Queens Park Rangers have today strengthened their attacking options by signing experienced striker Andy Johnson on a free transfer from near neighbours Fulham.
For the second time today and the third occasion since he arrived at the club six months ago, manager Mark Hughes has returned to a loyal servant from earlier in his career to strengthen QPR’s hand for the 2012/13 season. This time it is Andy Johnson, the 31-year-old striker who played for Hughes alongside Bobby Zamora at Fulham, who has penned a two year contract at Loftus Road.
Johnson began his career with Birmingham City, missing a crucial penalty for Trevor Francis’ men in the 2001 League Cup final shoot out against Liverpool. In all he scored 13 goals for the Blues in 106 appearances (54 of them starts) before moving to Crystal Palace in July 2002 as part of the deal that took Clinton Morrison to St Andrews. Morrison had been a free-scorer for the Eagles and moved to Birmingham to help them cement their place in the Premier League while Johnson was seen as little more than a makeweight but it ended up being the Eagles who got the better end of the deal.
He introduced himself with a hat trick against local rivals Brighton and bagged 85 goals in total in four years and 162 appearances (156 starts). After initially stalling under first Trevor Francis and then Steve Kember, Johnson fired on all cylinders once Iain Dowie took charge at Selhurst Park and he bagged a Football League-leading 32 goals in the 2003/04 season which led to play off success against first Sunderland, then West Ham and promotion to the Premier League. Palace were relegated in their first season, losing out narrowly thanks to a late Charlton equaliser against them on the final day of the season, but Johnson impressed. He was the league’s top scoring English forward with 21 goals although he attracted criticism because eight of those were penalties, seven of which he won himself – Johnson’s reputation for play acting remains intact to this day.
Johnson initially requested a transfer following relegation but stayed for a season in the Championship and scored 15 goals in an injury hit campaign. When the Eagles failed to return to the top flight bids of £8.5m from Wigan, Bolton and Everton were accepted and Johnson moved to Goodison Park. Johnson scored 22 goals in 74 appearances for Everton across two years and won eight England caps but was sold to Fulham for £10.5m in August 2008. He was troubled by injury during his time at Craven Cottage, restricted by a knee complaint to just 13 appearances in 2009/10 that dragged on into the following season as well. In all he scored 27 goals in 101 appearances for the Whites prior to his contract expiring this summer.
He has now signed a two year deal at Loftus Road after scoring a hat trick against the R’s in a 6-0 defeat at Craven Cottage last season.
"I've worked closely with Mark before and there are also players here that I've played with previously, including Bobby Zamora and Shaun Derry. Those were factors in me joining, but this is a big, big club and I've spoken to the chairman and Mark, who both have great ambition for QPR, and it's something that I wanted to be a part of. Mark was brilliant when I was at Fulham. I'd just come off the back of a rough spell with a knee injuryand he guided and helped me through that period. He was great to play under. He's a top a Manager and has some fantastic staff around him. Being an ex-player, he knows what players want and expect. He's excellent with the players. He speaks to them and he's on the same level as them.” -Andy Johnson
“Not impressed by this signing one bit. He spent most of last season injured and rarely played. Fulham fans will be well pleased to see the back of him. I can’t see him getting into double figures so on that basis no better than what we have apart from Cisse.” ,a href= http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/fb_mb.php?m=v&t=5773 BostonR
“I think for a free you can't argue with this. It gives our squad so much more quality in depth. Hughes knows the market better than us I can't imagine there are many better free transfer strikers around.” -WestbourneR
“Well looking at his stats he scores one in three. So I think the best way to use him is to play him till he scores a goal then drop him for the next two games and then bring him back for the game after that then repeat this process. That he will be scoring for us every time he plays. Simple this football management lark.” Blacky200
Whether Andy Johnson is a good signing or not rather depends on who he’s replacing. If Mark Hughes thinks that Johnson is potentially going to keep Djibril Cisse, Jamie Mackie or Adel Taarabt out of our team then I’m afraid it’s a poor move because at 31 Johnson isn’t as good a long term prospect as those three and isn’t as consistently good as them either. However, last season we were looking along our bench for attacking, game-changing options and finding people like Jay Bothroyd and Federico Macheda so if that’s going to be his role then he’s an improvement on what we have available.
Johnson, like another former Crystal Palace man Clinton Morrison, has never been particularly popular with QPR supporters and he further cemented that reputation last season by openly mocking the large Rangers travelling support at Craven Cottage when he opened the scoring. But in my opinion many supporters have allowed their dislike of him because of his attitude and/or reputation for play acting to crowd their judgement of him as a player. He doesn’t score as many as he should, but he went onto get a hat trick in that first game against us last season and was then one of the best players on the pitch when Fulham completed the double against us at Loftus Road.
Signing Johnson as your main striker isn’t much of a statement of intent, but signing him to back up Djibril Cisse is a shrewd move in my opinion. I think a lot of the players we’ve been linked with this summer – Ryan Nelsen also fits into this category – tell me that Mark Hughes is reasonably happy with his starting 11 but not with anything he has beyond that. I think that’s a pretty fair assessment and our attacking options with Cisse and Bobby Zamora supported from the bench by Johnson, DJ Campbell and then Jay Bothroyd probably behind them don’t look too shabby at this point.
A concern I have about Johnson, Nelsen, Robert Green and the others we’ve been linked with as well is that although there isn’t a transfer fee involved the weekly wages won’t be cheap at all, and the money committed to them is dead from the moment it leaves the bank account because there is no resale value on players of their age and they’re unlikely to be much use to QPR in 18 months to two years time. Rangers had the oldest average age in the division last season and we’re doing little to address that this summer which seems a little strange. Concerning rather than alarming, but an issue all the same.
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