With QPR at Wigan on Wednesday, LFW looks at the career of Scott Sinclair — who played for both clubs - so far and what his decisions mean for English football as a whole.

Recent Meetings

QPR 1 Wigan 1, Sunday April 7, 2013, Premier League

A Goal of the Season contender from Loic Remy wasn’t enough to secure QPR a much needed three points at Loftus Road when these sides met last in April. In a televised match between two of the Premier League’s strugglers Rangers knew they had to win at all costs but suffered an early blow when Bobby Zamora inexplicably studded Jordi Gomez in the side of the head before half time and was justifiably sent off by referee Phil Dowd. Hope seemed to be draining away but a lightning fast counter attack ten minutes from time ended with Stephane Mbia feeding Loic Remy for a world class 20 yard strike that hummed into the net from 20 yards off his instep. Loftus Road went ballistic but Mbia would turn from hero to villain by conceding a series of dangerous free kicks around his own penalty box thereafter. The last of these, in the fifth minute of added time, was curled over the wall and in by Shaun Maloney. The result effectively ended QPR’s hopes of staying in the Premier League but ultimately it did little good for Wigan either and they were relegated as well.

QPR: Cesar 6, Traore 6 (Onuoha 46 6), Hill 6, Samba 6, Bosingwa 6, Hoilett 5 (Taarabt 56 5), Jenas 6, Mbia 7, Townsend 8, Remy 7 (Mackie 88 -), Zamora 3

Subs Not Used: Green, Ben-Haim, Park, Granero

Booked: Remy (foul), Samba (foul)

Sent Off: Zamora (serious foul play)

Wigan: Blazquez 6, Alcaraz 6, Boyce 6, Figueroa 6 (Espinoza 88 -), McCarthy 5, Maloney 7, Gomez 7, Beausejour 6 (McArthur 6), Schamer 6, Kone 6, McManaman 6 (Di Santo 67 6)

Subs Not Used: Al Habsi, Caldwell, Stam, Henriquez

Booked: Alcaraz (foul), McCarthy (foul), Figueroa (dissent)

Wigan 2 QPR 2, Saturday December 8, 2012, Premier League

QPR were still searching for their first win of the season when they travelled to fellow strugglers Wigan for the sixteenth match of the campaign back in December, but the appointment of Harry Redknapp as manager had brought about improvements to the team and renewed hope among the supporters. A lacklustre start to a crucial six pointer at the DW Stadium, during which the home side took the lead through James McCarthy, threatened to derail that progress but Ryan Nelsen powered a header home from a corner and then in the second half Djibril Cisse slid home after Shaun Wright-Phillips had won the ball well in the Wigan half and crossed into an understaffed penalty area. Sadly the R’s couldn’t hang onto their lead for more than three minutes and McCarthy capped a decent individual display with an equaliser with a quarter of an hour left to play — a preventable goal, but really it was only the goalkeeping of Robert Green that had kept the hosts at bay that long and Rangers scarcely deserved their point.

Wigan: Al Habsi 6, Boyce 6, Lopez 5, McArthur 6, Bausejour 7, Jones 7 (Maloney 76, 6), McCarthy 8, Stam 7, Kone 6, Gomez 6, Di Santo 6 (Boselli 85, -)

Subs not used: Pollit, Golobart, Fyvie, Redmond, McManaman

Goals: McCarthy 19 (unassisted), 74 (assisted Beausejour)

QPR: Green 8, Bosingwa 5 (Fabio 84,-), Nelsen 7, Hill 6, Traore 5, Diakite 5 (Granero 77, 5), Mbia 6, Derry 6, Taarabt 6 (Cisse 58, 6), Wright-Phillips 5, Mackie 6

Goals: Nelsen 26 (assisted Taarabt), Cisse 71 (assisted Wright-Phillips)

Bookings: Taarabt 45 (foul)

QPR 3 Wigan 1, Saturday January 21, 2012, Premier League

QPR recorded their first win since November, and first maximum point haul under new manager Mark Hughes, with a 3-1 win against Wigan at Loftus Road in January last season. Things were looking pretty straightforward at half time after James McCarthy's inexplicable handball gave Heidar Helguson a chance to score what would turn out to be his last competitive goal for the club from the penalty spot, and then right on the stroke of the break Akos Buzsaky smacked a delicious free kick in off the base of the post. Wigan were indebted to goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi for keeping them in contention at that stage but the second half became a fraught, nervous affair once Hugo Rodallega had halved the deficit with a free kick of his own from similar range to Buzsaky's. A second penalty award from referee Jon Moss — against Gary Caldwell for climbing over Helguson in the box — should have put the game to bed by Al Habsi saved from Helguson at the second attempt which meant Tommy Smith's late 25 yard screamer was a blessed relief to the QPR fans who'd waited three months for a league win.

QPR: Kenny 7, Hill 6, Ferdinand 7, Hall 7, Young 7, Wright-Phillips 6, Barton 6, Buzsaky 8 (Derry 82 6), Mackie 6, Helguson 7, Campbell 5 (Smith 45, 6)

Subs Not Used: Czerny, Orr, Ramage, Bothroyd, Macheda

Booked: Barton (foul), Young (foul)

Goals: Helguson 33 (penalty, McCarthy handball), Buzsaky 45 (freekick), Smith (assisted Wright-Phillips)

Wigan : Al Habsi 8, Gohouri 6, Caldwell 6, Boyce 6 (Stam 69 6), Figueroa 6, McCarthy 5, Watson 7, Moses 7, Gomez 6 (Crusat 61 6), McArthur 6 (Sammon 45 6), Rodallega 7

Subs Not Used: Pollitt, Lopez, Di Santo, McManaman

Booked: Gohouri (foul), McCarthy (handball)

Goals: Rodallega 66 (free kick)

Wigan 2 QPR 0, Saturday August 27, 2011, Premiership

Tony Fernandes’ takeover of QPR had been ratified in the days leading up to the August Bank Holiday fixture at Wigan last season and Joey Barton was perched high in the main stand after completing his move to Loftus Road from Newcastle the day before. The QPR starting 11 wasn’t even as strong as the one they’d won the Championship with the season before with Bruno Perone given a full league debut at centre back and the lumbering Patrick Agyemang selected in attack. Agyemang missed the chance of the match, firing horribly wide after Adel Taarabt had struck the post from distance, and Perone thumped the cross bar with a header in the second half. But Rangers were poor overall and Wigan deserved the win they achieved, albeit through two deflected goals from striker Franco Di Santo.

Wigan: Al Habsi 8, Boyce 6, Caldwell 6, Lopez 6, Figueroa 6, Diame 8, Watson 7, Moses 7 (McArthur 69, 6), Rodallega 8, Gomez 7 (Stam 85, -), Di Santo 6 (Sammon 69, 6)

Subs Not Used: Kirkland , McCarthy, Thomas, Jones

Booked: Lopez (foul), Caldwell (foul)

Goals: Di Santo 41 (unassisted), 66 (unassisted)

QPR: Kenny 7, Gabbidon 7, Hall 5 (Harriman 61, 7), Perone 6, Connolly 6, Faurlin 6, Derry 6, Taarabt 7, Buzsaky 6 (Bothroyd 72, 7), Smith 6 (Andrade 80, -), Agyemang 4

Subs Not Used: Murphy, Helguson, Ephraim, Hewitt

Previous Results

Head to Head >>> Wigan wins 2 >>> Draws 5 >>> QPR wins 3

2012/13 QPR 1 Wigan 1 (Remy)

2012/13 Wigan 2 QPR 2 (Nelsen, Cisse)

2011/12 QPR 3 Wigan 1 (Helguson, Buzsaky, Smith)

2011/12 Wigan 2 QPR 0

2004/05 Wigan 0 QPR 0

2004/05 QPR 1 Wigan 0 (Furlong)

2002/03 QPR 0 Wigan 1

2002/03 Wigan 1 QPR 1 (Thomson)

2001/02 QPR 1 Wigan 1 (Gallen)

2001/02 Wigan 1 QPR 2 (Thomson, Brennan og)

Connections

Scott Sinclair >>> QPR (loan) 2007 >>> Wigan (loan) 2009-2010

The inevitable outcome of the recently assembled Football Association commission, designed to look into the continued failure of the England national team but already being relentlessly undermined from all sides, is that nothing will be done and nothing will improve.

Rather than assembling a collection of the great, good and Danny Mills — while of course ensuring that every ethnic group is represented and an equal number of gays, straights, racists and mavericks are included — Greg Dyke could have done a lot worse than simply asking Scott Sinclair to come and spend an afternoon at Wembley talking about his career to date. It’s Sinclair, and players like him, who currently pose the biggest problem to Roy Hodgson’s quest of putting together a competitive England team.

Sinclair began life as a trainee at Bristol Rovers, who duly recognised his talent and made him the club’s youngest ever player by throwing him into the first team while he was still only 15. Presumably Rovers’ thinking was to encourage Sinclair to stay at the Memorial Ground a while, and enjoy actual senior, first team football at a very young age, rather than allow himself to be absorbed into a giant Premier League academy and another four years of youth football. If so, they failed, because Chelsea swooped in July 2005 for an upfront fee, decided by tribunal, of just £200,000.

Problem one: where is the incentive for any club outside the top ten of the Premier League in this country to develop its own talent when any half decent prospect is immediately picked off by clubs higher up the food chain for fees set by tribunal that barely cover the amount they’ve spent feeding them over the previous however many years? It’s a point made repeatedly by former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan in his book Be Careful What You Wish For — still justifiably bitter at the pitiful £700,000 the tribunal system forced Spurs to pay the Eagles for John Bostock.

At Chelsea Sinclair returned to the status of youth-team player, the first team a million miles away, while of course training with far better, more experienced coaches in top notch facilities. The argument over whether that well equipped but sheltered environment is better for the development of a prodigious young talent than first team football at a lower level on dodgy pitches with hatchet merchants hunting naïve scalps is an open and valid one.

In January 2007 he began what would become a series of six separate loan spells with a temporary stay at Championship side Plymouth. Argyle manager Ian Holloway knew Sinclair from his Bristol days and reaped the rewards of inside knowledge by apparently uncovering a real gem — Sinclair’s length of the field run and finish in an FA Cup tie at Barnet became a You Tube sensation.

The following season newly minted Queens Park Rangers added him to new manager Luigi De Canio’s arsenal on a short term deal and he headed home a goal early in his spell at Crystal Palace. But while at QPR Sinclair often flattered to deceive — never hitting the heights of his time at Plymouth and incurring the wrath of a tiny travelling following at Burnley’s Turf Moor ground by leaping three feet into the air with his legs tucked behind his back to avoid a standard piece of physical contact from his marker that night. Sinclair had been told by Chelsea he’d be selected for a League Cup tie with Liverpool at the end of his Loftus Road stint and, as a result, spent his whole time in W12 trying his best not to get injured. He played, poorly, against Liverpool and disappeared back off into the reserves.

Spells with Charlton, Palace and Birmingham followed before a season long loan deal with Wigan was struck for 2009/10. He made just one league start for the Latics, along with 17 sub appearances and four starts in the cup competitions. No closer to a chance in the Chelsea first team, the years were starting to drift by. What Sinclair needed now is what he’d left behind to join Chelsea in the first place — first team football. Swansea City paid £500,000 for him in the summer of 2010, taking him back down to the Championship permanently in the process.

Problem two: what chance do we have to develop talent in this country when clubs — Chelsea and Spurs are particularly guilty of this — snap up talent at a young age and hoard it away in vast academies, seemingly for fear of somebody else getting it before them? Bostock, Sinclair and others have all been buried in academy systems, bumping against a glass ceiling with multi-million pound — often foreign - talent obstructing their path to the first team but only allowed to go elsewhere on loan for fear that a rival may grab a promising youngster ahead of them? Chelsea haven’t turned a youth team prospect into a first team regular since John Terry.

Handed a regular starting role in a forward-thinking Swansea team, beautifully coached by Brendan Rodgers, Sinclair excelled. He finally looked like he was going to fulfil that potential — scoring 27 goals in 50 appearances in 2010/11, including a hat trick in a play-off final victory against Reading at Wembley. Predictably he was less prolific in the top flight - eight goals from 40 appearances — but Sinclair and Swansea won plenty of admirers regardless. That summer Rodgers was picked off by Liverpool and Sinclair, who now had international experience with the GB Olympics side, was coveted by plenty of other sides as well.

What you think of what happened next probably rather depends on your outlook. If you think being a footballer is like being a plumber, or an insurance salesman, or a police officer, or a super market manager then you’ll shrug and ask what exactly Sinclair should have done differently. After all, if you’re managing Safeway and somebody offers you the chance to manage a Waitrose on four times as much money, you’re not going to be thinking about your loyalty to Safeway for too long are you? If a rival to your current company offered you considerably more money to move, you’d be a fool to turn it down surely?

But being a footballer isn’t like any other job. By electing to move from Swansea to Manchester City, Scott Sinclair was saying more than any FA commission ever could. Here was a young player playing regularly and impressively in the Premier League choosing to move to a club where he would be considerably better paid, but used far less frequently. Since a £6.2m transfer was secured in August 2012 he has started three times. Three. Sinclair is now spotted more often in holiday snaps on the Twitter account of his on-off girlfriend Helen Flanagan than he is on a football pitch.

Problem three: when young players apparently on the cusp of international honours will always jump at the chance of sitting on a bench somewhere and earning a truck load of cash, ahead of earning slightly less (but still more than most could dream of) and playing regularly, what hope have you got?

And now? He’s back on loan again, this time at West Brom. But rich. Very, very rich.

Others >>> Ben Watson, QPR (loan) 2009, Wigan 2009—present >>> Fitz Hall, Wigan 2006-2008, QPR 2008-2012 >>> Scott Sinclair, QPR (loan) 2007, Wigan (loan) 2009-2010 >>> Gino Padula Wigan 2000-2001, QPR 2002-2005 >>> Jason Jarrett, Wigan 2002-2005, QPR (loan) 2007-2008 >>> Matt Jackson, QPR (loan) 1996, Wigan 2001-2007

Memorable Match

Wigan 1 QPR 2, Saturday September 22, 2001, Second Division

Freshly relegated from Division One and in administration, QPR faced a daunting task in 2001/02 having reported back for pre-season training with just a handful of senior professionals still signed up and two of them, Richard Langley and Clarke Carlisle, only remaining because of nasty long term injuries. A manic pre-season campaign ensued where embattled manager Ian Holloway attempted to wade through a huge amount of trialists and assemble a squad that could prevent the club slipping through into the bottom tier on no budget at all.

Some players who would have been very good were missed — Martin Bullock who went on to star for Blackpool against us being the prime one — but out of the ashes a team was formed. Wigan meanwhile were the division’s big spenders — Tony Dinning cost £750,000 from Wolves, John Filan £600,000 from Blackburn, Nathan Ellington £1.2m from Bristol Rovers, Peter Kennedy £300,000 from Watford, Jason De Vos £500,000 from Dundee Utd, Lee Ashcroft £350,000 from Grimsby, Simon Howarth £600,000 from Coventry and a job lot of Motherwell players Ged Brennan, Lee McCulloch and Steven McMillan for £1m.

One look at the two team line ups below tells you all you need to know about what a remarkable achievement our 2-1 win at the JJB Stadium in September 2001 really was. QPR were up against it to start with against Paul Jewell’s side but with a starting eleven that contained three centre halves and four full backs owing to injury and suspension the task looked nearly impossible.

Wigan predictably took the lead before half time when their midfield talisman Tony Dinning fired home but Rangers stunned their hosts with an equaliser in first half stoppage time from notorious goal hanger Andy Thomson fresh from an 18 minute hat trick against Port Vale at Loftus Road the previous week. And that was the way it stayed despite Wigan sending on Andy Liddell for the second half until deep into stoppage time when, inexplicably, Ged Brennan headed home a bizarre own goal under minimal pressure to present Rangers with an unlikely three points.

Rangers won the following Tuesday as well, another two from Thomson defeating Cardiff at Loftus Road, but they slumped after Christmas and only finished eighth because they won five and drew one of their last six games after Arsenal’s Jerome Thomas arrived on loan. Wigan , astonishingly, finished tenth before walking away with the title in 2002/03 having notched up 100 points.

Wigan : Kerr, Green, Brennan, McGibbon (Mitchell 85), De Zeeuw, Dalglish (Kilford 70), Ashcroft, Kennedy, Dinning, Roberts (Liddell 58), Haworth.

Subs Not Used: Stillie, Sharp

Goals: Dinning 42

Yellows: Ashcroft, Dinning

QPR: Day, Forbes, Palmer, Ben Askar, Warren, Perry, Bignot, Rose, Connolly, Griffiths , Thomson

Subs Not Used: Pacquette, Bull, Barr, Wardley

Goals: Thomson 45, Brennan 90

Yellows: Rose, Warren, Palmer

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Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images

YorkRanger added 07:00 - Oct 29 Good article Clive and some well made points about Sinclair. The team sheet in the memorable match is another timely reminder to all those on here who knock Holloway's time at Rangers.
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isawqpratwcity added 08:58 - Oct 29 Good article, Clive. The 'Hoover Academy' tub is one that still deserves a regular thumping. Have to take exception about kids turning down the chance of regular starts, on money "more than most could dream of" in favour of these reserve/loan-filling mega-contracts. There's so much money in football these days, agents fill kids' heads with delusions of expectation. Its mugs like us who can't dream of that sort of money.

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Toast_R added 11:08 - Oct 29 Yep, there definitely has to be a wage cap in place with a rule where players can be awarded bonus’s to their wages based only on appearances. There for Man City for example can only pay the same basic wage as any other Prem team but then say award their own bonuses for appearances. So it would make idiots like Sinclair and Rodwell think twice before going as unless they are actually playing, they are not going to get the inflated wages. Look at Wilfred Zaha, he would be playing every week right now in the Premier League had he stayed at Palace, instead he’ll be settling for games in the Capital Cup with the rest of the stiffs at Man Utd. Surely he can’t be happy watching from the reserves at the moment whilst his ex team mates (who are not as good as him and he knows it) are all out there playing every week at all these stadiums against all these world class players, Isn’t that the dream?

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TacticalR added 17:04 - Oct 29 Thanks Clive. Thirty years ago even the average teams used to have one or two exceptional players. Today the hoovering up of talent not only fails to develop talent, but deprives the average teams of talent. In fact, it's actually a crazy system where people are in effect paid not to develop their talent.
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