NATHAN JONES, YOU’VE BEEN GONE EIGHT DAYS
QPR have had some brilliant managers down the years. Take Alec Stock, who won the League Cup, or Terry Venables, who won himself a move to Barcelona. Dave Sexton led the club to within 15 minutes of the title; Neil Warnock won the Championship while annoying finger-wagging purists with satisfying regularity; and Ian Holloway was good at improv. But the hits have not kept on coming. Mark Hughes, Harry Redknapp and Steve McClaren, for goodness sake. Whatever did they expect? Mark Warburton took three years to go nowhere in particular, Michael Beale required a mere six months before bolting off to Rangers, and now Neil Critchley has been booted, 12 matches into a three-and-a-half year contract, leading some to suggest director of football Les Ferdinand is struggling to differentiate between his Rs and his elbow.
Sir Les needs to come up with a doozy to get an increasingly-irritated fanbase back onside, and if the betting markets are anything to go by, he’s lining one up all right in the shape of Nathan Jones. Older readers may remember Jones as the manager of Southampton, but he’s been getting on with his life since then, and on Saturday he turned out on the left flank for Cranbourne against Wareham Rangers in the Dorset League, setting up an early goal before picking up an injury not long after and going off. Folk more cynical than Football Daily would call back to those “fittest human being in history” quotes, but plummeting 11 tiers in just under a week must surely take a severe toll on the body, the descent so rapid we’re surprised Jones hasn’t perforated an ear drum. In any case, he’d parked his ego to do his friend at Cranbourne a favour, helped them to a 4-0 win, and has already copped such a disproportionate level of ridicule that it’s officially time to cut the man some slack. We’re Team Nathan now, four-square behind him and that’s an official Football Daily guarantee. Join us!
Whether QPR will also become part of the Nathan Nation only time will tell. It’s fair to say the prospect has been met with a mixed reception by fans on social media disgraces, for what that’s worth, which is not very much, but those in favour point to his magnificent record at Luton, plus the all-new 100% success rate in Dorset. Other names in the frame include Gareth Ainsworth, who has enjoyed success at Wycombe, Joey Barton, who has enjoyed success at Bristol Rovers, Chris Wilder, who has enjoyed success at Sheffield United, and Frank Lampard. And yes we are going to keep doing that.
That’s not a bad list of runners and riders for a club currently 17th in the Championship, with the bookies expecting a toss-up between Jones and Ainsworth. The Wycombe boss is the slight favourite, however we here at Team Nathan won’t be too disappointed if Jones doesn’t get the job: his old pals at Southampton had a result last weekend, see, that may lead to an even bigger west-London vacancy opening up sooner rather than later. Might be worth waiting around for that one.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
This is bigger than the rules of football, it’s about life and death. The referee said it was not allowed, but he understood the situation. I am grateful to him for that and I respect him very much – Mohammed Kudus, Ajax star and Ghanaian international teammate of the late Christian Atsu, was not booked on Sunday, despite revealing an under-shirt message in tribute to the former winger.
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FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Sad to see xG feature in two of the 10 talking points from this weekend. The nonsense that is xG was fully exposed in the piece on the Wolves game; apparently Cunha should have scored 0.98 goals in his six matches. I would have loved to be there to see that 0.98 of a goal - new frontiers for goalline technology – Richard Hirst.
Am I too late for the celebrity on the train? [Football Daily passim] A friend of mine was sat opposite a person he thought he recognised. He suddenly had a lightbulb moment which must have reflected in his face, at which point Daniel Day Lewis put his index finger to his lips in the time honoured, sshhh gesture – Kevin Worley.
On a deserted west London train station on a Saturday afternoon I saw a chap struggling with the ticket machine. I offered to help and it was clear he only spoke French. I helped him get the train and we bonded over football as I was still in my kit from playing. He had a QPR top poking out his bag and via my pidgin French and Google translate he told me he was Samba Diakité who had just been sent off on his debut, had left the stadium in a huff and was trying to get to the Eurostar to go back to Paris. Lovely chap! – Malcolm Sloan.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Kevin Worley.
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