Wednesday 15 April 2009

QPR

The question of Paolo Sousa's sacking was not 'if', but rather 'when'. Unsurprisingly, F1 magnate Flavio Briatore could not even wait until the end of the Championship season to get rid of the Portuguese manager and I feel obliged to speak out as a long time advocate of giving managers a fair chance in their jobs. Admittedly I didn't ever believe Sousa would do a good job at QPR as the Championship is a tough league to play in and needs someone who is au fait with the style of play. The job at Loftus Road is by no means impossible but is harder than Briatore would like to think. We know from the current economic crisis that throwing money at a problem doesn't make it go away and the same is true to an extent here. It is ridiculous to expect instant success from a Championship club even if the manager does have millions to spend. Firstly there is the problem of attracting big names to play at that level and secondly all teams need time to bond.

Who should take over this accursed position then? In my opinion Dennis Wise would be a good person for this job. He's already shown he can do wonders for lower league teams who are infamous for playing rough football such as Leeds and Milwall. It does have to be conceded that the style of football would not necessarily be pretty and one columnist has already pointed out that Wise's teams used to get booed when winning! Nevertheless I believe Wise would get results and would be the ideal person to appoint at the start of the summer. The one issue surrounding this though would be that Wise would not tolerate any boardroom interference and this could ultimately cost him his job. The existence of such influences at the club have been made clear when Sousa went to the press saying he knew nothing of the loaning of Dexter Blackstock. Thus Wise is the obvious candidate for a job at QPR but far from the obvious candidate for a Briatore employee-of-the-month award.

I like QPR as a club but just hope they haven't sold their soul for a bit of spending money and a managerial revolving door.

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