DROP WOULD NOT DERAIL PLANS - BEARD

Phillip Beard insists relegation from the top flight would not prevent QPR achieving their ambitions.

Last Updated: 07/02/12 at 20:58 Post Comment    Bet with SkyBet  Barclays Premier League. Click here to bet.

Phillip Beard: Relegation will not halt our plans

Phillip Beard: Relegation will not halt our plans

QPR chief executive Phillip Beard insists relegation from the top flight would not prevent the club achieving their lofty ambitions.

Beard, who was a senior member of the successful London 2012 Olympic Games bid team, joined QPR in August following Tony Fernandes' takeover.

With the transfer window closed, the club are turning their attention to achieving long-term ambitions, which include building a new training ground, improving their youth system and eventually moving from Loftus Road to a new stadium.

QPR face a battle to make sure their immediate future is in the Premier League, but Beard insists the club will press on regardless of what division they are in next season

"I am working hard to make sure everything we need to do to maintain our position in the Premier League this season can happen," he told QPR podcast Open All Rs.

"Whatever happens, whether we hopefully stay up or, heaven forbid, things don't work out and we go down, that cannot be a signal to stop what we want to achieve with the club.

"What we have to do is do everything we can to stay up, which is our number one priority.

"The second priority is we need to build and facilitate a new training ground, not just for the first team but we need to build the academy at the club.

"For young people coming through we need to make this a club that people want to come and join at a very early age so we can develop and nurture talent.

"And then if we really have long-term goals and aspirations - and I think they are achievable - we need to find the right location to look at developing a new ground for QPR, somewhere the club is the anchor tenant at that stadium and where we will be able to do other activities in terms of sport and entertainment.

"Football will be the bedrock of that stadium and a place where we can generate additional revenues from other activities so that the business plan for the club is sustainable.

"That is the goal and objective of all the shareholders. It is the objective of myself and everybody at the club and I hope every QPR fan will share that vision and dream that we can achieve that.

"The first thing, and it is absolutely without question the most important thing, is to make sure we try and stay in the Premier League."

While Beard believes the club's future lies away from Loftus Road, he insisted they would remain in the Shepherds Bush area and that "two or three options" are already being mooted.

"I can't talk too much about it because it is still in its formative plan," he added. "What I can say is that we totally understand it needs to have great transport links.

"It has to embrace everything that Loftus Road stands for and, by that definition, it has to be somewhere that is in the same vicinity."

Midfielder Adel Taarabt has insisted he wants to be part of Rangers' ambitious future, claiming manager Mark Hughes' arrival meant a "new start" for him.

Taarabt, who last month admitted he would probably have left the club had Neil Warnock still been in charge, started Saturday's defeat to Wolves after returning from African Nations Cup duty.

Revealing he had a meeting with Hughes last week, Taarabt told QPR player: "He's a great manager.

"He told me 'You're a fantastic player and I am here to get you on the ball and we want to play football'.

"The last couple of month was disappointing for me because I didn't show what I know I can do.

"But now, a new manager and a new start for me."

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T

here has only been 3 players who made me hold my breath in dread when they picked the ball up anywhere near our penalty area...in their prime Scholes and Giggs... and always Drogba. Awesome player who on his day was the best striker in the world in my opinion.

gunner14
Farewell Big, Brutal, Big-Balled B**tard

I

remember him scoring a 25-yarder, either the season just gone or the one before, against Bolton at the Reebok. I've never seen a ball hit that hard before in my entire life. You could almost feel the shockwave from his foot contacting it 40 yards away in the stands. Didier Droga. You might not have loved him, but you just had to be in awe of him.

jon_bwfc
Farewell Big, Brutal, Big-Balled B**tard

E

den Hazard, def. - 1) that girl in a club who makes eyes at you all night, who allows you to buy her a drink and walk her home arm in arm, who then gives you a suggestive kiss on her doorstep before declaring how tired she is and how she has to be up early the next day. 2) A cock tease.

cramp
Hazard 'terms agreed' with trio

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