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Following a 6-0 drubbing at the hands of west London rivals Fulham a fortnight ago, Queens Park Rangers boss Neil Warnock is refusing to dwell on the scoreline. He is confident that his side are fully focussed on ensuring Premier League safety, starting with Saturday's visit of Blackburn Rovers. Below he gives his thoughts on the impending fixture:
Q. Neil, is there any danger with no distractions over the last couple of weeks that the players might still be lingering on that Fulham result?
Well you don’t know that as a manager really. I mean I’m sure the lads would have wished for another game quite soon straight after it, but it wasn’t to be and I think we just had to get on with it. The training’s been slightly changed a little bit and I think the lads have responded to that.
Q. Steve Kean’s been at war with his own fans to a certain extent. Have you ever had that as a manager?
I think when I was at Bury once I played Bradford City, and of course I used to manage Huddersfield. I remember we were two-nil down to Bradford City and all four sides of the ground were chanting ‘Warnock out’, which was very unusual for a manager. So I have had difficult circumstances in the past.
Q. But you sympathise with him.
Absolutely, yeah. You don’t want to see anything like that happening. I was very lucky at Fulham, six-nil down and I’ve got the fans chanting my name. I think that’s how it’s fantastic for a manager.
Q. Are you surprised to see Blackburn down there?
I think there’s a number of clubs, apart from the top five or six, who can have a good run and a bad run. So nothing surprises me about anybody. When you look at the table you’ve got Arsenal, Sunderland, you’ve got one or two teams down there, haven’t you? All teams we probably would expect to be in the top half of the table now, so it’s a difficult league.
Q. And finally, Ian Ayre of Liverpool has spoken about breaking away with the TV rights, but surely it’s the competitiveness of the league that’s the appeal.
Absolutely. I think that’s why we’ve got such a good revenue, such good commercial backers because people want to see that. I understand where he's coming from. I don’t think in Asia people are too bothered about Bolton Wanderers, probably not QPR until our new owners have taken over. I feel that it’s the collectiveness that’s actually the appeal. I don’t think you’ll find the big clubs like Man United etcetera having the same complaints and they probably could have a justification of going their own way I’m sure.
This Saturday Absolute Radio extra’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Football travels to Loftus Road for QPR v Blackburn. You can tune in every Saturday on Absolute Radio extra - on DAB Digital Radio, 1215AM and online in the UK. Tune in for the full Neil Warnock interview from 1.30pm. For more go to www.absoluteradio.co.uk/football
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