By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions. We in turn value your personal details in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
Please log in or register. Registered visitors get fewer ads.
I like him, he plays a very valuable role. He knows what he's doing. Seems a good sort.
He's 31 this year. He's on an eye-watering weekly. He is regularly injured.
He's scored six goals in 20 games, one assist so far this season.
I sometimes think just as much as "do not fall in love with loan players", it's important that fans do not "stay in love with players in their 30s whose contracts run out in the summer".
I can't off the top of my head think of a single 30-something player who we've not renewed and subsequently come to regret leaving.
I know how unpopular this opinion probably is the week he scored in a win.
Ask yourself, though, if we were signing a 31 year old journeyman striker who had only hit double figures three times in the last ten seasons of second tier European football and had missed several months of the previous two seasons injured, just how happy you'd be?
He's the only player in the history of football whose wage I know for a fact: think of a sum you imagine he might be on per week, double it, add some more money to it.
Frey's scored six goals in 20 league games this season. One assist. I mean, it's OK if you're the second striker on £3k a week. He is not remotely on £3k a week.
For context, Rayan Kolli has scored four goals in 15 league appearances, two assists. He's 11 years younger and not really a lone striker.
So it's not like replacing Clive Allen, even if Frey does an important job currently. But nobody had heard of him before we signed him and we can definitely find someone else we've never heard of who can do the same job who's a bit younger and quite a lot cheaper.
And we replaced Clive Allen with Gary Bannister, so even that was possible.
I think Cook's experience and leadership is actually much harder to replace, so maybe they'll keep him.
Keeping Cook and Frey: how many other positions that QPR need to fill will their wages deny?
Cook will be 34 in April. Frey will be 31 in July. They have both missed significant periods of football in the last two seasons with injuries.
They both seem like good guys, and they're very useful footballers. But they are not going to get fitter or faster - quite the reverse - and this next contract is the last for both, so they won't be cheaper either. They will cost the club millions between them each season and (particularly in Cook's position) they stop younger players coming through.
I doubt we'll keep either, but I'd be *amazed* if we keep both.
The only footballer whose wages I have ever known are Frey's through a very weird set of coincidences that will never be repeated, and I will never know anybody else's wage: if you knew how much his weekly wage in season two is, you would not be saying renew. I think we shake hands, thank him for his eight (?) goals he scored in 24/25, each one it's literal weight in gold, and try and find someone five years younger and half (at least) as expensive.
I'm sure the dressing room knows his wage (and Cook's, and Jesus, imagine Colback's given his availability) and we should perhaps factor that into what Dunne might expect from his next contract. All this explains mainly hiring young players at start of their career rather than experienced pros on final contracts, too...
The length of contract is probably key, rather than the weekly per se.
Jimmy is 28 this year. From all the deals QPR are currently doing, I don't imagine Nourry is particularly keen signing players much beyond 30, which suggests that he's probably been offered a 2 1/2 year deal at QPR and is holding out for another year at least. I'm sure it's all a dance about how long he gets somewhere, because this is his last decent contract.
Or he gets a couple of years on twice as much at a club with parachutes, like Sheff U, then takes his chances at 30.
But we haven't had a better left back since signing Clive Wilson from CFC: another versatile left footer who arrived having also played at left wing, in the middle or defence...
Yeah, another disastrous week for Ian Holloway. If only someone close to him was there to "protect him and keep him away from football": six wins, four draws and just five defeats out of the 15 L2 games he's been in charge of a previously hopeless case.
To be fair to Kevin Gallen, he's a scout for Palace and is watching games on the continent most weeks so I'm sure he has a few CF names he could suggest, even some within budget, but he probably saves all that for his boss Dougie Freedman (one of the best recruiters in the country).
Vale is definitely a left winger but he played for Bristol Rovers as a left back, played 40-odd games there. Joey Barton - I know, I know - compared him to Ashley Cole and called him "phenomenal". I'd be surprised if we could sign him as backup though.
On January 29th 2022, QPR were 4th. Therefore, QPR were 4th in February 2022.
By the end of the season, QPR finished 11th after a catastrophic run in Feb, March and April whereby we lost eleven of the remaining 18 games, winning just four.
That was from being 4th, seemingly nailed on play-offs. Finished 11th.
Interesting how we can all see games/players differently. I thought that, yes, Ashby was calamitous in possession. But he was active, involved, did not hide and won two very important free kicks to relieve pressure consequently (the second of which injured him).
Madsen, on the other hand, jogs around without ever engaging a man with the ball unless so close to him as to be unavoidable. We consequently dropped back about 15-20 yards as soon as he came on. He just stands so far off players - the contrast with Morgan is absolutely shocking, and it's clear why Marti swapped the most expensive signing for a Development squad kid. He clearly has excellent technique with the ball, but I cannot see anything else of use in the Championship. He's just not built for it or engaged with the game whatsoever. You can't jog around like that in this league without having something else incredible to offer, which he doesn't as far as I can see. Just a tidy ten yard pass.
I really see Madsen as a much bigger liability. We can muddle through with Ashby at RB from tome to time and he'll always work hard no matter what. Madsen in the middle feels like we're a man down. (But I'm not claiming to be right here, that's just the way it appears to me).
This thread is all good knockabout fun, but nobody seriously believes this a promotion squad, do they? Oh really? But..we were in the bottom three and hopeless six weeks ago. You know what they say about pride coming before a five match losing run and a fall down the table.
(yes, please hold the line Mr Warburton, February, March and April 2022 will be with you in a moment...)
In all seriousness, it's as likely as Ian Holloway still being in charge of Swindon at Christmas.
I want to win every game QPR ever play. I want to win the Championship with 138 points and run across Loftus Road on the day we are given the trophy doing a willy copter at the crying Luton fans. I love watching QPR win.
But I absolutely loath the Premier League from the bottom of my heart. I hate the prices, I hate the politics, I hate VAR with all my soul, I hate the tourists home and away taking photos of teams scoring against their own. I hate the podcasts. I hate all the talking heads. I hate the noise and everything about it. Fcking Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher having an opinion about your team that you are meant to listen to. I hate the fact that clubs are now actively working against their fans keeping season tickets, that in a decade there will be no season tickets.
I know within a few weeks up there I'd hate it even more, that there are millions of other things I'd hate that I don't even know about yet.
I'd like to win the league with 138 points and say, 'Thanks, we'll defend this next season'. Then have a big parade and loads of drink and drugs.
I know that would be incredibly unpopular and would never happen in a million years and instead I'll be spending twice as much to watch us lose 0-4 to Bournemouth home and away. But I'd prefer it.
I live in staunchly Orient (and Hammers) territory, went to watch them a few times season before last and thought he was heavy, both in touch and girth. However, my neighbour is home and Os and was raving about him recently (having told me previously he thought he was L2!). Says his improvement this season has been huge.
Dunno. Still only 23 and played well over a 100 league games, scored lots of goals. Could be something there still. Will definitely score against QPR one day.
Who knows, not me! I hope they'd do some due diligence, take references, chat with him, all that. Not my job, happily.
Yeah, he can't get in that Palace team ahead of Eze, Clyne or Lerma. None of them are dropping to the Championship for a good few years. That Palace squad is underachieving for my money, though.
I doubt it'll happen. But if he's fit and motivated, even a 32 year-old Schlupp improves us. We need another left-footed wide player this window who can cover Saito and especially Paal better than Ashby or Fox, I think.
He's also a year younger than Cook. He can play in multiple positions where we are very light - left wing, left back, possibly left mid - and has played regularly in the PL for the last decade. He's won the PL, he won the Championship, is an international and has no doubt got two good years at this level in him at least. If either Saito or Paal got injured and he deputised, I think we'd all pretty quickly see the value. His wages have to be way out of reach though.
He did this April. Not sure Colback has managed similar for a little while longer...
By continuing to use the site, you agree to our use of cookies and to abide by our Terms and Conditions.
