A day of the transfer window to go and QPR are once again chasing an eclectic mix of names from the world game. Chris King assesses the claims from Mark Hughes and Tony Fernandes that this was the plan all along.
Esteban Granero, Stéphane M’Bia, Júlio César, Ricardo Carvalho and Jose Bosingwa. The list reads like a who’s who of major squad members that a fairly talented manager would have assembled following years and years of playing Football Manager 2006, and endless cheating. However, all of these players either do, or may, have something in common in the real world. This shared connection is, almost incredibly, Queens Park Rangers.
A parody Twitter account pertaining to belong to Mario Balotelli (there are many, some of poor quality, others bordering on comic genius) earlier compared the signing of Inter’s César by QPR to Manchester City landing Richard Wright in a very retro-looking coup, asking the obvious question: has there been some sort of mix-up? A fair inquiry, no doubt, but it is true that weeks after sealing a deal for West Ham United’s Robert Green, Rangers have moved to bring Júlio César Soares Espíndola to west London to join the over 30 club in W12.
This acquisition represents a massive coup for the club, perhaps unrivalled in the R’s history. The nature of modern football dictates that certain players with particular reputations simply do not join clubs below a specific level. For example, those footballers sufficiently talented and successful to be nominated for the 2009 Ballon d’Or, win the Serie A goalkeeper of the year award in 2009 and 2010, take home five Italian top flight titles and lift the Champions League aren’t often linked with QPR.
What is more baffling, to throw an enormous cat among the pigeons, is why Rangers have gone to all this effort to sign the 32-year-old. It is worth recounting the words of manager Mark Hughes, uttered little over two months ago on 21 June: “He's got all the characteristics of a top keeper and he'll be a huge addition for us." This statement referred, of course, to Robert Green, and was the concluding remark of a hard-fought battle to persuade the England goalkeeper that his footballing future lay across the nation’s capital. Green could, after all, have been an automatic first choice in the Premier League at West Ham – where he was well liked – this season.
Suddenly, it seems that after one rather unfortunate display, in which the 32-year-old limply handed Spanish import Michu his first goal in English football during a particularly nefarious 5-0 defeat to Swansea City, Green has suddenly lost the aforementioned characteristics. Although previously Hughes positively beamed when affirming that Green’s “pedigree speaks for itself”, it appears that silence has fallen. For not even QPR would be mad enough to pay through the nose for César simply in order for him to provide “competition” to an inferior being standing shakily between the sticks with the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head.
Did QPR always intend to have four goalkeepers on the books? That is for the club’s decision makers to know, and the rest to speculate loudly on, in absence of the necessary facts although Hughes insists this was always the plan. While nobody is suggesting that Brian Murphy and Radek ÄŒerný ought to be seen as viable alternatives to Green, the Englishman and his Brazilian counterpart are probably on a combined weekly wage that doesn’t really bear thinking about. Such a figure hardly counts towards sustainable development. While this always comes across as a rather moralistic, pious phrase devoid of relevance or meaning in the Premier League, it is rather concerning that the club appears to lack any sort of plan for squad development, and is beginning to operate on fantasy and whim in deciding upon a viable roster for Hughes to work with.
I’m clearly not the only one thinking this. The criticism and concern has reached a level where chairman Tony Fernandes greeted the César signing by saying: “There’s been a lot written in the press in the last few weeks and this is as good a time as any to set the record straight.We’re not panic-buying; we’re not spending beyond our means; and we’re certainly not throwing money away like some are reporting. We’ve got a very strict and precise business plan in place at this club and any deal we do for a player is well within our budget. We’ve sold or released 14 players this summer and Julio is our ninth arrival. This summer was always going to see a big overhaul in terms of players, but we’ve been very prudent with the deals we’ve done and we’re building for the future.”
Perhaps from here it really will all be plain sailing, but in three games so far this season, Rangers have comfortably dispatched Walsall of League One, struggled to a draw away at Norwich City - a side likely to be battling against relegation this season - and been destroyed by Michael Laudrup’s Swansea City. One can only hope that the signing fever which has infected the QPR hierarchy will act to further the cause of forging a tight-knit group of players and avoid the common pitfall of mass buying – fragmentation, uncertainty and disinterest among big names on shockingly large salaries.
It is exciting that Granero likely to swap the Santiago Bernabéu for Loftus Road, and mildly flattering to conclude, albeit rather romantically, that César has even heard of a club at which one of the last great foreign imports was Ákos Buzsáky. However, having already erred when courting elder statesmen of the football world – Joey Barton and Shaun Wright-Phillips in particular – it would be nice to see moderation and consideration replace reckless abandon and the child in the sweetshop mentality that just might blow the club’s budget. If one even exists, that is.
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Pictures – Action Images