Against Norwich, one QPR defender shouted to Neil Warnock: You've got to change it! It's five against four! They've wing backs!
A new documentary about life at QPR under Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone, The Four Year Plan, shows Neil Warnock arriving at Loftus Road to take up the job of manager. He walks past the home dressing room, whose door bears a sign with the words "Winners only" and says with a half-laugh: "We'll have to get rid of that."
The QPR Warnock took over in March 2010 were anything but winners ? plunging towards relegation in a season that saw them run through three "permanent" managers and two caretakers. A little over a year later he'd led Rangers to the Championship title, playing often scintillating football. Which is why, today, you won't find many Rangers fans celebrating his departure.
In fact, across the main Rangers messageboards ? Loft For Words, qprdot.org, We Are the Rangers Boys, QPR Report ? you'll find thread after thread of deep disappointment. Even those who don't think he was the right man to keep Rangers in the Premier League aren't gloating, for in less than two years Warnock had done enough to be regarded by virtually all Loftus Road regulars as little short of a hero.
"I'd just like to thank you for all you done for QPR. You put the pride back into our club when we were the biggest laughing stock in football. You were responsible for giving us one of the best seasons we're likely to have. That's all. I'm too gutted to write anymore," wrote Snipper at Loft For Words. "This is a knee jerk reaction made by a man who has spent millions on a few 'household name' players and wanted instant success," said GaryT at qprdot.org.
"Thanks a million Neil Warnock you will be a hard act to follow," said NorfolkHoop at We Are the Rangers Boys. Or, as RorytheRanger put it at QPR Report: "We love you Neil Warnock." There was more ? much, much more ? along the same lines on all the boards.
I started questioning how long Warnock would last in W12 before the Hoops' current dismal run of two points from eight games began. By chance, I spent a large chunk of an evening out in November talking to an old pro ? not a QPR player ? who'd played for Warnock and was full of praise for him. "But," he said, "he doesn't do tactics. He admits that. He's a motivator."
That made me wonder how the players QPR brought in at the end of the summer would respond to him. After all, many of them had worked with managers for whom screaming "Up and at 'em!" took a very distant second place to constructing playing methods based on planning and tactics. It also made me wonder if it is possible to succeed in the top flight without having tactical know-how.
Certainly, many of those summer signings do not seem to have been giving their best for Warnock since that blissful early run that saw Newcastle United played off the park and Wolves beaten: Joey Barton's performances have prompted far more grumbling than anything Warnock's done, and the only unqualified success has been Luke Young. The best answer to the tactical query came from Rangers' two games against Norwich City, in November and January, when in both cases QPR lost after Paul Lambert made substitutions and reconfigured his team, with almost immediate results, while Warnock failed to respond. In the game at Loftus Road, Norwich's substitutions were followed by Clint Hill, the Rangers left-back, bellowing to the dug-out: "You've got to change it! It's fucking five against four! They've got wing backs! You've got to change it." Change came there none, and moments later Norwich scored their winner.
That rabbit-in-the-headlights approach to strategy had become a feature at QPR. Why was Warnock picking only one striker at home, for a team struggling to score? Why were players being used out of position? Why was the willing but limited Jamie Mackie being used on the right wing instead of Shaun Wright-Phillips? Why was Adel Taarabt frozen out of the team for much of late autumn, when ? for all the problems with him ? he was the only midfielder capable of offering creativity to the team?
Rangers' owner, Tony Fernandes, knew that despite all Warnock's shortcomings he was adored by the fans. And so his tweets last night had the slightly self-pitying tone of a man who doesn't want to be unpopular: "I apologise to the fans I have upset by this decision," he said at one point. But, even so, he may well have felt the same as Warnock did on his arrival in west London: you only deserve to be called a winner if you're actually winning.
And so we bid farewell to Neil Warnock from W12 with some words posted on the web last night: "Neil Warnock is a legend for what he's done at QPR." They're not from Snipper or RorytheRanger. They're from Twitter, from ? and I think you saw this coming ? Tony Fernandes.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/jan/09/neil-warnock-loved-qpr
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