I have a lot of respect for Ian Holloway. He’s about as blunt as any head-coach or manager in the game can get but his honesty is refreshing and he’s stripping back Queens Park Rangers to run them his own way. The club seems to be needing a re-start and that’s exactly the plan.
I listened to him on TalkSport tonight and it was great to hear him speak about his plans for getting QPR on the right path. The club have slowly been in decline since the Premier League years under Warnock and Hughes and instead of trying to paper over the cracks Holloway seemed keen to take it down at start again if need be.
So far in this window he has seen Sebastian Polter, Tjaronn Chery and Sandro have left the club as well as Gladwin leaving on loan. Incomings have seen Kazenga Lua Lua arrive at the club as Holloway looks to bring in players who represent him more.
He spoke of Jamie Mackie returning to the team, a player who represents himself and what he believes in. Mackie is a hard working forward who will run and run. An honest player is the best way to describe Mackie and Holloway will want others to do the same for him.
He said he wants players at the club who actually want to be there and doesn’t like the modern game where players aren’t out to impress their managers, just to earn bigger contracts. He is trying to weed out the players who go against his philosophy and results on the pitch would suggest he is getting a good response from his players.
Queens Park Rangers got a bit excited when they got to the Premier League and instead of recruiting well they recruited like a club who wanted to announce their arrival to the big boys and it just seemed to flop. Players that were coming for money arrived one after the other and failed to live up to their name and big money contracts
.Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink tried to begin the process of a revamp but wasn’t strong enough to stamp his authority on the club, Holloway won’ have any such problems. He will want to begin building for next season and get the team putting his practices into play on a weekly basis for the remainder of the campaign.
The club needed a man like Holloway to come in with strong beliefs and make sure that the slow rolling downhill stopped before it went too far. Wolves, Wigan and Bolton have all been in similar situations in recent years and dropped into League One, Blackburn Rovers doing their best to follow in their footsteps this season.
Holloway is widely respected in football and the club need to put their whole trust into that man and make sure he has the best chance to stabilise and build as they move forward.
