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Players salaries are widely known in football. There are no secrets. Wages are declared to everyone from agents to letting agents, leaked from many sources. They are absolutely in circulation if you know who to ask (I don't: football websites might). Christian Nourry can no more control that than Gianni Paladini.
I saw Frey's through a totally different (and completely flukey) source, one that is 100% authenticated and I have absolutely no business knowing what he earns! I'm about 100 people removed from the source. He's on more than that website suggests.
Let's imagine that those sums are correct (Frey's is conservative)...
Let's also assume that these do not include the new contracts for Chair, Morgan, Lloyd.
I don't think, if you look at everyone's wages on that list, that there is a remote possibility that Nourry and co will renew Cook, Fox and Frey unless they come down in half at least. Fox and Frey are on twice as much as Field, Dunne, Smyth etc according to this. And Cook is on twice as much as either Frey or Fox. And they're all over 30 and they've all had injuries this season and last.
I'm not sure Marcus Rashford is a necessarily a realistic benchmark either. I think Dembele being on 178k and Nardi being on 780k is closer to the range we will shop in.
I regret very much mentioning that he's well paid. I don't know any' footballer's wages. I have no interest in it But I have seen his. It'll never happen again. And if does it, I promise I won't mention it on a message board like a moron.
Let's just say that on the Footy Stats website they've mentioned an annual salary of 936,000 euros. I wonder where they got that from?
As I say, I know I'm out of step with opinion here. But I do think the healthy contracts of senior players in their 30s ending are always huge opportunities for clubs. We thank them, we celebrate them, we hire replacements who provide value. Michi Frey will not do that.
He missed a big chunk of last season injured. He's missed a big chunk of this season injured. Hopefully he's available until May now...let's see.
I'd love him to be available every week, scoring lots, causing problems, bringing players into play as he can. Seems a good lad and a useful player. His career up until this month suggests he'll have more long periods out, though. And he's 31 in July.
Who knows. But re-signing an injury-prone 31 year-old striker on a healthy wage doesn't strike me as a very QPR 2025 move.
I like him, he plays a very valuable role. He knows what he's doing. Seems a good sort.
He's 31 this year. He's on an eye-watering weekly. He is regularly injured.
He's scored six goals in 20 games, one assist so far this season.
I sometimes think just as much as "do not fall in love with loan players", it's important that fans do not "stay in love with players in their 30s whose contracts run out in the summer".
I can't off the top of my head think of a single 30-something player who we've not renewed and subsequently come to regret leaving.
I know how unpopular this opinion probably is the week he scored in a win.
Ask yourself, though, if we were signing a 31 year old journeyman striker who had only hit double figures three times in the last ten seasons of second tier European football and had missed several months of the previous two seasons injured, just how happy you'd be?
He's the only player in the history of football whose wage I know for a fact: think of a sum you imagine he might be on per week, double it, add some more money to it.
Frey's scored six goals in 20 league games this season. One assist. I mean, it's OK if you're the second striker on £3k a week. He is not remotely on £3k a week.
For context, Rayan Kolli has scored four goals in 15 league appearances, two assists. He's 11 years younger and not really a lone striker.
So it's not like replacing Clive Allen, even if Frey does an important job currently. But nobody had heard of him before we signed him and we can definitely find someone else we've never heard of who can do the same job who's a bit younger and quite a lot cheaper.
And we replaced Clive Allen with Gary Bannister, so even that was possible.
I think Cook's experience and leadership is actually much harder to replace, so maybe they'll keep him.
Keeping Cook and Frey: how many other positions that QPR need to fill will their wages deny?
Cook will be 34 in April. Frey will be 31 in July. They have both missed significant periods of football in the last two seasons with injuries.
They both seem like good guys, and they're very useful footballers. But they are not going to get fitter or faster - quite the reverse - and this next contract is the last for both, so they won't be cheaper either. They will cost the club millions between them each season and (particularly in Cook's position) they stop younger players coming through.
I doubt we'll keep either, but I'd be *amazed* if we keep both.
The only footballer whose wages I have ever known are Frey's through a very weird set of coincidences that will never be repeated, and I will never know anybody else's wage: if you knew how much his weekly wage in season two is, you would not be saying renew. I think we shake hands, thank him for his eight (?) goals he scored in 24/25, each one it's literal weight in gold, and try and find someone five years younger and half (at least) as expensive.
I'm sure the dressing room knows his wage (and Cook's, and Jesus, imagine Colback's given his availability) and we should perhaps factor that into what Dunne might expect from his next contract. All this explains mainly hiring young players at start of their career rather than experienced pros on final contracts, too...
The length of contract is probably key, rather than the weekly per se.
Jimmy is 28 this year. From all the deals QPR are currently doing, I don't imagine Nourry is particularly keen signing players much beyond 30, which suggests that he's probably been offered a 2 1/2 year deal at QPR and is holding out for another year at least. I'm sure it's all a dance about how long he gets somewhere, because this is his last decent contract.
Or he gets a couple of years on twice as much at a club with parachutes, like Sheff U, then takes his chances at 30.
But we haven't had a better left back since signing Clive Wilson from CFC: another versatile left footer who arrived having also played at left wing, in the middle or defence...
Yeah, another disastrous week for Ian Holloway. If only someone close to him was there to "protect him and keep him away from football": six wins, four draws and just five defeats out of the 15 L2 games he's been in charge of a previously hopeless case.
To be fair to Kevin Gallen, he's a scout for Palace and is watching games on the continent most weeks so I'm sure he has a few CF names he could suggest, even some within budget, but he probably saves all that for his boss Dougie Freedman (one of the best recruiters in the country).
Vale is definitely a left winger but he played for Bristol Rovers as a left back, played 40-odd games there. Joey Barton - I know, I know - compared him to Ashley Cole and called him "phenomenal". I'd be surprised if we could sign him as backup though.
On January 29th 2022, QPR were 4th. Therefore, QPR were 4th in February 2022.
By the end of the season, QPR finished 11th after a catastrophic run in Feb, March and April whereby we lost eleven of the remaining 18 games, winning just four.
That was from being 4th, seemingly nailed on play-offs. Finished 11th.
Interesting how we can all see games/players differently. I thought that, yes, Ashby was calamitous in possession. But he was active, involved, did not hide and won two very important free kicks to relieve pressure consequently (the second of which injured him).
Madsen, on the other hand, jogs around without ever engaging a man with the ball unless so close to him as to be unavoidable. We consequently dropped back about 15-20 yards as soon as he came on. He just stands so far off players - the contrast with Morgan is absolutely shocking, and it's clear why Marti swapped the most expensive signing for a Development squad kid. He clearly has excellent technique with the ball, but I cannot see anything else of use in the Championship. He's just not built for it or engaged with the game whatsoever. You can't jog around like that in this league without having something else incredible to offer, which he doesn't as far as I can see. Just a tidy ten yard pass.
I really see Madsen as a much bigger liability. We can muddle through with Ashby at RB from tome to time and he'll always work hard no matter what. Madsen in the middle feels like we're a man down. (But I'm not claiming to be right here, that's just the way it appears to me).
This thread is all good knockabout fun, but nobody seriously believes this a promotion squad, do they? Oh really? But..we were in the bottom three and hopeless six weeks ago. You know what they say about pride coming before a five match losing run and a fall down the table.
(yes, please hold the line Mr Warburton, February, March and April 2022 will be with you in a moment...)
In all seriousness, it's as likely as Ian Holloway still being in charge of Swindon at Christmas.
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