Harry Redknapp’s an optimistic guy, but even the QPR manager admits that his side’s dreams of a miraculous escape from relegation are over after a 2-0 home defeat today by fellow Premier League strugglers, Stoke City.
“It looks in tatters doesn’t it? But we’ve got to try to win a game or two. We’ve got to go to Reading next week and try to win. We’ve got to keep going,” Redknapp told the BBC.
QPR are ten points behind fourth-bottom Aston Villa with four games to play. “It looks almost impossible,” he added. In the unlikely event that Villa beat Manchester United at Old Trafford on Monday, both QPR and the bottom club, Reading, will officially be playing second-level soccer next season. Reading host QPR a week tomorrow.
Reading and Wigan also lost today, so all three clubs in the Premier League danger area tasted defeat.
Redknapp, formerly in charge of West Ham, Portsmouth and Tottenham and a rumored England managerial candidate not so long ago, doesn’t exactly sound thrilled with the caliber of the roster he inherited from Mark Hughes last November. “People say this team will come straight back up – that’s rubbish. There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said, adding that he would not quit: “What am I going to do, play golf every day?”
Seen as a savior after turning round Tottenham in 2008-09 and keeping little Portsmouth in the Premier League, Redknapp has won only four of his 21 league games in charge. And then there was the tabloid story about QPR’s players treating a warm-weather training trip to Dubai as if it was a bachelor party. QPR did beat west London neighbors Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on January 2. But in truth, any fanciful notions the club had about mounting an escape for the ages were gone when Wigan scored from a last-minute free kick to snatch a 1-1 draw two weeks ago. That was the sort of demoralizing blow that is a momentum-killer.
What now for a club with a very recent history of acute financial and ownership turmoil? Their owner since 2011, Malaysian low-cost airline entrepreneur Tony Fernandes, is a rich man. And he might have to be. Fernandes said this week that a recent $23m loan the club have taken out is to be put towards a new stadium, not to ease any short-term money problems.
But QPR are a reported $140m in debt and there is no doubt that the wage bill is far beyond what a club with an aging 18,000-capacity home could normally support, despite all that lovely broadcast rights lucre that keeps flowing the league’s way in ever-increasing amounts.
Wanting the club to become a serious Premier League presence after their first year in the top-flight since 1995-96 ended in a panicky last-day survival, Fernandes threw money at the roster. Despite his best intentions, he ultimately fostered the conditions for the same sort of managerial instability, profligate spending and ridiculous player turnover that has previously proved catastrophic for other Icarus-like Premier League clubs who chased the dream down the years.
According to soccerbase.com, QPR have signed 28 players plus two loanees since the summer of 2011. Well-known, expensive names among them, with a decent pedigree: Ji-Sung Park, Bobby Zamora, Christopher Samba, Loic Remy. Former West Ham and England goalkeeper Rob Green arrived last July – then was replaced after three games when QPR suddenly signed the Brazil international and Champions League winner, Julio Cesar, from Inter Milan.
We’ll wait to see just how disastrous QPR’s lavish spending will prove for the club. Much may depend on how easy it is to offload the high-earning, low-achieving veterans in the close-season. Meanwhile, little Southampton, Norwich and Swansea are all going to stay up – comfortably and without breaking the bank. And how many of their players could the average fan name?
