QPR should ready move for 7-time promotion-winner – Stockport County fate may help their cause | OneFootball

Queens Park Rangers should make a move for Stockport County boss Dave Challinor following Marti Cifuentes' departure.

Following the departure of Marti Cifuentes last week, Queens Park Rangers will be scouring the managerial market to set themselves up for the 2025/26 season.

After reports in The Sun suggested Cifuentes was unhappy at Loftus Road and wanted out, it was then reported that the Spaniard had already been in talks with fellow Championship side West Bromwich Albion.

A few days after that it was confirmed that QPR had placed Cifuentes on gardening leave before their final game of the season at the Stadium of Light against Sunderland – which they eventually went on to win 1-0.

The R’s have been linked with former Olympique Lyonnais boss Pierre Sage, whilst Tom Cleverley, Gary O’Neil and Richie Wellens feature among many bookies’ lists but it is Wellens’ upcoming play-off adversary, Dave Challinor, that should be the man targeted by the Hoops.

Dave Challinor has a remarkable managerial record with Stockport County and prior to them

Challinor leads his Stockport side into a League One play-off semi-final against Wellens’ Leyton Orient this coming weekend, and it has been a frankly ludicrous decade and a half or so for the Chester-born 49-year-old as a manager.

He began his managerial career in 2010 with Colwyn Bay and led the Welsh side to promotion from the Northern Premier League Premier Division via the play-offs, just a year after their promotion from the Northern Premier League Division One North.

That year in charge of Colwyn Bay, where he had finished his playing career as player-coach, was followed by a move to Lancastrian side AFC Fylde and, in his first season, he led them to the Northern Premier League Division One North title in 2012.

He then got the Coasters a further two promotions in the following five years going from the Northern Premier League Premier Division up to the National League by 2017.

Fylde finished in the 2017/18 National League play-off places before then reaching the 2019 National League play-off final but losing 3-0 to Salford City. A week later they returned to Wembley Stadium to win the 2018/19 FA Trophy with a 1-0 defeat of Leyton Orient.

He departed for Hartlepool United in November 2019 and, after a mid-table finish with the Pools initially, he then guided them back to the EFL in his first full season in charge as they won the 2020/21 National League play-offs.

However, he departed the north east after just a couple of months of the season to return to the National League to pick up a Stockport County side that had lofty ambitions, but were stagnating in the fifth tier - and he's gone from strength to strength ever since.

At the time of his take over at Edgeley Park, Stockport had picked up six victories with two draws and six defeats in their opening 14 games of the National League season under the management of now-interim Southampton boss Simon Rusk.

In his first season with the Hatters, Stockport won the National League. In his second season at Edgeley Park, County made the League Two play-off final. In his third season they won League Two - you can see the pattern forming over how successful Challinor is.

2024-25 was Challinor's fourth season in charge of Stockport, and he guided them to a remarkably impressive third-placed finish in League One, and they now gear up for a play-off campaign that could see them reach the second-tier for the first time since the 2001/02 season.

Stockport County's League One play-offs fate could determine whether they keep hold of Dave Challinor

Stockport were a big club with good financial backing that were stagnating and underperforming – and the same can be said for the state of QPR right now, which is something that Cifuentes himself has even suggested, saying he wanted to give the supporters more.

The caveat to potentially appointing Challinor though is Stockport's involvement in the play-offs.

If Stockport do get promoted this month, then it may be a tough challenge for the west Londoners to prize him away, given the fact that County would well and truly be on the up, and it would be a sideways step to head to Loftus Road.

Failure to go up however would provide QPR with an even better chance of securing what would seem an excellent appointment on paper, although there may be question marks as to whether the job may be too big for him.

Challinor has never coached higher than the second-tier of English football, but his current record is simply ridiculous, and every new level he reaches, he appears to not only adapt to compete, but adapt to actually overcome and even dominate.

It may well be a risk for QPR to appoint him, but any manager that the Hoops go for will be – so taking a risk on someone with such an impressive track record of promotion is surely worth a shout.