It’s easy to forget that, as recently as mid-October, Queens Park Rangers were sitting pretty at the summit of the Championship, the expert management of Mick Beale raising expectations of a return to the Promised Land.
Four months on, QPR are 18th; closer to the relegation zone than they are to the play-off places. We will never know how this season would have progressed had Beale opted to stay put in West London.
But, after Neil Critchley failed miserably to build upon the foundations he laid down, it’s no stretch to suggest that a collapse of this magnitude would have been avoided had the now-Rangers boss not walked away just a few months into his three-year contract.
Mick Beale rejected Wolves before taking Rangers job
“I think that’s well done. That’s commendable,” former Premier League owner Simon Jordan told talkSPORT after Beale rebuffed Wolves’ advances in the autumn.
“I think it will serve him well. It shows people he has the courage of his convictions, that he rewards people who back him. He will benefit from it.
“(Showing loyalty) is a rarity. And he deserves a hell of a of a lot of plaudits for it.”
As it transpired, that loyalty only stretched so far. Just weeks after turning down Wolves, the opportunity to return to Ibrox and continue where he left off during that title-winning 2020/21 campaign alongside Steven Gerrard was one Beale could not ignore.
Much has been made of the progress Wolves have made under Julen Lopetegui; the Molineux outfit turning to the former Real Madrid boss after missing out on their number one target. But arguably no manager in European football this season has made such an immediate impact in their new surroundings as Beale has at Ibrox.
The end of the Giovanni van Bronckhorst era was marked by humiliating capitulations, of 3-0, 4-0 and 7-1 hammerings at home and abroad. Beale, after replacing the Dutchman, almost immediately got Rangers pulling in the same direction once again, instilling an iron-clad mentality while making those perennial collapses a thing of the past.
Rangers ‘playing with more belief’ under Beale
In 14 games as Rangers’ head coach, Beale has been on the winning side 13 times. The sample size is still small, of course, but Beale’s 92 per cent win rate is the best of any manager in the club’s storied history. On Sunday, Rangers taking on Old Firm rivals Celtic in the Scottish League Cup final, Beale could pick up his first piece of silverware as a manager. Given how things have gone for him so far north of the border, you wouldn’t bet against him, even as Ange Postecoglou’s outstanding Celtic side stand in his way.
“Michael has changed the way they play,” Postecoglou tells The Sun. “He’s gone back to a system and a style that probably suited the players that were there before.
“It’s been an easy transition for him and I think his players took a little bit of comfort from that.
“Whenever you change manager, particularly mid-season, it’s hard. But with Michael’s familiarity with the club and the players themselves, they got a bit of comfort. And although it was change, it was change that they knew and would suit them.
“They’re playing with more belief. You can see that in the consistency of the results.”
Whether the one-time Liverpool coach would have made a similar impact at Wolves is anyone’s guess. But what cannot be disputed is that QPR’s loss is undoubtedly Rangers’ gain.
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