Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink will rebuild QPR's 'urban' core and repay debt to England
Manager wants club to revive days of Ferdinand and Sinclair
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Your support makes all the difference.Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink has taken the first steps towards reclaiming the “urban” mentality of Queen’s Park Rangers by turning the clock back at Loftus Road – by half an hour.
Six weeks into his reign in charge of the Championship club, Hasselbaink’s team face Wolverhampton Wanderers this lunchtime, closer to the bottom three than the top six, with prospects of an instant return to the Premier League following relegation last season having evaporated long before the Dutchman arrived from Burton Albion on 4 December.
But for Hasselbaink, the small details are those which will make the biggest difference and the first click of the wheel in attempting to turn the club around has been to haul the squad into training earlier in order to focus minds and shake the players out of their comfort zone.
“I am a firm believer that you must put in a good way of working,” Hasselbaink said. “I am not saying that it wasn’t there, but it was very comfortable, so I have brought training half an hour earlier and they [the players] have to be in earlier.
“I feel people prepare better when that happens. If you want to be successful, you have to train hard and training has to be harder than the games, but I am happier with the players’ commitment now.
“Players want direction. They want to be shown the way and not one successful team is not working hard. You can’t forget that.
“When I first came to the UK [with Leeds United in 1997], the training was just to train and maintain, but now clubs train players to get players better. You have to work with players and improve them and that is the mentality that we need to get to at QPR.”
Hasselbaink’s approach is taking time to bear fruit at his new club, however. Having proved a whirlwind of success at Burton, guiding the Brewers to promotion last season before leaving them perched at the top of League One when moving to West London, the 43-year-old’s first victory in charge of QPR came only last week, at the ninth attempt, away to Rotherham United.
Results on the pitch are the primary objective, but the former Chelsea and Atletico Madrid forward insists his blueprint for Rangers centres on securing those results by restoring the club’s reputation as a breeding ground for the best young talent in the country.
“QPR is a nice club, it is a club that everyone really likes,” Hasselbaink said. “It has always had a lot of talent – Les Ferdinand, Trevor Sinclair and that raw, urban kind of talent. That is what we have to bring back.
“We have to change the mentality of the club. It has been hit a bit and we need to get that mentality back.
“We are working with a group that is happy, but we need to bring in younger people and make QPR proud. It’s not just getting to the Premier League, it is being able to stay there in the right way – in the financial right way.
“Obviously, we haven’t produced our own players for a long time and, for a club like QPR, that’s a disaster.”
As a member of the first wave of foreign talent to ply their trade in the Premier League in the 1990s, Hasselbaink has since put down his roots in England and he admits he is determined to repay his adopted country by nurturing its youth.
“I have been here in England for almost 20 years and I feel that I’m a little bit British,” he said. “Three of my four kids have been born here, they go through the English system, they are British. They don’t speak Dutch, they speak English. My wife is English, so in a way I feel the obligation to give something back to the English FA by trying to bring through young English players.
“There is a generation now that is coming, but you guys need to keep on going with that. And that’s what we have been doing in Holland.
“A lot of foreigners have come into the Premier League and I think that is where you lost a little bit of time. In Holland we don’t have the money to go and get foreigners, so you have to produce within.
“But also in Holland we are not afraid to put a young player in. That means also that the managers in Holland, they get a little bit longer. It all stacks up.”
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