NEIL WARNOCK has parted company with Queens Park Rangers, with the manager paying the price for the team’s run of dismal results and his failure to see eye-to-eye with the owner, Tony Fernandes, over squad strengthening.

Mark Hughes, who has been out of work since his decision to walk away from Fulham last summer, is QPR’s first choice to take over and carry on the fight against relegation from the Premier League. There would be some irony in Hughes taking over.

When he left Fulham amid great acrimony, it was with the ambition of competing higher up the table.

The tipping point for Warnock came in Milton Keynes on Saturday, when QPR needed an 89th-minute equaliser from Heidar Helguson to salvage a 1-1 FA Cup third-round draw with the League One side MK Dons.

Fernandes had travelled with 5,000 Rangers supporters; he was deeply unimpressed and he saw the need to take decisive action. Only last week he had suggested, in a tweet, that nobody’s job at the club was safe. But it was not a snap decision and the sense was that both parties had agreed the separation was necessary.

There was even the suggestion that it was Warnock who jumped before he was pushed, as he had become so frustrated over January transfer targets. He had spoken for some weeks about the need for at least “three or four” new faces and he wanted to add them upon the opening of the window.

So far, Rangers have signed only the striker Federico Macheda on loan from Manchester United.