NTTF Nedum Onuoha Exclusive: The Premier League’s worst dressing room?

Speaking exclusively on our NTTF Podcast, ex-QPR defender Nedum Onuoha stated there were players “on the more toxic side” after Chris Samba bashed the 2012/13 Queens Park Rangers dressing room on the same podcast, saying it was “the worst dressing room he’s ever been in”.

In recent online discourse, Nedum Onuoha and Chris Samba have both been dubbed ‘prime Barclaysmen’ by nostalgic fans, but many QPR fans won’t look back fondly on the 2012/13 season, the club’s brutal EPL relegation season.

Onuoha stated that he “can’t say Chris [Samba] is wrong” about his comments on the dressing room at the time, and took the opportunity to hit out at the xenophobia that occurs in English football when the chips are down.

Nedum Onuoha: “I can't say Chris [Samba] is wrong, because he's talking about his perspective, and I don't know all the other dressing rooms that he's been in. However, I think the dressing room that he came into - he came in during the January transfer window - at the time, I think we had only won our first League game in week 16 of the Premier League. So there wasn't that much camaraderie as such because, in reality, one thing I discovered with football is when you're winning, everyone gets along, it is the easiest job in the world.

“You don't notice people's people's differences until you're losing all the time, and now all of a sudden, you're in a dressing room which had a real mix of people. When people in a team don't have the same vision, it's very hard to be successful, and I think Chris is saying it's probably the worst he's been in, but it wasn't full of bad people, it was just full of disappointment.

“I think there were one or two people being on the more toxic side of things who have kind of exposed themselves in recent months and years. For me, it wasn't great, but I was there for the whole time, it was just a tough environment because at the time the identity of the players wasn't one which would mesh really well when things weren't going well.

“It wasn't helped again by the fact that we weren't winning games, because if you want to see the worst of people it's when you're not winning games on a week-to-week basis, because then you're left in this position where everything's being questioned.

“Some people say we train too early, some people say we train too late, some people were not training enough, and there's always this ability to blame others.

“When it comes down to English football in most places when things aren't going well, it starts to become xenophobic and that can be very, very tough to be around because you start to see the divisions and people start pointing fingers./

“That environment is probably the worst he's been in because it was the most chaotic. But again, I've got to stress, it was not full of bad people but, the genesis is the fact that we weren't winning games, and most people that were in that space were new anyway.

“You go to the stadium and it's a tough environment because people start to lose belief, and when the crowd loses belief and the criticism rises, before you know it you can hear everything in the crowd, you can see everything.

“It’s Loftus Road as well. That's tight. I remember clear as day pretty much everything that was being said and it's tough but unfortunately, that's just the way the football goes.

“I think for me I ended up staying for six and a half years anyway so I saw some highs, saw some lows and I think by the time I was leaving people understood who I was and who some of the players were at that time, but when things aren't going well and it's a new face it tends to be quite tough to be able to fit in.”