Trying to preview tomorrow’s trip to Millwall while rumours swirl about the future of QPR’s clear player of the year Jimmy Dunne is… tricky.

Millllll (9-10-10 DWLDWW 14th) v QPR (9-11-9 WWLWWL 13th)

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I know this is pretty low down the list of problems and considerations here, but it’s jolly inconvenient trying to write match previews not knowing if your player of the year elect is even going to be at the club by the end of the day or not.

The interest in, and potential departure of, Jimmy Dunne has felt pretty inevitable for the whole transfer window.

He’s 27, coming into the absolute prime of his career, out of contract in the summer and therefore available far below true value, and in the form of his life. It’s probably his penultimate chance for a big deal somewhere, and last chance to play in the Premier League unless we have one of our big nights out and accidentally stumble up there by mistake ourselves.

He’s not just QPR’s player of the year elect, he’s QPR’s player of the year by a street. He has been talismanic in this team’s extraordinary turnaround from bottom of the league to four points off the play-offs. You’d only have to watch a couple of Rangers’ games to see it. He has more touches in the opposition box than any other QPR player, and he’s playing right back. He’s been monstrous. Unplayable.

Unfortunately, given his age and contract situation, that makes him prime fodder for one of the parachute payment clubs looking to bully their way over the line because their ginormous summer expenditure hasn’t proven quite enough to get them there in a league containing the might of Oxford, Plymouth and Paul Warne’s Derby County.

Chris Wilder justified Friday night’s 3-0 home defeat to Hull by saying it had been coming, they were down to the bare bones, they desperately needed reinforcements, and anybody looking at their team could have told you the same thing. In that game they made a quadruple second half substitution in which they brought forwards Tyrese Campbell, Rhian Brewster, Vinicius Junior and Jesurun Rak-Sakyi off the bench. Off the bench. QPR are doing this season with Michi Frey and Zan Celar as their only senior strikers. They’re after Dunne because Harry Souttar is injured and that leaves them with only Jack Robinson, Chelsea’s Alfie Gilchrist and Anel Ahmedhodzic to pick from. Even Wilder surely knows he’s taking the piss at this point. Burnley are one missed call away from adding Jesse Lingard to Johnjo Shelvey. This is not a fair fight.

Still, that it’s Chris Wilder’s Sheff Utd leading the chase should also come as no surprise at all. A giant Irish centre back, dominating in both boxes, rampaging forward down the right flank and scoring as many goals as he prevents? I’m only amazed these two haven’t united before. This a manager who dragged the Blades up two divisions with a revolutionary over/underlapping centre back system.

Sadly, the likelihood is this signing - like every other signing made by the financially doped clubs in our division at this time of year - would see Jimmy play ten times for the Blades between now and the end of May (6 (4)). He’d then get a couple of League Cup outings early in next year’s Premier League season, while the Blades lose every match, and end up back in this division on loan 12 months from now. Probably at Scott Parker’s Wolves, who’ll be looking for some extra defensive muscle after five 0-0 draws in their last seven games.

I do though see a world where Wilder and Dunne is some sort of match made in heaven. And so does he. So, we’re now stuck in that game where Sheff Utd start ridiculously low (£250k) and creep up in increments towards the £2m figure QPR would accept. Wilder called it “doing the dance” in his press conference this morning as the Blades tried their hand with a £1.5m offer they knew we wouldn’t accept. This a sport run and operated by enormous man children.

If Dunne departs, he leaves an enormous hole in the right side of this team. Twice in consecutive seasons his influence from right back has been key to turning around a seemingly hopeless situation. We’ll always have that last minute Birmingham worldie. His potency in both boxes for a team that has historically struggled to attack and defend set pieces has been vital, and that height also provides a valuable out ball for a defence that frequently looks panicked by its own attempts to play out from the back. The alternatives – Hevertton Santos taken back to Portugal with a receipt, Harrison Ashby at home shaving his legs – do not inspire anywhere near the same confidence. Dunne inspires full stop. Quite apart from the obvious strengths he brings to the game itself, there’s all the attitude, leadership, personality, unquantifiable stuff. The heartbeat of the team. It would be a big loss.

It would also be the right thing to do. If he wants to stay and sign a new deal then fantastic, let’s do that as plan A. If not, then plan B has to be to get money now.

There’s certainly a debate to be had about how bad QPR are at approaching the right player at the right time with a contract renewal.

Charlie Austin would have signed a new contract after winning promotion, but not after getting relegated despite an 18-goal scoring season in the top flight, and so we lost him for £4m.

Bright Osayi-Samuel and Ryan Manning would both have extended when they were desperate for football and Steve McClaren was busy ignoring both in favour of his loaned “team of men”. QPR’s CEO and DOF at that point liked both players, disagreed with McClaren’s assessment of them, and should have backed their judgement. Offering them deals 18 months later when they had six months left, were playing well for Mark Warburton and attracting big interest from elsewhere, wasn’t even shutting the door after the horse had bolted. That horse had bolted, enjoyed a long and successful career in racing, retired, sired many a future champ, and died before we got round to asking whether it might like another sugar lump.

We were fortunate the same thing didn’t happen this year with Rayan Kolli.

You can't force a player to sign a contract, but it feels like we’re almost as bad at retainment as we’ve been at recruitment.

That aside, if that ship has sailed with Dunne then getting £2m worth of money for a 27-year-old centre back who got moved to right back largely because we were desperate and his form in the middle was ropey (another trip to Millwall a timely reminder of last Boxing Day’s horrors) is good business.

This time last year, post Millwall debacle in which Dunne was one of the most culpable, many would have been happy to wave goodbye. Blackburn were linked and the message board was broadly (not entirely) in favour of doing that deal to create financial space for other signings.

Dunne wasn’t the only hero of last season’s salvation. Jake Clarke-Salter was absolutely immense. His performance at home to Preston was a centre back showing for the ages. The news of his contract extension was celebrated as a tremendous coup. Christian Nourry described him as a “fantastic human being” at the fans forum. Clarke-Salter has since returned to what he was before – permanently unavailable, which is the reason he was here in the first place and why there was no rush to sign him from anybody else. Getting all hot and heavy for players in full form and fitness just as their contract runs out is how Matthew Rose ended up nearly getting a testimonial here.

Don’t get me wrong, nobody would be more delighted than me if Jimmy Dunne stays. I love the bloke. I think you let characters and people like that leave your club at your peril. He could, however, just as easily stay and regress to what he was even just 12 short months ago. Having worked ourselves into this situation, you get what you can when you can get it.

One of the more interesting aspects of this deal is what it says about our ambition and plans for the rest of the season.

Let’s say our recovery over Christmas hadn’t been quite as spectacular. Let’s say we’d won four games, instead of eight, and crawled back to sort of where Portsmouth are now. In that circumstance you wouldn’t sell Jimmy Dunne for £2m at all, because he’s worth measurably more to you alive than dead. We’d lose far more money than that going down to League One so, sorry Jim, Premier League dream or not, you gotta stay. We need you. Instead we’ve climbed to a point where even if we win just four of our remaining 17 games (and, yes, I know I’ve done this before and Rangers have immediately set about testing the theory) then with a couple of draws thrown in we’re at a 52-point mark you’d be amazed if some of the Derby-types below us were able to match. So, you let him go. You muddle through. You use the money for next season. It’s the grown-up thing to do.

That does rather contrast with the signing we have made this week – Tottenham’s 18-year-old South Korean winger Yang Min-Hyeok.

His pedigree is impressive. The youngest ever K-League goal scorer when he opened his account for Gangwon FC a year ago aged just 17, he ended up with 12 goals and six assists as they finished runners up. He made the division’s team of the year and was named its rookie of the season as well. He’s already made the full South Korea squad. Tottenham have him on a five-year contract to 2030.

We said the club were reckless in approaching the first half of the season with only Michi Frey and Zan Celar to select from up front, covered by a couple of kids. We’ve spoken about how much we currently rely on Paul Smyth down the right, as the only player in our team with genuine pace and somebody who’s able to get up and down the pitch on both sides of the ball. This recovery has been built on running, from Smyth and Kieran Morgan primarily, and we’re running them both on take off power. We need alternatives for those two. We saw what happened at Hull when we substituted them. The Sheff Wed defeat was largely predicated on their tiredness (and the neutralisation of Dunne). If Yang’s been brought in to cover there, then I get it.

Equally, Christian Nourry said, not even a month ago, he doesn’t like loans where you’re just developing somebody else’s player on your time with no chance of ever signing them. I totally agree. So why are we giving a Spurs teen game time while sitting comfortably midtable?

This feels a bit like a typical QPR grab at a shiny thing because we’ve got half a shout of the play-offs in January. As we know, our owners love a dip into that Asian market where they can get it – his first interview has 44,000 views on YouTube in two days, putting it in the top 40 official QPR videos of all time on that platform, level with a decade-old video of us invading the pitch at the end of the play-off semi-final win v Wigan. Give it a week or two it will likely be top ten.

On the one hand it feels like we’re doing a sensible, pragmatic, grown up deal for Dunne that makes us all feel sad but recognises we’re not going up, highly unlikely to go down, and just have to accept the horrible financial realities of this division and sport. Then on the other with Yang we’re going OOOH FOUR POINTS FROM THE PLAY-OFFS GIMME. That’s very QPR, as we like to say.

We’ll only know in time of course. By Tuesday Sheff Utd might have gone for Harry Darling out of the Swansea train wreck instead. Jimmy Dunne could be doing an Ilias Chair and waving to the crowd pre-Blackburn having decided to stay and sign a new contract after all, at which point we’ve had a superb January. We could mount a ridiculous play off push, with Dunne charging around, Smyth and Yang terrorising defences. Or Dunne goes to Sheff Utd, at which point maybe we bumble along to a midtable finish we’d all have taken to start with, perhaps we fall the same way Hull City did selling Jarrod Bowen without replacement thinking they were safe only to go on and win one of their final 20 games and get relegated. Or he leaves for free in the summer, having guided us to the glittering heights of 13th, and we regret not dancing Wilder’s bloody dance a bit more adeptly when he was holding his hand out with a wad of cash in it.

It’ll be easy to say Yang was a needless signing if he never plays, or that he was vital if Smyth gets injured, or he plays up front and scores loads of goals. Likewise, Dunne’s departure being a masterstroke of business if this all goes well, or a total disasterclass if we crater off down the table without him. I can feel myself sitting here in three months typing “it was always risky to try and do the second half of the season replacing your outstanding player with one Harrison Ashby in lousy form and no cover”. And it is. Or celebrating his player of the year crown with a chuckle about that week we were all convinced he was off to Bramall Lane. That’s why these previews are tricky to write, and running a football club like ours is nigh on impossible.

For now, Millwall. A game that represented the nadir of Dunne’s QPR career 12 months ago, but one now you wouldn’t want to be going into without him.

Timing, as ever, is everything.

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Below the fold

Team News: QPR have Spurs’ 18-year-old South Korean winger Yang Min-Hyeok ready to debut after signing on loan during the week. Whether Jimmy Dunne is available for selection is the bigger question as Sheff Utd steadily up their bids towards the £2m Rangers would probably have to accept for the out-of-contract defender. Marti Cifuentes, himself apparently riddled with flu ahead of the trip, said he “probably would” be in the squad. Steve Cook, Liam Morrison and Karamoko Dembele are all back in training. Zan Celar is a little distance further off still.

Millwall got talented Wolves ‘ten’ Luke Cundle signed prior to Friday’s midday cut off for featuring in this game. Cundle looked a terrific player at this level at Plymouth before getting sucked into the mood vortex that is Stoke City and looks a shrewd acquisition for Wawll. He joins Aaron Connolly (Sunderland), Tristan Crama (Brentford) and Ajay Matthews (Boro) through the entrance door at The Den this January. Camiel Neghli, at 23-year-old Algerian winger from Sparta Rotterdam, is set to be Steve Gallen’s biggest punt so far at a club record fee but that hasn’t been done in time for this game.

Millwall needed it. Star boy Romain Esse departed for Crystal Palace for £12m and the Lions are grappling with a sizeable injury list in a small squad. Defenders Danny McNamara, Ryan Leonard and Calum Scanlon have all suffered season-ending injuries in the last three games, necessitating new signing Crama to play at right back rather than in the middle since his arrival. Goalkeeper Lukas Jensen missed the midweek win at Fratton Park while Femi Azeez, Aidomo Emakhu and the perennially crocked Josh Coburn are all also sidelined.

Elsewhere: It’s been intriguing to watch the various panicked strategies of the teams threatened with relegation from this league with 17 games left to play.

Plymouth undoubtedly have the most work to do, clearing up after another virtuoso performance from Wazza. They’ve changed manager now, with Miron Muslic not moving the needle greatly on the results front, and have spent the month attempting a fairly radical overhaul of their ailing team for this time of year. Michael Baidoo and new club record signing Maksym Taloverov are significant outlays for Argyle but Slovenian Adrian Zeljković has fallen at the work permit hurdle because thew Green are already maxed out on their four quota spots for foreign signings that do not meet the EFL’s GBE/ESC points quota. Taloverov has played Europa Conference League this season so exceeds the required 15 points for an exemption. He starts life at Home Park against West Brom tomorrow.

Luton are second bottom and with 48 goals conceded (only two sides have shipped more) and a whole host of centre backs still unavailable medium and long term it seems odd that they’re choosing to tackle the problem by adding attackers to a squad that already has Elijah Adebayo, Carlton Morris, Jacob Brown, Cauley Woodrow and Tahith Chong to select from. Lamine Fanne, and Isaiah Jones were already in before this week’s lower division raid for Exeter striker Millenic Alli, Wigan ‘ten’ Thelo Aasgard and perennial loanee Josh Bowler. They’re also up to £7m in their pursuit of Wycombe centre forward Richard Kone. Enough firepower to end a run of one draw and seven defeats from eight at Sheff Wed tomorrow? We shall see.

Third bottom Derby have stuck with Paul Warne so far but look in real trouble to me. Six defeats on the spin, one star centre back Curtis Nelson crocked, the other Eiran Cashin now apparently on his way to Brighton, and only Matt Clarke in by way of compensation. Still no meaningful surgery done to their attack. Sheffield Red Stripe in town tomorrow. That one is looking bleak.

Portsmouth have stuck with John Mousinho and, as we anticipated in our season preview, based a survival bid largely on making Fratton Park a really difficult place to play. Six wins and a draw from seven on the south coast was interrupted by Millwall in the week. Now it’s Burnley in town, who surpassed the divisional record for 0-0 draws in a season with 17 left to play on Monday night – Gary Weaver screaming “what Burnley are doing is extraordinary” over the latest bore draw with Leeds. That’s certainly one word for it.

If one of those four, likely Luton, gets their act together I just wonder whether this could be the year Stoke go. Shawn of Tom Cannon they’ve added only Ipswich’s Ali Al’Hamadi by way of replacement and Mark Robins’ arrival has only added a load of draws to a run of now one win from 15 league games. They travel to fellow strugglers Hull this weekend who, by contrast and as predicted, have lashed out all over the place strengthening their team this week – Villa youngster Louie Barry the latest arrival there.

Cardiff have started to put it together and pull away a bit, unbeaten in seven with three wins, but face a tough away game this week at Red Bull Leeds. Could they actually end up roping bitter rivals Swanselona into the shit instead? The two sides can swap places for the first time this season this weekend, with Swansea five defeats in six games and allowing influential captain Matt Grimes to join their opponents tomorrow Frank Lampard’s Coventry.

The Championship weekend starts tonight with the north-off between Blackburn and Preston Knob End. The lunchtime extravaganza tomorrow includes the potential midtable thrillers between Oxford and Bristol City, Watford and Norwich, as well as that Plymouth match. Monday Night Football features Middlesbrough v Sunderland.

Referee: John Busby from Oxfordshire is in charge of this one, just as he was for the first meeting at Loftus Road in September. Details.

Form

Millwall: Alex Neil felt like a really good fit for Millwall after Neil Harris’ abrupt departure, but it’s been a slow burn so far. The Lions had one win in 13 games and were threatening another one of their mid-season slides into relegation danger prior to this week, but a pair of controlled performances on the road at Luton and Portsmouth bring them into this game with consecutive 1-0 wins and one defeat in six games in all comps. That defeat came here against lowly Hull in their last home league game. The Den, despite its reputation, is once again proving just as difficult for the home side to perform in as the away – Wawll have won just one of their last seven games here with defeats to Oxford, Hull, Sheff Utd and Coventry and draws with Cardiff and Sunderland. Their overall home record stands at 6-3-6 – only Cardiff and Hull (both seven) have lost more games on their own patch, although Leeds and Burnley have both lost here.

If you’re a betting man, under 2.5 goals, and 1-0 scorelines are the ones to look out for. Since August only four of the Lions’ 25 league games have featured more than 2.5 goals. Eight of their 11 wins in all competitions have been 1-0. Eight of their 11 defeats in all competitions have also been 1-0. Eight of their ten draws in all competitions have been 0-0 or 1-1. That means only eight of the 3-2 games Millwall have played this season have finished something other than 0-0, 1-1 or 1-0 either way. Only Plymouth and Stoke have scored fewer than Millwall’s 28. No surprise then to find some less-than-prolific leading scorers – Duncan Watmore has five including the opener in the first meeting, while Mihailo Ivanovic’s two winning goals this week have pushed him to four in the league and five overall.

Both meetings between these two teams last season finished 2-0 to the home side, and were arguably the away sides’ worst performances of the whole year. QPR were absolutely shocking here on Boxing Day 2023. By contrast, in 2022/23 both matches were won by the away team – 2-0 to Rangers here, 2-1 to Millwall at Loftus Road. That is Millwall’s only win at Loftus Road in 15 attempts going back to 1988/89. Rangers have lost three of the last six meetings after only losing three of the previous 19. A draw is never a bad bet in this fixture – 11 out of 23 meetings since the fixture was rekindled in 2004/05 have finished level, including five of the 11 games here.

QPR: Rangers ended their faultless start to 2025 in the league, and turned down the chance to win five games in a row to start a calendar year for the first time ever, when they lost 2-0 at home to Sheff Wed last weekend. It prevented the R’s winning five consecutive league games for the first time since 2004/05 when they won seven in a row, and six consecutive home games for the first time since 2003/04 when they won eight in succession at Loftus Road. It did, however, continue Sheffield Wednesday’s bogey over Rangers (now one QPR win in eight meetings) and the R’s previously-discussed division-worst record when it’s game three of a three game week.

The outlook though is still broadly positive. With 12 points from 15, Rangers are the form team in the Championship over the last five matches. They’ve lost just two of 14 games in three months, winning eight of those, to go from five points adrift at the bottom to comfortably midtable – six points from the play-offs and 11 from the bottom three. The R’s come into this game on the back of consecutive away wins, 1-0 at Plymouth and 2-1 at Hull, having won none of their prior five and one of their previous 11 away trips in all comps. Another victory here would be the first time they’ve won three in a row away from home since September/October 2022 under Mick Beale – a sequence that included a 2-0 victory at Millwall as well as wins at Sheff Utd and Bristol City. No QPR player has been directly involved in more Championship goals this season than Rayan Kolli (four goals, two assists), although only one of those six came in an away match (Plymouth A).

If Jimmy Dunne is to leave this transfer window it’ll be a significant hole in the team. He’s scored ten times for the R’s since joining from Burnley, four of those this season, and Rangers have never lost when he’s netted – nine wins, one draw. No Championship player has won more aerial duels this season, and no QPR player has had more touches in the opposition penalty box.

Prediction: In our Prediction League for 2024/25 we’ll once again be handing out prizes for being top at Christmas and overall winner from The Art of Football - sample the merch from our sponsor’s newly extended QPR collection here. For the first time last year we had joint winners so this season you’ll be hearing from one or both WestonsuperR and SimplyNico in the match previews.

Nico’s Prediction: “Saturday sees the Hoops sampling the delights of the New Den. Following the loss last week to the best manager in the league, this week we have Championship regular Alex Neil back in harness. Neil’s teams are generally never easy to play against and have gamesmanship in abundance (think Preston). Whilst our winning streak came to an end, I do not see a losing streak commencing to replace it(immediately at any rate) and I suspect it will be a low scoring draw.”

Weston’s Call “Not an easy game to call. QPR were in great from but suffered a deserved home defeat on Saturday, whilst Millwall have struggled recently but have back to back away wins in their last two. I’m expecting a tight match with few goals but with Millwall at home and looking for a third win in eight days to do just about enough.”

Nico’s Prediction: Millwall 1-1 QPR. Scorer – Jimmy Dunne

WestonSuperR’s Prediction: Millwall 1-0 QPR. No scorer.

LFW’s Prediction: Millwall 1-0 QPR. No scorer.

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

062259 added 23:42 - Jan 31 Regroup
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CLAREMAN1995 added 00:51 - Feb 1 Nice interview with Mr Calm but come on we all had a drink we are terrible at set pieces and getting worse IMO.All well and good to have the players moving around but the deliveries are normally sh*t and thats being nice. When Arsenal and indeed England have a corner fans sit on the edge of their seats in anticipation .When QPR have a corner you can go for a pi** wash your hands ,make a nice sandwich because all you will miss is a breakaway for the other team

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rkk76 added 01:12 - Feb 1 There is an awful lot of sensible stuff in here, disappointing. Where is the sod it and go for broke! To be fair, if it were my club and they offered near on 2M i would take it, especially if we can get a 5 or 10% sell on clause in there.
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