The Mark Hughes Diaries

Mark Hughes is an admired ex-pro, whose playing career spanned over 20 years with over 600 league appearances and 163 league goals to his name, turning out for some of Europe`s greatest teams including Manchester United, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Chelsea. The former Welsh international moved into management following his retirement and having managed Blackburn, Manchester City and Fulham, the 48-year-old now sits at the helm of Queens Park Rangers. Vital QPR proudly has exclusive access to his weekly diary and will give you an interesting and reflective insight into the goings on at QPR.

29th October 2012

‘AND so it continues. I remember experiencing something similar many years ago – a 43-match run without a win; our team was disillusioned, wondering where those elusive three points would come from. Luckily our Year 4 playground team managed to scrape a 14-13 victory on the last day of term, admittedly largely down to a lucky ricochet off one of the dinner ladies. I`m praying for a similar slice of luck in our next three games. A minimum of seven points from games against Reading, Stoke and Southampton are a must; ten would be absolutely fantastic.

We will unfortunately find ourselves without Stéphane Mbia for those next three games. He admitted he thought QPR were a team from Scotland and were unaware they played in the Premier League; I was unaware he had been taking lessons from Djibril and Samba in how to act like a mindless numpty. We were unfortunate to leave The Emirates with nothing to show for our efforts, especially after such a poor decision from the officials. Chelsea experienced something similar on Sunday; I suppose at least the officials are displaying a level of consistency we have all been crying out for.

Wright-Phillips has come under some heavy criticism from a very large section of the fans, however I thought Shaun was absolutely fantastic on Saturday and fully deserved his place in the starting line up. His buccaneering runs straight into the Arsenal defenders, winning us numerous throw-ins were invaluable to our team plan. His crossing and shooting were reminiscent of his imposing 36 England caps – there is more to come from this boy let me tell you. Credit to Jack Wilshere for flourishing in a man of the match performance after 14 months out; to come back from a drugs ban is always hard for any player, but he has really knuckled down and will surely be back to his best sooner rather than later.

There have been a few more additions to the senior management team in the past week. A new Chief Operating Officer and two new Club Journalists have been appointed; who I`m sure will all contribute to the exasperatingly optimistic QPR Twitter account. Brothers Rio and Anton released a statement detailing their wish to put the repetitive and mind-numbing racism saga behind them and concentrate on playing football. I just wish the rest of my players would do the same.`

Vital QPR would like to notify all readers at this point, that in no way is Mark Hughes actually associated with this website. The opinions stated above are merely for the purposes of entertainment and have absolutely no connection to the beliefs or views of the QPR manager. We hope.