The third of our comprehensive four-part review of the individual players’ performances at QPR in 2012/13 focuses on the midfielders. More car crash stuff I’m afraid.

2 – Samba Diakite D

Deep within the vaults at the Bond Street recording studios of the Open All R’s Podcast there is a tape of a pre-season edition in which Paul Finney, Chris Charles, Chris Mendes and I gathered to discuss our hopes and fears for the 2012/13 season ahead. In amongst talk of midtable finishes, prolonged cup runs and even that outside chance of a tilt at the European places there is an assertion from several of us that Samba Diakite could be a good bet for the club’s Player of the Year award. My word.

Diakite finished 2011/12 strongly. Raw, certainly, and terribly naïve at times, but showing plenty of potential and having a good deal of positive effect on games against quality opposition – a fine performance and goal helped seal a key home win against Arsenal in Shepherd’s Bush. His permanent signature was seen as a priority for last summer by many and securing it for just £3m seemed like a bargain. Diakite was aged just 23 at the time and with a successful try-before-you-buy spell under his belt already it didn’t seem over the top at all for Tony Fernandes to be hailing his capture as a key moment in the building of the club.

There then followed a terribly difficult start to the season. Diakite went missing (literally as opposed to the football sense) for long periods, with wide and varied rumours as to where he’d gone and what the problem was hardly calmed by the club’s official line that he had “personal issues.” Daily Mail journalist Sami Mokbel, who’d travelled around with the QPR press team during previous European tours, wrote a story stating Diakite had depression which his scrofulous rag then splashed as an “EXCLUSIVE”. When that drew an angry response from QPR fans online Mokbel defended the story intimating that it had come from the club. That rather missed the point that somebody suffering from depression isn’t something a national newspaper should be splashing to attract hits to a website usually more interested in long legs and big tits. The whole episode did Diakite about as many favours as Mark Hughes’ belief that, even at such an early stage of his development, he could play as the lone holding midfielder in a Premier League team’s outdated 4-1-4-1 system. A 5-0 humbling by Swansea and dreadful performance a week later at Norwich knocked Hughes’ idea on the head nice and early.

When Diakite returned to the team it was as an emergency substitute in a home match with West Ham where another of Hughes’ marvellous schemes – going up against a physical midfield three of Kevin Nolan, Mo Diame and Mark Noble with only Ale Faurlin and Esteban Granero in the centre of the park – had blown up in his face. Diakite, and fellow substitute Adel Taarabt, spectacularly turned the game back in the R’s favour before the Malian blew up and picked up two quick fire yellow cards to kill the game off. Much like his fellow African Stephane Mbia, Diakite’s total lack of self-control, discipline or intelligence is often his biggest downfall.

Harry Redknapp initially thought Diakite and Mbia could form an uncompromising midfield duo, providing a platform and protection for Granero and Taarabt to perform on further forward. That soon died a death when Liverpool systematically took Rangers apart at Loftus Road over Christmas. Redknapp seemed to hold Diakite more responsible than most and only gave him one brief outing as a substitute thereafter. Diakite in the summer of 2013 is therefore much the same as Diakite in the summer of 2012 – raw, mentally flawed, but with potential. It’s easy to forget, given that he plays regularly for a decent national team and is now 24 years of age, that he’s played remarkably little football at any level having arrived in the sport late. But even in a season of just six league and cup victories all of QPR’s senior players managed to feature in at least one win apart from DJ Campbell, who spent the majority of the season out on short term loans, and Diakite which doesn’t bode well. He has shown the odd flash and is worth working on – although the stupidity of the red cards he’s collected since moving to West London suggest he may be beyond help.

Whether he is or is he isn’t going to make it is probably a moot point. QPR don’t work on players and coach them, they hunt quick fixes and discard them prematurely when they don’t work out. Expect him to be cast aside at the first opportunity when some calm, patient coaching could yield a super midfielder for the second tier.

Stats:

Cards – One red (West Ham H, two yellows), six yellows (repetitive fouling, foul, foul, foul, foul, foul)

4 – Shaun Derry B

Clearly not in the first team plans at the start of the season, Derry was starting to make noises about heading out on loan and Neil Warnock at Leeds looked a likely beneficiary. That’s an easy stick to beat Mark Hughes with but in truth, QPR should never ever have been relying on Derry again this season and it’s only because the summer transfer activity went so wayward that he came back into contention. Given that both Derry and Clint Hill were initially brought in as one season options for the Championship three years ago now it’s amazing that they’ve both played so much this season – particularly in Derry’s case as playing in a struggling Premier League midfield is even more taxing than centre half.

In the end he did what he could: much more secure and reliable than Samba Diakite, much more consistent than Stephane Mbia, much more committed than Esteban Granero, far better than Ji-Sung Park. His attitude – knowing what you’re good at and sticking to it, not trying to be anything you’re not – is something the club as a whole could do with following a lot more. He wasn’t great by any stretch of the imagination, but then you wouldn’t expect him to be and I thought he did as much as was asked of him and all that he could.

Stats:

Cards – Three yellows (foul, foul, foul)

7 – Ji-Sung Park E

The press conference, the ludicrous decision to make him the captain, the merchandise, the tour of the Far East – Ji-Sung Park was clearly brought to QPR to be a figurehead for the “global brand”. In the end he’s been more successful in that role than the club could ever possibly have hoped, and in none of the ways they intended. Few players have encapsulated everything that was wrong about Rangers in 2012/13 as well as the South Korean.

Sure, you cannot knock him for attitude in the same way you could Jose Bosingwa, Stephane Mbia, Djibril Cisse or others. And I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I didn’t write about what a shrewd buy he could turn out to be at the price Rangers paid this time last summer – because when Manchester United went to Manchester City at the end of the previous season for what was essentially a title decider Alex Ferguson still saw Park as good and important enough to play from the start that night. The optimists’ logic said that while he may no longer be good enough for a team chasing European Cups, he’d surely still have plenty to offer a side with more meagre expectations. In actual fact Park was a player who relied on his super-human levels of fitness and awesome midfield engine to do a job in a team of world class players – take that engine away and place him in a team where he’s supposed to be the best player and he’s out of his depth.

That made him a signing for all the wrong reasons for which Tony Fernandes has to carry a large chunk of responsibility; somebody bought with shirt sales and tourism in mind rather than for football reasons. Making him captain was a total insult to the likes of Clint Hill and Ryan Nelsen who were clearly doing the leading out on the field, and to Shaun Derry whose place Park took while doing a vastly inferior job. While Hughes was happy to make scapegoats of other players – dropping Robert Green, Djibril Cisse, Samba Diakite and Ale Faurlin very swiftly after poor performances – Park would apparently be picked regardless. When injury finally took him out of the team at Arsenal Rangers were much the better for it. A pre-match tweet from the @loftforwords account prior to the match that day expressing relief that we’d finally see a midfield without Park in it brought a torrent of foul-mouthed abuse from brain dead sheep in the Far East who hadn’t even heard of Queens Park Rangers six weeks previously. “Fuck you. Ji Sung is captain and his injury very sad. He called Arsenal killer,” one particularly memorable spoon of warm diarrhoea for the ears of this long suffering QPR fan.

Thankfully he played little under Redknapp because, frankly, it was hard to pick out a single positive thing he brought to the team when he did. I’m amazed to find three sevens among his ratings because I struggle to recall a single moderately decent performance. Even at Southampton, where he finally got an assist and the team registered a rare win, he spent almost the entire afternoon slipping over as if he’d accidentally tied his boots together prior to kick off. That said, nobody played in more QPR victories this season than Park with five – a record he shares with Clint Hill, Fabio Da Silva, Stephane Mbia and, wait for it, Shaun Wright-Phillips.

A dreadful season from a spent force, crying out for either a dignified retirement now or a spell in a league such as the MLS where the pace and quality isn’t enough to expose nonsense corporate signings quite as brutally as Park has been at Loftus Road this season.

Stats:

Cards – One yellow (foul)

11 – Shaun Wright Phillips D

Given that in his first three months at the club Shaun Wright-Phillips had two goal bound efforts cleared off the line against Newcastle, shots hit the inside of the post in away games at Stoke and Wolves, and one goal incorrectly disallowed at home to West Brom it’s easy to wonder, once again, what might have been. Had those goals gone in Rangers would have had four more points onto an already impressive total of 15 and been even higher than the creditable eighth place they’d climbed to come mid-November. Neil Warnock’s side would have had scored eight goals in two away wins at Molineux and the Britannia Stadium and Wight-Phillips would have been a key figure in that as well as home wins against Newcastle, West Brom and Chelsea.

But he didn’t, he wasn’t, and his form collapsed more than most thereafter. He’s never struck me as lacking in effort, but it’s come to resemble the sort of effort a teenage son makes for his step dad. It’s just not quite the same for him as it was when he was at Man City is it? And you can tell. Confidence shot, will to work and make the effort spent, his lengthening spell of time without a goal clearly weighed heavy on him. When he finally did notch in the league it memorably came at Chelsea away but when he should have been ripping his shirt off and diving into the away end he chose not to celebrate out of respect for a club that overpaid for him, never used him, and then bummed him back to Man City at the first chance they had. Even that night the goal was about the only thing he did right – it’s not too difficult for a full back to mark a winger who can tackle himself with the football after all.

Potentially an asset for QPR in the lower division if he recovers from the ankle injury that ruled him out of the end of the season, and he has the desire, and his attitude is right… Given that Warnock has since singled him out for special criticism for his attitude to the club and the training it’s not likely is it? Another move seemingly doomed to failure from the very start.

Stats:

Cards – 0

14 – Esteban Granero D

By the time Mark Bowen was sent out to face the music on the Open All R’s Podcast prior to the Southampton meltdown and subsequent sacking of his boss it was clear that Mark Hughes and his coaching staff had lost control of the situation. The Welshman admitted they weren’t sure why it had gone wrong, or what they were going to do about it. But I actually think they may have hit upon their best starting 11 for a brief, glorious ten minutes in a home defeat to West Ham just a few weeks before.

Fine performances against Spurs and Chelsea had given way to a total collapse against the Hammers initially as Hughes foolishly sent a flat midfield four containing Granero, Faurlin, Park and Wright-Phillips into battle against a well drilled, tightly bound, physical-as-hell trio of Mark Noble, Kevin Nolan and Mo Diame. The result was a predictably carnage and Rangers were lucky to only be two goals down at half time. Belatedly, Hughes removed Wright-Phillips and Park, added Taarabt to the attack to support Zamora and Cisse, added Diakite to the midfield for muscular presence between Granero and Faurlin and thanks to Taarabt’s fabulous goal within seconds of coming on Rangers were back in the game. The momentum shift was palpable and a draw would surely have been attained had Diakite not naively failed to spot Mark Clattenburg in card happy mode and got himself sent off thereby killing the comeback stone dead.

That 4-3-3 system had served Rangers well and brought the best out of Taarabt and Cisse at the end of the previous season. Granero and Faurlin looked good against Chelsea and Spurs and once Diakite had been added to them against West Ham they purred again. Rangers would almost certainly have still been relegated, but I think at that stage that was our best set up and yet Hughes never returned to it. Granero, impressive initially, lost heart faster than any player I can ever remember. Shaun Derry, never shy of a harsh word for the newcomers this season, went out of his way to tell the podcast how impressed he’d been with the Spaniard and he certainly didn’t fit into the category of ageing player with little to prove. But by December it was like he’d given up altogether and he sulked his way through the remaining months of the season with the demeanour of Harry Enfield’s Kevin the Teenager character - picking up petulant bookings for fun along the way. Even in a bad defeat at West Brom he’d set Taarabt up cleverly for one goal and scored a beautiful second himself but post-Christmas it looked like he barely had the energy and drive to get out of bed in the morning.

Says he’s enjoyed London and wants to stay, but increasingly looked and sounded like a kid here for his gap yah than somebody here to make a serious impact on the football field. Still, highly likely to be a roaring success at another more stable, better coached, more secure team – crying out for interest from somebody like Southampton, West Brom or Everton on these shores or a slew of clubs back in Spain.

Stats:

Cards – Seven yellows (foul, foul, foul, dissent, repetitive fouling, foul, repetitive fouling)

16 – Jermaine Jenas C

Jermaine Jenas is, in a way, similar to Rob Green. Both are players that I’ve seen semi-regularly during their careers so far – maybe six or seven times a season – and never really been that impressed with but who have nevertheless won plaudits elsewhere. With Green I was willing to put my fears about him being far too timid and accident prone to one side given that the Norwich and West Ham fans who have seen him far more than I have seemed to like and rate him – 12 months on I’ve seen little to change my mind that he’s vastly overrated. With Jenas, the question I’m always left with after seeing him play is what, if anything, has he actually contributed to proceedings?

Now this is a player who has been capped by England at every level from Under 16s upwards and has 21 appearances for the senior side. He’s clocked up £12m in transfer fees and more than 300 appearances, the vast majority of which have been in the Premier League and more than 50 of which have been in European competition. So I always assumed it must be something I was missing.

Well if it is then I’m afraid I’m still missing it. Jenas seemed, much like Tal Ben Haim, to be a signing for the sake of making a signing in the January transfer window. Even Harry Redknapp didn’t seem to rate the player that highly given that he’d completely frozen him out of the reckoning when they’d been together at Spurs which made his quest to bring him to Loftus Road look rather more like a move to feed the manager’s transfer window addiction rather than a well thought through attempt at strengthening the team. Taking over Jenas’ no doubt reasonably lucrative Spurs contract for the remaining 18 months of the deal while allowing Ale Faurlin, who QPR already own, to go out on loan wasn’t so much shuffling the deckchairs on the deck of the Titanic as ordering in expensive new sun loungers.

Six months on, the question of what exactly Jenas does continues to niggle. A fine strike against Sunderland, and what seemed at the time like a vital goal against Villa suggest potential as a goalscoring midfielder but his career average is about one in ten, or four a season. He’s not prolific enough to be a budget Frank Lampard-type, not quick or tricky enough to play wide, not strong and forceful enough to protect a back four, not creative enough to be seen as a playmaker capable of guiding a team around the field. During the long, drawn out end to the season the amount of uncompetitive games QPR were involved in gave me the chance to sit and watch Jenas, and only Jenas, for ten minutes at a time in games in an effort to solve the mystery, and to be honest I’m still none the wiser. He has a natural ability to always be ten yards away from where anything is happening. Be it loose possession to be won, a counter attack taking place, a ball breaking loose on the edge of the box, a tackle going in, a fight breaking out – whatever is going on look for Jenas, and he’s always somewhere on the periphery having no effect on it whatsoever. He floats through games unnoticed, not bothering anybody, not tackling anybody and not creating anything. I’d be surprised if his kit has needed washing at all since he got here. He’s tidy enough when the ball does arrive with him, and well-spoken and sensible when interviewed, but his locker seems bare to me. As much cut and thrust as a news item on The One Show.

I’d expect a man of 21 England caps and just 30 years of age to be able to go into the Championship and grab games by the scruff of the neck. Jermaine Jenas should, in theory, be capable of taking a home game with Yeovil and dictating the whole thing from the middle of midfield , dominating proceedings and directing QPR around the park, assisting one and setting up another in an embarrassingly easy 2-0 win. Sadly after six months of his Jenas the Friendly Ghost routine I fear he’d probably find himself totally upstaged by the Glovers’ excellent central midfielder Ed Upson who, in stark contrast to Jenas, never seems more than five yards away from the action and always looks like he’s about to carve out a chance for his team.

Stats:

Cards – One yellow (foul)

23 – Junior Hoilett D

The signing of Junior Hoilett was, for me, one if the highlights of last summer and his subsequent demise has been one of the most painful parts of the season. A player proven at Premier League level, wanted by other teams, and at a super age available at a cut price deal – it seemed like the ideal transfer for QPR to be involved in and may still work out well if he can somehow restore his shattered confidence. Hoilett started his time at the club well – impressive as a second striker at Spurs, on the score sheet from a wider role against Everton – but he suffered injuries through the winter and with the team on the floor by the time he returned his form totally collapsed. Over weight and devoid of many signs of life by the end of the campaign he looked like a fat lad who’d eaten the real Junior Hoilett and assumed his identity.

Having said the Ji-Sung Park signing was made for all the wrong reasons, I’d add at this point that almost all of the signings made last summer were made for the wrong reasons because – Ryan Nelsen apart – they were made because of their name and reputation rather than because they played in a position that needed strengthening. Hughes, Fernandes and QPR seemed drawn to players because of who they were rather than because they played left full back and QPR needed a left full back. Signing Julio Cesar immediately after acquiring Robert Green was the most glaring case but even with Hoilett – a signing that ticked a lot of boxes – Hughes seemed to acquire him without any real idea where he was going to fit in the team, or indeed what system the team would be playing in. It almost seemed like the tactic was to just throw as much money at players as we could, get as many big names on board as possible, and then we’d come up for air at the end of August, see who we had and try to mould them into a team. It resulted in some positions – notably central midfield – being over populated with a lot of very similar sorts of players while others – like centre half – were lacking enough even half decent personnel. Hoilett was in and out of the team and playing a variety of roles even when he was playing well. It’s highly possible that Hughes bought him with a left wing position in a 4-1-4-1 formation in mind, given that’s how we started the season, and then had to throw that plan out after the Swansea and Norwich debacles but it’s equally possible – and actually more likely in my view – that for a good portion of the summer, and probably all of August too, Hughes didn’t know what system he was going to play, which of his new signings would be starting, and what positions they’d be in.

Hoilett fits into that category of player I’d like to see stay and put in some hard yards, with some decent coaching, because he could potentially tear into the Championship. Sadly I also think he’s in that group of players that a club with a settled team and coaching staff, with a solid plan for how it wants its first team to set up and play, is going to pick off relatively cheap and find themselves with a bargain. A long way back for him though because by the end of the season he could barely even control the football properly.

Stats: 17 starts, 11 sub appearances. W4, D6, L18

Cards – One yellow (foul)

29 – Andros Townsend B

I was really surprised by how well Townsend did for us this season – he’s probably the only signing we have made in the last 12 months apart from Ryan Nelsen who actually exceeded expectations with everybody else apart from Loic Remy turning in vastly inferior performances to the ones they’d managed previously for other clubs. Townsend is 21 and has already worked his way through eight loan spells. I’m all for young players from big Premier League clubs going out and getting first team experience but eight separate spells – with none of the clubs taking him on again for a following season – rang a few alarm bells with me. He’d never managed more than two goals for any of those clubs either – two in 26 appearances for Leyton Orient, two in 11 at Millwall, two in nine at MK Dons – and he’d rubbed fans of Leeds up the wrong way by choosing to end a mediocre loan spell there in favour of embarking on a similarly unimpressive time at Birmingham City leading to questions about his attitude in some quarters. And, let’s be honest, his head looks like it belongs on a body three times the size of the one he’s got. It seemed, much like the Jermaine Jenas signing, to be an addition for the sake of making one with Harry unable to resist sticking his head through a Range Rover window and dragging another “triffic fella” he sort of likes and might have a use for through just as Jim White gets ready for his bi-annual televised bukkake party at 11pm.

But Townsend was the opposite of everything I expected. Bright, committed and hard working right through to the end of his spell, and initially dangerous and productive as well. Premier League defenders who hadn’t played him before found his all-action style difficult to cope with and he weighed in with fine goals against Sunderland and Villa. He looked like Jamie Mackie before Jamie Mackie lost form and confidence. He should certainly have done enough to secure interest from other Premier League clubs, rather than Championship ones, for what will no doubt be a further temporary move next season. I’m not convinced he’s good enough for Spurs’ first team now, or ever will be, but I guess he could be useful cover for Aaron Lennon.

If he is to take a lesson away from his time at Rangers – other than not registering a betting account in his own name and then using it to bet on games in a competition he’s involved in contrary to FA rules – then it would be to learn a few new tricks. Initially his direct style and willingness to cut inside a full back and get a shot away, encouraged by Redknapp playing him wide right despite being left footed, caught opposition defenders out and brought him two goals. But once people got wise to the fact that he never goes outside his full back to cross, always looking to come inside and shoot, it made him easy to cope with. Poor quality of his team mates taken into account, one assist from 12 matches for a winger isn’t great going. He needs to make himself more unpredictable: a defender needs to be unsure whether he’s coming infield to shoot, looking to cross an early ball, or getting ready to take his man to the byline and try to whip one over from there. At the moment what Andros Townsend is about to do in possession is so obvious even Andros Townsend wouldn’t take a bet on it.

Stats:

Cards – Two yellows (dissent, foul)

32 – Ale Faurlin D

It’s rather difficult to take Harry Redknapp seriously when he talks about having “the right sorts” at QPR while Alejandro Faurlin is out in Italy warming the bench at Palermo. Rarely has a foreign footballer taken to a club, and the fans to him, as readily and loyally as Faurlin and that attitude and commitment has come against a backdrop of upheaval and personal strife. Faurlin has known nothing at Rangers except a constant rotation of managers and controversy over how he ended up at the club in the first place. Even when Neil Warnock settled everything down and the Argentinean starred in a promotion winning season, an FA hearing into his move hung like a dark cloud over the second half of the campaign. When Faurlin did get his shot in the big time he excelled until he ruptured knee ligaments in a cup game at MK Dons.

By the time he was fit again Warnock had gone, replaced by Mark Hughes who had been highly praised by his former charges for his attitude to the recovery of injured players. Bumping Faurlin to the lowest squad number handed out last summer without even telling the player first suggested that Faurlin wasn’t part of Hughes’ grand plan, but once the season was underway it suddenly seemed he was so integral to it that not a single second of rest could be afforded to him. Originally pencilled in for a return in late September, Faurlin started a cup match against Walsall on August 28 and played a full 90 minutes followed by 72 minutes at Manchester City four days after that, 90 minutes against Chelsea on September 15, 90 minutes at Spurs on September 23 and then 87 minutes against Reading three days later when – shock horror – he fell victim to a pre-meditated, nasty foul from Noel Hunt and was carted off clutching his knee.

No matter – Monday October 1 another 90 minutes in an overrun and physically dominated midfield against West Ham, and then another 79 minutes in the same situation at Stoke ten days later. Faurlin initially looked like he had the potential to form a terrific partnership in the centre of the park with Esteban Granero – the pair of them were excellent at Spurs – but he quickly looked tired and leggy. He never had the best physique or the swiftest turn of pace but he looked heavier and slower, and his old strength of winning aerial balls weighted 40/60 against him had been replaced by an inability to compete in the air even when the odds seemed stacked in his favour. The knee injury originally happened when he landed on a straight leg after one such airborne duel and I’m yet to see him go up and contest a header with any conviction since.

Having been flogged to death on his return by Hughes, Faurlin then seemed to become a scapegoat for Harry Redknapp – often the first to be dropped after a collectively poor team performance. He was back to his game-controlling best in a win against Fulham but subsequent defeats to Newcastle and West Brom saw him dropped again for the New Year fixtures before he returned and played well in the FA Cup at West Brom. A poor performance in the subsequent round against MK Dons brought pointed remarks from Redknapp about sub-standard displays from players he’d heard were brilliant – Faurlin clearly well in his sights with that one – and he was then loaned out to Palermo, a club almost as farcical and badly run as our own, where the manager who brought him in was sacked days later.

Faurlin, Fulham apart, has yet to show anything like the form he was in before his injury when in my opinion he was one of the Premier League’s better midfielders outside the top six and sure to attract transfer window interest. I think the club have managed him dreadfully all season, from the way Hughes flung him back in at the deep end to Redknapp loaning him out and replacing him with Jermaine Jenas. This is a good player, who loves playing for the club, and when not selected was taking himself down to Ravenscourt Park to run fitness drills on his own on a Sunday morning. This is the right sort, exactly the kind of player we should be looking to persevere with and coach. Expect him to be palmed off at the first opportunity.

Stats:

Cards – One yellow (foul)

40 – Stephane Mbia C

While we ended the season still unsure of what Jermaine Jenas actually does, the question of Stephane Mbia’s best position remains similarly outstanding. I think it’s reasonably clear that Mark Hughes viewed him as a potential solution to the centre half problem after missing out on Michael Dawson. Injury robbed Hughes of the chance to try Mbia there until Arsenal away in October when he played alongside Ryan Nelsen and, with plenty of help from an in-form Julio Cesar, a reasonably solid rear-guard action that day suggested promise for the future. Sadly the R’s ended up losing that game after Mbia had what would become a trademark head explosion and was sent off for kick out out at Thomas Vermaelen after the referee had awarded QPR a free kick just where they wanted one ten minutes from time. There are one or two “who knows how it would have turned out if…” moments in this year’s End of Term Review and Mbia’s sending off at Arsenal is certainly one of them. Had he stayed on, had Rangers held out at 0-0, then Hughes would have had a morale boosting result and his first choice centre back pairing to take into a run of games against Reading, Stoke and Southampton. Instead, Mbia was sent off, the Arsenal game was lost in crushing circumstances, and the three subsequent matches yielded just a single point while the Cameroon international was suspended. By the time he was available for selection again Hughes had been sacked.

Thereafter he was used exclusively in the centre of midfield, expect for one match at Manchester United where he played right full back and arguably turned in his best performance for the club. New manager Harry Redknapp’s initial logic for pairing Mbia with his fellow mad African Samba Diakite in the centre of the park was that they were big, athletic and physical and therefore “nobody will want to play against them.” On the contrary, any Premier League midfielder with half a brain would give his eye teeth to play against both Mbia and Diakite every week if he could because they’re both reckless and easy to get on early yellow cards, both have the positional sense of an epileptic gnat and in Mbia’s case seem to revel in the danger of allowing midfield runners to ghost in behind unchecked and unmarked to further outnumber the QPR centre backs. In the Wigan home match, where Mbia to his credit had a big hand in Remy’s wonderful opening goal, the game was eventually lost (well, drawn, but it felt like a loss) because Mbia had allowed a Wigan man to run in behind him for the thousandth time in the match and then fouled him foolishly right on the edge of the box – Shaun Maloney scored the resulting free kick. The brain farts continued all season, with wild challenges mixed in with some extraordinary play acting.

When he played centre half I had people tell me he was a central midfielder playing out of position, and when he was then moved into midfield different people told me he was a centre half being used in a makeshift way. Nobody seems sure what he is. An outstanding performance in the defeat at Fulham suggests he can be the all-action, domineering central midfield presence all teams need, but performances like it were few and far between. Overall, on his first season’s showing, he doesn’t look very good or very bright to me. And that’s without going into his moronic social media activity.

Stats:

Cards – One red (Arsenal A, violent conduct), ten yellows (foul, foul, foul, repetitive fouling, foul, deliberate handball, diving, foul, foul, foul)

Others >>> When Kieron Dyer arrived at Loftus Road most supporters expected him to be a waste of space and a sick note and having managed just four minutes of action during 2011/12 he initially more than lived up to that billing. To extend his contract for another year last summer seemed like a remarkable decision by the club and given that he’d only clocked up four starts and four sub appearances in 18 months when he was finally released in January you’d expect there was a good deal of “good riddance” in the air. Not so. Dyer actually succeeded in winning a good deal of sympathy from the QPR fans who saw in brief flashes at Man Utd and Spurs (where he was man of the match) what a good player he could still be if only he could get fit. Most wished him well as he headed to Middlesbrough.

Fewer good wishes for Joey Barton who spent the season on loan at Marseille. Never short of a word or two on Twitter, Barton blamed “Hughes and his cronies” for QPR’s demise and said he’d warned the club what would happen last summer Given that he’d danced around on Neil Warnock’s grave after his sacking, never missing the opportunity to praise Hughes and talk about how much better everything was under his command, it was hard to place too much stock in his words. Not in the Marseille starting 11 by the end of the season which suggests QPR may not be rid of him just yet.

Hogan Ephraim is also back and under consideration after a mediocre loan spell with Toronto. He’s a likeable lad, with a great attitude, but really at 25 years of age it’s time to piss or get off the pot now – a really good, consistent, impressive season of regular starts and decent performances is required or it’s time for him to look elsewhere.

Little headway made by Michael Doughty and Frankie Sutherland during their respective temporary spells elsewhere. They’ve got more time on their side than Ephraim though. Tom Hitchcock scored some eye catching goals at Bristol Rovers but was in and out of their team. Jordan Gibbons struggled to make any impact at Inverness.

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R_in_Sweden added 07:34 - Jun 11 Thanks for that Clive. Tragic what's happened to Faurlin, it would be nice to see him given another chance if he's managed to shake off the after effects of his injury. One of the old school. It doesn't seem as though Redknapp has any time for him though. Spot on about the disaster that was Park. At least some of our pre-season opposition seems to be a bit stronger than it was in the ridiculous brand building friendlies we were involved in last year.

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DesertBoot added 08:56 - Jun 11 Ah yes, August last year. Diakite, Hoilett, a gradually brought back Faurlin and a cultured player from Real Madrid. What could possibly go wrong?
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KevinPR added 09:24 - Jun 11 Hard to disagree with any of that. A lot of us were thinking the same without actually saying it. Nothing wrong with playing the blind optimism card, right?
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Toast_R added 10:04 - Jun 11 Depressing Read. It actually makes me want to go down the ground, line up all the Directors, Managers and Coaches and punch their faces in and drag their asses up and down South Africa Road for being so dumb stupid. I can’t continue to watch the club burn itself like this anymore.
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YorkRanger added 12:48 - Jun 11 Difficult reading (given its accuracy) as I am trying hard to get over last season.
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toemasher added 15:06 - Jun 11 I saw Ale down at ravenscourt park a couple of times during last season and he seemed pretty sad and down about his position in stark contrast to the optimism he showed before, even when injured. His career with us mirrored my experience as a fan, all that promise and optimism discarded by club policy and managerial blinkers. I am still waiting for Harry to say anything to lift our heads and hearts. Faith in players like Ale may be a rocky but good start

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Patrick added 15:37 - Jun 11 The more we hear the litany of individual players failings, the more I start to wonder if the real fault is elsewhere. Granted, we signed one or two clunkers, but most clubs do, and they get over it. In general surely the squad weren't the worst group of players ever assembled at our club - far from it, most had fair ability or experience that we should have been able to use. What comes over is a complete failure of any effective leadership from managers, coaches, executives, board, you name it. That collective failure by the club is the most disappointing aspect of this most disappointing season. The players are human and probably react like most of us would if going to work in a shambles (try it some time!). However you do see that we need big characters on the field, not just big names, and hopefully that has sunk in for the future. (Although judging by last week's rumour I have my doubts.)

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TheChef added 16:11 - Jun 11 Hughes had the perfect midfield system and formation in place at the end of the 11-12 season which helped keep us up. Why he decided to rip that up over the summer and try something else that never worked, we'll never know.
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enfieldargh added 18:18 - Jun 11 as my spurs supporting friend used to say about Jenas. Jenas is like the Emporer's New Clothes. Everyone(coaches/england managers) raves about him, but he cant see that he does anything whatsoever. Sadly I agree
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Jigsore added 22:59 - Jun 11 What makes this even more infuriating is that players like Faurlin don't even need coaching. He just needs to build up his confidence. It's that simple. Better not chuck hmi on the rubbish pile or i'll go spare
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YouRs added 09:21 - Jun 12 Need players with character? Who know they're way out of the Championship? If no one else can help, and if you can find him, then you need Ale Faurlin. It's also worth keeping Diakite and Wright-Phillips. I also think Jenas brings more to the team than you give him credit for - especially in this disease induced season Clive. But wtf do we know? Oh and - "might have a use for just as Jim White gets ready for his bi-annual televised bukkake party at 11pm." - Brilliant Sir!

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MTG added 14:03 - Jun 12 I thought Granero looked a quality addition for his 1st 8 games or so then became dreadful. I do worry there is some QPR curse that extracts the quality out of players. I've also no idea why he seemed to have the monopoly on set pieces as most of his were wasted.
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HOOPNO7 added 19:48 - Jun 12 I think it would be one of the biggest mistakes this club has ever made if Ale was allowed to leave. He was unfairly treated last season. To expect him to be back to his best after his injury is a joke. He will need a full pre-season to regain his fitness & confidence, we will see the player we know and admire, starting by giving him the number 11 back.
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albiceleste added 07:46 - Jun 13 excellent piece (though gut wrenching to read) what is needed is a Kevin Nolan type player to galvanise
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HastingsRanger added 08:40 - Jun 13 On the Ale front, wasn't he one of the key tacklers or something in the Premiership prior to his injury. Agree with HOOPNO7 that he needed time to get back. His attitude is what the club needs. Hope HR watches him closely before letting him go. Cannot ever see SWP cutting it in the Championship - too much ego. Clive, your Defenders and Midfield reports are too depressingly on the button. Thanks anyway! Looking forward to Forwards to complete closure of the worst season I can remember!

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Red_Ranger added 14:03 - Jun 13 A sad and acurate read. Makes me weep. Week in week out kept asking myself 'where's our midfield'? and 'who's in charge out there'?
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derbyhoop added 12:26 - Jun 14 As bad as they were individually, all the problems were exacerbated by the complete lack of balance. If he still had the ability to get where he needed to be, Derry might have been able to hold the thing together. But, without his influence on others, there wasn't a single character in that midfield who could take control of a game. For all Warnock's fault he constructed a plan that worked, albeit at Championship level. Derry and Faurlin were the key to that formation. At the moment, we don't know if either are going to be involved next season (suspect not with Derry), which is going to leave our midfield with a lot of talent but little substance. Perhaps we need somebody like Barton and I can't believe I wrote that.

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