As January comes closer with each week, marked by the door slamming shut on the emergency loan window for the Football League, it is only natural for every Tom, Dick and Harry to get linked with every United, Rovers and Athletic. It has been no different this year. Even though he is 30 next year, World Cup winner Kaka is being linked with Chelsea for a bizarre £30m. Manchester City are slowly being linked with every player that gets the better of them; and as predicted by The Guardian’s football blog, The Fiver, Mancini is allegedly lining up Edinson Cavani as he oversaw Napoli get the better of City. More prolonged transfer gossip include; Willie McKay’s Doncaster dynasty continuing to plunder small fortunes into African has beens in the hope that they can lift them off the Championship floor, Beckham deciding where he will cash in his final paycheck and who Arsenal won’t buy because they never spend much but we will link them with a £20m move anyway.
However, a smaller, if not for much longer, team have slowly progressed up the Premier League to where they sit now at 9th. Having joked that he would take, “7 points from 9; easy,” against Chelsea, Tottenham and Man City, his team took three and pushed Man City all the way. Q.P.R have come some way from their opening day drubbing at the hands of Bolton. The unquestionable financial platform provided by the new owner Tony Fernandes, helped Q.P.R kick start their season. The Malaysian tycoon put his money where Warnock’s mouth was and five signings were made immediately, at the end of the summer transfer window. His impressive performance at the helm of the Loftus Road club, including a win over Chelsea, looks set to earn Warnock his second transfer kitty for January.
“We are on the lookout for four or five,” proclaimed Sheffield born Warnock, “”I’m not saying they’re all going to be big-name signings but we need numbers in the squad.” For me, as hopeful as I was of David Beckham returning to the Premier league, this draws a big red cross through the idea if Warnock’s comments, “I personally can’t see where Beckham is going to get in the team at the moment,” didn’t.
Warnock sent out a ringing endorsement for his current hit man too, when hinting at what Rangers fans can expect, “You could spend £10million on a striker and he will not play as well as Heidar ” stated the QPR boss. That paired with his exclamation that “big-name signings,” aren’t guaranteed, can provide fans with a small window of opportunity to second guess who they may sign.
So far, unlike most of the Premier League, rumours for players into Loftus Road have been fairly muted but not entirely non-existent. The Daily Mail audaciously claimed that QPR were putting together £10m bid for an “out-of-favour” Jermain Defoe, which is unlikely for two reasons; firstly Warnock indirectly claimed that a £10m striker couldn’t match his Heidar and secondly, Joe Jordan, Redknapp’s right hand man stated that Defoe can play his way into the England Euro squad, “”I wouldn’t say Darren Bent has got to go to the Euros because I think that between now and then you still have to prove that you are a good player. And Jermain Defoe can do that.”
As well as Defoe, fellow Spurs man Bassong has been linked with a London switch and as aforementioned, “Beckham”, “Warnock” and “QPR” has resulted in numerous Google results ever since the MLS began to draw to a close.
It makes more and more sense in these days off mega million pound transfers to try and find cheap talent from the Asian continent. There is no doubting that technically the players are often superior to alot of our own home grown players. What most have lacked before is the physical ability to compete in the English leagues. It will be interesting to see how QPR get on