the last few days is that Keane is now odds on to sign up for a job that will make Sunderland look like a picnic, even if Loftus Road is nearer the range of fleshpots and high class shopping so beloved of the modern day professional footballer.
- Up until a couple of years ago, QPR was a small time club graced by the occasional star turn and its history is written around names rather than trophies. Rodney Marsh, Stan Bowles and Gerry Francis all made plenty of headlines but not by winning anything in blue and white hoops.
- But when Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone took over, 10,000 or so hard core fans began to believe that something wonderful might be in the air.
- That belief was strengthened when Lakshmi Mittal, steel magnate and billionaire -- Britain's richest man or at least he was until the banks came tumbling down -- spent £200k of his £28 billion to buy into QPR, apparently for his son-in-law (a fan).
- The next member of the billionaire club to sign up was Vijay Mallya, co-owner of the Force India F1 team and one of the wealthiest men on the planet.
- Mallya's Kingfisher brand has been a big backer of Indian sport and he sponsors two football clubs, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan and owns the Royal Challengers Bangalore cricket team in the Indian Premier League. Horse racing is another passion.
- For any manager weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of a particular job, the presence of three billionaires and the owner of Benetton in the house offer possibilities that are both heady and dangerous.
-
Aura
- These are all men who expect lesser mortals to listen when they speak and haven't become impossibly wealthy by trusting their money to strangers without strict oversight.
- Keane was lucky that his first job involved a bunch of Irishmen, rich Irishmen who were all fans of his and ready to buy into his aura.
- For him, the right environment neither existed or could exist at the Stadium of Light so he quit but that doesn't mean he has lost his belief that he can go a long way as a manager without a 10 year CV hard won in the lower divisions, fighting for the knowledge that makes managers great, if he can find men to fund his ambition.
- Niall Quinn and Drumaville made certain that he never wanted for cash and he wasted a great deal of it. When Ellis Short asked a few questions, Keane made a ruthless decision and legged it.
- The difficulty with this approach is the fact that a rich man's plans will often conflict with the normal rhythms of football -- especially if he fancies a hands on role.
- There are many rich men hovering around Loftus Road and all of them have plans. Briatore himself is hands on type of guy and likes to do training.
- The first 18 months of the new ownership don't make good reading for a martinet like Keane.
- Since the takeover, QPR have been ripping through managers at a great rate. John Gregory, Mick Harford, Luigi De Canio, Ian Dowie and Paulo Sousa have come and gone since October 2007 and the current incumbent, Gareth Ainsworth, is having his second stint as a caretaker.
- In the last few days, Briatore responded angrily to suggestions that he interfered in Sousa's team selections but admitted that the QPR board was disappointed with some aspects of his work.
Formation
- "When we beat Preston North End before Christmas, Paulo made six changes for the next match and we only drew at Charlton, who were bottom of the league. And against Ipswich, he stuck to a 4-5-1 formation when we were at home.
- "But I would like to repeat, I never once told Paulo, or any other coach for that matter, which team to pick."
- There's a yarn doing the rounds among hacks in London telling how Ainsworth left his mobile phone in the dressingroom in recent weeks and when he returned at half-time, found 62 missed calls.
- These tales tend to gather detail and volume as they travel around the press boxes but even if there was one missed call, it wouldn't augur well for an easy relationship with the next man, especially at a club which changes managers as often as a race car needs tires.
- That's why it's hard to figure why Keane would be interested -- if indeed he is. Some in London believe that an agreement is already in place with a new manager who will be named in June but can't decide whether it's Dennis Wise or the Corkman.
- It looks like a job that could rapidly descend into conflict even if it does carry the promise of a bankroll to invest in serious talent and while Keane is big enough and man enough to fight his corner, the last thing he needs on his next step in management is a short and acrimonious spell working under powerful men with egos as big as his own. - Paul Hyland - Evening Herald (Ireland)