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Preview: Briatore's the top of the sacking stakes
Darragh MacAnthony is averaging a Posh manager every 10 months, but he's miles behind QPR owner Flavio Briatore in the sacking stakes.
Darragh MacAnthony is averaging a Posh manager every 10 months, but he's miles behind QPR owner Flavio Briatore in the sacking stakes.Briatore has gone through six permenant managers and five temporary ones since taking control at Loftus Road in November 2007. That's an average of one every two-and-a-half months.
The last full-time boss Paul Hart lasted five games before resigning, allegedly because Briatore tried to tell him who to pick, and current caretaker-chief Mick Harford, a man deemed not good enough to manage Luton in the Blue Square Premier League earlier this season, presumably has a suitcase packed just in case.
Unsurprisingly QPR fans staged a mass protest against Briatore after their season hit a new low as they lost to Scunthorpe at Loftus Road last Saturday.
Some of the supporters were dressed as clowns in protest at their club becoming a circus. Defeat at the team bottom of The Championship tomorrow and Harford may as well go and clear his desk.
He has launched a defence of his bosses though. Harford said: 'The fans have every right to voice their opinions so long as it is done in the right and proper manner.
Match preview and live updates: Posh v QPR.
"People might perceive us as a laughing stock, but I know this club is run in a professional manner. Everyone can have their opinions, but I have an inside view on it.
"Will fans stay away in protest at Briatore? They won't stay away if we start winning."
Briatore stated that he wanted Champions League Football at QPR within three years of his takeover which might explain why John Gregory left a month later.
Others to have tried and failed to pick their own starting line-ups include: Harford (one month, five games), Luigi Di Canio (seven months, 35 games), Iain Dowie (three months, 15 games), Gareth Ainsworth (one month, seven games), Paulo Sousa (five months, 26 games), Gareth Ainsworth (one month, five games), Jim Magilton (four months, 24 games), Steve Gallon & Marc Bircham (one week, one game), Paul Hart (one month, five games).
Hart declined to comment after his hasty departure following an FA Cup defeat at home to Sheffield United last month.
But a friend said: "There is no point in commenting. You just wouldn't believe what happens behind the scenes."
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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