QPR have completed the free transfer of Gary O’Neil from West Ham, but what does his arrival mean for the plethora of other players Rangers already have in his position?
Central midfield player Gary O’Neil, now 30, originally came through the youth ranks at Portsmouth and was given his debut there as a 16-year-old as a last minute substitute for Paulo Vernazza in a 3-0 home win against Barnsley in January 2000. Tony Pulis was the manager at the time.
That was to be his only appearance in the senior team that season but in 2000/01 he stepped up to make 12 appearances, and when Pompey again beat the Tykes 3-0 at home in the final game of the season he scored his first professional goal.
The following season Harry Redknapp arrived at Fratton Park, initially as a director of football but later as manager when the boss at the time, Graham Rix, was shown the door. Redknapp assumed charge in March that year with O’Neil now a regular in the midfield. He scored one goal, against Millwall, in 35 appearances that season.
Redknapp ripped up the Portsmouth squad and started again ahead of the 2002/03 season and although O’Neil was one of the few to survive the cull, and went on to make 35 appearances as Pompey won promotion to the Premier League, only 11 of those were starts. Perhaps no surprise then that once they’d arrived in the top flight, Portsmouth allowed him to move to Walsall on loan at the start of the 2003/04 campaign. He made seven starts there, and just five for Portsmouth across the whole season.
Although he was now captaining the England Under 20 side the 2004/05 season started in a similar vain to the previous term. O’Neil was loaned out again, this time to Cardiff where he scored once in eight starts and a sub appearance. An injury crisis prompted a recall and O’Neil started a 2-1 defeat at bitter rivals Southampton and a 3-1 home set back against Manchester United. That proved to be the last match of Redknapp’s first spell with the club and although his replacement Velimir Zajec, and Alain Perrin who followed him, endured torrid times in the dugout at Fratton Park their arrivals were good news for O’Neil who became a regular starter.
He played on the right of midfield scoring at home to Man City and away to Man Utd. In 2005/06 he had his best season to date, with seven goals and 37 appearances in the top flight of English football. O’Neil had progressed to the England Under 21 side and become captain but when Redknapp returned to attempt to save them from relegation many assumed it meant O’Neil’s time with the club was coming to an end. Milan Mandaric publicly said he’d vetoed an attempt by Redknapp to sell O’Neil to Cardiff permanently during the feud that led to the manager’s departure first time around.
But that did not prove to be the case. In fact O’Neil captained the side as it escaped relegation in 2005/06, and then finished in a record high position of ninth in the Premier League in 2006/07.
On the final day of the summer transfer window in 2007, after 192 appearances and 17 goals in Portsmouth colours, O’Neil was sold to Middlesbrough for £5m. Although there were soon stories that he was seeking a return to Fratton Park citing homesickness, he stayed on Teeside for four years, making 120 appearances and scoring nine goals. Boro were sadly relegated during his time there and with no sign of an imminent return, and parachute payments starting to run out, the club allowed him to leave and sign for West Ham in the January transfer window of 2011.
The Hammers were struggling against relegation from the Premier League under Avram Grant and while that battle was ultimately unsuccessful, leading to the second demotion of O’Neil’s career, he became a key, dependable part of the Hammers side that bounced straight back up via the play offs the following year under Sam Allardyce. A nasty ankle injury picked up towards the end of the relegation season kept him out until December but he was a regular in the second half of the campaign and started all three playoff games. He made 27 appearances in the top flight last year, scoring one goal against West Brom, but many of those outings were as a substitute and although a contract was offered at the end of the season he elected to seek regular first team football elsewhere.
He has now signed a one year contract at QPR after training with the first team squad for the past few weeks.
Gary’s a good player and a good pro. He was offered a new deal at West Ham but he decided he fancied coming here because he feels maybe he’ll get more game time at QPR. He can run all day long, he’s good on the ball, a good passer, he sees all the pictures in front of him and is a top professional. We’ve got plenty of options in that department now, but he’ll certainly add to what we’ve got — he’s a good, good player and will be a fine acquisition for us.” — Harry Redknapp
The challenge here is an exciting one. Obviously I know Harry well and he was a big factor in me coming here. The promotion season we had under him at Portsmouth was fantastic. He’s played a massive role in my development as a player and now I’m back playing for him again and I want to repay him by helping this club get back into the Premier League. At this early stage when there are not too many injuries and there are no suspensions, it will look like there’s an abundance of talent and choices, but it doesn’t take a lot for people to miss games, so you need to have a competitive squad with strength in depth.” — Gary O’Neil
I liked him at Boro but he has been on the fringes since his move. Only slight concern is him turning down an extension with West Ham to come to us as he feels he will get more game time. I hope that doesnt mean no Faurlin but the way he has started I cant see him being demoted unless something happens. -Simmo
He probably will be a decent addition but on the day we got rid of Adel it's a bit underwhelming. I still worry where the creativity will come from when the wing play doesn't work and people put ten men behind the ball - RangersW12
I'm pretty confident we are starting to look like a fairly solid outfit - Dunne, O'Neill, Simpson seem unlikely to let us down even if they don't light up the division. A striker and a left back still on the shopping list though - I imagine that both could well end up being loans from the Prem once the 25 man squad lists are named and people miss out. - Adhoc QPR
It’s unlikely that anything will go spectacularly right or wrong with the signing of Gary O’Neil. He’s been the go-to man for clubs either looking to solidify their place in the Premier League, or win their place in the top division back, for a while now and has won promotion from this division twice before with Portsmouth and West Ham.
That’s because getting out of this league in the right direction requires dogged consistency, and when trying to stay in the Premier League as an unfashionable club the key is having players you know you can rely on to do a steady job every week. QPR had a distinct lack of players they could rely on last season and are currently in wild buying and selling mode as they attempt to shift as many of those out as possible and replace them in the time allowed by the transfer window. All that makes Gary O’Neil an absolute no brainer because he’s as reliable, solid and consistent as they come. Slightly unspectacular and underwhelming but potentially exactly the sort of player the team needs as it attempts to settle down, and to be fair probably the sort of player they needed to be signing a year ago. A one year deal means it’s almost completely risk free.
Of more interest than O’Neil, from whom we all pretty much know what we’re going to get, is what effect his arrival will have on several other players already at the club. QPR are building quite a sizeable collection of these middling midfielders who aren’t particularly attacking or defensive, not particularly quick or particularly flamboyant, not prolific goal scorers and not nasty enforcers — just, well, midfielders. Jermaine Jenas is the ultimate example but Rangers also have Esteban Granero, Stephane Mbia, Alejandro Faurlin, Karl Henry, Joey Barton, Shaun Derry and Frankie Sutherland as well as Samba Diakite who is presumably still alive and knocking around somewhere and Ji-Sung Park who is out on loan. You can tell the club are aware of the question marks adding another name to that list will create because the official press release on the O’Neil signing has a quote crowbarred in about strength in depth being important.
That’s correct of course, but being in a situation where the club could potentially field two totally different five men midfield line ups and still be reasonably competitive in the Championship is possibly taking things a little too far. The obvious conclusion to draw is that there will be some more departures in the coming weeks.
Some are fairly obvious. Park seems set for PSV on loan as we know and although Granero’s quest to rejoin his former Getafe boss Michael Laudrup at Swansea was thwarted earlier in the summer I’d suggest a transfer back to his homeland is almost certain now he’s clearly not figuring in Redknapp’s plans. Having featured heavily in the pre-season games Granero may have been tempted to stick around and see what transpires but he hasn’t even been on the bench for the first two games so the writing is on the wall there.
Likewise with Stephane Mbia, although given that Rangers are rather light at centre back (in numbers, rather than body mass) they’d perhaps be foolish to turn their back on a viable option for that position before new options can be sourced.
Shaun Derry looks like he’s coming to the end of his time as a QPR player. He told Sky earlier today that he’d had a "frank” conversation with Harry Redknapp on the way back from Exeter last night where he came on as a second half substitute in a 2-0 win. Millwall are keen on acquiring his services, potentially on loan like so many of QPR’s departures this summer, and he’d get another year of regular football there without having to uproot his family.
Jermaine Jenas started at Exeter and played reasonably well — albeit against meagre opposition — but Redknapp wasn’t a fan of his at Spurs and it always struck me that he was rather a transfer for the sake of making a transfer when he arrived back in January. If he’s going to take Championship games by the scruff of the neck and start imposing himself on them then he has the ability to be an asset but he too has been linked with Hull City and other clubs so may or may not stay. Who can really tell there?
Sutherland, despite impressing in pre-season, looks like he’s going to have to go and look for regular football on loan somewhere. While I’m not convinced he’s good enough yet to be commanding a regular place in QPR’s team, it does seem a shame that the club are once again looking outside for new signings in their 30s rather than inwardly for potential answers they already have at their disposal. Sutherland, who desperately wants to play for QPR, could easily be disheartened by being bumped further down the pecking order by yet another new arrival — the twenty seventh permanent signing of Tony Fernandes’ two year reign at Loftus Road.
That leaves Barton, Faurlin and Henry who all started the opening league game with Sheff Wed. Personally I’m not convinced I see the point in signing O’Neil and Henry at the same time. They do a very similar job and O’Neil, who Rangers have got for free, is a better player for me than Henry who cost money so why not just sign the former West Ham man? Probably because they expect Barton to leave, although he still seems no closer to doing so, or, more likely in my view, Redknapp doesn’t want to pick Faurlin regularly.
Henry will start games when he’s fit so I suspect whether O’Neil replaces Faurlin to his left or Barton to his right rather hinges on whether Joey is sticking around or not.
Two wins has given the club a much needed boost, and the LFW Message Board is a very different place today than it was a week ago because of the victories, but just rattling through that list has highlighted how much work is still required on this squad of players. And that’s just for one position.
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