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Reply | Dykes sold apparently
at 14:27 27 Aug 2024
He scored six goals in 41 league appearances last season (30+ starts), and one of those was a penalty. He didn't score once between January and April. One assist all season.
In the season before, he didn't score at all between November and April. Eight goals in total.
In 21/22, he only scored two goals between October and May - and they were in the same game. Eight goals in total.
In the last two seasons we've escaped relegation by the skin of our teeth and Lyndon Dykes has contributed 14 goals from across 80 games, with around three assists.
I don't think Cifuentes is a particularly radical thinker in deciding this is not the guy that will change that sequence for him, aged 29, nor for trying different players up top. The team were malfunctioning just as badly with him in the team. |
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Reply | Dykes sold apparently
at 13:25 27 Aug 2024
Bemused not everyone is glad about this. What is Dykes good at?
He has a poor first touch and technique. He's a very unreliable finisher. He doesn't score headers (or win many), he doesn't create assists, he's not particularly fast. Every season he's been the number 9 there are threads on here suggesting that what this team needs is a number 9 to flourish.
He's 29 next month and therefore as a CF past his prime. He cost £2 million and scored 37 goals in 166 games. He's been a poor signing by any metric. To my eyes, this season's Frey looks to be better at Dykes's role - strong number 9, bullies CBs, chases balls, threat in the air, veteran - and that we need a different, more agile and much younger CF to be third choice.
A million quid for a well-paid CF who doesn't score or assist goals at Championship level and is about to hit 29 years-old is great business, surely. |
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Reply | Dykes sold apparently
at 11:27 27 Aug 2024
I can understand feeling sentimental about Ilias Chair, but Lyndon Dykes? Come on.
He's 29 next month. So if he goes to Brum, and they come up, he'll be 30 in the Championship. Will he have improved bullying L1 defenders in that time?
According to Wiki he's scored 37 goals in 167 games for us, which is a poor return for a number 9 who also takes pens. He's always appeared very game, but has his technique improved in any noticeable way since we re-signed Austen on loan to help him out? I don't think so. He's always looked more of an athlete than a footballer to me.
I think you sell 29 year-olds with that kind of record on big wages for £1 million (Mail reporting it's £1.5 btw) and buy a 22 year-old with potential for a quarter of that price generally. We can cry about the price, but you can only sell for what someone is prepared to pay. Why hang on to a 29 year-old number 9 on a three year dry run otherwise? |
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Reply | Varane
at 17:33 5 Aug 2024
I don't think anyone at the club is expecting anything but a finish well above lower bottom half.
I seem to remember you were the poster who told us in January that the club were cutting their cloth for League 1 then, that they'd accepted relegation and we should too.
When told this was unlikely as there were 23 games left and we needed maybe 7 wins you replied (and yes I did look this up, it is petty, but the condescension was striking):
"We all want to believe that it’s all to play for, but at some point we as supporters need to be as realistic as the club are about the chances of us putting those 7/8 wins on the board."
In fact, we put another nine wins on the board. The club was not planning for L1. This summer they are not planning for a lower bottom half finish. They're planning for top ten, minimum.
And I agree with them. I think we'll start slowly and grind out some points, it will be painful initially, but we will build up a head of steam.
But we'll see, I guess.I don't see the squad, the coaching staff or the mood of club as anything as negatively as I have done in previous years (or as you do, clearly). |
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Reply | Varane
at 09:44 5 Aug 2024
1st team squad players that have left and their replacements since May:
Begovic - Nardi
Adomah/Kakay - Santos
Hayden - Varane
Armstrong - Celar
Larkeche has not been replaced (yet) but we've added a defender in Morrison who looks decent and has played at a good level in L1. Judging by Zyed's performance yesterday, he's a better defender.
Which leaves Willock, who we will definitely replace before close of window, if not by two signings then at least one. In the meantime clearly the idea is to muddle along with a combination of Kolli/Lloyd/Bennie until reinforcements arrive.
I don't agree that the squad is significantly worse than in May and I do think it will be significantly better by September. We look like a squad who will neither concede nor score many at present - but a couple of loans can transform that positively late in the window. The foundations look really solid, more solid defensively than I can remember, and I trust the coaching team since last season 100%. |
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Reply | Varane
at 14:16 4 Aug 2024
It looks stronger than it did a year ago on August 4, though.
Joe Gubbins, Charlie Kelman and Ossie Kakay aren't about to start at Watford tomorrow, for example.
The squad is significantly stronger than it was at the start of last season. It will look much stronger still when the window closes. All those players that you mention other than Willock and arguably Hodge and Larkeshe have been replaced. All will be replaced. And then there'll be other players, too, as always. Nobody can convince me the squad is weaker for not having Begovic, Kakay, Drewe and Dozzell available for calamity. I think Willock and Armstrong will be missed - but we'll get more attackers.
It's QPR. More players are always guaranteed. |
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Reply | Gab Sutton Championship Previews
at 16:27 1 Aug 2024
Certainly seems unlikely in the PL, but McKenna is good isn't he at getting players to transcend their level, if that that's where he goes.
And the money Blackburn get for Szmodics will be transformative - though with Gallagher it strips a lot of goals from them: so they'll be buying loadsa players, probably from other Championship teams (Dykes?). It's impossible to judge what shape most squads will look like in a month. |
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Reply | Gab Sutton Championship Previews
at 09:17 1 Aug 2024
There are several transfers that will rearrange the entire league: Szmodics and Summerville being the two that leap immediately to mind, Philogene was another: and now Hull have that money burning a hole. Suddenly all the squads are playing Jenga. I do think Chair may go in this window (and if the offer's good, now's the time) and that we'll be replacing both he and Willock with PL loans. But no idea, really. |
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Reply | Gab Sutton Championship Previews
at 08:50 1 Aug 2024
Whole prediction thing is a massive fool's errand now. There are thirty days until the window closes. Many squads throughout the division are going through huge churn right now: Leeds, WBA, Boro, Blackburn, Coventry...
Nobody will look the same in a fortnight, never mind a month. If Leeds sell Summerville this week as likely, that's 20 goals plus a dozen assists and the league's outstanding attacker gone. Big hole. (Replaced by Chair? Or Jack Clarke? Domino effect ripples through league...)
Every season that I can remember - even those before a window existed, even in the 80s! - QPR fans have said, 'Oooh, I'm worried about this squad' or 'If we can get one more forward in, we'll be ok'...and every season loads of players rock up in the first weeks of the season, filling positions we hadn't bargained for. Always! QPR can be in administration, going for promotion, fighting relegation, going nowhere, pushing top six, constrained by FFP - doesn't matter. One thing is for certain: QPR will always, always sign more players than you expect. |
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Reply | Armstrong
at 14:04 21 Jul 2024
I reckon Sinclair Armstrong would score lots of goals for Poole, Hayes and Eccleshill United too. But we'll never know, because he plays in the Championship about six-to-eight levels higher (he does score goals in international football, which none of them were playing at that age).
Surely the examples of Les, Austin and Wells is proof that what you are as a 20-year-old striker does not define what you will be as a 24 or 25 year-old striker? I find it a really odd argument saying they are proof that he's not. Les in particular was not playing at his level and still took another three seasons to reach anything like his potential.
Let's just see. We offered him a contract as we thought there's something there as a striker, so did Bristol City (and Stoke). Glad, still, we have that sell-on fee if true. |
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Reply | Armstrong
at 10:01 21 Jul 2024
One further point:
Alfie Lloyd came on and looked a handful, if not exactly an immediate goal threat in the friendly yesterday. Something there to be worked, though is he a striker or winger will need to be answered. This could be the season he breaks out of the development squad, gets a good loan at a L2/L1 club for three months, maybe a handful of first team appearances at QPR even.
Alfie Lloyd is two months older than Sinclair Armstrong. |
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Reply | Armstrong
at 09:40 21 Jul 2024
Interesting comparisons.I'd say he still is a kid. Of those strikers, at the same age:
Wells was playing for Eccleshill United, in the Northern Counties league, about to sign for Bradford in L2.
Ferdinand was playing for Hayes.
Thomson was playing for Queen of the South in Scottish Div 2.
Austin was playing for Poole Town (about to go to Swindon)
Only Gallen and Crouch, who'd just had his breakout season at QPR, were ahead of Armstrong - but Gallen was alongside Robbie Fowler the stand-out youth forward in the country so a bit of an outlier.
Like Les, Austin and Wells, Armstrong did not have an academy background but he's much further ahead in his career than they were at his age. Loads of potential. Glad there's a sell-on deal. |
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Reply | Armstrong
at 19:58 19 Jul 2024
Great deal, had to sell him.
However, not sure we need to put Bristol City on that pedestal: "That is the Bristol City that have finished above us in many recent seasons".
In the last ten seasons they have finished above us five times. Which means we have finished above them five times too. So, even with all our financial woe and general Beale/Ainsworth fckery we are on a par. And even last season, when we gave Bristol City a massive head start by only winning two games from the opening 15, brilliant Bristol City only finished six points ahead of QPR.
So, good club, lovely away day, decent fans, great ground (if a bit of a schlep from the station) (and we won there last season)...but it's still Bristol City. Who haven't been in the top flight since 1980. Forty-four years ago. QPR are a club with a much more successful recent history stretching back 60+ years, as well as a much more handsome current manager who looks like he might have experienced a natural emotion in his life.
Good luck to Sinclair. Let's not forget our old friend Brian Tinnion did this deal (pop!). |
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Reply | Armstrong
at 22:20 17 Jul 2024
This is an incredible sentence:
"Similar to Cifuentes I never played professional football and neither of us have ever managed a professional team to league or cup success, so we have something in common..."
Cifuentes did win a promotion to the top flight in Norway, lost a cup final on penalties in Sweden, and qualified for the Europa League by coming third in the Swedish top flight. His win ratio as a professional manager is over 40%.
Same kind of thing with you, yeah? |
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Reply | Transfer rumours 2024
at 11:02 14 Jul 2024
The transfer window closes at 11:00pm on August 31st. As with *every year* QPR will make multiple signings. And as with every season throughout July fans will panic that we haven't signed enough or try and pretend that we what we have is going to be adequate. It's not. The club don't think it is either.
We will be trying to replace:
Hayden and Hodges's positions.
Willock.
Even Richards will be viewed as needing to be replaced.
Most clubs want a striker. We probably do too.
So at least two midfielders and one attacker, probably two.
Santos is not Willock's replacement, though he can play higher. He is there to replace Kakay/Adomah/Drewe - that multi-purpose right-sided position, bit like Larkeche.
Players will sign, some may leave. It's the same every season. There are six weeks of the window to go. |
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Reply | Transfer rumours 2024
at 11:42 10 Jul 2024
If he went to Wolves he'd be replacing a bloke signed from Maidenhead United. And if he went to Palace, then their most successful recent signings have been from Reading, Blackburn and - checks notes - QPR. So that's exactly who's on their radar and where they sign players from. |
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Reply | Transfer rumours 2024
at 11:34 10 Jul 2024
He's a better bet than Max Killman when Wolves bought him, for starters, and I'd argue as good as he Killman now. (He's also a year younger).
He's 26, couple of hundred appearances at Championship level, but was one of the most highly-rated CBs at youth level in the country: captain of CFC U18s, won FA youth cup twice, UEFA league, Won England U20 World Cup in 2017, was U21 England captain...then came series of serious injuries, which is why we've got him. Last season was his first one really back to fitness as an adult and in the back half of it he was absolutely crucial in us staying up. There's a reason why the players voted him their player of the season. They know!
He's a PL CB, no question. Look at some of the English CBs in that league. Of course we should sell him! But he's valuable, I'd say £8 million seems reasonable starting place. Seems like Palace also interested, which is helpful, and would be a good destination. More the merrier. |
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Reply | Transfer rumours 2024
at 10:40 2 Jul 2024
Brentford also offered £40 million, but niggled on payment terms and player chose Spurs.
So that's two PL clubs at least who think the payer is worth £40 million quid. Two vastly funded recruitment teams who will have studied Gray at length and recommended they spend that amount now. And we know that Brentford tend to get very good value from signings like this.
Or, it's a fella called 'Numpty' on a QPR messageboard who admits he's not seen much of Archie Gray but does know it's a terrible deal and a sign of the madness of the mdoern world.
It's hard to know which is the more reliable valuation. |
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Reply | Transfer rumours 2024
at 19:19 24 Jun 2024
Good player, from Marti's hometown, right-footed left winger in the Chair mould - but out for a long time with a very bad-looking ACL. Best part of a year, came back in April and played a couple of time apparently. Bit of the Anderson about him if signed, as he can play comfortably at a higher level but for the injury. Risky though. |
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Reply | Home start for us then.
at 09:42 18 Jun 2024
The 18th is a Sunday. So we could be at home at the day before. |
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