With the fixtures due out at the end of next week and recruitment already well underway at Norwich and Swansea, QPR fans are getting a little twitchy. So what’s the plan?
Spend. Spend like the world will end at midnight. Spend like there’s no tomorrow. Spend like money is going out of fashion. Spend like you’re Richard Pryor in Brewster’s millions. If it moves, buy it. If it’s got a friend that moves, buy him too. It’s like the old ‘speculate to accumulate’ ideal, but when Sunderland were promoted with Roy Keane in charge in 2006/07 it was as if speculate and accumulate had got hold of some bad acid.
Having already spent just shy of £4m on Anthony Stokes from Arsenal, Carlos Edwards from Luton and Marton Fulop from Spurs in the January transfer window during their promotion season Keane was then allowed to bring in (pause for breath) Greg Halford from Reading for £2.5m, Russell Anderson from Aberdeen for £1m, Michael Chopra from Cardiff for £5m, Kieran Richadson from Man Utd for £5.5m, Dickson Etuhu from Norwich for £1.5m, Paul McShane from West Brom for £2.5m, Craig Gordon from Hearts for £9m, Andy Cole from Portsmouth for nothing but on a sizeable chunk of weekly wage, Ian Harte from Levante likewise, Kenwyne Jones from Southampton for £6m and Danny Higginbotham from Stoke for £2.5m. Then, in January, a further £8.3m was spent on Phil Bardsley from Man Utd, Rade Prica from Aalborg, Andy Reid from Charlton (£4m!!!) and Jean-Yves Mvoto from Paris St Germain. That’s £40.3m in the first season as a newly promoted side if you’re keeping a running score.
It didn’t end there either. The following summer Keane spent a further £15m that was declared on Anton Ferdinand (£8m!!!), George McCartney (£4.5m!!!) and El Hadji Diouf. He also bought a job lot of Spurs reserves – Steed Malbranque, Teemu Tainio and Pascal Chimbonda – for an undisclosed fee rumoured to be around the £12m mark for the three of them. So, best estimate, £67.3m spent in 18 months to make Sunderland fit for the Premiership. And you only have to look at some of those names to know money doesn’t go very far in modern day football.
The result of all this? Well Sunderland finished fifteenth in their first season, three points clear of relegated Reading, and sixteenth a year later, two points clear of Newcastle in the final relegation spot.
Now it would be easy to look at that vast list of mediocre players with ridiculous prices next to their names, followed by the less than impressive league table finishes and simply write off the idea of throwing silly money around upon promotion as an act of folly that gets you nowhere. Particularly as, in the second season in particular, there are clubs that finished much higher than Sunderland spending far less – Stoke, Bolton, Fulham, Wigan, West Ham and others were all streets ahead of them spending half as much on transfers.
But look at it this way – Sunderland are still there, about to go into a fifth consecutive season of Premiership football. They have survived – despite Keane having a typical meltdown and alienating his entire squad during the second season, despite then replacing him with the most reluctant Premiership manager ever Ricky Spragia and despite Steve Bruce’s best attempts since they’re still there. Spending all that money, even on what can best be described as a mediocre bunch, almost made them relegation proof. They have always had just about enough to stay there. That’s what spending serious money will do for you – West Ham the notable exception, Leeds a void example owing to the added Peter-Ridsdale-Titanic-captain factor they had to contend with.
Sunderland recognise that they have a shiny new stadium that holds more than 40,000 people and has a whole bank of hospitality suites to fill on a match by match basis. They also know from experience that whenever they are relegated 20,000 of the north east’s well known “best supporters in the world” suddenly find something else to do with their Saturday afternoons, returning only for the final four games of the Championship season if it looks like they might secure a return. They cannot really afford not to be a Premiership team, so they spent and continue to spend to this day to make sure that’s exactly what they are.
QPR’s board could do this. Bernie Ecclestone, Flavio Briatore and Lakshmi Mittal could collectively summon up the £67.3m Sunderland spent between them and ensure that QPR survive and prosper in the Premiership. Given that it would be Neil Warnock spending it in W12, I dare say it would go a lot further than it did in Keane’s hands. However the QPR situation, stadium wise, is very different to Sunderland. The earning power of Loftus Road is dwarfed by that of the Stadium of Light – Sunderland can milk the Premiership for so much more money than QPR can that they need to make sure they’re there, while Rangers’ old stadium means that even supporting a team at the top end of the Championship comes at a loss.
Perhaps a better example for plan A would be Fulham – promoted into the Premiership ten years ago and there ever since despite playing in a stadium not that dissimilar to our own, and possessing many of the same limitations. They too spent big to get there and stay there - £10m in the 2000/01 Championship season on the likes of John Collins and Alain Goma, £32.3m after promotion including £5m for Edwin Van der Sar and £11.5m on Steve Marlet. Since then they have reigned it right in again – they spent nothing in their second season, and just over a million in the second while recouping the thick end of £20m selling players like Steve Finnan, Louis Saha and Maik Taylor. But the point is that the initial massive outlay by both Fulham and Sunderland secured their position at the top table and meant spending could be brought under control further down the line while the Premiership riches continued to role in. Bernie, Flavio and Lakshmi could look at the situation now and decide to spend £60m on the team this season and £30m next year knowing that it would secure QPR in the top flight for four years at £90m each. This summer, in such circumstances, we’d need a right and left full back (preferably quick ones), at least one domineering centre half, a Premiership version of Shaun Derry who could cost anything up to £8m, a Premiership version of Heidar Helguson retailing at £12m or more, and probably a bit of added pace and quality for the three man supporting cast behind the striker as well.
One look at Fulham’s current bank balance tells you why they won’t though. Fulham currently owe £193m to creditors. The vast majority of that is owed to Mohammed Al Fayed. Should he ever call it all in Fulham would very quickly slip off their perch on the north bank of the Thames and sink beneath the murky water without trace. He’s always said he wouldn’t call it in, and has never shown any indication that he will go back on his word – in fact he now seems ready to bring up the round £200m by letting new manager Martin Jol strengthen the squad he has inherited.
Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore have maintained throughout that they are rich, QPR are not. They’ve certainly not tried to trot out any stories about coming to watch QPR as children and harbouring long standing dreams of seeing them succeed. They’re rich, the club is not, and they didn’t get rich by writing a lot of cheques. Plan A, done either Sunderland’s or Fulham’s way, is just about the last thing I expect to see QPR do this summer.
Potential Targets >>> John Carew (free agent), Jermaine Jenas, Robbie Keane, Sebastien Bassong, Kyle Walker, Kyle Naughton and Jamie O’Hara (all Spurs), Marouane Chamakh (Arsenal), Charles N’Zogbia (Wigan), Scott Parker, Demba Ba, Matthew Upson and Carlton Cole (West Ham), Javier Saviola (Benfica), John Mensah (Lyon), Joe Cole (Liverpool), Scott Dann and Roger Johnson (both Birmingham).
The West Brom approach requires seeing the bigger picture, planning for the medium and long term, and patience. Given that, since the takeover by our current board, not one single improvement of any note whatsoever has been made to the QPR youth set up which is just as unfit for purpose now as it was five years ago I wouldn’t really hold my breath on this one either.
West Brom have operated for a number of years under the idea that while it’s all well and good somebody handing you £50m plus for being in the Premiership there’s not a lot of point in spunking it all up the wall as soon as you get there and running the risk of leaving yourself in a position where you are immediately relegated and left to tread the path to League One and back along with all the other Southamptons, Leeds, QPRs and Nottingham Forests of this world who overreached and paid the price.
Don’t mistake their cautious approach for a club accepting they cannot compete - West Brom have certainly never surrendered to relegation. They’ve never gone up, pocketed the whole lot, and accepted from day one that they would be relegated. Indeed in 2004 they sacked the manager who had promoted them Gary Megson and appointed Bryan Robson who kept them up against the odds before then adding them to his long list of teams relegated a year later. And last season they dismissed Roberto De Matteo in what was almost universally seen as a harsh and rash move, before earning full vindication with an extraordinary second half of the season under Roy Hodgson. They’ve spent some big money as well when they feel the right player has been available – Borja Valero cost £4.7m and Scott Carson over £3m in the summer of 2008 when they spent £14.5m in total. They’d spent £15m the season before as well getting in Luke Moore, Roman Bednar, Chris Brunt and nine others.
But any spending is always done in moderation when compared to other clubs. West Brom shoulder a £30m debt (a pittance compared to most top flight teams) and are always well placed to bounce straight back up should the worst ever happen. They like to supplement their side with quality loan players – Kieran Richardson was a notable success in Robson’s time, Carlos Vella from Arsenal came in last year. With the 25 man squad rule introduced into the Premiership last season the quality of loan players available has increased markedly and whatever approach QPR take next season they’d be well advised to utilise the opportunity for high quality players without a transfer fee wisely. Vella will be available again, Kyles Walker and Naughton from Spurs would solve our full back issues overnight, and Daniel Sturridge looks like exactly the sort of player we need up top if his form at Bolton last season is anything to go by but still fails to push him ahead of Torres, Drogba, Kalou and others at Chelsea.
If QPR were replacing Heidar Helguson using the Sunderland and Fulham method outlined previously they’d probably go out and offer John Carew £85,000 a week on a three year deal. If they were doing things the West Brom way they’d probably be popping down to Bristol City to pay £4m for Nicky Maynard – expensive at that price, but a player who would be more than useful if we were to be relegated and could play for QPR for many years to come. That would be a signing with half an eye on the present, but more focussed on the medium and long term. Maynard returned from injury with some aplomb in a poor City side last season and has been overlooked in the clamour to sign, in my opinion less talented players, Steve Morrison and Danny Graham.
Money would also be spent on securing the club’s academy status again to end the ludicrous situation where we first of all take whatever youngsters are left when the eight academies in our vicinity have had their pick, then let them play Barnet every week on park pitches, then expect them to go onto the first team with no reserve team to speak of to bed them in.
This West Brom strategy where the medium and long term are just as important as the short, and relegation isn’t a total disaster as a result, is the one I favour but, like I say, you only have to look at the state of our youth set up to know it’s probably not going to happen.
Potential targets >>> Kyle Walker, Steven Caulker and Kyle Naughton (all Spurs), Daniel Sturridge, Jeffrey Bruma and Patrick Van Aarnholt (all Chelsea), Nicky Maynard (Bristol City), Ashley Williams and Darren Pratley (both Swansea), Jay Rodriguez (Burnley), Seyi Olofinjana (Hull), Craig Mackail Smith (Peterborough), Anthony Pilkington (Huddersfield), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Southampton), Andy King and Martyn Waghorn (both Leicester), Scott Dann and Roger Johnson (both Birmingham), Nigel Reo Coker (free agent), Shane Long (Reading), Wayne Routledge (Newcastle)
Blackpool won plenty of friends last season, but let’s be perfectly honest here the hard work and outlandish quotes of manager Ian Holloway and swashbuckling performances of the team masked the fact that they surrendered. They knew themselves from day one they were almost certain to be relegated and were probably as surprised as the rest of us that they came as close as they did to staying up. It’s worth pointing out firstly that in their promotion season Blackpool spent 140% of their turnover on salaries, which represents a monumental gamble on gaining promotion and given that it was a big shock when they got into the play offs at all that could have been an incredibly stupid thing to do. Even spending all that money Blackpool were a long way from the third best team in Championship in their promotion season and relied on those two most crucial aspects of second tier play off football – form, and the annual Cardiff City meltdown.
Having luckily got there they half finished the stand behind the goal (the executive boxes remain concrete shells) and rather than redevelop the notorious away end down the side merely stuck up a more secure temporary structure with a roof. They dallied about getting that sorted too, and were generously allowed to move their opening game of the season to Wigan while the work was completed. They stuck some money in, mainly for wages, in January when the likes of James Beattie and Andy Reid rocked up looking like a gang of Weight Watchers refugees turfed out of Blackpool town hall after a fire alarm – but basically they pocketed all the money and left. They came close to staying up through a combination of naïve exuberance and an all out attacking policy that Kevin Keegan will have stored in his wank bank for many a long year. We know all about Ian Evatt’s capabilities and shortcomings but it was the insistence that Alex Baptiste could fulfil a role at a Premiership side other than water carrier that was even more ludicrous to me – that useless tosser played for Mansfield Town for six years prior to moving to Bloomfield Road and wasn’t even one of their better players in the bottom division.
At the moment it would seem that this is the path QPR are going to tread. Neil Warnock, if you believe the Fulham Chronicle and it’s laughable “QPR insider” so regularly and shameful quoted, was furious that he lost out on Danny Graham and Steve Morrison to Swansea and Norwich respectively. Warnock himself told TalkSport that as it stands we will be going into the new season with much the same squad as we finished the last one with and he has backed that up by quickly agreeing new deals with Peter Ramage and Heidar Helguson who would both, in an ideal world, be back up at best next season.
Blackpool scored 55 goals last season to give themselves a real chance of survival, but they shipped 78 at the other end and took some real hammerings along the way. At the moment it seems to me that Bernie and Briatore are even more reluctant than normal to be shelling out money for players because they’re not sure if they’re going to own the club for much longer. They don’t want to pay out £3.5m for Danny Graham only to sell the club next week do they? If they do stay and retain ownership can you see them, and their egos, sitting there for the 6-0 defeat Blackpool suffered last season at Arsenal, the 4-0 at Chelsea and Wolves, the 5-3 at Everton, 3-0 at Fulham and so on? Even if their egos could stand it, having propped the club up to the tune of £1m a month last season why would Ecclestone happily sit there and see all the hard work and cash go to waste?
Potential Targets >>> James Beattie (Rangers), Wayne Routledge (Newcastle), DJ Campbell and James Vaughan (both Blackpool), Lee Bowyer (Birmingham), Jay Bothroyd (free agent), Jimmy Bullard (Hull), Ishmael Miller (West Brom), Kyle Walker and Kyle Naughton (both Spurs), Stephen Kelly (Fulham)
Let’s be clear here, few players are ever signed in May and June. Things have started to pick up a little this week, and expect Sunderland and Blackburn to be splashing their new found riches around in the coming weeks, but June is the time when players and managers go on their holiday and not a lot happens. It appears to be happening, because the papers have no matches to report on and need to fill their football pages with something, but generally it’s all quiet on the western front and every single summer QPR message boards are always full of “why haven’t we signed anybody yet?” posts at this time of year. Neil Warnock has only just got back from his family holiday this week.
Personally I think this annual situation at QPR is being exacerbated by some unusual factors this year. Firstly the two teams we’ve been promoted with have both quickly gone out and spent decent money on strikers, one of whom we were linked with and wanted. But Swansea have been talking to Watford about Danny Graham for months and Brendan Rodgers, the Swansea boss, was the Watford gaffer who bought him the first time so there are special circumstances around that one. Norwich have overpaid for both their players. If I was spending £5m I’d want better players than James Vaughan and Steve Morrison and had we gone out and bought those two for that money I’d expect more than a few raised eyebrows around the QPR supporters. I see the two Norwich purchases as a good thing for us, rather than a negative – we shouldn’t be fearing a forward line of Grant Holt, James Vaughan and Steve Morrison in the Premiership.
Secondly we have what’s going on in the boardroom. Now don’t get me wrong I want Mittal and Bhatia to own and run the club as much as the next man – I think their ideals and vision for the club are much more closely aligned with the supporters than those of Briatore and Ecclestone and the future would be a lot brighter with them than it is with the current two who are still seeing QPR as something to fuel their egos and eventually make them money. However I don’t believe for one second the ticket prices would have been that much different had Bhatia and Mittal been in charge, I don’t believe that ticket prices was the reason Bhatia left, and it was Ecclestone who was putting the £1m a month in last season to keep the club going not them. Like I say I want Mittal and Bhatia to take over the club lock stock, but the fans are currently caught in the middle of a very effective PR drive from them which is making Ecclestone and Briatore look even worse than they actually are.
My biggest fear is we take the negatives from the three plans above and none of the positives. Wouldn’t it be just like QPR to saddle themselves with some big earning mercenaries from plan A, take the relegation from plan B and do the same tight arsed thing Blackpool did this season except the majority of the Premiership money goes to Ecclestone and Briatore who recoup all the loans they have put into the club and leave it to go back to the Championship with a massive wage budget and no money? That’s the big fear.