 Thursday, 2nd Aug 2007 12:06 Rangers return to Loftus Road for their final public friendly of the summer as preparations continue for the opening day of the season next week. Lee Cook may well feature for the first time at his new club against his old one. Queens Park Rangers v Fulham It's been a bit of a galling summer for QPR fans as far as Fulham are concerned. There was a time when we'd have been heading to Craven Cottage this Friday night as the Premiership team treating their neighbours to a bit of a friendly and some much needed gate money, Les Ferdinand and Ray Wilkins getting their eye in for the new season and Fulham looking forward to a trip to Hereford. Sadly for Rangers the rolls have reversed in recent years and so it's us that welcome them, the Premiership side, to Loftus Road. To make matters worse it's looking more and more likely that former QPR winger Lee Cook will be making his Fulham debut in this game: "Opportunity I couldn't turn down" "lure of Premiership football" yeh alright Lee we understand, no need to massage the salt in like that is there!? Back in the day of course we stole Paul Parker from the Cottage on the cheap, although we did have the good grace to take Dean Coney as well. Fulham must be laughing all the way to the bank with Cook stolen for £2.5m plus add ons and Zesh Rehman sold the other way for £250k last summer. The least we owe them is a good hiding! Whether Rehman features against his former club remains to be seen, he played on the right at Harrow but John Gregory would have to be a cruel man to stick him against Cook on Friday. I'd expect the team for this one to be very close to the one we'll field at Bristol next week, Gregory will surely want his first choice starting eleven to get a dry run at some decent opposition before the big kick off. He may have to show his hand this Friday night at Loftus Road.
If they were to drop out of the Premiership, where even the bottom side earns £50m a season from now on, they'd need to make a swift return or the debts would become a real issue. Would Al Fayed stick with them after a relegation? Who knows, but the way he went from spending £12m on Steve Marlet to leaving Coleman scraping the bottom of the Welsh football barrel and coming up with Simon Davies so quickly doesn't bode well. Ignoring the debt, Al Fayed has done a special job at Fulham. They've gone from the bottom division to the top and while all the boasts about becoming the "Manchester United of the south" and having a massive new stadium on the banks of the Thames now look like empty promises they have been in the Premiership for six seasons and have started spending again this summer to try and prolong that. Craven Cottage is now an all seater stadium with three modern stands - a far cry from our last visit there. The sacking of Coleman last season was greeted with surprise from football fans in general, but many Fulham fans said it had been coming and was needed for some time. Talk of a less than strenuous training regime under Coleman circulated and he was dispatched to the Spanish second division tail firmly between legs. In his stead came Lawrie Sanchez, mastermind of Northern Ireland's recent resurgence, initially until the end of the season but it was always inevitable that they'd look to make it permanent this summer and so it has proved. Sanchez has spent a lot of money on his new side after winning just one game, against Liverpool reserves, in his spell at the end of last season. However I come back to the word I started this with - precarious. We know from the bitter of experience of paying £20 for a ticket just how vile and dour Lawrie Sanchez's Wycombe team was. A Wycombe team that ended up being relegated from League One into the basement division. That team was so God awful it made the old style Wimbledon crazy gang look like the Dutch team of 1988. It's difficult to put into words just how bad 90 minutes at the mercy of that side was to bare twice a season. A fantastic cup run apart his time there was instantly forgettable. His Northern Ireland side was somewhat better to watch but they're still unlikely to qualify for the European Championships next summer and essentially Sanchez has made his name there on the back of four glorious midweek successes at Windsor Park, including one against England. There's a big, big difference between boring the pants off fans with a dire Wycombe team and getting a team up for a big match once every three months and managing a Premiership side week in week out. There was nothing at the end of last season to suggest Sanchez has what it takes and he's gambled his whole season on a collection of expensive purchases from the Championship. His forward line this year will include David Healy, untried at Premiership level, and Diomansy Kamara, tried and failed at Premiership level. Lee Cook and Chris Baird account for more than £5m worth of outlay and are again unproven in the top flight. Fulham cannot afford to drop out of the top flight but have essentially taken their proud top flight record over the last six years and stuck it all on black. Al Fayed and the Craven Cottage faithful will wait with baited breath for the spin of the wheel. What happened the last time these sides met? By the time the R's headed to Craven Cottage they had a new manager, Ian Holloway, and Leon Knight making his debut on loan from Chelsea. Of course not even Olly could save the stricken R's that season and looking at the starting elevens from those two games it's not hard to see why. You have to go a long way back through the history books to find a QPR time with less quality, less motivation, less pride, less passion and less ability than that rabble. Louis Saha and Lee Clark bagged the goals in the away game. QPR at Loftus Road: Miklosko, Plummer, Rose, Carlisle (Bruce 11), Perry, Langley(Kulcsar 37), Peacock, Connolly(Ngonge 79), Baraclough, Kiwomya, Crouch QPR at Craven Cottage: Harper, Perry, Ready, Plummer, Baraclough, Rose(Kulcsar 79), Murray(Kiwomya 57), Darlington, Knight (Warren 72), Peacock, Crouch Head to Head Past QPR v Fulham results: 2000/01 Fulham 2 QPR 0
Fulham fans may well get their first look at Lee Cook following his move from QPR this summer. Last summer's big purchase Jimmy Bullard is still on the long road to recovery after a nasty knee injury sustained at Newcastle last year, this game and the start of the season come too soon for him. One player who won't be featuring is Michael Brown who has jumped on board the sinking ship at Wigan, new signings Diomansy Kamara, David Healy and Chris Baird are expected to feature.
QPR fans know all about what they'll be facing and if Michael Mancienne starts at right back he will of course be well aware of Cook's abilities. John Curtis maybe less so, although I'm sure Gregory will have him right, so it will be interesting to see if Cook does play any part and how we cope with him. Diomansy Kamara scored twice against QPR for West Brom last season on his way to a 23 goal haul - he also managed 11 yellow cards and a red just as a point of interest. Kamara however managed just six goals in 54 Premiership appearances for Portsmouth and West Brom so it's a massive gamble for Fulham to be splashing out £6m on him off the back of a good season in the Championship. He could certainly do with hitting the ground running and a goal or two against a defence he enjoyed playing against last season will do him the world of good. Joining Kamara in attack this season is likely to be David Healy who has a formidable record at international level of course but has never really hit the same heights with his clubs. Healy enjoyed loans with Port Vale, Preston and Norwich before making a permanent switch from his first club Man Utd to Deepdale for £1.5m. He managed 43 goals in 136 league appearances for Preston before moving to Leeds and scoring 29 goals in 111 league appearances. He has 25 goals from 53 international caps. This will be his first season as a first team regular in the Premiership. Lawrie Sanchez will be praying that at least one of his two unproven strikers makes it for the first time at the highest level or he's going to have serious problems. Pape Bouba Diop is a dominant force in the midfield and remains with the club despite interest from Wigan, he'll be partnered by Jimmy Bullard when he returns to fitness. Further back Fulham look scarily light on numbers and quality for a Premiership season. Aaron Hughes and Paul Konchesky have been added this summer but are unlikely to make massive improvements to a defence which also includes Zat Knight and Philippe Christanval. Lets hope Dexter Blackstock and co can give them a stern test this Friday night. Form Fulham have won at Dagenham and Brighton in their conventional friendlies this summer. They also went on the dreaded shirt selling trip to the Far East where Portsmouth beat them 1-0. They did dispatch a South China side 4-1 with goals from Diop, Bocanegra, Healy and McBride. This is their final public game before a Premiership opener against Arsenal. Prediction Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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