- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Socceroos Asian Cup hero Massimo Luongo admits apprehension over his role at Queens Park Rangers now Neil Warnock has returned as caretaker manager.
Luongo’s career has been soaring seemingly skywards since the instinctive young midfielder took January’s Asian Cup by storm with searing performances, along with a goal in the final that earned him the tournament’s best player award.
There is little doubt about the previously unheralded 23-year-old’s place in the Socceroos, with coach Ange Postecoglou starting him in Australia’s last three World Cup qualifiers.
However Luongo is far less certain about where he fits into QPR’s new structure under Warnock, who is back at the helm as the Championship outfit’s interim boss after coach Chris Ramsey was sacked last week.
In Warnock’s first match in charge on the weekend, Luongo sat on the bench as an unused substitute, forced to merely watch his team play out a listless goalless draw with Socceroos teammate Bailey Wright’s Preston North End.
He concedes a slight feeling of uncertainty has come with the departure of Ramsey, his former Tottenham academy mentor who was instrumental in bringing him to QPR from League One side Swindon Town after last season.
“I probably had a discussion with a few people saying, how could this turn out for me? Could it be a good thing or a bad thing?” Luongo said in Canberra where he is in camp with the Socceroos preparing for World Cup qualifiers against Kyrgyzstan and Bangladesh.
“You can’t really do much to be honest. If you’re doing well in training, if you’re playing well, then you’ve done everything you can, which I’ve done.
“So I’ve just got to wait for him to pick the team.
“Unfortunately I’m here now, so I can’t keep doing that. But it’s just the way it goes.”
Warnock took QPR to their 2011 Championship triumph and subsequent promotion to the Premier League, before they were relegated again at the end of last season.
He now faces an uphill results battle, with the under-performing Rangers lagging in 13th on the table and 14 points behind leaders Hull City and Brighton.
Luongo wasn’t overly happy about being absent and unable to prove himself to a largely unknown coach.
But he saw his time on international duty as a chance to re-centre before returning to press his case under noticeably changed circumstances at Loftus Road.
“It’s obviously a different set-up, different type of training and real shift in the team,” Luongo said.
“But it comes with the job – you go through a lot of managers, especially in the Championship.
“You just get on with it. I just keep doing what I’m doing, and if he wants to pick me then he can pick me.
“I’ll still do my own thing regardless, in training or in the game.”
Are you the ultimate team manager? Pick your own superstar team and go head to head with other football fans for glory and cash prizes on Draftstars. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.