Results will come for Rangers - Hughes QPR manager Mark Hughes knows it has not been the greatest of starts to the season but backed his side to turn the corner sooner rather than later - starting on Monday against West Ham.
The Hoops have yet to win a Barclays Premier League match this campaign, collecting just two points from a possible 15 heading into Monday's clash against the Hammers. That indifferent start has seen the pressure begin to mount on Hughes, who the bookmakers make second favourite to be the next top-flight manager to leave their post. The Welshman, though, is not too concerned with such talk and believes his side will soon start picking up victories, especially when they are able to call upon a number of defenders again.
"I think for the most part our performances have been fine up to a point," said Hughes, who will have to do without the injured Anton Ferdinand, Jose Bosingwa, Fabio and Armand Traore. "Obviously we need to see games out. We have selection problems at the moment in a key area of the field in defence. "We have had too much of a turnover in terms of selection and personnel changes so that doesn't lend well to having that continuity of performance.
We've created some decent football in the initial period but it was always going to take time. "We are not going to hide behind the fact it is not the best of starts and the start that we wanted. We understood that it could happen and that it would take us time to get the team functioning as we wanted." Mark Noble has admitted the arrival of Andy Carroll and Matt Jarvis helped convince him to sign a new contract at West Ham after he began to question the club's ambition.
Last week saw Noble end speculation about his future by penning a new three-year deal with the Hammers. The 25-year-old had been in the final year of his previous contract, having spent more than a decade at the club he joined as a schoolboy. Noble's time at Upton Park has seen West Ham go through a real rollercoaster of emotions thanks to two relegations, a `great escape' from the drop, two play-off final triumphs, an FA Cup final and qualification for Europe.
Throughout all that time, the Hammers never spent £10million on a player, a fact Noble acknowledged concerned him before the club-record £10.75million summer signing of Jarvis and the arrival on loan on Carroll, who could smash that mark if his move is made permanent. Noble said: "I remember talking to someone during pre-season and they were saying how big the club is. I know that and everywhere you go in the world there are West Ham fans coming out the woodwork. Our record signing was only £9million so you have a look at stuff like that and think, 'Is that as big as it should be?' I always questioned that. "But now we have signed Jarvis and brought in Andy Carroll and top players. To survive in the Premier League that is what you need to do."
Source: PA
