A deal to sign Samba Diakite from Nancy remains shrouded in doubt and mystery. Meanwhile Amit Bhatia has been speaking about his regret at how QPR was run in his early days at the club.
Despite an inauspicious start when he was sent off after half an hour of his debut, Diakite went on to be a big hit at Loftus Road last season and most fans are keen to see him return next season. A £3.2m deal was agreed in principle with French club Nancy but a mysterious virus ruled the Malian out for the final three matches of the season, leaving him one short of the ten game mark that would have seen the transfer made permanent automatically.
The Fulham Chronicle quotes a Nancy source saying: “The club are happy to sell Diakité to QPR for the agreed amount. Nancy is not a club who can afford to turn down a big money offer. But of course he may be desirable to other clubs as well, and the deal has yet to be ratified.”
The paper hints that other French Ligue 1 and Premiership sides have been alerted to Diakite’s availability by his form at Loftus Road. Potential concerns about his health, given the sudden withdrawal from action last season, could also put a spanner in the works.
In other transfer rumour news West London Sport says QPR are eyeing moves for either Aston Villa keeper Shay Given, or if that fails promising Birmingham youngster Jack Butland who will travel to the European Championships this summer as England’s third choice stopper.
London24 says Mark Hughes will return to his former club Fulham and renew QPR’s interest in striker Andrew Johnson this summer. Johnson scored a hat trick against Rangers in a 6-0 demolition job at Craven Cottage last season.
Having Ale Faurlin back in the side next season will, everybody hopes, almost be like having a new signing following his half year absence with a knee injury. Fans wait with baited breath to see if he can maintain his pre-injury form when he returns but Faurlin is confident is recovery is going well.
He told West London Sport: “Next week I think I will start to run outside, which is great news for me. I’m excited about it – really looking forward to it. It’s great that I will be able to get out there. I’ve been running and have been building up slowly. Things are going really well.”
Who will still be around to play alongside Faurlin from last year’s squad remains uncertain. The club announced its released list last week, which surprisingly didn’t include Kieron Dyer who, despite only managing four minutes of football last season, has been given a new one year contract. Clint Hill, Akos Buzsaky and Radek Cerny have also been offered one year extensions and are considering their options.
Peter Ramage, Danny Gabbidon, Danny Shittu, Fitz Hall, Gary Borrowdale, Lee Cook, Rowan Vine and Patrick Agyemang are all being released.
Ramage and Cook spoke fondly of their time with the club when interviewed by the official website this week and both stated their intention to return to Loftus Road as fans in the future.
Ramage said: "I can only see QPR going onwards and upwards. It was always going to be a struggle last season and to be able to finish it off and stay up is a massive achievement. Everything that's going on behind the scenes - like a new training ground and even plans to build a new stadium - can only be good for the club. "I just want to thank the fans. I've had a lot of messages on Twitter from them, which is really humbling. I appreciate each and every single message and every fan that's supported me in my time here. They're a great bunch and a loyal set of fans. From when I came in to today, it's chalk and cheese in terms of how the club has changed. The fans have been a massive part of that. They've always been boisterous and behind the lads - me especially. I'm probably going to be one of them now, joining in and singing at the Loft End! I'll be trying to come to games when I can to watch the team."
And Cook added: "It's a shame to be leaving the club, but it's in great hands under Tony Fernandes. I think QPR will be in the Premier League for many years to come now. There are some exciting tomes ahead for the fans. Hopefully they'll see my floating around Loftus Road when I haven't got a game for my future club. I got on really well with the fans. I think it helps when they know that you're 'one of them.' I had a couple of good seasons and the fans took to me. I also have a lot of family and friends that are QPR supporters and go down there. It's always going to be a club close to my heart. But that's football for you. You move on. Last time I left for Fulham, it wasn't in my hands. This time it's completely different. I would have loved to have stayed, but it's just one of those things. I've got to move on now - I just wish QPR all the best."
Rangers have also secured the signatures of a number of promising youth players. Full back Michael Harriman, who appeared against Rochdale and Wigan back in August, has signed a two year contract extension.
He told the club’s official website: I'm delighted to have signed for another two years. I've been at the club for a while now and there's no other place that I'd rather be at the moment. The club's got some big ambitions and I'm hoping to be a part of those. My aim over the next couple of years is to try and become a regular in the first team side. It's been great to be amongst the first team. Now I've got to push on and hopefully make the squad week in, week out.”
Fellow youngsters Taylor Parmenter and Adam Francis (son of Gerry) have signed one year professional deals. Parmenter spent time on loan at Basingstoke and Bromley last season, whilst Francis work experience spells at Kingstonian and Walton & Hersham.
There’s certainly no shortage of optimism around QPR’s chances next season. A run of five consecutive home wins and a backs to the wall display at Man City on the final day of the season has given rise to hope that Rangers will perform will in the Premiership next season.
Fans favourite Jamie Mackie told London24 he felt Djibril Cisse could be key to the R’s next season.
Mackie said: “As a goal-scorer he gets a chance and scores it, so he’s got to be well up there. I’m delighted we have him as a weapon. We can add more players who can do that as well so that’s why I feel we’re a really big club now. We’re gathering a big squad of different types of players; different players for different occasions. That’s what it’s all about if you want to be a successful squad.”
Assistant manager Mark Bowen is also confident of good times ahead. He told the club’s official website: "This club can now make giant strides. Everybody involved realised what that final day was all about. If we had gone down, this time next year we could have failed to get into the play-offs, or even slipped up within the play-offs, but I can guarantee you that this time next year we will be a lot healthier position. We're going to have a nice summer where we can relax, but we'll look forward to returning now we're still in the Premier League. "As the news filtered through at half time from the Bolton game, you're thinking, we've got to play a second half like Trojans, against the would-be Champions, but when news came through late in the game of Bolton drawing, I think that it gave everyone, especially on the bench, a lift. You're almost thinking that, if disaster happens, which it can in football, and proved, we're still going to be ok. Mark, myself and all of the staff who were at Man City were delighted for the players we brought in. But we were still disappointed. We've got our pride and it would have been nice to have been greedy and have stopped them. But that's football and it was an incredible day."
Whether Joey Barton will be part of next season remains to be seen. Banned for 12 games by the FA during the week the midfielder will not appeal the punishment and now faces an internal club investigation that The Express and others believe could lead QPR to try and sack the controversial midfielder.
Survival in the Premiership has been followed by a quick fire release of news about a new training ground, new kits and season ticket prices. While Rangers remain one of the Premiership’s most expensive teams to follow the lack of seats at Loftus Road makes this inevitable and the Tony Fernandes led board has drawn praise for freezing next season’s prices at the previous prices minus the £50 refund they granted last season. There has been some anger about a decision to clamp down on people sitting in the Lower Loft without children however.
Vice chairman Amit Bhatia told the Evening Standard he regretted how the club ostracised the fans in his early days on the board. Bhatia said: “We tried to apply the principles from past experiences — business for me, Formula One for Flavio and Bernie — to QPR but it didn’t work. You can’t compare the fan who goes to the Monaco Grand Prix with the fan who goes to his local football team. They said ‘London has a lot of football clubs but it doesn’t have a sexy, boutique club. Let’s make QPR boutique, let’s make it the Monaco Grand Prix of football clubs. We have the smallest ground, let’s make it the most exclusive ground’. We had cashmere, embroidered jerseys, we had fur slippers. In retrospect, we learned you cannot run a football club like that because you lose your fanbase. It was a lack of experience. I look back and I see myself as such a rookie and knowing very little. You have to treat people better, make decisions that are orientated towards the longer term.”
He went on to tell the club’s official website: “We want to invest in the academy and youth system. I don’t have that experience but we have a long-term vision and Mark is central to all those decisions. Our scouting system isn’t up to par, the infrastructure isn’t good — we need more medical people. We have a shortage of masseurs. He is walking us through all of these ideas. We are going to set new rules at the football club: how people dress, what time they show up, what time they leave. All of these are being rewritten at the moment.”
Speaking as part of the season ticket renewal campaign Anton Ferdinand said: “I've played in front of some big crowds at both West Ham and Sunderland but the volume generated at Loftus Road is up there with the very best. I used to come to Rangers as a kid to watch my cousin Les play and I knew what to expect of the place. The noise created in the latter stages of last season was on another level. We were up against it with a difficult run-in but, with five wins in our final five home league fixtures, we managed to pull ourselves out of trouble. I'm in no doubt whatsoever that Loftus Road had a big part to play in that. By fighting our way to survival, hopefully we've shown that this shirt means everything to each and every one of us. We know that we haven't done the fans justice at times last season. But this QPR team is very much a work in progress. Next year will be the time when people can judge us properly. Make sure you're around to do just that.”
Prior to all of that, Rangers will play two games in the Far East as part of a pre-season tour. Chairman Tony Fernandes told the club’s website: “We are very excited and honored to be heading to Asia for our pre-season tour. The fans in Asia have embraced QPR since we became involved with the club and it's great that we can give so many of them a chance to come and watch the team play for the first time. It is a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase our brand in this part of the world. This brings QPR to the global stage which is critical to our commercial efforts. I'm also thrilled to be going to East Malaysia which in many ways is the home of AirAsia. To the best of my knowledge no-one has ever toured in Sabah. I'm thrilled that we have remembered all the people that have helped AirAsia get off the ground by bringing QPR to Sabah." Rangers will travel on July 10 with a game against a Thai All Star XI in Thailand on July 14 followed by a fixture with a Football Association of Sabah Select XI in Kota Kinabalu on July 18.
Ian Holloway used his post match interviews at Wembley last weekend to once more make barbed comments directed at the Blackpool board of directors about how much his players are paid. Pool fell at the final hurdle against West Ham in an attempt to return to the Premiership at the firstg time of asking but Holloway says such over-achievement cannot be maintained if chairman Karl Oyston doesn’t loosen the purse strings.
Olly said: “My lads deserve an awful lot more money than they get,” he argued. “We’re a skeleton compared to more established clubs in our division — we do things on a shoestring. At the moment we beg and borrow, and we need to some more money coming through. There are all manner of subjects I need to talk to my chairman about. I have to convince him how far we can go. I think our progress this season has come as a shock to him again.”
One of his successors at Loftus Road, Paulo Sousa , says he would like to return to the UK to manage despite mixed experiences with QPR, Swansea and Leicester, Sousa told the Leicester Mercury: “I am sure I will return to England at some stage. Since I have finished my playing career, I planned to work in England. I want to invest my time in England. I think everyone would like to work in England because the environment is unique. There is the passion, the numbers coming to the stadiums, and the media attention all the time. When the time is right, the club is right, and there are the right people to support me, I hope to return and have success."
The Daily Mail reports that Gianni Paladini, controversial former chairman of QPR, has held preliminary talks with Nottingham Forest about joining the club’s board. Forest chairman Nigel Doughty, father of our youth team graduate Michael, passed away earlier this season. Paladini has already launched a failed bid to buy a stake in Watford since leaving Loftus Road.
- Ever quotable Wigan chairman Dave Whelen says his manager Roberto Martinez has been offered the Liverpool job following meetings with the Anfield board in Miami last week. Whelen has set Martinez a deadline of June 5 to make up his mind on the deal.
- West Brom have entered a second round of talks with former Juventus manager Claudio Ranieri about becoming their new manager. The Baggies are also said to be considering former QPR man Ray Wilkins for the post.
- For the second successive summer Chelsea are pursuing Porto forward Hulk. The Brazilian forward scored 21 times in Porto’s title winning season last term and has a £80m release clause in his contract. Chelsea told talismanic striker Didier Drogba they were releasing him at the end of his contract this summer last week.
- Spurs are closing in on 25-year-old Belgium international defender Jan Vertonghen although his current club Ajax are holding out for £12m.
- Everton defender Sylvain Distin has extended his Goodison Park contract for the next 12 months.
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