Goals

What makes it all the more frightening is that the new season is not far away (29 August 2020 or 12 September 2020) and it's not just a goal scorer or two that we need.

You know my thoughts about TF and I can't see him spending any of the money we get from selling the likes of Eze and BOS. We need to be investing in decent young players but they cost money.

We are going to be reliant on signing free agents and loan signings. There will be some decent players available but unless we have had a chat to their agents already they will be going elsewhere. Warburton and Les will have known for months who they were releasing and who they are likely to sell so there is no excuse to not get in early and recruit the better free agents. Of course they can only do that if they have done their homework to find out who is going to be available.

I'm not going to hold my breath though because we always seem to be behind other clubs as can be seen by our start after the Covid break. Other clubs players seemed to be fit and ready but we were a couple of weeks behind everyone else.

As a club we are very lacklustre in the things we do and we always seem to want to leave any action to late in the day, normally when the horse has bolted!

Im not expecting us to sign any free agents from the Premier League but here are a few that will be available from Championship clubs.

Barnsley

Alex Mowatt (option)  Mamadou Thiam, Kenny Dougall, Dani Pinillos, Samuel Sahin-Radlinger, Jared Bird

Birmingham City

Kerim Mrabti, Jacques Maghoma, Cheick Keita, Wes Harding, Craig Gardner, Lee Camp, Jonathan Grounds

Blackburn Rovers

Amari'i Bell, Elliott Bennett, Stewart Downing, Danny Graham, Richard Smallwood, Jayson Leutwiler, Dominic Samuel

Brentford

Kamohelo Mokotjo, Nikolaos Karelis, Luka Radic

Bristol City

Korey Smith, Ashley Williams, Niki Maenpaa, Matty Taylor, Bailey Wright 



Cardiff City

Danny Ward, Jazz Richards, Matthew Connolly

Charlton Athletic

Lyle Taylor, Tomer Hemed, Jonny Williams, Naby Sarr, Adam Matthews, Jake Forster-Caskey, Chris Solly, Albie Morgan, Ben Amos, Lewis Page

Derby County

Chris Martin, Tom Huddlestone, Ikechi Anya

Fulham

Dennis Odoi (option), Jordan Archer (option), Magnus Norman, Luca de la Torre, Neeskens Kebano, Matt O’Riley

Huddersfield Town

Elias Kachunga, Jon Gorenc Stankovic, Danny Simpson, Collin Quaner, Joel Coleman, Ryan Schofield, Demeaco Duhaney, Rekeil Pyke

Hull City

Markus Henriksen, Kevin Stewart, Jackson Irvine, Stephen Kingsley, Eric Lichaj, Jon Toral, Daniel Batty, Angus MacDonald, Robbie McKenzie, Norbert Balogh and Will Mannion 

Leeds United

Gaetano Berardi, Will Huffer

Luton Town

Harry Cornick, Kazenga Lua Lua, Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu, Andrew Shinnie, Luke Berry, James Shea, Elliot Lee, Glen Rea, Marek Stech, Danny Hylton, Harry Isted, Josh Neufville, Frankie Musonda


Middlesbrough

Dani Ayala, George Friend, Ryan Shotton, Adam Clayton, Marvin Johnson, Jonny Howson, Rudy Gestede 

Millwall

Jon Dadi Bodvarsson, Shaun Hutchinson, Murray Wallace, Ryan Leonard, Alex Pearce, Shaun Williams, James Brown

Nottingham Forest

Luke Steele, Michael Dawson, Ben Watson, Liam Bridcutt, Sammy Ameobi, Jordan Smith, Toby Edser

Preston North End

Tom Clarke, Paul Gallagher, Mathew Hudson, Jack Baxter, Michael Crowe


Reading

Chris Gunter, Garath McCleary, Danny Loader, Jordan Obita, Charlie Adam, Tyler Blackett, Vito Mannone,  Adrian Popa. 

Sheffield Wednesday

Morgan Fox, Sam Hutchinson, Kieran Le, Joey Pelupess, Sam Winnall, Fernando Forestieri, Steven Fletcher, Atdhe Nuhi, Matt Penney

Stoke City

Mame Diouf, Stephen Ward, Adam Federici


Swansea City

Mike van der Hoorn, Kyle Naughton, Nathan Dyer, Erwin Mulder, Wayne Routledge

West Bromwich Albion

Dara O’Shea, Lee Peltier, Chris Brunt, Gareth Barry, Jonathan Bond, Ali Al-Habsi, Jack Fitzwater

Wigan Athletic

Chey Dunkley, Michael Jacobs, Anthony Pilkington, Joe Garner, Lewis MacLeod, Jenson Weir, Daniel Gyollai, Gary Roberts,

Some of these players are now over the hill but a few of them could be good experienced additions to the QPR team.

For a young out and out goal scorer with a future TF will need  put his hand in his pocket but these players are available. Lawrence Shankland of Dundee Utd scores goals for fun in Scotland as does Kevin Nesbitt at Dunfermline. Both are in their early 20's,  both stand over 6ft and both score plenty of goals. Every signing is a risk but if you get one to pay off then you reap the rewards both on the field and from a future transfer fee. 

Trying to be optimistic here...the goals are going to scored by the players who replace the players we lose!

Future QPR heros!

Loan deals will always be a bit of a lottery and Warburtons signings this season have  proved the case with 3 working and 3 being very disappointing.

The best was Nahki Wells who was really a Steve Mclaren signing from the previous season when he did a reasonable job and he did even better this season when we loaned him again. 

Hugill will never be prolific but he does a job and has been the only choice as our main striker since Wells went to Bristol.

Luke Amos has done an ok job and whilst he can sometimes be out muscled he looks the type to improve.

The 3 big failures have been Jan Mlakar, Mat Smith and Jack Clarke who just weren't up to Championship football.

If last night without Hugill was a taster of our threat on goal for next season it doesn't bode well - and that was with Eze and BOS on the pitch!

It's worth saying once again that my biggest frustration at the moment with Warburton is that he (and the club) go on about attacking football and entertaining the fans and we don't seem to be seeing that. We've slumped back into the same type of play and matches we witnessed under various recent managers.

We've only had 12 shots on target in 5 games since the resumption in play.

We've only scored 16 goals in the last 16 games. Hardly the swashbuckling stuff we were promised.

And that's before Eze, BOS and Hugill all exit!

When Hugill got injured it highlighted just how threadbare the squad now is and also highlighted how naive this guy really is..

In January when Warburton knew that Wells was going to leave he took the decision not to replace him with a striker but instead decided to bring in Jack Clarke. Only Warburton knows why but maybe he thought Clarke was a striker (Probably thought he was getting Alan Clarke from the Don Revie days). After all he thinks Todd Kane is a defender and Kelly is a goalkeeper).

Of course it was inevitable that Hugill would get injured and it doesn't matter how many times he now tweaks the formation we will struggle for goals.

Warburtons signings have been pitiful and in some cases just downright strange. Admittingly they were mainly freebies which endear him to the owners but it shows how much we have declined since TF and RG took over.

It looks like Hugill will not recover from his injury before the end of July so does that mean he has played his last game for us.

Interestingly the report also stated that when we took him on loan for the 2019/20 season the agreement was that we would pay £20,000 per week of his £33,000 per week wages with no additional loan fee.