QPR eye swift appointment

Warnock was relieved of his duties after a poor run of results in the first half of the season left QPR hovering precariously close to the relegation zone.

It was also announced that assistant boss Mick Jones and first team coach Keith Curle had left Loftus Road, leaving club bosses in urgent need of a new management team.

Mark Hughes has emerged as the early favourite to take the role but chief executive Philip Beard has refused to give any indication about who might be in the running.

Beard has, however, admitted that QPR are under pressure to make an appointment quickly to enable them to reinforce their squad this month.

Tricky month

"We're going to be criticised whatever we do, like everybody else in football," he said on Sky Sports News. "We just believe this is the right decision at this time.

"I'm not going to comment (on candidates) tonight but what I will say is that we're going to move as quickly as we can and we hope to make an appointment very soon.

"We've got some people at the club that can help us in the very, very, very short term but we plan to move very quickly and get things sorted.

"Time is against everybody and we're already into the second week of January. I think the reality is there are some funds there but we've got to make the right purchases.

"It is a tricky month to try and make things happen but our appetite is to bring one or two players in if we can to strengthen the squad and the new manager will be part of that as soon as we can identify him and spend time looking at some of our targets."