PA PhotosHughes barely has any of the players or staff members who got QPR promoted left to call upon

The first indication that a manager is on his way out of a club is when it is said that he has lost the dressing room.

That's not the way we do things at QPR - Mark Hughes has not so much lost the dressing room but lost any idea about what is happening in the dressing room.

What has been suspected by more than a handful of Rangers fans has been confirmed: some of the overpaid new boys do not give a monkey's about the club that pays their wages and are just going through the motions. Apparently, when Hughes gave the team a right rollicking after the 3-1 defeat by Southampton, some of the new players were not even listening.

Meanwhile, a small faction of senior players are less than happy that the club that they fought hard to get into the Premier Leagues is being ruined by a bunch of mercenaries.

It explains a lot - though not all of that abject performance against Southampton on Saturday. QPR looked distinctly second-best for the first quarter before a mazy run by Adel Taarabt and a snap shot by Junior Hoilett in the space of a couple of minutes gave the Rs hope. But it was another false dawn as they once again failed to clear a corner - not once, not twice, but three times - and left Rickie Lambert to nod home from one yard.

It only got worse. Barring Taarabt and Hoilett, attacking the worse defence (bar ours) in the league looked a fruitless exercise and, to add insult to injury, we were making Jason Puncheon look world class. Granting him the freedom of the Loftus Road pitch, Puncheon (who, remember, sulked his way through about 30 minutes of a QPR career last season) struck a belter from 22 yards.

Hoilett got one back from a Taarabt cross at the start of the second half, but the heads had started to drop by then, and when Anton Ferdinand tapped in an own goal for their third (from yet another corner) we had officially reached rock bottom.

A look at the line-up for this game highlights Hughes problem. Of the starting eleven, only two were in the side that got us up. Only two more sat on the bench. It is, however, a problem of his own making.

What is more surprising considering the sheer weight of new bodies in the dressing room is not that there is a sense of apathy among higher paid footballers, but that there is anyone left to kick up a fuss about the lack of fight.

One suspects that Shaun Derry and Jamie Mackie could stand in a corner and take all-comers on. And Taarabt and Ale Faurlin - the other two former members of the champions club - would be right behind them, but who else at the club would be?

It is not as if the structure outside of the dressing room is any more established. We have a new owner, a new CEO, a new coaching staff. Is there anyone there anymore who remembers what the club was like when we had to hand round the buckets?

Where once there was heart and spirit and a joy in our own misery, now lies money and a clawing passivity that is burying a club that fought bravely to get where it is now. What should have been the real story of rags to riches (not Norwich, who spent and spent, nor Southampton, who forked out £11m more than us this summer) but QPR, a small club in a poor oasis in the richest area in the country fighting from the ground floor up.

Hughes needs to find that spirit, and send his players on a crash course. Once all we had to do was call on Tommy - who would stand and shout and invoke the spirit of the slums at every game home and away - to give a rousing speech to the dressing room. Alas, such is our way now, he is no longer with us.

I am loathe to see more change, more newness when we need a bit of our old self back. I'd keep Hughes unless they have the wherewithal to appoint a manager who knows the club, who has the ability and passion and knowledge to make a difference and has the respect of the game itself. Who would be welcomed by the fans.

Hughes stays .... unless we can persuade Kenny Jackett to come back again.

 

 

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