Blackburn Rovers 1 QPR 0:THE QUEENS Park Rangers players united after the game in condemning El Hadji Diouf for apparently taunting Jamie Mackie after the winger sustained a broken leg in this third-round tie.
Mackie, whose season has come to a premature conclusion because of a broken tibia and fibula, claimed on Twitter: “Proper disappointed that El Hadji Diouf was in my ear while am on the deck with a broken leg saying ‘f**k you and f**k your leg.‘”
Mackie’s team-mate Bradley Orr retorted: “Never come across a more repulsive human being than Diouf! The things he was saying were disgusting! The lad has just broke his leg! You horrible disgusting man Diouf! Your time will come!”
Diouf’s insults to a stricken opponent breached the unspoken agreement that hostilities cease when a player is seriously injured.
“He was putting his finger up to Jamie Mackie, telling him he was a complete disgrace,” said the QPR manager, Neil Warnock, who likened Diouf to a sewer rat and suggested that is where he belongs.
Rovers are expected to look into the incidents, but have yet to comment. However, Warnock said that even Ewood Park employees had said they were sorry about the Senegalese’s behaviour.
“What sort of person does that when they have a broken leg? Steve (Kean, the manager) will not put up with that. One lady from the Blackburn staff came and apologised to me. I think their lads were all the same as the lady. I said to our lot: ‘Eh, don’t get carried away, lads. We only see him once; they’ve got to live with him’. You don’t need that in the dressingroom.
“I can’t abide people like that. I don’t know why he wants to take on the world every week. For many years I have thought he (Diouf) was the gutter type – I was going to call him a sewer rat, but that might be insulting to sewer rats. I think he is the lowest of the low and I can’t see him being at Blackburn much longer because I can’t see Steve Kean putting up with someone like that in the dressingroom when he is trying to form a new image for Blackburn.
“I think he will be the first to go and good riddance – I hope he goes abroad because I won’t miss watching him. He is a nasty little person.”
Mackie was injured in a 50-50 clash with the defender Gael Givet which led to both players being carried off. “It was not a malicious tackle, but it is his standing foot and you can see in the slow motion his leg bends,” said Warnock. “It is disappointing for everyone and the result pales into insignificance. I’m pulling my hair out because I didn’t want to play him, but he pleaded with me to play.”
The composition of Rovers’ future squad was also addressed by their right back Michel Salgado following the much-mocked efforts to recruit Ronaldinho and David Beckham which failed, but the Spaniard believes they are better off without either.
Salgado spent a decade at Real Madrid and argues Rovers should not be looking to bolt supposed superstars on to a side whose marked lack of glamour has not prevented them from occupying ninth place in the Premier League.
“I don’t think someone like Beckham coming here for three months is the best thing for him or Blackburn. We’d prefer three or four club players with good experience. It’s great the name of Blackburn is known around the world, but if you sign Ronaldinho I don’t think you’ll have enough money to sign another three players.”
Ronaldinho preferred his homeland to Ewood Park but Salgado was also sceptical about the Brazilian. “Maybe he wouldn’t be in the mood to play here in England with the weather and those things. You have to be honest. He would be a big name for us, but on the pitch I would prefer a good team.”
Junior Hoilett’s goal secured Rovers’ progress in a competition that Salgado is taking rather more seriously than the Copa del Rey in Spain. “That is a pain in the ass,” he said. Deploying rather more colourful vocabulary, QPR expressed similar sentiments about Diouf.
