The belated third part of LFW’s annual end of season player-by-player analysis of the campaign features the menagerie of talent utilised in the QPR attack in 2013/14.
It says something about either Armand Traore’s versatility, or his wild inconsistency, that this is his third end of term report from LFW and the third different section we’ve put him in after previously listing him as a defender and then a midfielder. The idea that the Senegalese international is a left full back has been dispensed with and he is now very much seen as an attacking left winger at QPR. That’s probably for the best, given that the main deficiencies with his game are with his defence and he has the pace and crossing ability to trouble defenders going forwards — I still remember that thumping Heidar Helguson header at Stoke a couple of years ago as a real example of how good Traore can be.
We’ve seen pleasing improvement in Traore’s attitude this season — dare I say possibly not entirely unlinked to the departure of Adel Taarabt from the off the pitch scene at Loftus Road. It’s improved markedly and he has spoken both of the effect of Steve Peters’ Chimp Paradox book on his outlook and his desire to play for and please the QPR fans. He scored his first goals for the club at Ipswich and Bournemouth but his form remains erratic and inconsistent and his injury record is poor.
Now out of contract he’s one of those, like Bobby Zamora, who has shown enough this season to suggest QPR might like to keep him around but almost certainly on greatly reduced terms than he’s currently earning. Whether QPR will make such an offer to him is as unclear as whether he’d be willing to accept that. Nice to see a player turning things around a bit though and I’d like him to stay on the right money. QPR were chronically short of pace in the side last season and losing Traore will only exacerbate that problem.
Stats:
Appearances: 15 starts and 10 sub appearances
Scoresheet: 2 goals scored (Ipswich A, Bournemouth A), 2 assists (Barnsley A, Reading H), W14 D6 L5
Discipline: 0 cards
LFW Ratings: 4, 6, -, 6, -, 6, -, 6, -, 5, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 5, 6, 7, 7, 6, 7, 6, 6, 6, 7 = 6.09
Fans’ Average Rating: 6.24
Man of the Match Awards: 3 (Bournemouth A, Leeds H, Reading H)
If ever proof were needed that you should place no stock whatsoever in anything Harry Redknapp says publicly, then the signing of Ravel Morrison was surely it. All the talk of right sorts, sound characters in pre-season, and the decision to bomb out Adel Taarabt - a very similar poorly behaved maverick - for the second time in his career all looked fairly ridiculous when Morrison turned up on loan from West Ham in January.
After all, this was the boy who blew his chance at Manchester United through poor behaviour and mixing with the wrong crowd. He wouldn’t even listen to Alex Ferguson for goodness sake. He started the season brilliantly at West Ham, scoring a superb solo goal at Tottenham, and was even being mentioned as an outside bet for the World Cup before the Hammers too decided to cut him loose despite being mired in a relegation battle, woefully short of goals and quality in the attacking third of the pitch. Morrison’s Instagram account has, at various points over the past six months, shown him piling up wads of bank notes on his dining room table, smoking his way through England games on the television, and posing in front of souped up cars on East London trading estates in the dead of night. A right sort in the alternative meaning of the term it seems.
But at a time when Charlie Austin was injured, QPR needed something to trouble teams and Morrison was certainly that. Shortly after his signing The Guardian’s Daniel Taylor, an experienced sports journalist well connected with the Manchester clubs, was confident enough in his sources to publish a story saying Morrison’s behaviour at West Ham had been exemplary as he turned his life around away from the north west and in actual fact he’d been shipped out because of his persistent refusal to yield to pressure from Sam Allardyce and Kevin Nolan to sign for Big Fat Sam’s Big Fat Dodgy Agent.
The evidence on the field at Loftus Road, by and large, supported that as Morrison showed a decent work rate and attitude, despite dropping down a division, and scored a clutch of high quality, often very important goals. He seemed popular with his team mates, who mobbed him after classy strikes at Middlesbrough and Birmingham — where he won the game almost single handed — and really the only criticism you could level at him was his tendency to dive pathetically, and unconvincingly, under minimal contact and then lose his rag with referees when they laughed off his appeals. That and, at times, his fitness seemed to be wanting somewhat — Morrison’s is not the arse of a professional sportsman and pouring smoke down his throat isn’t going to help him much either.
But all in all it seemed rather strange that having taken a chance on him, built the attack around him and got a decent return, Harry Redknapp then shoved Morrison aside during the play-offs. Picked out of position as a striker in an away leg at Wigan where the obvious target was to get a nil nil draw he played poorly and was substituted early then left out of the second leg while Kevin Doyle was picked out of position as one of the three man supporting cast behind a lone striker. That didn’t seem to make sense to me at all.
Overall Morrison’s situation hasn’t changed greatly — he’s potentially one of the great English footballing talents of this generation but almost certain to waste the opportunity to be a genuine great because he’s a bit thick and poorly behaved.
Stats:
Appearances: 15 starts and 2 sub appearances for QPR, 16 starts and 5 sub appearances for West Ham
Scoresheet: 6 goals scored (Boro A, Forest H, Yeovil H, Yeovil H, Birmingham A, Birmingham A), 2 assists (Watford H, Forest H), W7 D4 L6. 5 goals scored for West Ham (Cheltenham H, Everton H, Cardiff H, Spurs A, Norwich A) W4 D5 L12
Discipline: 3 yellows (foul, foul, unsporting conduct), 6 yellows for West Ham
LFW Ratings: 6, 6, 8, 7, 8, 4, 7, 6, 7, 6, 7, 7, -, 6, 6, 5, 6 = 6.375
Fans’ Average Rating: 6.31
Man of the Match Awards: 5 (Blackburn A, Yeovil H, Brighton A, Birmingham A, Charlton A)
Although it’s rather a shame, and typical of the way our club is at the moment, that QPR didn’t pop down the road to a club they’re connected with more than most and get Matt Phillips for £325,000 from Wycombe in August 2010, rather than spending £4m to buy him from Blackpool last summer, this is exactly the sort of signing Rangers should be making. Phillips is a good age — 23 — and already has more than 200 first team appearances to his name. He’s proven in all three divisions of the Football League and has Premier League experience as well. Young, quick, gifted, hungry, plenty to prove, plenty of potential — for all the justified criticism of Harry Redknapp’s transfer policy, he’s the only QPR manager for some time who has gone out and signed players like Phillips and Charlie Austin.
Sadly, Phillips rather stuttered and spluttered his way through his first season at Loftus Road. He arrived from Blackpool with an elbow injury which he couldn’t shake off — one can only imagine what Mark Dennis, or Alan McDonald, or Gavin Maguire would have made of a team mate ruled out for weeks on end with an elbow injury but there we go. Then when he did get in the team he was inconsistent — exceptionally good in a draw at Reading which should have been a win, and then woefully inadequate just a week later in a defeat at eventually relegated Doncaster.
Perhaps that was just him finding his way back to fitness, and gaining a foothold at a new club, because through December and January he really started to impress. He had his best game for the club so far in a win at Blackpool in biblically bad conditions, scored a powerful goal in a home win against Bournemouth and bagged another in the return game against Doncaster. He was a powerful, pacy threat down the QPR right and looked like a key man for the rest of the season until a horrific tackle, shamefully unpunished at the time, broke his ankle in a 3-3 draw with Burnley and ruled him out for the rest of the season.
Much will depend on how he recovers from that knock. Like Nedum Onuoha we’ve already seen plenty from him to suggest he could easily perform well as a regular starter for QPR in the top flight but we now need to see from both of them the ability and stamina to complete a full campaign injury free. While the loss of Charlie Austin is rightly lamented as a key moment in the season, I don’t think it’s exaggerating things too much to say QPR would have gone a lot closer to automatic promotion had Phillips stayed fit as well.
Really looking forward to seeing him back at the highest level next season.
Stats:
Appearances: 14 starts and 8 sub appearances
Scoresheet: 3 goals scored (Blackpool A, Bournemouth H, Doncaster H), 3 assists (Derby H, Blackpool A, Bolton H), W10 D6 L6
Discipline: 1 yellow (foul)
LFW Ratings: 5, 7, 6, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 6, 5, 7, 5, 7, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, -, 7, 7, - = 6.00
Fans’ Average Rating: 6.27
Man of the Match Awards: 2 (Bolton H, Blackpool A)
Arguably the biggest disappointment of the 2013/14 season.
It’s easy, with hindsight, to absolutely slate the transfer "policy” (and rarely can the definition of that word have been stretched so far) of Mark Hughes and Mike Rigg and lament the state it left QPR in. Signing ageing, injury prone players on massive money at a time when their motivation and physical capabilities were as low as they’d ever been was never likely to work out and it’s left QPR, for the last two seasons, with a colossal amount of the wage bill tied up in two strikers — Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora — who simply aren’t fit to play the game regularly. But, when Fulham won 1-0 at Loftus Road in 2011/12 Andy Johnson was still a stand out player on the field, and in the corresponding fixture at Craven Cottage he scored three times. There is still a good player in Andy Johnson.
At the start of this season he spoke with conviction about rejecting the chance to move elsewhere because he felt he had to stay at QPR and repay the club and its fans for their faith in him while he’s been injured. The idea of a fit, motivated Andy Johnson playing Championship football was an appetising one and he smashed in his first of the season to win the opening game of the campaign against Sheffield Wednesday at Loftus Road. Having followed that up with a winner at Bolton it seemed that Johnson would be crucial to Rangers’ hopes and so when news filtered through right at the end of deadline day in August that he was on the cusp of a cheap move back to Crystal Palace the reaction was one of dismay.
As it turned out, it would have been better if he’d gone. Johnson, as he’d done the previous season, spent almost all of 2013/14 unavailable for selection while pulling a colossal weekly wage. A brief, and very impressive, return in January against Bournemouth apart he was completely useless to the first team’s output this season and got very rich doing it.
One can only imagine how many eyes were rolled up at Huddersfield, where the chairman had already made barbed comments about how much money certain relegated clubs were spending on Premier League loan players this season, when QPR turned up for an end of season EDS play-off match against the Terriers with Andy Johnson playing up front. You could say that, like so many other things, sums up the modern day QPR more than anything else.
Another player seeing out time while topping up a sizeable pension pot.
Stats:
Appearances: 10 starts, 10 sub appearances
Scoresheet: 2 goals scored (Sheff Wed H, Bolton A), 3 assists (Exeter A, Huddersfield H, Bournemouth H) W9 D6 L5
Discipline: 2 yellows (foul, foul)
LFW Ratings: 6, 7, 7, 6, 7, 6, 6, 7, 6, 6, 8, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5 = 6.25
Fans’ Average Rating: 6.43
Man of the Match Awards: 2 (Sheff Wed H, Bournemouth H)
Player of the Year by a country mile.
There’s a lot to like about Charlie Austin but the thing that impresses me most about him is his calmness. His nerveless penalty against Wigan in the play-offs is the obvious example but I thought the way he was able to come in from Burnley last summer with a big price tag on his head and questions about his fitness following a failed medical at Hull City, and play on his own up front for a side that struggled to create chances and score prolifically all season, and just play his normal game and score regularly right from the off was really impressive.
He has a great attitude to the sport, probably born out of playing non-league while working as a brick layer rather than swanning around in some Premier League academy set up on big money, and his work rate is phenomenal. You’ll struggle to find a striker as good in the air — certainly he heads a ball better than anybody at QPR since Paul Furlong and Les Ferdinand before that. A last minute winner in a dreadful game at home to Doncaster at Christmas typified him; distant second favourite to even reach the ball he managed to get sufficient power and accuracy on the header to guide it into the top corner.
He’s brave. If you think we’re slightly harsh for criticising Matt Phillips for being out for such a long period of time with an elbow injury, let’s remember that Charlie Austin played the majority of this season with dislocated shoulders. Only when he was forced into changing his blood spattered shirts by match officials did the true physical strain he was going through for the team show — his torso and shoulders tightly bound together by wads of bandages and strapping. Even when the injury did finally end his participation for three months, he stayed on the field against Bolton with his arm hanging limply, painfully, by his side long enough to get another crucial goal and help Rangers to a victory. Without that period out of the team QPR would almost certainly have gone up automatically.
If there is a criticism, it’s that his hold up and lay game, and occasionally his first touch, isn’t quite where it needs to be. I think we saw that in the first few games Kevin Doyle played for Rangers after Austin was injured. But overall he’s by far the best centre forward in the Championship and, at just 24, seems to be improving his game year on year while scoring prolifically, consistently, regardless of the team he’s playing for or the level it’s at.
It’s easy, and perhaps lazy, to suggest that he’ll be found out in the Premier League, and that may well be the case. But QPR must resist all temptation to sign a load of big names and shove him down the pecking order following promotion. He’s risen from the depths of non-league to the Championship and taken it all in his stride and there’s little to suggest that won’t continue in the top flight where worse players than him have held their own, and players with similar styles and backgrounds — Rickie Lambert a prime example — have thrived in recent years. Nobody will work harder for the opportunity that’s for sure and I cannot wait to see what he does with his first opportunity to play in the top division.
Congratulations on a terrific season Charlie, and really well done QPR and Harry Redknapp for taking a chance on the signing 12 months ago. Exactly the sort of player and personality you want to see coming into QPR.
Stats:
Appearances: 34 starts and 3 sub appearances
Scoresheet: 20 goals scored (Exeter A, Birmingham H, Yeovil A, Barnsley H, Barnsley H, Boro H, Millwall A, Charlton H, Doncaster A, Bournemouth H, Blackpool A, Doncaster H, Huddersfield H, Bolton H, Watford H, Millwall H, Barnsley A, Wigan H p/off, Wigan H p/off) 6 assists (Ipswich A, Reading A, Derby H, Barnsley H, Yeovil A, Ipswich H), W22 D7 L8
Discipline: 3 yellows (foul, foul, unsporting conduct)
LFW Ratings: 5, 6, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 8, 7, 8, 7, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 6, 7, 6, 7, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 6, 7, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 8, 6 = 6.324
Fans’ Average Rating: 6.95
Man of the Match Awards: 5 (Exeter A, Barnsley H, Doncaster H, Huddersfield H, Wigan H p/off)
A child of our times.
In mitigation, Will Keane is not and never will be a lone striker. He’s a link man, a number 10, to play behind that target man, and in that respect he’s a very typical QPR signing because they already had Niko Kranjcar, Ravel Morrison and Yossi Benayoun who played that position so not only was Keane not really required, but he was also another loan signing — helping the club up to eight temporary players when you can only select five in a matchday squad. So a gratuitous, unnecessary addition to begin with, and forced to play out of position when he was selected. Vintage of the modern day QPR. Always another player, always another signing.
Will Keane is a good footballer of excellent pedigree. He has scored regularly for Manchester United’s second string and been named their reserve team Player of the Year. He’s technically excellent, and also not long recovered from a cruciate knee ligament injury — the effects of which we know only too well. He’s actually the sort of signing we often see other clubs making and wonder why QPR don’t snap these players up.
But the problem with Will Keane wasn’t that he was always played out of position, or that he was an unnecessary addition, or that he was recovering from injury or that the ridiculous number of loans at the club meant he was in one week, benched the next and then left out altogether. No, for me the problem with Will Keane is the same problem afflicting hundreds of talented young players in this country who should really have 50-100 appearances under their belt by now and, in many cases, be coming under consideration for England selection.
For a start, I’ve called him a "child” and many dispute this because he’s actually 21 years old and by that age many footballers are very well settled in their first teams and playing regularly. Keane has played just 15 senior games in his entire career, eight from the start, and has spent the rest of his time playing against all the other academy boys on their beautifully manicured academy pitches, safely out of the clutches of Manchester United’s rivals but with no hope of ever playing for Manchester United. He’ll have been exceedingly well paid from a very young age, with all the property and motoring luxury that comes with that. The days of cleaning senior pros’ boots and sweeping the training ground on minimum wage are gone.
Perhaps that was United’s intention when they sent him to QPR, tackling the relentless 46-game Championship from their crumbling training ground rented from a college — to wake him up to the realities of the sport. If it was, it failed entirely. Keane looked bright in an early appearance against Reading, and toiled bravely as a lone striker in an away defeat at Brighton, but mostly looked completely devoid of any hunger, desire, fight or nastiness. Rarely put a foot in, rarely unsettled a defender, rarely made a challenge of any sorts. Fine, you’re being picked out of position, make something of it. He just looked far too nice, like he’d never had to work and graft and scrap for anything in his life. Given half an hour in an end of season dead rubber at Barnsley, where the defending was of an amateur standard all afternoon, he should have been furiously hunting for that first ever senior goal, he should have been filling his boots, and instead he ambled around in the sunshine.
He’s not unique, far from it. The academies and reserve teams at Tottenham, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United are absolutely teeming with these man-child types who, fifteen years ago, would be packing three figures worth of appearances at a first team level by now but these days are restricted to brief loan spells from clubs who have no intention of ever using them in their first team but hold onto them to prevent rivals profiting from their talents, allowing them to grow into lazy, complacent young millionaires rather than hungry, talented footballers. The idea that the big clubs should be allowed to play B Teams in the lower divisions, providing yet another grazing patch to dump this talent in rather than letting it play some proper first team football somewhere shows just how self-centred those running our game and playing at the very top of it really are.
Product of a totally broken system.
Stats:
Appearances: 6 starts and 4 sub appearances, 2 starts and 2 sub appearances for Wigan
Scoresheet: 0 goals scored and 1 assist (Reading H), 0 goals for Wigan
Discipline: 0 cards
LFW Ratings: 6, 6, 5, -, 5, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5 = 5.33
Fans’ Average Rating: 4.31
Man of the Match Awards: 0
When you’re faced with a long term injury to your leading scorer right at the end of the January transfer window there is only so much you can do, and in securing Kevin Doyle on loan from Wolves at the eleventh hour QPR probably did about the best they could in those circumstances.
Doyle had certainly gone stale at Molineux. One of the high earners who’d been part of a side that plummeted through the top two divisions of English football, he’d managed only three goals in League One in the first half of the season which didn’t exactly bode well for his QPR career. But Wolves had been a toxic place to play football for several years before Kenny Jackett turned up — harangued by their own fans and constantly changing managers — and Doyle was playing with the knowledge that the club wanted him and his wages moved on as quickly as possible in the back of his mind.
He started well for Rangers, scoring early against Burnley and then again against his former club Reading at Loftus Road. He worked hard, won headers, and arguably displayed a better hold up and lay game than the free scoring striker he was brought in to cover for in W12. Overall, he wasn’t too bad at all prior to picking up a bad injury from a typically illegal and nasty tackle from Paul Robinson up at Birmingham City in March.
That seemed like it would be the end of his time at Loftus Road, and in all fairness it probably should have been. Once he was fit again Charlie Austin was back in the team and Doyle wasn’t needed. Harry Redknapp tried to shoehorn the two of them in together, when playing with two strikers has never once suited this QPR team this season, and then in the play offs he bizarrely included him in all three matches from the start as a right winger, a position Doyle hasn’t played since he was an up and coming junior in the Irish leagues. He won plenty in the air and worked hard, but was largely ineffective and in the semi-final second leg against Wigan Rangers only really started playing once he’d gone off.
Redknapp’s apparent keenness to bring him in permanently seems odd. Even when Doyle was playing well there was little in his game to suggest he could still cut it in the top flight.
Stats:
Appearances: 10 starts, 2 sub appearances. 16 starts and 9 sub appearances for Wolves. 6 caps for Ireland.
Scoresheet: 2 goals scored (Reading H, Burnley H), 2 assists (Barnsley A, Leeds H) W9 D5 L6. 3 goals scored for Wolves (Swindon H, Colchester A, Stevenage H) W13 D7 L5. 1 goal for Ireland (Costa Rica) W2 D2 L2.
Discipline: 1 yellow (foul). 1 yellow for Wolves.
LFW Ratings: 8, 5, 6, 5, 6, 7, 5, -, 6, 6, 6 = 6.00
Fans’ Average Rating: 5.99
Man of the Match Awards: 1 (Burnley H)
Continues to thrill and frustrate in equal measure. You don’t really have to look any further than the semi-final against Wigan at Loftus Road to sum up the good and bad of Junior Hoilett — one minute surging into the area to win a crucial equalising penalty, the next falling over his own feet from an attacking corner and freeing Wigan into a dangerous counter attack. His decision making is poor and his touch is erratic but there’s enough in him to be a good Premier League player if he can add consistency to his game.
At the start of the season he looked like he might be a key man for Rangers — scoring an early goal and playing well in a draw at Huddersfield. But, once again, he was plagued by a hamstring injury that has dogged his time with the club so far. Rangers have had similar problems with Andy Johnson and Fitz Hall in recent years where the player starts, starts, starts and goes off injured, misses a month, then comes back and repeats the cycle over again, disrupting the team as he goes. Either form or fitness or both really seemed to effect Hoilett’s confidence, and harsh treatment from the Loftus Road crowd won’t have helped with that — he still managed more than 30 appearances and more assists than anybody else.
If ever there was a player with potential, who can be improved and coached, it’s surely Junior Hoilett. Hopefully QPR’s recent tactic of casting aside such prospects in favour of the next big name signing won’t do for his career as it has so many others at Loftus Road in recent years. Really big 12 months coming up for him.
Stats:
Appearances: 27 starts and 12 sub appearances.
Scoresheet: 4 goals (Huddersfield A, Bournemouth H, Blackpool H, Forest H) 8 assists (Sheff Wed H, Barnsley H, Burnley H, Reading H, Yeovil H, Yeovil H, Wigan H p/off, Derby p/off)
Discipline: 3 yellows (foul, foul, foul)
LFW Ratings: 7, 7, 7, 6, 7, 5, -, 8, 7, 5, 5, 6, 7, 6, 7, 5, 5, 5, 5, -, 6, 6, 5, 4, 5, 5, 7, 5, 6, 6, 6, 5, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 8 = 6.00
Fans’ Average Rating: 6.12
Man of the Match Awards: 0
Well, whatever you say about him and however much money he’s taken from QPR, it was probably all worth it for that Wembley winner which won the club promotion back to the Premier League, £120m, and gave many of us the best day of our lives. He played a large part in getting the club to the play off final as well, emerging from the bench for the second leg of the semi-final with Wigan and producing a superb display of centre forward play to help topple the Latics.
But it’s worth remembering, particularly as his highly lucrative contract is now up for renewal, that Bobby Zamora has not only been almost completely useless for QPR prior to this season, but he was also absolutely terrible this term right through until March. In the Premier League last season he limped around when selected and spoke about a hip problem that would seize up at half time and required surgery. It was a funny one that hip problem, because while it prevented him from running around, moving freely or contributing anything significant for more than very brief lengths of time it didn’t prevent him lifting his boot up so high that he studded Jordi Gomez in the face to earn a red card in a crucial relegation six-pointer at home to Wigan.
This season he initially picked up where he left off — either injured and out of the side altogether, or woefully inadequate when he was selected. I would say his performance from the start at Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day is the worst you’re ever likely to see from a centre forward at QPR, but then I was subsequently present for his utterly pathetic display at Sheffield Wednesday in March where he looked every inch a player whose heart was no longer in it looking forward to a retirement made considerably more luxurious by the riches QPR foolishly chose to bestow upon him.
But later that week, at Middlesbrough, something extraordinary happened. A discarded Gatorade bottle top from the warm up sent a routine injury-time back pass bobbling over the foot of home goalkeeper Dimi Konstantopoulos leaving Zamora with an empty net to walk the ball into and win the game. Even then the 500 or so QPR fans up in the corner were screaming at him to run the ball in closer for fear he may mess the chance up anyway. From then he became a kind of cult figure rather than an object of hate. Fans started to sing his name, seemingly in mocking tones to start with but then, as the season drew to a close, in genuine appreciation of the impact Zamora suddenly seemed to be able to make from the bench. He scored and had a hand in two others as a late addition against Nottingham Forest, transforming a poor 2-2 draw into an impressive 5-2 win, and was then one of the team’s most important players during the end of season knockout.
A cynic may suggest that this sudden improvement in form and fitness coinciding with the end of his contract isn’t entirely coincidental. Matthew Rose nicked a living from QPR for years like this — injured and out of form for eighteen months then suddenly the best player on the pitch for six until a new two year contract was in the bag at which point he’d revert to type. Or perhaps he simply benefitted from Harry Redknapp accepting his physical limitation and using him as an impact substitute rather than a starter — his LFW ratings below are up and down like a bride’s nightie, in direct correlation to whether he was starting or coming on as a sub.
Zamora is clearly very popular with his team mates. After the Wembley win Joey Barton spoke about how hard he’d worked to get back into the group and the team, and Clint Hill said he wished they could have him out there for 90 minutes because of the difference he makes. A subsequent suggestion from the captain that he’s been "changing games for us all year from the bench” is patently untrue but Zamora was indeed a very useful player to have available from the bullpen at the tail end of the campaign.
He could potentially be so again in the Premier League as well, but he’s one of a number of out of contract players Rangers should surely only be looking to keep on with a short term deal on vastly reduced terms.
Stats:
Appearances: 9 starts and 12 sub appearances
Scoresheet: 4 goals (Yeovil H, Boro A, Forest H, Derby p/off), 4 assists (Boro A, Forest H, Watford H, Wigan p/off) W13 D2 L6
Discipline: 1 yellow (over celebrating)
LFW Ratings: 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 5, 2, 7, 5, 7, 2, 7, 6, 6, 5, 8, 6, 7, 6, 8, 7 = 5.61
Fans’ Average Rating: 5.68
Man of the Match Awards: 0
Only two very brief first team appearance for QPR this season, as a substitute, so no grade, but there’s enough to say about this young man to drag him out of the ‘others’ bucket and give him his own section.
Tom Hitchcock has become a convenient stick to beat QPR with this season as the club continues to point blankly refuse to offer any kind of first team opportunity to any of the younger players from within the system whatsoever. When he came on late in the second half of a dire August match at home to Ipswich his presence felt more like Harry Redknapp trying to force the board into letting him buy another new striker than because he thought Hitchcock would do any good — and so it proved because although he scored a last minute winner that day he wasn’t afforded a single second of first team action in the league at Rangers for the rest of the season and even in a nothing League Cup tie with Swindon where the likes of Mo Sharriff were given big minutes, Hitchcock only came on for the final few seconds.
Hitchcock then went on loan to a relegation threatened Crewe side in League One and scored three times in six starts. He was subsequently loaned to promotion chasing Rotherham in the same league and scored five times in 11 appearances including a hat trick in a 4-3 win at Gillingham which featured a lobbed finish as good as any you’ll ever see at that level of the game. While he was doing that, QPR were labouring without the injured Charlie Austin, struggling for goals and enduring the persistent failures of Will Keane and Mobido Maiga. Whatever you say about Tom Hitchcock, and without going into the merits of affording game time and experience to a player you own rather than loaned players you don’t, it’s hard to make a case that the young striker wouldn’t have been far better for QPR in the second half of the season than either Keane or particularly Maiga.
But there is plenty of evidence to support QPR’s assertion that Hitchcock simply isn’t good enough to play in the top two divisions of English football — the only logical conclusion we can take from his lack of action this year and release at the end of his contract this summer. Firstly, despite the Gillingham heroics, only four of Hitchcock’s Rotherham appearances came from the start. They didn’t believe he was good enough to start in their first team in League One, just as Bristol Rovers didn’t the previous season when he made just seven starts in a three month loan spell there in League Two. The boy scores goals, so it seems perverse, but so far in his career only Crewe have started him regularly while Plymouth, Blackburn, QPR, Bristol Rovers and Rotherham have all used him sparingly from the bench — or not at all — during his respective spells there.
It’s also worth saying that Hitchcock isn’t a fresh-faced teen from QPR’s youth team, he’s a 21-year-old released from Blackburn’s reserve team having failed to make the grade there. So this isn’t somebody QPR have spent years and thousands of pounds developing only to now ignore. In my opinion there are far worse examples of QPR’s continued appalling attitude towards their younger players than this — Michael Harriman stuck on one senior league appearance for the club while the likes of Aaron Hughes are brought in to play his position, and Max Ehmer loaned into League One for the fifth time in his career this season while Oguchi Onyewu sat on the QPR bench, aren’t so much sticks to beat the club with as big planks of wood with nails in.
Overall though, I find it impossible to conclude that QPR would have been any worse off giving the 17 appearances made by Keane and Maiga this season to Hitchcock instead. On the contrary, I think they’d have been a good deal better off. Not only because Hitchcock would almost certainly have bagged more than the one tap in those two loanees managed between them, but also because the presence of one of the club’s youngsters in the team, and the attitude and enthusiasm he would have brought to the role, would have lifted the crowd and kept them onside at a time when — Charlton away in particular — things were starting to turn nasty on the terraces at QPR games. Let’s not forget that on the day Hitchcock was scoring a fine headed winner for Crewe at Colchester, Rangers were playing without a striker at all in a pathetic 0-0 draw at Watford.
Why QPR are still so willing to offer first team football and development opportunities to the kids and failures from other clubs on loan, but steadfastly refuse to afford the same chances to the young players they actually own, remains a mystery to me.
Stats:
Appearances: 0 starts 2 sub appearances for QPR. 6 starts and 0 sub appearances for Crewe. 4 starts and 7 sub appearances for Rotherham.
Scoresheet: 1 goal scored (Ipswich H) 0 assists W1 D0 L0. 3 goals for Crewe (Coventry A, Shrewsbury H, Colchester A) W3 D2 L1. 5 goals for Rotherham (Shrewsbury A, Notts Co H, Gillingham A, Gillingham A, Gillingham A) W7 D2 L2
Discipline: 1 yellow for Rotherham.
LFW Ratings: -, - = -
Fans’ Average Rating: 6.59
Man of the Match Awards: 0
One of the worst footballers I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
As we listen back to the cockpit voice recorder of this latest disaster to befell Queens Park Rangers we find a familiar checklist being followed.
Firstly, it was a totally unnecessary signing, like so many others made by a club which remains a complete liability to itself when the transfer window is open. Redknapp had already, sensibly, added Kevin Doyle as cover for the injured Charlie Austin, and thrown Will Keane in for good measure just in case. Signing a third striker, and another loan which pushed the club up to eight temporary signings when you can only select five in the matchday squad, wasn’t so much belt and braces as greedy and glutinous.
Secondly, it was a name rather than a product of any detailed scouting or considered thought. West Ham had paid £4.7m for the Mali international after an impressive goal scoring season in France with Sochaux and he’d been playing Premier League for the first half of the season. At a club that is always keen to sign another player, especially on deadline day when the eyes of the footballing public are turned to Sky Sports News and you can get your talkative chief executive and bright red Air Asia logo on screen, that’s enough to spark interest, even if he’d been training with the club during January and totally failed to impress.
Thirdly, having looked like a duck and quacked like a duck for the first six months with West Ham it turns out that Mobido Maiga is indeed a duck, much to QPR’s apparent astonishment. At Upton Park Maiga was laughably bad. He displayed the touch and awareness of somebody who’d never once played the sport before. He looked rigid in his movement and apparently completely unaware of the basics of the sport. He seemed startled when the ball came towards him, as if he wasn’t sure what he should be doing with it or what his business was out on the field, and was utterly perplexed by the complexities of the offside law. To be honest, he looked like you could perplex him with a shiny piece of paper never mind the rules of association football. Totally devoid of confidence and self belief, he looked like somebody who wanted to go home. And still QPR signed him. How many times have they done this? If a player is utterly useless for his previous club, or persistently injured at his previous club, why do QPR have this stubborn faith that this suddenly won’t be the case when he gets to Loftus Road?
And while LFW is often guilty of relying on hindsight, we can at least chalk one up in the ‘We told you so’ column for Mobido Maiga. Because we said all of this at the time of the signing only to be told by the happy clappy brigade on social media to "look up the definition of support” and remember that Les Ferdinand wasn’t initially rated by QPR fans.
This idea that being critical of the club or a player somehow makes you less of a supporter of the club, or that you should be unfailingly positive about everything QPR do and every player they sign, is really starting to boil my piss. The remains of a blind man, dead since 1956, exhumed from the ground for the purpose of this experiment, placed in a padded room with no windows 75 miles away from anywhere could have told you that Mobido Maiga was crap. Contrary to what the Twitter says, admitting that out loud doesn’t mean you’re not supporting the club, it just means you’ve got two eyes in your skull and a brain that is at least functioning enough for you to breathe and see. Les Ferdinand indeed. Pur-lease.
Of course, as always happens, we then looked bloody stupid because on his debut in a crucial promotion battle with Burnley Maiga stole in late in the day to slam in an equaliser at the Loft End. Oh how the happy clappers enjoyed that one, rushing home from the match tissues in one hand and God knows what in the other to post on my Facebook wall.
But Maiga was fucking awful in that Burnley game apart from the goal, crossing the ball straight into the Lower Loft under zero pressure on three separate occasions, and rarely climbed above that level for the rest of his time at the club on the mercifully few occasions he made it into the first team. Seeing his name on the team sheet was akin to starting a match with ten men. At Bournemouth he was so laughably awful that at one stage he even seemed to offer a hand of apology to an increasingly irate away following in the side stand. At Leicester, which was by far his best performance for the club, his decision making and execution in the final third was that of somebody who’s actually not very mentally well.
A vague suggestion that QPR were forced to take Maiga in exchange for the loan of Ravel Morrison — which doesn’t stand up to any great scrutiny — would only be meagre mitigation even if it were true.
It may be that Maiga settles in this country and goes onto enjoy a decent career in English football — his stats before he arrived at West Ham were half decent with 24 goals in 59 appearances for Sochaux — but if that is to happen he’ll have to change literally every single thing about his game from what we’ve seen at QPR over the past six months. On that evidence he’s a truly horrific footballer whose seven first team appearances while in W12 should have been made by Tom Hitchcock.
Stats:
Appearances: 2 starts and 6 sub appearances. 15 starts and 4 sub appearances for West Ham
Scoresheet: 1 goal scored (Burnley H) 0 assists. 2 goals scored for West Ham (Spurs A, West Brom H)
Discipline: 0 yellows
LFW Ratings: 6, 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, -, 4 = 4.71
Fans’ Average Rating: 4.26
Man of the Match Awards: 0
Others:
The signing of Javier Chevanton seemed odd. Excellent pedigree and an eye-catching substitute cameo at home to Barnsley on debut promised much, but ultimately he only featured once more as a sub in a defeat at Burnley and was then promptly released. Yet again, hard to make a case that those two appearances wouldn’t have been more use to Tom Hitchcock.
And then there’s Shaun Wright-Phillips. While it’s certainly QPR’s fault for giving him a contract of such length and value, and whatever anybody says they would of course do exactly what he’s doing in the same situation, he is a prime example of everything that’s wrong with not only QPR, but also the modern sport. Despite him offering no output whatsoever for a good eighteen months now, the money continues to pile up. Chances to go on loan at play some football — Charlton made an approach in January — are spurned.
At some stage a young Shaun Wright-Phillips will have dreamed of making it as a professional footballer. Is this what he dreamed of? Coining it in while never playing any actual football? I thought it was entirely wrong that he was allowed to go up the steps and collect the play-off final trophy with the rest of the team at Wembley having taken more than almost all of them in money this season while contributing absolutely nothing to the cause.
And the great news is, he’s got another 12 months of his contract still to run. Stealing a living.
The Twitter @loftforwords
Pictures — Action Images