With just half an hour to go in the transfer window Neil Warnock pulled off a major coup by persuading Man City winger Shaun Wright Phillips to move to Loftus Road.
Like our other big name signing this transfer window Joey Barton, Shaun Wright Phillips came through the ranks at Man City after being turned down by Nottingham Forest. The pair were good friends at City and used to room together on away trips which may go some way to explaining how we’ve come to sign a player who not so very long ago was costing our West London neighbours Chelsea £21m. Both players were rejected by Forest because of the diminutive stature – a nonsense scourge on youth football in this country for many years.
At City first time around Wright Phillips was one of the country’s most outstanding young players. He won the club’s Young Player of the Year four seasons in a row between 2000 and 2003 as City were promoted, relegated and promoted again under first Joe Royle and then Kevin Keegan. It was during this spell with City that he scored twice in a 3-0 League Cup win at Loftus Road that was marred by allegations from his adoptive father and former Arsenal striker Ian Wright that he had been racially abused by QPR fans while sitting in the director’s box.
After a protracted transfer saga he joined big spending Chelsea for £21m in July 2005 but struggled to cement a regular place in their team. While at Stamford Bridge he made 125 appearances across four competitions in three seasons but roughly half of those came as a substitute and when Louis Felipe Scolari took over he fell out of contention altogether and was allowed to move back to Man City for £8.5m – less than half what City originally sold him for.
Wright Phllips has been an England squad regular for several seasons, amassing 36 full caps and scoring six goals. He was controversially selected for the squad for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa ahead of Theo Walcott after impressing in friendly games but has dropped out of contention recently as his first team opportunities at club level have declined.
Wright Phillips was the first choice at City under Mark Hughes in 2008/09 – scoring four times in the first month to equal his entire league goal scoring haul from three years at Chelsea. However as happened at Stamford Bridge, the club began to spend silly money on world renowned players and he fell down the pecking order. He is now unlikely to be included in Roberto Mancini’s outrageously talented and lavishly expensive 25 man Premiership squad and has been touted around other clubs.
Bolton had appeared to be the front runners for his signature this summer but Owen Coyle said consistently that the club could not afford the player’s wage demands which makes you wonder what on earth he’s earning at QPR. He has signed a three year deal in W12 after the clubs agreed an undisclosed fee
"I'm just really excited that we've been able to attract a player like Shaun to the club. Right from day one, him and Joey Barton were at the top of our list and we've managed to get both of them, so I couldn't be more pleased. He's got a great attitude, a great character and he just wants to improve and impress as a footballer. Shaun's so positive and that's what we're looking for from all players that join QPR." -Neil Warnock
And that may go some way to explaining the lukewarm reception this signing received when it was discussed on our message board over the past week or so. Shaun Wright Phillips is that little, quick winger who disappointed at Chelsea and has been selected for the England squad a perplexingly high number of times. He’s the Scalectrix who screams off down the wing in a straight line at high speed but often fails to deliver with sufficient quality at the end of it all.
But it’ all relative. We’ve started this season playing Patrick Agyemang in attack. Shaun Wright Phillips is substantially better than anything we currently have at our disposal. He’s at a very good age, and it seems the transfer fee is tiny when you consider what he has been bought and sold for in recent times. Presumably the wages are rather more substantial and this goes back to the point I made in the Luke Young article about saddling ourselves with a lot of high earners on long contracts all over again. But quality is what we need and we’ve certainly bought that here – and don’t underestimate the value of the pace he possesses either in an otherwise pretty slow QPR team.
If a team like Liverpool was moving for Wright Phillips you’d probably wonder what they were doing, but if a team like Norwich went for him we’d rightly be envious of a fantastic signing. And in my opinion that’s exactly what we’ve made here.
Listen, if Rodney Marsh is following @loftforwords on Twitter then why aren’t you?