Neil Warnock has finally been able to complete a new signing ahead of the start of the Premiership season, adding striker Jay Bothroyd to his ranks on a free transfer.
Bothroyd was released at the end of his contract with Cardiff City this summer with the two parties unable to get anywhere close to each other on terms. Bothroyd’s stock has risen markedly over the past 18 months and while his career seems to be going one way Cardiff seem to be going another.
Like the rest of his Cardiff team mates Bothroyd started last season like a runaway train, and then fell away badly when it actually mattered. He finished the season with 20 goals, but 15 of them came in the first three months of the season. That included seven goals in the first eight games of the season, and another eight in just six games through October. That prompted a surprise England call up for the friendly with France where he made a substitute appearance just two years after he almost played for Jamaica, who he qualifies for through his parents.
That England call up didn’t seem to do much for him because he only scored five more goals in the remaining six months and 25 games of the season. That did include an astonishing strike against QPR in Cardiff, one of three goals in five games through Easter, but ultimately Cardiff faltered at the last.
Bothroyd started off as a trainee at Arsenal but he was immediately sold by Arsene Wenger to then premiership side Coventry for £1m after he reacted to being substituted in a high profile youth game by throwing his shirt at coach, and former QPR manager, Don Howe. He wasn’t a conspicuous success at Coventry where he scored 17 goals in 83 appearances so it was something of a surprise when he was picked up by Perugia in Serie A, then under the ownership of Luciano Gaucci who prided himself on making unusual signings. Sadly for him Bothroyd failed to settle and was subsequently loaned back to Blackburn where he was more well known for an outrageous red card picked up in a game at Norwich.
An unsuccessful spell at Charlton, a mediocre time with Wolves and a brief loan at Stoke turned up 18 goals in 89 appearances before he really found his feet at Cardiff for whom he scored 45 times in three seasons after a £300,000 move. Bothroyd has signed a two year contract with an option for a third at Loftus Road after the R’s beat off competition from Spurs and Celtic for his signature.
"In bringing Jay in, we have managed to secure an excellent player which augers well for the forthcoming campaign. We have been chasing him for a number of weeks and it has been frustrating at times. We have had to have a lot of patience with this but, as the saying goes, good things come to those who wait. We are now working hard to add another new face to the squad and we hope to have that done very soon." – Neil Warnock
"I spoke to the Manager and he told me how much he wanted me. He convinced me that this was the right place to be. He told me the direction that he wants to go in and the way he wants to play. I think this Club is heading in the right direction and has got a lot of ambition. I want to be playing against the best players in the world. I got a taste of that when I joined up with the England squad, and hopefully I can do well for QPR and get back into the squad. People say that I'm a 'one-cap wonder' and I want to get that second cap to put that to bed. You want to play at the highest level and the only way to do that is by producing for your club week in, week out. That's what I'm looking to do." – Jay Bothroyd
If I could have chosen any striker from the championship from last year for this QPR team I would have taken Bothroyd. He impressed me home and away and does seem to have matured over the years and seems ready for a crack at the prem. I know not everyone agrees with that view but for me and what I saw from opposition strikers last year he was the one that stood out. - Barbican Ranger
Of the opposition I saw home and away Bothroyd impressed me as much as anyone. We have done well to get him. A better signing than any that Norwich or Swansea have come up with imo. - Spaghetti Hoops
Such has been the lack of activity from QPR so far this summer, it would be easy to clasp onto any signing at all like a rare and beautiful butterfly to treasure and show off to all our friends. Any port in a storm and all that.
And as signings go, picking up a striker who bagged 20 goals in the Championship last season on a free transfer isn’t to be knocked. He’s at a good age, 29, and plays in a position where we desperately need to strengthen. Heidar Helguson was superb last season, and integral to the way we play, but he is getting on in years and barely passed his medical (if he did indeed pass it at all) when he signed for us in 2009 so, not to put too fine a point on it, he’s on his last legs. We’re not going to be causing Premiership managers many sleepless nights selecting our strikers from Helguson, Rob Hulse and Patrick ‘Dave’ Agyemang next season so Bothroyd’s arrival is certainly a welcome one in that respect. He’s also, technically, an England international having won a cap in the friendly game against France at Wembley last season, the first Football League player to do so since David Nugent in 2007.
Bothroyd has a decent turn of pace, a fierce shot (as seen in our 2-2 draw at Cardiff last season) and can score a variety of different goals. He can be a handful, and pose a threat, and that’s exactly what we need in an attack that may be about to be shorn of Adel Taarabt, the leading light from last season. And all at a price that even Bernie Ecclestone can agree to, assuming the ridiculous suggestion that he is going to be paid £50k a week is yet more nonsense from the gutter press. The contract allegedly offered to Bothroyd at about £25k a week that leaked onto the message boards last week is a little easier to swallow.
But regular readers (hello to both) will know that I’ve never really got on with Jay Bothroyd. Yes he scored 20 goals last season and looked almost unplayable at times in doing so, but 15 of those 20 goals were scored in the first three months of the season. Just five of them came in the remaining 25 games of the season after his England call up which, let’s be quite honest here, was just another farcical chapter in the long running saga of unfathomable hatred held by Fabio Capello for Peter Crouch.
Bothroyd’s goal scoring record throughout his career, apart from that three month spell last season, is mediocre at best. Having been booted out of Arsenal as a youngster for unforgivably removing his shirt and throwing it at legendary coach Don Howe after being substituted he pitched up at Coventry for £1m and managed a paltry 17 goals in 83 appearances. There followed spells with Perugia (five goals, 29 appearances), Blackburn (one goal, 11 appearances), Charlton (five goals, 25 appearances), Wolves (13 goals, 60 appearances) and Stoke (no goals, four appearances) – 41 goals in nine years. This is the record of a journeyman Championship centre forward, moving from club to club with his work rate and attitude a regular topic of conversation.
At Cardiff he seemed to settle down and start to show his best form. When called up by England he waxed lyrical about how much his stupidity at Arsenal had taught him and how much he’d grown up, conveniently ignoring the fact that that incident had happened more than ten years previously and in the meantime he’d been of little use to six other clubs who’d all got rid of him at the first possible opportunity. In fact prior to his spell with Cardiff he was best remembered for an incident in his Blackburn days when, during a game at Norwich, he lost his rag under minimal provocation while shielding the ball in the corner and took a wild swing at Mattias Jonson earning a straight red card in the process.
And even at Cardiff, where his goal record and performance level has been decent, whenever I saw them playing a big game I always found myself sitting there waiting for the Bothroyd limp to begin. I know we can’t expect everybody to be like Gareth Ainsworth, who once tried to “run off” a spiral fracture of his shin, but Bothroyd has always had a touch of the Nygaards about him for me – signalling immediately for an early substitution whenever he thinks he might be about to get injured. The most famous example was in Cardiff’s play off final against Blackpool the season before last where he lasted barely 20 minutes. When the going gets slightly tough, Bothroyd has tended to get going.
But then a very similar player, with all the same attributes and faults, has just got to Stoke for £6m – Carlton Cole – so this doesn’t look like such a bad deal after all.
This time last season I was producing similarly pessimistic articles about the likes of Shaun Derry and Clint Hill who turned out to be superb signings for us. Back then I found myself repeating that having campaigned for an experienced manager to be appointed and left to it we could hardly moan too much at the players he chose to bring in. This summer I think the repeated line on LFW is going to be that Warnock earned the right to be trusted with the business he did last year, and as long as the signings we are making are players he has chosen and wants then that’s more than good enough for me.
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