Queens Park Rangers have bought only failure in
their survival spending spree
Richard Jolly
Apr 15, 2013
It is the phrase that has been deployed to deny three of the five
clubs, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea and Manchester City, to win the Premier League
much credit. It is likely to be heard again when big spenders like Paris Saint
Germain or Anzhi Makhachkala prosper. They have bought success, their critics
will say.
Queens Park Rangers have done something else altogether.
They have bought failure: abject, embarrassing, expensive failure.
With a
wage bill that must rank among the top seven in the Premier League and despite
spending more than £20 million (Dh112.5m) in transfer fees in January alone,
they are 10 points from safety with five games to go. They cannot admit it
publicly, but they are down.
Money was supposed to propel them upwards.
Instead, it is an ever-present issue in their ignominious fall. Manager Harry
Redknapp admitted on Saturday that QPR could struggle to sell many of their
players. Quite simply, they are paid too much for anyone else to take
them.
Along with QPR's lamentable results this season, it highlights
their awful record in the transfer market, particularly under Mark
Hughes.
Above and beyond that, however, it shows that while handing out
overly-generous contracts with misplaced largesse, a seemingly cash-rich club
attempted to construct a team with a bankrupt philosophy.
Because
football is still about identity. Clubs have an identity, rooted in community,
history and their unique characteristics - something Sunderland overlooked when
they appointed Paolo Di Canio - but so do teams.
In the days when it is
rarer that 11 local lads run out to represent their boyhood club, the challenge
is for managers to find common denominators and motivating factors in a group of
disparate individuals.
It is easiest at the challengers, where some
combination of the finest players, managers and facilities, the biggest fanbases
and pay packets and the chance to win honours gives them an obvious appeal. Look
across the rest of the Premier League, however, and there are plenty of policies
at work.
Aston Villa's young players may hail from Vienna and Kinshasa as
well as Birmingham, but they are bound to the club by the opportunity Paul
Lambert has afforded them, giving a generation a chance.
With his former
employers, Norwich City, Lambert also enabled his players to reach territory
they had never charted before. Lower-league footballers were given a shot at the
Premier League, just as they have been at Swansea, Southampton and Reading over
the past couple of years.
Most, even in Reagin's relegation campaign,
have responded.
Managers such as Brendan Rodgers, Michael Laudrup and
Roberto Martinez appeal to the ideals with passing philosophies. Others
prioritise team spirit, looking for a tight-knit group whose character is an
insurance policy; Everton are a prime example.
Sometimes the unifying
factor is language, whether for Wigan Athletic's Spanish speakers or Newcastle
United's French connection; at others, it is a charismatic or caring leader, one
who inspires loyalty: think of Martin O'Neill at his peak.
Now and again
a manager thrives by giving a creative talent complete freedom and persuading
the rest of the team to work for him, as Fulham have for Dimitar
Berbatov.
Yet none apply at QPR. They are united only in their bulging
bank balances.
QPR enjoyed the reflected glory of signing players from
glamorous clubs with silverware-studded CVs. They ignored the reality that, in
differing cases, their pace, stamina and drive are in decline. There are reasons
why their recruits no longer breathe the more rarefied air of the elite. They
signed the wrong players. The players joined for the wrong motives:
money.
The sadder tales are of those whose careers seemed on the up.
Liverpool, Everton and Newcastle expressed an interest in Junior Hoilett. He
chose the best payers, QPR, which should be a salutary warning to other emerging
players in similar situations.
But, more often than not, however, QPR
simply signed the most famous player available. Not for them the expert scouting
of canny buyers like Swansea and West Bromwich Albion, who often take
footballers to new heights.
Perhaps the club's decision-makers were
blinded by stardust but many of their fans were not. The notion supporters want
big names is often incorrect. The one QPR player celebrated in song in
Saturday's defeat at Everton was Andros Townsend, the 21-year-old winger,
borrowed from Tottenham Hotspur and probably the worst-paid player in the
team.
A real crowd favourite is Jamie Mackie, bought from Plymouth Argyle
and a wholehearted trier who gives the impression that he understands QPR - the
old QPR, anyway - and is grateful to be there. There is real appreciation for
Shaun Derry and Clint Hill, those other veterans of their promotion campaign.
Neither is a superstar. Both are grounded characters.
Amid the influx of
the supposedly illustrious, QPR actually needed more Mackies, Derrys and Hills.
Instead, they thought the short cut to success lay with Park Ji-sung, Jose
Bosingwa and Julio Cesar.
They approached English Premier League football
with tactics more suited to Indian Premier League cricket, assuming celebrity
was a guarantee of performance and ignoring the identity of the team Neil
Warnock took up. And so QPR will be rebranded again, as a Championship club with
a colossal wage bill and a group of costly failures
http://www.thenational.ae/sport/football....spending-spr ee
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Five
from Mumbai to train with QPR
Times of India
Five Mumbai boys to
train at Queens Park Rangers facility
PTI | Apr 15, 2013, 06.23 PM
IST
.
MUMBAI: Five south Mumbai school boys would undergo a 21-day
coaching stint with English Premier League team Queens Park Rangers in London
from next week.
Rudolf D'Souza (13), Arfat Ansari (15), Tanaay Shah (15),
Uzair Ansari (15) and Praful Kumar (16) were selected after their display in the
Milind Deora soccer championships by the club's coaches for next week's stint at
QPR.
"This is the second set of winners that we are sending to the QPR's
specialised training facility in London. These five boys are from our last three
editions. We did this programme on a pilot basis in 2009 and at that time we had
sent two boys to train and one of them, Shaun Fernandes, plays for India
under-19," Deora told reporters.
"Through this exercise, we are able to
inculcate global football skills in our local talent. Through the years I have
witnessed a lot of passion for football in Mumbai's youngsters.
"And this
initiative is able to give them a first step in the right direction. I am
hopeful that we would soon witness a national player arise from this grassroots
football championship," added the Minister of State for shipping, communications
and information technology.
Deora further said during their first
edition, nearly 1,350 children had participated and during their last one held
in October, over 4,000 children had participated.
"The Queens Park
Rangers coaches have been impressed with some of the Indian talent. They said
that the children are of a different build compared to those in England. But
they have the passion and are eager to learn. They feel some of them have the
potential to be international players," Deora said.
"It is a dream come
true for me. I watch players of English Premier League play for their teams and
have always wondered if I would get to play like this. Now through the Milind
Deora Soccer Championship, I have a chance at not just meeting them but training
like them. I am looking forward to the next three weeks and hope to learn a
lot," said D'souza who, at 13, is the youngest of the lot.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sport....ow/19560350.cms
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