Mick Harford has wasted no time in strengthening his QPR squad after taking over from Paul Hart less than a fortnight ago - securing two experienced campaigners until the end of the season.

The addition of Quashie to the QPR squad has been mooted for several months with the player completely pout of the first team picture at West Ham and a regular attender at QPR matches. Quashie, as we all know, came through our junior ranks in the mid-90s and burst onto the Loftus Road scene in 1995/96 when, despite the team being relegated from the Premiership, he stood out as a bright prospect and quickly won England U21 and B honours while at QPR.

The youngster suffered badly with glandular fever early in his career restricting his impact frollowing relegation to Division One but still clocked up 62 appearances in hoops, scoring three goals including memorable strikes against Tranmere and Chelsea in the FA Cup. QPR sold him to Nottingham Forest in 1998 for a fee in excess of £2m and he has gone on to enjoy a nomadic career, touring round various clubs that could be seen as yo-yo sides between this division and the Premiership. Indeed Quashie has the unenviable reputation of being relegated on four seperate occasions with QPR, Forest, Southampton and West Brom. He also, bizarrely, has 14 caps and a goal to his name in Scotland colours.

More recently he has been with West Ham although he has only made eight first team appearances since being signed in 2007 by Alan Curbishley. This is due to repetitive knee injuries and not being rated by management in equal measure and whenever he has been fit to play he has generally been loaned out to do that - at Wolves and Birmingham in thgis league last year, both of whom went on to win promotion, and at MK Dons this season where he played seven times and scored twice in November and December but, again, suffered with injury.

Quashie told the club’s official website: “It's great to be back home, and I am delighted to be at a club that I love to pieces. I had a good time when I was here before, and the fans were very good to me. I'm a fan of the club myself so I know what they demand. There are some excellent players here and it is nice to come back and be a part of it. We've got a chance to get into the play-offs, and if we can do that and then get into the Premier League, the whole place will just take off. I guarantee I will play with passion. It's about putting your foot in and working as hard as you possibly can. We want opposing teams to come to Loftus Road knowing they're going to face one hell of a difficult game. It's important to me that I do well for the QPR supporters.”

Hill is a signing much more out of the blue. The small but popwerful left back, 28, has joined on loan from Premiership strugglers Wolves until the end of the season - five years after he had the opportunity to sign a permanent deal at Loftus Road. At that time he was playing for Bristol City and Ian Holloway was the QPR boss. Ollie did his usual excellent job of selling Loftus Road to Hill after having an offer accepted by City but ultimately finances proved to be a stumbling block and Hill went to Preston North End instead. He made more than 100 appearances for the Lilywhites between 2005 and 2008 when he signed for Wolves for whom he has made 14 appearances prior to this opportunity with Rangers.

Hill told the club’s official website: "Every footballer wants to be playing games and unfortunately I wasn't getting that at Wolves. QPR have given me the opportunity to do that here, so I am delighted to join. We had a great team there last term and did well to get promoted. QPR are a team that want to push on and go places, so hopefully I can be a part of that. I spoke with Mick Harford before I joined, and the chat we had was certainly enough to convince me to come down here. I like to think I am the sort of player who is all-hearted, and always gives it everything when I play. I consider myself to be a good defender and a good organiser. Defending is my main strength, but I'll also be looking to get forward when I can and provide some crosses." Mick Harford said: Nigel has been training with us for the last few days and has looked excellent. He will give us added experience in the middle of the park and is a great addition. No disrespect to anyone else, but I feel we have missed Martin Rowlands and Gavin Mahon's experience. Nigel will give us some of that."

"Matt has played in the Premiership three or four times this season, and we are delighted to have him on board. I have actually followed him throughout his career. He's been at good clubs and is a really solid defender. I just felt we needed to strengthen the back four, and this is a quality signing. Matt is very aggressive and although he's not the biggest, he's very good in the air. He's a good talker and an organiser, which is what we need. He also likes to get forward at times, which is what we want our full-backs to do. Matt seems to have been around for so long, so I was quite pleased when I found out he's only 28. He's got plenty of energy and I know he wants to come here and prove himself.”

Agyemang's departure has been rumoured on the message boards throughout January. he was signed for a nominal fee from preston North End two years ago and started his career at QPR in spectacular fashion, scoring eight times in his first six games under Luigi De Canio. He suffered badly with injury last season, missing big chunks of the campaign, and has been used mostly from the bench this season scoring three goals from seven starts and 13 substitute appearances. Agyemang, who was given a ridiculously lucrative four year contract when he signed at Loftus Road, has joined Gary Johnson's Bristol City side on loan for the rest of the season meaning that two of QPR's big earning strikers are currently playing for teams close to us in the league while we pay a proportion of their wages.

For me Agyemang is an impact substitute at best in the Championship. When you've tried everything else and the opposition defence is tired, or you're holding onto a lead and need somebody to cause problems and keep the opposition occupied then for the last 20 minutes of a game Agyemang could be your man. However he never has been and never will be prolific enough in front of goal to justify a regular starting place, and his technical football ability when it comes to first touch and things like that is second to just about everybody. People point to his hot streak when he first signed as if that could happen again, and while he may well go and succeed initially at City, long term he is never going to be a prolific goalscorer at this level and has shown clearly in three games against Sheff Utd this year that he is not good enough in the air to play as a target man. Since breaking into the Wimbledon team in 2000 he has made at least 20 appearances or more in all but one season and his goals totals over the last ten years read five, four, six, six, six, two, four, six, seven, four, nine, two and three so far this season which really says it all for me.

Agyemang is regularly held up on LFW, perhaps unfairly, as the most obvious answer to the clear and obvious flaw in QPR's transfer policy of picking up freebies and cheap buys from other teams then giving them big contracts. A striker who has never scored prolificly at this level, had made only ten starts for Preston in this division the season before we bought him, and whose best goal haul prior to joining us was seven in a season was given a four year contract on in excess of £10,000 a week. Seeing Agyemang driving down South Africa Road in a Bentley with a personalised plate just reinforced how ludicrous our club has become.

Quashie is a big risk. Undoubtedly as a QPR fan and a very experienced footballer he has the potential to be that midfield anchor man, steadying influence and beating heart of the team that we have missed since losing Rowlands and Mahon to injury earlier in the season. Quashie never really fulfilled his initial promise that he showed in his first spell with us but much of the criticism of him as a footballer is unfounded - plenty of Premiership manager have brought him in to do a job for them and the fact that he has been relegated so often is neither here nor there really. Can we really say he was even partly responsible for our own demise? I’d say quite the contrary, he was one of the few good things about our team in 1996.

The main problem is his recent fitness record. QPR have found with Dean Sturridge and more recently Heider Helguson and Steven Reid that if a player has been consistently and regularly injured over the past three or four seasons they are unlikely to suddenly come to Loftus Road and be a picture of health. The last thing we need is a nother player that we’re looking at in six months time counting the days until his contract ends so we can offload him. If, and it’s a massive if, we can get him fit for any length of time then as a Gavin Mahon type figure in midfield he could turn out to be a very good signing. Another problem however is exactly what role Harford has in mind for him - at the moment that Mahon/Rowlands role is being done, with only occasional success, by Mikele Leigertwood. If Quashie was to replace him then that may be a good thing, if he was to play with Leigertwood instead of Alejandro Faurlin one of the few success stories of our season so far then I’m afraid that would strike me as a backwards step.

Hill is a much more cut and dried signing. Simply put he is at a good age and is better than the options we currently have in his position. Gary Borrowdale has been steady so far this season but nothing more than that and when targetted by Sheffield United in the FA Cup he spectacularly fell to pieces. Borrowdale doesn’t win enough ball in the air, or stop the cross coming in often enough. Hill is much more aggressive and not bad in the air at all for a man of his size. His lack of action recently is down to ability, he’s a good Championship player but certainly not a Premiership one, rather than injury and he is a signing I am cautiously optimistic about this morning.

Both players are expected to make their full debuts in the daunting trip to Nottingham Forest tomorrow night. The full LoftforWords preview and match build up will be online over the course of the next 24 hours.

What do you think of the Quashie and Hill signings? Use the commenting facility below or message board to tell us.

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