“What goes around, comes around”
Steve McClaren was sacked by Queens Park Rangers on Monday and former Hoops boss Ian Holloway had little sympathy for the man who succeeded him at Loftus Road.
Holloway kept QPR in the Championship after beginning his second spell in charge in November 2016, before guiding them to mid-table comfort the season after. Despite the club cutting costs back, he was sacked and replaced by McClaren who had won just one of his last 11 games before himself being let go.
And the former England manager was already making a claim for the hotseat while Holloway was still in charge, Holloway has said.
“He took my job, didn’t he?” the 56-year-old remarked on TalkSport. “And I had another year [on my contract] so I’m still being paid by them now.
“It is what it is. Whether he was told what the club would have to do, whether he knew we’d have to be cutting back – like I was doing – I don’t know.
“All I know is he was talking to the chairman while I was in the job, telling the chairman what he thinks he should do and obviously he hasn’t been able to do it.”
“He took my job” 😡
“He was talking to the chairman while I was in the job, saying what he’d do.”
“What goes around comes around.”
“Would I go back? It depends….”
Ian Holloway doesn’t hold back on Steve McClaren being sacked by #QPR 🔥 pic.twitter.com/toBXVapHmQ
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) April 1, 2019
While joking that he might well be “warped and twisted” by the affair, Holloway insisted that football takes no prisoners with Championship clubs in particular notorious for continually changing managers.
“I felt that way because I had another year to go and I wanted to carry on the work I was doing but football is football, you can’t ever make someone want you,” he continued. “So if he was someone who was wanted by the club, they haven’t stuck by him.
“And that’s the way football goes these days and someone will be waiting to take his place and good luck to him. It’s a wonderful, wonderful, football club.
“Am I a bit warped and twisted? Possibly. But I didn’t mean it in a nasty way, it’s life – sometimes what goes around, comes around.”
A strong spell of form over the winter had QPR on the brink of the play-offs but a dismal run since Boxing Day, involving just a single league win, did for McClaren.
“I’m not bitter at all, far from it,” said Holloway, who insisted it “depends” on whether he would go back.
“I did the job as I was asked to do, did it as well as I’ve ever done a job and I wanted to see the young lads come through. At the moment, one’s out on loan at Accrington who I thought was easily good enough to keep playing.”
