A team theoretically competing for play-off spots contemplating selling its striker to a rival at the end of the transfer window would usually have a support base united in fury, but the mixed reaction to Millwall’s Lyndon Dykes interest today rather speaks to us not knowing exactly what we’ve got in the Scotstralian nearly three years on from buying him.
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Is Lyndon Dykes any good?
For fans of Queens Park Rangers, in the Championship for 15 of the last 18 years and showing no signs of leaving it any time soon, fun is in very short supply. It has to be sought after, dug out, mined. ‘Let’s go to Fleetwood in the car’, one might say. ‘Come on, seaside, new ground, day out, it’ll be fun’. Seventeen hours later, 12 of them spent driving through a small hurricane, turns out no fun there after all. In an absolute desert, where every apparent oasis on the horizon turns out to be another sodding train trip to Preston, good times don’t so much roll in these parts as pass by entirely using a completely different route. You’ve got more chance of finding marine life alive in a freeport than you have a good time at QPR these days. In that context, trying to decide whether the club’s main striker is actually any good at the sport or not can count as a feasible pastime for anything up to three days at a time. Ooooh, fancy a good game of Is Lyndon Dykes any Good? Look, some people actually watched Eldorado you know.
Usually participation is very much park chess levels. Same couple of old soaks, same seats, same board, same moves, day after day, week after week. Of course he’s good enough: look at him for Scotland, look at him against Sheffield United, look at his work rate, look how little support we give him and how few men we get around him, look at how delayed the service into him is and how much Willock and Chair hog the ball… Of course he’s not good enough: look at him against bloody Fleetwood, look at his finishing and the sitters he missed against Blackpool and Hull, look at Ilias Chair leading the league for chances created and QPR near the bottom for big chances missed, look how little he runs in behind defences… Does he lack good ball because Willock and Chair keep running down cul-de-sacs, or do Chair and Willock keep doing that because Dykes is incapable of running in behind and stretching opposition defences? This goes backwards and forwards interminably, pretty much from the moment he arrived here, with occasional high points (often against Reading) having the pro-side claiming victory, and nadirs like Luton sending the anti-mob rummaging around in the cupboard for their good purging torch. Lyndon is either holding this team back by stunting and stifling its attack, or working miracles to get even as many goals as he does when crosses are so slow in coming and so many of his support runners are too busy trying to dribble past every opponent themselves for their own shot.
This week though, it’s like January 3 down at the gym. Every fucker is here. Can I interest you in my Lyndon Dykes opinion? If you don’t like it, there are (loads of) others. That’s because there’s been an actual bid for him, for some money (money can be exchanged for goods and services). Not very much money, admittedly, with Millwall’s headline "£3m” only reached via a series of clauses which one suspects - given they’ve already laid out relatively big money for Zian Flemming this season - includes things like Gary Rowett getting them promoted to the Premier League, the League of Lewisham Marxists holding their AGM in the Barry Kitchener stand with Terry Hurlock as guest speaker, and a pre-season friendly with West Ham landing in the diary for July.
Still, a bid, for one of our players. Not Seny Dieng, around whom there’s been the mildest of interest from Everton and not much else, nor Chair, who Middlesbrough had a sniff at once a while back and nothing since, nor Willock, who hadn’t had any firm interest from anywhere given his contract situation even before he OD’d on all those Iain Dowie pills pre-Christmas. That, in itself, is one in the eye for his critics. Stoke, to whom FFP regulations do not apply, are also interested too, or so beat the jungle drums.
I’ve often thought Dykes’ time here reminds me of Conor Washington’s. Both players, unlike many before them and since, were given ample time and support from the QPR crowd at games despite their frequently poor performances and at times non-existent goal returns. They certainly didn’t want for backing, or first team appearances: 63 starts, 35 sub apps and 14 goals in two-and-a-half-years for Conor; 91, 17 and 27 in roughly the same period of time for Big Lynd. Throughout both of their times here the fanbase online and in the pubs has divided between those who think they’re essentially shit, and we’ve once again spent money we don’t have on a striker who couldn’t find his own nipples with a sat nav never mind the back of the opposition net; and those who think they’re good players who simply don’t suit our team, and would score goals more often for somebody else or if we played to their strengths.
We never got anything resembling an offer, cash or otherwise, for Conor, and his subsequent efforts at Sheff Utd, Charlton, Hearts and now Rotherham very much suggest a player not quite at Championship level. That teams in our league want to pay money for Dykes suggest that, actually, there might be something in there that we’re not seeing because of the way we play this time. Like Washington before him, perhaps we’ll only know for sure when he’s gone and played for somebody else.
That’s my way of saying that having sat through almost every one of his 100+ appearances for us, I still can’t make my mind up. I see him make that good, positive, early run to the near post, pointing to where he wants it, only to have to abandon the approach and go around at the last minute because Chair is trying to work himself into that pocket of space for a shot from the left corner of the penalty area a-gain, and I wonder what people want him to do — his goal against Reading at home this year, from brilliant early service by Osman Kakay of all people, showed the potential. I go to the Sheff Utd game and watch him charge about and bully a group of what were recently Premier League defenders, QPR hero Neil Warnock eulogising throughout from the commentary box and criticising his team mates for not linking up with him better, and I think maaaaybe. It was so gratifying to get all the way up to Preston before Christmas and watch him smash a group of defenders about against a team that has frequently staged the Annual World Shithouse Championships in our back garden. Then I watch him repeatedly miss chances I’m confident I’d score myself (Luton H, Hull H, Blackpool H); I watch him look ‘interested’ for Scotland, and in the case of last season fit and available to play for Scotland, far more than he’s any of those things for us; I watch him on his heals, reactive rather than proactive, without that nose for space and chances that comes with natural strikers; and I watch him play like he did against Fleetwood, up against Tote Nsiala, who’s one previous swing at Championship football ended in a humiliating relegation for Ipswich, and I think naaaaah.
Whether that ‘find out when he plays for somebody else’ happens now or later, I guess we’ll know over the next ten days. If we get any kind of reasonable offer, I’m telling you now, he’ll be going — we haven’t sold a player since Eze and our financial need to do so again is becoming more pressing, his contract expires at the end of next season and another deal would take him into his 30s. For all the talk of "he’s our only striker apart from Armstrong” we do also have Tyler Roberts and now Jamal Lowe and, while neither are particularly prolific or target men/’out-and-out strikers’, Dykes isn’t prolific either and I’m constantly being told that as a target man and out-and-out striker he doesn’t suit us/we don’t suit him. You should be able to muddle through 19 games with that plus Willock, Chair and the rest. We did this a couple of seasons back, 2019/20, when Nahki Wells and Toni Leistner left late in January without replacement — it’s a sort of economic reality that there’s not a lot of point us spending money and FFP headroom trying to get from sixteenth to twelfth.
"Muddle through” is probably the key bit of that statement. Still only four points shy of the play-offs, in a league we topped three months ago in which there are two outstanding teams and then a lot of slop, it feels horribly defeatist and lacking in ambition to be talking about ‘muddling through’ with a couple of sort-of-strikers playing up front on loan from other clubs. People won’t take 3-0 home defeats any better than they’re doing now because of "economic reality” and Neil Critchley won’t be allowed to go one win from every six games for the rest of time by the good people of Shepherd’s Bush just because he’s been dealt a bad hand. Those of a nervous disposition will also tell you an 11-point gap down to Huddersfield and Blackpool can quickly melt away for a team with one win in 12 games too.
The club could temper that criticism by bringing in a replacement, and were it some promising young striker on a permanent deal for affordable money (there’s a sale on at Unicorns R Us) there'd be a more unanimous Yes vote on this one. But so far the only name mentioned has been Burnley’s 33-year-old stalwart Ashley Barnes on loan - who's still playing for the league leaders on and off so I'm not sure where that's come from. Might show you that it was the service all along, or might show you that Dykes was crap after all. I suspect he would probably score you a few goals, almost certainly more than Lyndon would; would probably rough a few defenders up and become a bit of a cult hero for us; would probably win us a few games and get some much needed joy and excitement back into our lives. But, really? Selling Lyndon Dykes out of economic reality and then spending at least some of that borrowing a 33-year-old, earning a Premier League wage at another Championship club, to get you from one bit of midtable to another? It would also mean one of Laird, Roberts, Richards, Iroegbunam and Lowe sitting out each week as we’re up to our maximum number of loans, and given the obvious answer to that is Richards and he’s the only one we’re meant to be buying… Barnes would have to get you into the play-offs, and close to winning them, for this to be anything other than a bit of a daft idea.
With so much uncertainty running through this column this week, it’s gratifying to know we can finish on one thing for sure — with games against Millwall and Stoke still to come , the lad who religiously backs Dykes for a hat trick every week finally looks set for a big pay day after all.
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Team News: Neil Critchley must decide whether to give a first start to loan signing Jamal Lowe against the side he scored 14 goals for in 58 appearances in the 2020/21 season — go on Neil, give in to temptation, we’re bored as fuck here. Stefan Johansen has two weeks of full training in him now having not played since Birmingham away in October, but plans to give him some second string action have been scuppered by three successive B Team fixtures falling victim to the cold weather. Leon Balogun is seeing a specialist about his calf injury now, apparently — hi everybody, hi Dr Nick. Faysal Bettache, about whom there seemed such high hopes when he impressed at Orient at the start of last season, has now been released following the mutual termination of his contract.
There’s ongoing transfer speculation around two of Swansea’s forwards. Michael Obafemi Martin’s potential partnership with Joel Piroe was a big reason many had the Swans down as a dark horse this season, but having turned down several big-money bids from Burnley for the former Southampton man last summer they’ve ended up with a problem child on their hands who hasn’t played for the club since November 12, hasn’t started since November 5 and hasn’t scored since October 23 — one of only three goals this season. Burnley are back for him with ten days of transfer window to go, albeit at a substantially reduced figure with his contract now on the wane. Shrewd business that. Likewise Morgan Whittaker, the 22-year-old they picked up for £700k out of the wreckage of Derby and have found use for so far almost exclusively out on loan. His nine goals in 31 appearances for League One high flyers Plymouth has put him on the radar of several clubs, including Glasgow Rangers who have been linked with a £1.1m bid. It seems everybody wants Whittaker except Swansea, but they have recalled him from Home Park and he is apparently in the travelling squad for this game — if he plays, it will mean he can’t play for another club this season and end the speculation, but that will only ramp up if he doesn’t. An impasse has been reached for their main January target, Rotherham’s Chiedozie Ogbene.
Elsewhere: Two Friday night fixtures this week, featuring the top two sides in the division. West Brom got an injury time equaliser from debutant Brandon Thomas-Asante despite being distinctly second best when they first met Burnley at The Hawthorns earlier this season, but that positive result was part of a run of one win in 13 matches that eventually, belatedly cost Steve Bruce his job. Although the Clarets have since rather run away with the league, now 16 points clear of third and on a run of seven consecutive Championship victories, it’s a very different Baggies side to face at Turf Moor this evening. Carlos Corberan’s men have won nine of ten in the league to go from bottom of the table to play-off contention, and kept clean sheets in eight of their last 12 fixtures. If Vincent Kompany’s side do happen to slip up, then Sheffield Red Stripe can narrow the gap to two points at the top with a home win against Hullspor — although news of a transfer embargo for unpaid transfer debts to other clubs this week hasn’t been ideal preparation for them.
Eight fixtures tomorrow other than our own start with a lunchtime fixture between Coventry and Norwich at wherever Coventry are playing their home games this week.
There’s a relegation six-pointer at Bloomfield Road as Blackpool (23rd) meet Huddersfield (22nd). The Tangerines binned off Michael Appleton, who they didn’t seem to want there in the first place, this week and haven’t so much gone old skool with his replacement as blown the budget converting an abandoned church into an independent old skool of which they’ve appointed themselves headmaster — welcome back Mick McCarthy. With Neil Warnock (I said to Sharon…) and Big Fat Sam the current bookies favourites for the often-vacant post at Cardiff, prior to their home game with Millwall, I’m starting to wonder whether my two hours spent fiddling about with the pipes under the bath on Thursday night might actually have inadvertently invented some sort of time machine. If so, Wigan Warriors might like a borrow of it to go a little bit more centre-ground on their Leam Richardson replacement, with left field choice Kolo Toure now nursing five defeats and a draw from his six games in charge ahead of the final day of a three-day test match against Lutown.
Pretty run-of-the-mill second tier stuff elsewhere, although interesting to see Rotherham doing some transfer window bits for a change in an effort to avert their slide towards the bottom three —Tariq Fosu from Spartak Hounslow an eye-catching loan today ahead of a trip to What Ford Magazine tomorrow. A couple of underdog teams performing well early on now seem to be on the slide: John Eustace’s Birmingham had to come from a goal down at Forest Green in the cup during the week, and only Neil Etheridge’s unreal triple save ensured they did that, and they take a run of four straight league defeats into a homer against Preston Knob End; Blackburn meanwhile have lost six of nine in the league and won’t be clinging onto that play-off spot much longer if they repeat last week’s 4-0 hammering at Rotherham in this weekend’s trip to Bristol City.
Stoke v Reading? My God, might have been worth actually killing a relative a week ago just so you could go to that funeral instead.
We round things out with a North East derby between Sunderland and bang-in-form Boro on Sunday lunchtime.
Referee: It’s a fourth Swansea fixture of the season already for Oxfordshire’s John Busby. He stood in for our mutual friend Keith Stroud in our defeat at Coventry the week before the World Cup, which was his first ever QPR appointment. Details
QPR: Having snapped a winless run of six with a 1-0 success at Preston the week before Christmas, QPR have since set off on another ball-aching sequence which will extend to six without a win again unless they can triumph here. There was some light at the end of the tunnel with the second half comeback at Reading a week ago, the first time the R’s have scored two goals in a game in 12 attempts. Tyler Roberts’ 15-minute double was as many goals as he’d scored for QPR in his previous 11 starts and five sub appearances for the club. It’s also the first time a QPR player has scored two away from home since Luke Amos’ double in a 5-3 loss at Barnsley in December 2019. The draw at home to Sheff Utd did halt a run of four straight home defeats, the club’s worst run since the 1940s, but it is now five games without a win at Loftus Road after the prior run of six unbeaten including four wins. Against Swansea in W12 the R’s are winless in three league games, but this has been a fixture of extremes since it was rekindled in 2008/09: QPR have won five of the 11 meetings including a 5-1, 4-0 and 3-0; Swansea have won here three times including the infamous 5-0 hammering on the opening day of the disastrous 2012/13 season.
The new Loft End terrace has seen only three goals in front of it all year, two of them penalties, and none at all since the 3-0 home win against Cardiff on October 19 — six games ago. Lyndon Dykes scored both of those goals at the home end against the Bluebirds and his audacious backheeled attempt at Reading last week wasn’t a million miles away from his first goal in eight QPR games. It wouldn’t have been a surprise to see the Scot score in that game, he’s already bagged five of his 26 QPR goals (19.23%) against the Royals, and his longest goal drought for the club to this point (21 games between December 2019 and March 2020) was ended with a goal at that end of Oak Furnitureland. There are certainly clubs Lyndon seems to like playing more than others — his 26 QPR goals are divided among just 15 opponents, with three apiece against Forest and Rotherham, and two against Boro, Cardiff and Coventry. Swansea, against whom he scored a late winner at their place in April 2021, are one of the nine clubs who’ve conceded to him once (Blackburn, Brentford, Fulham, Huddersfield, Hull, Norwich, Preston, Sheff Wed).
Swansea Our 1-0 defeat at Swansea on the first Saturday of September is rather the story of their season. At that point they’d only won once, away at Blackpool, in their first eight games of the season and had taken just one point from nine at home. The victory, supplied by a goal from top scorer (ten in 26 league and cup apps) Joel Piroe, sparked a run of seven wins from the next nine matches which lifted Russell Martin’s team into play-off contention — a sequence that included a 3-2 win at West Brom and 2-1 win at Watford. They then embarked on another run of eight matches without a victory, albeit including five draws — one of those ties, at Coventry, finished 3-3 having trailed 3-0 after an hour. They ended that with a 4-0 home win against Watford and now arrive into this fixture on a run of WLDWL — the final game a midweek FA Cup replay defeat to Bristol City which went to extra time and should, in theory, mean we’re a lot fresher than they are. Can’t wait to see how that goes. They’re 6-2-5 at home, 4-6-4 away (no team with more draws on the road this season), and 10-8-9 overall.
Our defeat at the Liberty Stadium was also notable, given Russell Martin’s fondness for keeping hold of the ball, for Swansea winning the game despite trailing on possession 46-54%. Again, there’s a bit of a story of their season in that — it’s one of only three occasions this season that an opponent has had more possession in the game than Swansea, but the Welsh side have won two of those games. Five of their ten wins have had a possession split of 56-44 or less, and two of them have been 50-50. By contrast, eight of their ten biggest possession shares in games this season have failed to yield a victory. The outliers are the 83-17% split they had at home to Cardiff, who had Callum Robinson sent off very early in the game, and the 74-26% share in a 3-2 home win against Reading when they had trailed 2-0. Working down from there: 77-23% 2-2 Wigan H; 76-24% 1-2 Reading A; 75-25% 0-0 Huddersfield A; 75-25% 0-2 Luton H; 74-26% 1-1 Rotherham A; 72-28% 1-2 Bristol City A; 72-28% 0-1 Preston A; 71-29% 0-3 Blackburn H. Imagine no possession, it’s easy if you try.
Prediction: We’re once again indebted to The Art of Football for agreeing to sponsor our Prediction League and provide prizes. You can get involved by lodging your prediction here or sample the merch from our sponsor’s QPR collection here. Last year’s champion Cheesy tells us…
"Good to see Roberts do something good at Reading. Hope he can kick on now. I'm still not convinced though. I feel that we have to play Willock through his bad form. We need the old Chris back and dropping him I think would make things worse for him. That leaves the question of who Lowe will replace in the starting eleven.”
Cheesy’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 Swansea. Scorer — Lyndon Dykes
LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 Swansea. Scorer — Jamal Lowe
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