The euphoria of the influx of quality players at Loftus Road has had the inevitable knock on effect over the last few weeks of players departing. Are Q.P.R finally going to be using the loan system to their advantage?
The loan system is, in my opinion, one of the most skewed and corrupt things about the modern game. It’s a way to keep the rich rich and the poor poor.
A perfect example of how crap the whole thing is is Frazier Campbell. A few years ago he was a youngster at Man United, he had no hope of getting into the first team so Man U made him available for loan. He was sent out to Hull for a season down in the Championship where he tore the division apart. During the summer Hull enquired about a permanent transfer - £5m was the reply from Man U, Hull said thanks but no thanks. United eventually sold their man to Sunderland for an inflated fee, he made one Premier League appearance for The Red Devils yet they recouped a large chunk of cash for him.
This happens constantly throughout football, after Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool, Man City and Man U have sucked up all the young talent they loan them out and then sell them on for an inflated fee. It’s despicable, but it’s business, and I wonder if Q.P.R are starting to do the same.
Troy Hewitt left W12 this week for Dagenham and Redbridge because, quite rightly, he is starved of opportunities in the top flight. The noises that Tony Fernandes is making paint Rangers as a club that probably won’t have time to develop a player like Hewitt, purchased just six months ago, so we need to do something with him. Is it time we wised up to the loan market and played it to our advantage? Say Hewitt rips League Two apart prompting a larger lower league club, say Sheffield United, to enquire about him we should be demanding between £500,000 and £1 Million. A tidy profit.
Let me take this opportunity to say there is nothing I would rather see than a youth team player rise through the ranks and establish themselves as a first team player at Loftus Road. I wrote a piece last year about the sorry state of our youth development, so it would give me great pleasure to see my words rammed back down my throat. It’s not just Hewitt who has left us, but Michael Doughty has been borrowed by Crawley Town.
Steve Gallen, on the must listen to podcast ‘Open All R’s’, alluded to the fact that this current crop of youngsters is the best he has ever worked with. Bruno Andrade, Michael Harriman, Troy Hewitt, and Michael Doughty are, as he put it, ‘proper footballers.’ If true we as QPR fans should be excited, this generation could be different. But truthfully will they get many chances in a Prem side that, we hope, are upwardly mobile? No, is the probable answer. So these players will be loaned out to further their development. Hopefully after this they will be good enough to waltz into the R’s first team and become heroes. If not then perhaps we can use their growing reputations to our advantage anyways.
From players starting their careers all wide eyed and full of hope to players on the opposite end of the scale; Martin Rowlands and Gary Borrowdale left the club on loan this week to join Wycombe and Barnet respectively. Talk about a fall from grace. Last season a sizable portion of fans were calling for Rowlands’ inclusion, even some at the start of this season saw a role for him. Now he is plying his trade a level below where we were last season and two below the current team. Rowlands has, unfortunately, become the polar opposite to the player he once was. A battler playing to the top of his ability has been replaced with a plodder picking up a paycheck. You almost feel sorry for Gary Borrowdale, purchased by village Idiot Gianni Paladini he was wanted by precisely zero managers save for a brief spell when Magilton used him in a somewhat leaky defence.
The drop to Barnet is a big, big one. My local side growing up couldn’t be more League Two if they had it embezzled on their club crest. A great club for sure, but Gary Borrowdale has come a long way since he was a very promising left back at Crystal Place. Speaking of The Eagles, Peter Ramage has been having a decent time in South London, a Championship centre back he certainly is. Clint Hill is another loanee out at Nottingham Forest and perhaps soon to be joined by Lee Cook. Cook will forever be a fans favorite. He quite literally put his hand in his pocket to save the club, a gesture that should never be forgotten by The R’s faithful. If anyone deserves a solid Championship career it’s Cookie.
What of the rest of the deadwood at QPR which has seemingly been sitting at the club for an eternity. Hogan Ephraim should certainly be able to find a club in The Championship but Patrick Agyemang with his ridiculous wages, not so much so. The curse of Paladini strikes again when it comes to big Danny Shittu, a signing Warnock never wanted now eating up a portion of our wage budget. Unlike the youngsters theses players are bodies we just need rid of, purely from a cash flow point of view. Any sort of loan deal for Agyemang, Hulse, Shittu or Ephraim is good business for QPR. Any piece on loan players can’t be written without mentioning Rowan Vine. Back from his spell at Exeter and now seemingly doomed to forever be remembered as a fat waster by QPR fans. If Steve Gallen needs to motivate his youngsters on how not to behave he only need direct them to Rowan Vine as a player that has squandered every opportunity to rebuild his career by being pig headed and arrogant. Let’s hope Hewitt and co can become our next Ferdinand’s and Gallen’s. If they can’t then let’s hope they forge decent careers lower down the football ladder and we as QPR fans can still smile when their names pop up as a goal scorer on Soccer Saturday and we feel a little sense of pride that one of our own is making something of themselves.
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