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.

2nd October 2012

'AN EARLY exit from the Capital One Cup, a late winner from Watford costing me my colossal 45-team accumulator and a disappointing 2-1 loss to West Ham last night all contributed to a week I`d rather forget. As football managers we all experience the testing times, and I`d be lying if I didn`t say I wasn`t feeling the pressure - the type of pressure you get when you`re on the last level of Brickbreaker and you just can`t seem to get that damn ball under control - but Tony rang me after the game and assured me my job is more than safe.

Having seen Man City, Everton and Burton Albion get dumped out of the League Cup on Tuesday I genuinely thought we could go on to win the whole thing. However, having selected a strong side, we surrendered two leads in authentic Team USA fashion and unfortunately found ourselves out of another cup competition. I always enjoy my post-match drink with the opposing manager, however trying to embrace a conversation with Brian McDermott is about as interesting as listening to Gary Barlow on my TV screen on a Saturday night.

Earlier in the week we announced our agreement with Blackburn for a £4 million fee for Junior Hoilett - I did wonder why they sacked Kean straight after it was announced though. The rest of the week was spent leading up to the West Ham game, where we were pleased to join them in their 57th televised game of the season so far. Despite having worked on nullifying West Ham`s plan A all week, we forget to implement any sort of plan ourselves and produced a performance that was largely unacceptable.

We now have to travel to West Brom bottom of the table and severely lacking in confidence. This will certainly test my true credentials as a manager and I will be making numerous changes in the hope of securing our first win of the season. Taarabt will certainly start, and should Kieron Dyer spit onto the saliva swab instead of me this time, he may have a chance of making the squad.'

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.

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