QPR have ended weeks of speculation by confirming that Crystal Palace midfielder Shaun Derry will move to Loftus Road on a two year contract at the end of June.
Facts
Derry has taken the opportunity to move to Loftus Road on a free transfer at the end of his Crystal Palace contract, and has signed a two year deal with QPR. The 32 year old defensive central midfielder has been the Palace skipper for the past two years, clocking up 129 appearances for the Eagles since signing on a free transfer from Leeds in 2007.
That was his second spell at Selhurst Park – they originally signed him for £400,000 in 2002 and he made 99 appearances through to 2005. He scored three times in his first spell, and none in his second. In between he spent three months on loan with Forest and three years at Leeds United before dropping out of contention for a first team berth at Elland Road when then manager Dennis Wise accused one member of his playing staff of giving the Leeds team sheet to Crystal Palace officials before a match between the two – Wise never named Derry, but said the culprit would never play for the club again and Derry did indeed never feature again for Leeds.
This will be the third time Warnock has worked with Derry – who started his career with Notts County and then joined up with Warnock at Sheffield United in 1998 in a £700,000 transfer. A spell with Pompey between 2000 and 2002 preceded his first spell at Crystal Palace. He was the captain at Portsmouth, and promoted to the Premiership during his first spell with Palace. He was part of the Leeds United side that lost to Watford in the 2006 Cardiff play off final. Leeds were relegated when Derry missed a large chunk of the season through injury – hernia and ankle problems.
Overall he has made 546 professional appearances and scored 13 goals.
Reaction
Shaun Derry said: “I'm delighted to reach agreement with the Club. There's a very talented group of players already here. When QPR came to Palace at the end of last season, in my own opinion, they were the best side we played at Selhurst Park. That was the kind of performance Neil will want from us next season. The aim has to be to compete at the top - the top two ideally. We've definitely got the ability and the quality to get into the Premier League. Neil was a big sway. When he comes calling, you have to consider what he brings to the table and I really like working with him. He knows what he wants and he's got a way of getting the best out of people. Whenever I've played under him, I've played my best football and long may that continue." qpr.co.uk
Neil Warnock said: “I felt we needed another type of midfielder to what we already have. If we are going to be successful this season we need to cover every avenue. I know Shaun well. He is a very good professional who will benefit the team.” qpr .co.uk
Palace fans said: “cheers again for a great few years and the sheer amount of heart you've shown in leading this team to survival this year, even if your legs barely carried you at the end! You're a terrific captain, a lovely bloke and a great role model to younger players. Good luck at your next club and future off the field.”
“I am a massive fan of Derry and have had the pleasure of chatting to him and witness his fantastic role behind the scenes in a Captain capacity. He really did look like the archetypal right hand man - this was when Warnock was gaffer I should add. I haven't got a bad word to say about him as a man and a captain; as a player he is limited but brilliant at what he does.”
“Wonder if Warnock wants Lawrence ? Could give him a 2 year contract and a pay rise. He will only be 45 at the end of the deal. If I was a QPR fan I would be well pissed off with the quality of players that he is bringing in.”
“A great captain who worked his arse off for the club and provided the team with enormous passion and determination. Was key for us in getting his foot in and breaking up opponents attacks, but as with many in his position was lacking in passing ability, and sometimes left us exposed by playing too high up the pitch when we had the ball. We now need a new captain and a new tackling midfielder. This is probably a good move for us and Derry. He was a Warnock player and may not have held onto the captaincy - we now have a chance for a new captain with the new manager and Derry can try to hold a position with a Manager he gets on with. As for QPR, for a team that's favourite to win the league, I'm not convinced signing a player like Derry will do much to achieve those ambitions. We shall see.” Palace message board
Opinion
Supporters do not like defensive midfielders. For the common fan, and Kevin Keegan, the defenders are for defending and everybody else is for attacking and scoring goals. At QPR for several seasons, and with some justification, supporters have bemoaned the presence of Gavin Mahon and Mikele Leigertwood, and pleaded for players like Buzsaky to start being used in the middle of the park.
Sadly, it’s an English trait to marginalise players such as Buzsaky as wingers, while the middle of the midfield is packed with what Ian Holloway would have one day called ‘piano carriers’. Holloway, that was, who thought Martin Rowlands was too attacking to play in the middle and used him wide while Marc Bircham and Steve Palmer forged a “dynamic” central partnership.
I’ve always used Juan Riquelme as a case study for this. A player so good on the ball that Villarreal forgave him his total lack of defensive ability and allowed to roam free in the centre of a midfield built to suit him. Whether West Ham will do the same for him next season remains to be seen – they have Parker and Hitzlsperger who would be well suited to protecting the Argentine but whether an English side will actually give him that freedom remains to be seen.
Managers love defensive central midfielders. An extra line of defence ahead of the actual defence and goalkeeper, a destroyer, somebody to fill that dangerous hole between attack and defence - it’s normally only when a ‘dream’ central midfield partnership has failed time and again, as has happened with Lampard and Gerrard, that fans start to see the value of Gareth Barry. Or in QPR’s case when you have a Riquelme type character, Ray Wilkins in our case, who needs an Ian Holloway doing the work his legs can no longer cope with.
Every QPR manager in the past three seasons, and by God there have been a few, has picked Mikele Leigertwood in the middle of midfield. To a fan, the idea of somebody with such a wildly inconsistent passing game and frankly abysmal first touch being right at the heart of the team while somebody with the technical ability of Akos Buzsaky has to scratch around on the wing is pure madness. Yet all of our managers have done it. Ask QPR fans to name a team to start the season and I reckon most would have Buzsaky and Faurlin as the middle pair. Ask Neil Warnock to name three different sides for different occasions and I’m not sure they’d be paired in any of them.
Shaun Derry is the ultimate fans’ enemy. First of all he’s slow - really, really slow. He cannot pass particularly well, he doesn’t score a lot of goals, he spends most of his time berating referees and at 32 he’s been in decline for several years. On a quiet day by his standards Adel Taarabt humiliated Derry with simple tricks on three occasions at Selhurst Park last season. He looked a tired man, a player who has lost his legs. Yet here we are, giving him a two year contract that eclipsed rival offers from Ipswich, Crystal Palace and Greece.
Derry is likely to replace Gavin Mahon in the QPR squad. Mahon has sat out the last nine months after a knee operation which is bound to inhibit his already limited pace and effect on a game and is a year older than Derry anyway. Mahon has been an enemy of QPR fans for much of his time here, another central midfield clogger who kept the darlings like Buzsaky out of the centre of midfield, but he has been an excellent signing – albeit one that was reported by the club as an emergency one month loan two and a half years ago and never updated since. Mahon, except when paired with Leigertwood, has been a fine performer for us for the last couple of seasons. He was a far better player than Derry before his injury and will be a tough act to follow if, as seems certain, his contract is not renewed after this signing.
On the positive side we do need a defensive central midfielder. A consistent one who can play us 40 matches next year – unlike Mahon who will do well to play 40 games in a season again or Leigertwood who can be brilliant one week and awful the next. We also need a leader, a talker, a force in the dressing room, somebody to provide arms round shoulders, protection and, when required, bollockings. At Palace last season Derry talked the referee into booking Dusko Tosic when he’d actually been sinned against while Leigertwood, alleged captain that day, stood by and watched. Warnock needs his own men at Rangers and Derry is undoubtedly that.
Sadly though he’s very one dimensional. Even the Palace fans with whom he was popular admit his legs have gone. It is possible, and in Martin Rowlands we have actually found one, to get a central midfielder who can be defensive, attacking and a leader. Sadly, Rowlands cannot be depended on next season because of the state of his knees. On the same day we signed Derry, Middlesbrough picked up the nearest thing to another Rowlands in the Football League – Nicky Bailey from Charlton – for £1.4m. Players like Bailey, and Ben Watson whose time at QPR turned out to be a disaster but could still be a tremendous signing for us, are hard to come by and most clubs have to make do with the likes of Derry. It seem such a shame to me that QPR once again seem to be missing the boat – taking cheap options like Derry and Leon Clarke when even a modest outlay could secure Nicky Bailey and Gary Hooper instead.