QPR's summer of pragmatism continues with Fox capture - Signing Tuesday, 25th Jul 2023 09:05 by Clive Whittingham A much needed boost to the defensive ranks at Loftus Road, with Stoke's Morgan Fox arriving on a free transfer from Stoke to bolster numbers and offer cover for the fragile Jake Clarke-Salter. FactsMorgan Fox is a 29-year-old, left-sided, Welsh defender from Chelmsford. Fox, who at 6ft 1ins tall can play left back or centre half, came through the ranks at Charlton having been released initially by Ipswich. After a six-game loan spell in League One at Notts County, where he scored his first senior goal in a 4-0 rout of Colchester, he returned to The Valley for the second half of the 2013/14 Championship season and there are a couple of QPR connections in his early days there. He was an unused sub for the Addicks in their 1-0 victory over Harry Redknapp’s team of loaned stars in February, sparking angry scenes in the away end, before making a debut in an FA Cup fifth round tie against Sheff Wed. He quickly clocked up 34 appearances in the following 2014/15 campaign but was without a goal in Charlton colours until the beginning of 2015/16 when he bagged the second on the opening day at The Valley as Chris Ramsey’s freshly relegated R’s crashed 2-0 in their first game back in the Championship – something which, again, did not go down terribly well. There were another 45 appearances for Fox that year, but Charlton sadly finished the campaign relegated third from bottom. Fox played the first half of the League One season in South London before being picked up for £700k that January by Championship outfit Sheff Wed. He finished with 104 starts and 12 substitute appearances for the Addicks in roughly three seasons of action – strong availability is going to become a theme of this piece and given what went on at QPR last season, and who he’s covering, that’s not to be knocked.
At Wednesday he quickly got off the mark with a goal in a 5-1 home win against Norwich and was part of a team that reached the play-offs that season under Carlos Carvalhal but lost a semi-final to Huddersfield. He eventually clocked up 94 starts, 11 sub appearances and four goals in blue and white between January 2017 and August 2020. Given the scarcity of his goals, just six across a career of 204 games so far, it will come as absolutely no surprise to anybody that in 2019/20 he bagged against QPR for a second time as Wednesday won a Friday night FA Cup tie 2-1 against Mark Warburton’s side at Loftus Road. Wednesday finished 15th, 12th and 16th in his three full seasons there. In the locked down Covid summer of 2020 Fox completed a free transfer move to rival Championship side Stoke. The Potters have yet to finish in the top half of the Championship table since being relegated back to this level five years ago and it’s been a fairly stodgy time for Fox in that part of the world over the last three years. Converted from left back to a left sided centre back he’s made 70 starts and eight sub appearances with no goals as the team finished 14th, 14th and 16th. Excitement thin on the ground. In 2020/21 and 21/22 he suffered with injuries for the first time in his career, clocking up only 13 appearances in the latter campaign thanks to hamstring problems, but he made 37 starts and seven sub appearances last season. He's made the Welsh squad, but never the team, on four occasions most recently in March this year for games with Croatia and Latvia. He has seven caps at U21 level. He joins QPR on a free transfer and two-year contract. Reaction“I came down here to see this amazing facility, and that is obviously a massive pull for players, to work in a place like this every day. It’s pretty special. You can tell the direction the club is going in. The manager explained his plans for the team and for me personally, and it is an exciting opportunity. I will be looking to use my experience to push this squad forward. I have moved into left centre-back and have also played at left wing-back. I think it is good to be quite versatile and play different positions. The gaffer wants a tight-knit group, and it is a talented, young squad here. We will be looking to push on after what happened last season.” -Morgan Fox “I’ve said from the moment I came in that experience is lacking a little bit in this squad, we have got some fantastic young talent here but it needs some leadership and Morgan definitely brings that. He is a warrior and brings much-needed experience. Morgan is only 29 and there is no reason why he can’t have a really good stint here, and he brings healthy competition to that backline.” -Gareth Ainsworth OpinionA year ago we were trying to talk up the sound thinking behind ditching 29-year-old Yoann Barbet, who’d just completed 97 consecutive appearances for the club, and replacing him with Jake Clarke-Salter because he was younger, with better growth potential and more sell-on value. Now, 12 months later, we’re trying to make a case for bringing in 29-year-old Morgan Fox on a free transfer from Stoke. That’s partly because while clearly a very good player Clarke-Salter, unlike his predecessor, has turned out to be made of porcelain. He’d never managed 30 starts in a season prior to joining Rangers and only made it onto the pitch for 13 starts and three sub appearances in his first campaign at Loftus Road. Already in 2023/24 he’s the first one to the treatment table having lasted just 14 minutes of the first friendly against Slavia Prague. QPR have since been starting with Jimmy Dunne and Joe Gubbins at centre back in the subsequent friendly games, and when Dunne sat down for a prolonged period of treatment at Wimbledon on Saturday it left Gareth Ainsworth staring down the barrel of Valerian Ismael’s Watford team next Saturday with a central defensive pairing of Gubbins and, presumably, Deon Woodman. Extra centre back coverage is desperately needed since Rob Dickie’s move to Bristol City and Leon Balogun’s entirely predictable defection back to Glasgow Rangers. But it’s also where we are FFP wise this summer. We’ve painted ourselves into such a tight corner with the overspend in 2021/22 that we’ve had to spend this summer tossing Dickie, Dieng, Johansen and others overboard, and currently Wycombe holding out for even a measily £400k for Chris Forino is proving something of an obstacle. I suspect they’d rather Fox was a right sided defender, having already added Ziyad Larkerche to the left, but it really is needs must and whatever we can afford in this transfer window. Fox is, let’s be honest, not very good. The lengthy thread about Fox on Stoke’s legendary Oatcake website makes for a bracing read. “Having him start every week as a left-sided CB explains why this football club is doing as badly as it is,” for example. Two years ago you’d have laughed this signing out of town, a year ago you’d have thought it very strange, but now it’s a 29-year-old player with a good availability record who can cover a number of positions, is available on a free and fits into our wage bracket. It wasn’t just Jake Clarke-Salter who didn’t turn up for work much last season, availability was a massive issue all across the season and squad. As was the attitude of a number of players. Operating with a much smaller group of players this time around that could potentially sink us if it happens again and having a few more players who are just consistent, reliable, Steady Eddies, available most weeks will be important. That’s certainly an attribute that comes through reading some of the calmer posts on the Stoke board… “An ok Championship player”… “defends well, useless with ball at feet”… “no world beater but he's a good solid player at this level” … “good character and average player that still may have been a useful fringe player”. It’s a very Gareth Ainsworth signing in that regard. He spoke at length to us last week about the sort of characters he wants in his dressing room and the ‘no dickheads’ policy. Fox is one of those players managers tend to love to have around, while fans wonder exactly what he’s bringing to the table. Maybe not the best, but attitude exactly where it needs to be and willing to pull on the rope for his manager. George @Potterlytics tells us: "Versatile, can play left back or wide of a back three, but in my opinion best as a left back. He can put in a good cross, and is comfortable enough on the ball, but he has recently got a bit lost in punting it forward. That could just be the Stoke effect, but it did seem like his passing brain was stuck on 'hit the front line' a bit too much. "Don't expect him to maraud forward, beat his man, and whip it into the box, but as a a solid, relatively dependable left back who can put a good ball in and get it forward quickly, he's no mug at all. Be interesting to see how you use him, because he did spend a fair whack of time at centre back for us, where he tended to get found out by balls in behind and quick-turning attacking players. "All in all, fairly solid as a defensive-ish left back. I'd expect, depending on your squad, Ainsworth to maybe let Fox sit deeper and tuck in while the right back bombs on a bit more aggressively." Looking at our squad, Fox will almost certainly be used more at centre half, playing the 30-odd games Clarke-Salter isn’t around for this time. But his ability to play left back and left wing back could be useful. Gareth Ainsworth said in interview with this site last week that multi-positional players will be massively useful to him this year as he seeks to build a competitive team on no budget at all. He also mooted the idea of pushing Kenneth Paal, defensively quite suspect at Wimbledon on Saturday I thought, further up into the midfield and attack, with Lakerche and now Fox available to cover him at the back. And there’s the ongoing issue we’ve talked about a lot with the lack of experience, voice, street smarts, toughness and nastiness in our team. Asmir Begovic has certainly been brought in with an eye on that problem, and Fox’s 300-game career adds another more wily character to an otherwise naïve, quiet squad of nice lads that gets bullied by Championship teams and referees. Not one that’s going to set any pulses racing, but another necessary move in a summer of pragmatism. If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via PayPal The Twitter @loftforwords Pictures – Ian Randall Photography Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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