With the transfer window coming to a close as QPR play away at Luton Town tonight there’s much still up in the air, but one certain thing is Lyndon Dykes’ time at the club is over.
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Lyndon Dykes played rugby league, not football, as a youngster. Lyndon Dykes started our sport at Surfers Paradise Apollo (pre-season friendly please – NOT behind closed doors). Lyndon Dykes is more tattoo than man. I guess he was never going to be conventional. Still, to get to the end of four complete seasons watching every game a guy plays live and still not be able to say with any degree of certainty whether he’s any good or not is unusual. You’ve usually firmed up some pretty solid opinions about a player in that amount of time.
And, look, lots of you have. A thread on our message board continues to bat back and forth like a well-matched Wimbledon semi between those who like and those who do not like. Everybody set in their view, nobody willing to give an inch to the other. Few players in our recent history have divided opinion like Lyndon Dykes. The fact that, at 28, and costing just £1m, Scotland’s first choice international striker has only been able to command a move to League One – long time suitors Millwall, and John Eustace at Blackburn, looking elsewhere instead – speaks volumes to his critics. His supporters say Birmingham aren’t behaving, or spending, like a League One team, and he is Scotland’s main international striker for a reason.
Lyndon Dykes' barren spells at QPR:
23/24: Only scored 2 from Sept to Jan then didn't score again until the end of April
22/23: No goals from Nov to April
21/22: Only scored 2 league goals between Oct and May (both against Reading in Jan)
20/21: Spell of 20 games without a goal pic.twitter.com/Hz6Uae8FRO— Hoops & Dreams (@HoopsDreams_QPR) August 27, 2024
Round and round we go, and round and round we have gone for four years. I’ve given up on him multiple times, and when your main centre forward scores 37 goals in 165 appearances across four years there are going to be multiple times you can give up on them. The barren spells haven’t been so much barren as biblical famines, not so much spells as literal years at a time – his equaliser at Sheffield United (Aug '24) was his first away goal in more than a year (West Brom, April '23) which was, in turn, his first away goal for more than a year (Fulham A, Oct '21). But then he’d score a goal like that one at Bramall Lane, that one at The Hawthorns, the equaliser at home to Swansea last season, and make you think ‘fuck me’ you’ve got to be some player to score a goal like that.
You could kindly describe him as a confidence player. His goalscoring at Rangers often came in streaks – five in six and then four in four to start 2021/22, another six in six at the end of the previous campaign. When he scored one he’d often score two – six braces for club and country is a stupidly high number for somebody with an overall goal record as poor as his, and somewhat torturous for absconded asylum outpatient John Burke who backed him for a hat trick every week of his QPR career. Once, already on two at home to Reading (who he seemed to hate nearly as much as we do) he struck the crossbar from 30 yards. You’re not going to gain or maintain a lot of confidence playing for QPR over the period of time he was here, particularly the 2022 and 2023 calendar years in which the team won just six of the 48 games it played under four different managers. We are a tough team to play for, particularly as the lone striker.
153 bets.
£809 spent.
46 goals scored.
0 hattricks.
Lived it. Loved it. Farewell beautiful bet. pic.twitter.com/8E3xc7kFiK— John Burke (@J_J_Burke) August 27, 2024
There has been debate about whether he’s a lone striker at all. He did a reasonable gig playing behind Sinclair Armstrong on occasions. His best form for us was when he played up front with Charlie Austin – the pair really got on, their families were tight together, and on the pitch a very promising partnership blossomed in lockdown before falling away all too quickly in 2021/22. Personally I thought that was a lot more about Charlie driving him around and telling him where to stand but it’s an argument somewhat undermined anyway by Steve Clarke repeatedly picking him for Scotland precisely because Clarke believes he can play as a lone target man better than he Adams and Lawrence Shankland types.
There’s been a persistent feeling that he looks happier, more committed, more effective for Scotland than he ever does for QPR, and that’s because he’s playing with better players, who play to his strengths. This idea that we don’t service him well enough, or don’t provide the right kind of service, was also allowed to persist through three years of Conor Washington before he, too, dropped down towards his true level of League One and we could all finally accept that he’s just not very good. QPR has been a tough team to play for during Lyndon’s time here, but not always. He was part of the side when Mark Warburton got them really motoring, and Ilias Chair and Chris Willock were in career best form. Best team in the league? No. Best providers in the league? No. Illy holds onto the ball too long, cuts inside too often, yadda, yadda, yadda. But, really, by Championship standards, what more do you want as a centre forward than Mark Warburton style football and a fit and firing Illy and Willy loading the bullets for you? It doesn’t get a lot better at this level. A bit better, granted, but not much. QPR won 15 of their final 23 games that season. At one-point Dykes scored one goal in 23 games – half a season. I mean, coooooome on. Do I have to come down there and fuck it for you?
You can probably tell where I ended up landing with him. Just because lots of strikers have struggled up front for QPR in recent times doesn’t excuse Lyndon as a brilliant player in a dysfunctional team necessarily, it could just mean we’ve been proper dogshit at recruiting and retaining strikers which sounds much more like it to me. Every explanation about lack of service, or poor service, or the wrong type of service undermined by a litany of misses from inside the six yard box that often had to be seen to be believed. The open goal at home to Hull, four yards out, where they’d inadvertently passed the ball to him while trying to play out from a goal kick, and he sidefooted it straight back where it came from, I still cannot believe even though I saw it with my own eyes. There was a diving header from even closer in at the same end against tonight’s opponents. It’s worth saying the goal total he did manage was bolstered by being the club’s primary penalty taker during his time here, a job he approached by taking six steps back from the ball and belting it as hard as he could – sometimes goal, sometimes Tim Krul.
My frustration didn’t so much come from the occasional Les Ferdinand-like header away to West Brom, or even last week’s goal at Bramall Lane which, as a first time attempt with zero thinking time, was probably the ideal scenario for him. If he could do that 20 times a season he’d be a £40m centre forward and, as we always say, certainly not playing here. It came in the games like Preston away last season. Dykes, who often seemed to play well against Preston and Reading weirdly, was an absolute bastard to play against that night at Deepdale. Cold night, hard pitch, tough game, charging around, smashing into people, elbowing centre backs in the head. Fucking animal. Did he score? No. Did it matter? No. Because he’d done a job for the team, helping lay a considerable platform for a much needed 2-0 win. Ryan Lowe said he should have been sent off. MORE. More like that. Another, at home to Sheff Utd during Neil Critchley’s reign, rightly had Neil Warnock purring from the Sky commentary box. At Bristol City last season his selfless run removed defenders so Andersen could find Chair to win the game. You don’t need to be particularly good, particularly confident, or playing in a particularly strong team, to charge about making a nuisance of yourself. Cloggers like Ashley Barnes have made lucrative careers at the top end of the sport out of it. That Lyndon only really did that, at best, one game in every six or seven, was far more damning to me than even his lousy goalscoring record. That’s where I start to land on what the folks back at home might call ‘he’s just a bit shit mate’.
What does set him apart from a lot of the wasters we’ve had through the doors during his time at the club, and certainly several who’ve followed the path from Loftus Road to St Andrew’s which seems to be turning into something of a rest home for some of the more genuine arseholes we’ve had to suffer in recent times, is he’s come across as a reasonably good egg.
I'm so sorry, please accept this Dozzell and Dykes.
Unless there’s something we don’t know about, he leaves with a fair amount of goodwill behind him at QPR, despite his frequent struggles on the pitch, because of the work he did with the club off it. When the 2022/23 season melted down several players downed tools and wanted no part in it. Several clubhouse leaders in the 22/23 Queens Park Rangers Bell End Invitational are waiting for Lyndon up in Birmingham. He had every excuse to do so himself, contracting pneumonia in January, but got himself back, fit and playing within six weeks. You could be cynical and say he was trying to prove his fitness to Scotland, or suitors who could get him out of here, but everybody was eyeing a move at that point and most of them felt it would further their own cause not to be involved. Maybe let’s not be cynical on this occasion and just assume he was desperate to get back to try and help. He also extended his contract here, rather than running it down to a free transfer, like several other favourites have done.
So, no ill-will, but I think £1m to League One says a lot. Four years here and, at 28, he moves down a division for a financial loss to the club. He certainly won't get a better opportunity to flat track bully his way to a decent goal total than there, assuming he can get in ahead of £10m Jay Stansfield, but even if he does you'd do well to argue he wasn't a poor signing.
Strange old player.
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Team News: While we await any late transfer window action from Heston we do know that Lucas Andersen is fit and available after his fairly comical knock sustained while taking a corner up at Sheff Utd. Morgan Fox, who the club and manager seem to be regarding as a pretty prominent option at left back given Kenneth Paal is currently playing every second of every game and no left sided full backs have been linked since three times soap box derby champion Owen Beck went to Blackburn from Liverpool instead, remains sidelined. Ilias Chair’s stated bone bruising issue in his back continues to sideline him. Given that Rangers are apparently pursuing Harrison Ashby, a young right back from Newcastle, despite Jimmy Dunne playing well in that position and Hevertton Santos arriving over the summer, it would suggest they’re a) a bit nervous about how Santos has gone so far and b) you’re more likely to see Katie Price turn up to a court appearance than you are Reggie Cannon in a QPR shirt this season.
Elsewhere: Saturday’s fixtures are dominated by the Lancashire derby between Burnley and Blackburn at lunchtime. The Clarets seem to be running some sort of Brewster’s Millions bet with themselves, reducing the stockpile of 45 players they came into the season with to zero by the end of the window. Blackburn, meanwhile, are the latest to show the folly of trying to write a season preview with a month of transfer window left to go – their squad increasingly unrecognisable from the one it looked like they were taking into the season at one stage.
Obviously you’re all going to be watching that if you’ve got a Sky sub but our television overlords have moved Coventry v Middlesbrough and Cardiff v Norwich into the same timeslot regardless just to massively inconvenience those poor bastards and piss everybody off.
Seven lucky fixtures get to stay on Saturday afternoon, including Bristol City, who we quite fancied anyway even before they made the shrewd addition of Luke McNally to their growing collection of centre backs, travelling to Derby, whose midweek cup defeat at Barrow hasn’t done much to quell the Marge Simpson grumbly noises about their prospects.
Hull’s summer of missing out on transfer targets looks to have concluded with Tom Cannon choosing to go to Stoke instead of them (imagine) ahead of a Yorkshire-off against Leeds.
Neil Harris’ ongoing quest to re-establish what is Wawll and isn’t Wawll continued with the midweek cup defeat at home to Leyton Orient, which also apparently wasn’t very Wawll at awll, and nobody involved in it is allowed to bang on his door if they don’t get picked for this weekend’s homer with Champions Sheff Wed, he says. Have to say, looking at their results so far, it did feel quite Wawll to me.
Oxford continue to do brisk business, adding Siriki Dembele to their attack, prior to the visit of Preston Knob End who got off to a winning start under Paul Heckingbottom last weekend against Luton. There’s a Stephen Schumacher grudge match between Plymouth and Stoke, Sunderland on the long old poke down to Portsmouth and West Brom hosting Swanselona.
And, of course, no surprise to see England manager Sven Goran Eriksson in the crowd.
Referee: Robert Madley will take a third swing at refereeing QPR for the first time since his comeback from exile two seasons ago. Last in charge of a Rangers match at Charlton in 2015, the Premier League ref had been slated to do us at Norwich on the night of the horny 6ft 18-year-old, and last season in the relegation six pointer at Millwall, but was switched off both games at late notice. Third’s the charm tonight perhaps. Details.
QPR: Rangers continue to play in fits and starts, befitting the way the team has been put together this summer, the profile of the signings and the early stage of the campaign. Three draws in a row bring the team into this contest against Luton, and there have been some brilliant and ugly moments for the R’s in all three of those against Sheff Utd (2-2), Plymouth and Luton in the cup (both 1-1). The defeat to West Brom was QPR’s first ever home loss on the opening day of the season at this level. It’s the first time they’ve lost their first match of the season three years in a row since the mid 90’s when they were beaten by Villa (4-1, 93/94), Man Utd (2-0, 94/95) and Blackburn (1-0, 95/96) in consecutive years. It took Rangers nine goes to get a home win on the board in 23/24 – seven defeats and two draws. They won just two of their first 17 matches overall. So far this season it’s three swings at home without a win, and just one victory from five in all comps.
Kenny Jackett’s law says ten shots on target usually means a win, but that wasn’t the case with the form Conor Hazard was in for Plymouth last week. QPR scoring with just one of ten on and 20 off in that match. Jack Supple tells us Karamoko Dembélé created 9 chances against Plymouth, the most by a QPR player in a league game since Luke Freeman vs Brentford in April 2017 (also nine).
Luton As a parachute payment club, plucky underdogs Luton have started the season as favourites – both in individual games and for promotion overall. It’s not a tag that seems to be sitting well with them. An opening day shellacking, 4-1, at home to Burnley before all their stars pissed off somewhere else could perhaps be put down to a quirk of the transfer window. Likewise a 0-0 at newly promoted Portsmouth where goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski was sent off in the first half. Then, if you’re still making excuses, Preston had a new manager in situ for their 1-0 loss at Deepdale. But having attempted to strongarm QPR with a big team selection in the cup they were also beaten at Loftus Road on penalties. Four games, no wins, two goals scored, six conceded. It’s, kindly put, a work in progress.
The cup success son Tuesday continues what is generally a good QPR track record against Luton Town, but one that has taken a bit of a battering just lately. Luton did the double on their way to promotion in 2022/23, beating Mick Beale’s side 3-1 in this fixture and then Neil Critchley’s beleaguered R’s 3-0 at Loftus Road over Christmas. But QPR won both fixtures in 21/22 and the 20/21 lockdown campaign. Town’s victory at Loftus Road in December 2022 was their first in Shepherd’s Bush since 1984 while Rangers have only lost twice at Kenilworth Road in 12 league games back to 1988.
Prediction: There’s still time to enter our Prediction League for 2024/25, where we’ll once again be handing out prizes for being top at Christmas and overall winner from The Art of Football - sample the merch from our sponsor’s newly extended QPR collection here. For the first time last year we had joint winners so this season you’ll be hearing from one or both WestonsuperR and SimplyNico in the match previews – both lads went for a win against Plymouth, but LFW nicked that one by cautiously calling a 1-1.
Nico says: "We are definitely becoming more cohesive as a unit and having some nice passages of play. That said, we are still short on end product, and prone to both switching off and sitting back; that was the cause of the Luton goal in the cup game. I think Luton are going to be up for this and as we are still a work in progress, I think this is a loss.”
WestonSuperR adds: "Tough match to call. I had Luton down to win the Championship this season, their strong, powerful style and lack of changes convinced me they would be a good bet for the title but certainly hasn’t happened so far. Luton haven’t been as poor as their start suggests though and they will be desperate to win before the international break. My worry is our propensity to give up chances will lead to a narrow Luton win, probably a goal from a set piece.”
Nico’s Prediction: Luton 3-1 QPR. Scorer – Michy Frey
WestonSuperR’s Prediction: Luton 1-0 QPR. - No scorer.
LFW’s Prediction: Luton 1-1 QPR. Scorer – Karamoko Dembele
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