Peterborough striker Craig Mackail-Smith has rejected the chance to join QPR, because he wasn’t convinced Neil Warnock would remain as the club’s manager, according to Posh DOF Barry Fry.
Mackail-Smith has attracted a host of suitors this summer after a 35 goal season in League One for Peterborough last term. The 28-year-old former Dagenham striker is out of contract next summer and has told the Posh he wants to leave now to further his career, with the club also keen to sell rather than lose him for nothing next summer. Today Peterborough Director of Football Barry Fry confirmed that they had accepted bids from QPR, Norwich and Leicester but that the player had rejected the two Premiership sides – worse still were the reasons Fry gave for Mackail-Smith’s refusal to move to Loftus Road.
Fry told the Peterborough Evening Telegraph: “We have accepted a bid from Leicester. Their manager Sven-Goran-Eriksson is out of the country at the moment, but was due to speak to Craig over the weekend. I have had several conversations with West Ham, but we have turned down their bid. I am certain they will be back. Craig is facing a tough decision. He turned down Norwich and he has now turned down QPR. Craig met QPR manager Neil Warnock and was impressed with him, but he wanted assurances that Neil would still be manager at the start of the season and didn’t get them.”
In a further blow to Neil Warnock’s summer plans it seems that Wayne Routledge may not be returning to W12 after all. Routledge spent the second half of last season on loan at Loftus Road, scoring five and picking up six assists in 20 starts, and a deal had been agreed between QPR and Newcastle to make it a permanent £1.5m transfer this summer. However despite agreeing personal terms with the player QPR have been unable to complete the move because Routledge, who did not request to leave Newcastle, is holding out for a loyalty payment from his parent club. In the meantime the man who took him to St James’ Park Chris Hughton has been appointed as Birmingham manager and is said by The Journal to be eyeing a move, and big spending Leicester City are known to be keen.
In more sedate news Shaun Derry, himself linked with a summer move away from Rangers to Millwall, has told the club’s official website that he is looking forward to the pre-season trip to Cornwall in July. He said: “You know what you're getting this year. Going down to Cornwall last season was very new for the boys because when you're looking at other far-reaching destinations throughout the world it is, with the greatest respect, not the highest place on everyone's agenda. But we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves down there. It got us together as a unit and gave us a fantastic base for the remarkable season that we had. If it can work in a similar fashion this year then it will be well worth it."
Finally, as mentioned in this column on several occasions, young Joe Oastler is set to sign a permanent one year contract with League Two side Torquay where he spent last season on loan. Oastler, who joined QPR from Portsmouth, played under Paul Buckle last season but after he defected to Bristol Rovers a further meeting with new box Martin Ling was required and Oastler will now sign on the dotted line this week according to Torquay’s official website.
The latest in a suspiciously long line of ageing former star of Italian football to be linked to QPR since Neil Warnock confirmed that Flavio Briatore is running the club again (coincidence I’m sure) is World Cup winning captain Fabio Cannavaro who at 37 is available on a free transfer following his release from Dubai’s Al Ahli where he had been enjoying a final pay day. Al Ahli, for what it’s worth, say Cannavaro is under contract for another year and going nowhere. The News of the World says Rangers are showing an interest in the player who has yet to decide whether or not to call time on his career. A slightly less outlandish rumour from the same paper is that QPR are competing with Birmingham to sign Southampton winger Jason Puncheon who spent the second half of last season on loan at Blackpool.
Another on the brink of retirement said to be interesting QPR is Owen Hargreaves, released by Manchester United after three years of dire knee problems which look like bringing his career to a premature end. Unless, according to the Star, QPR step in and offer him a pay as you play deal which he finds acceptable. What with every out of contract 37 year old Italian under the sun being linked to Loftus Road along with Jimmy Bullard and now Hargreaves LFW fears for the working hours of our physio Nigel Cox this term. He thought Fitz Hall was bad…
And as our tour of the gutter press continues The Sun reports that for the second summer running QPR are in for Reading winger Jobi McAnuff. Reading rebuffed QPR’s advances 12 months ago but the player now only has a year left to run on his contract. The same article says Rangers are looking at Israel international Tal Ben Haim, currently at Portsmouth on a £36,000 a week contract but fresh from an unsuccessful loan spell at West Ham where the 29 year old played intermittently for the eventually relegated Hammers.
Joey Barton as well apparently.
Going out, Adel Taarabt, to Paris St Germain who are spending big this summer and have offered £10m according to Talksport.
Do try to contain your excitement please.
Now how much would you say that our former Hungarian striking sensation Tamas Priskin is worth? It’s fair to say Tamas, he of the brightly coloured boots and amateurish first touch, won few friends in Shepherds Bush during a half season loan spell in 2009/10, but that didn’t stop Swansea City pursuing the Ipswich Town frontman last season in a similar temporary deal during their promotion campaign. That move took a turn for the controversial this weekend when Ipswich reported the Swans to the Premier League for a failure to pay fees relating to the loan of Priskin totalling £300,000. LFW doesn’t even want to know how much it cost us to loan the useless tosser if Swansea accumulated that much in half the time – that’s probably twice as much as he’s worth on the transfer market as a permanent signing. Anyway faced with a potential transfer embargo Swansea, who denied all knowledge of this problem at the weekend, wired £300,000 to Ipswich today.
Now quite which part of the next story you’ll find the most surprising I’m not sure but here goes – at the age of 30 our former problem child Leon Jeanne is on trial with Championship new comers Brighton, and is releasing an autobiography. Jeanne, you’ll no doubt recall, was a promising youth team graduate at QPR before ruini g his career with drink, drugs and a propensity to punch out illegitimate children. He snorted his second chance with Cardiff up his nose as well and has since trawled round the non-league game, never staying anywhere for very long and putting on embarrassing amounts of weight. Now though Gus Poyet has given him a chance to win a contract at Championship level once again. An excellent blog on the sorry mess of Leon’s career can be read here.
Whether Gerry Francis will return to Loftus Road next season in a professional capacity, as a coach at Stoke, remains to be seen. Francis has been part of Tony Pulis’ staff for three seasons but chairman Peter Coates is unsure whether he will make it four. Coates said: “"It is very much Tony's call as to what happens with Gerry. I have always left it to Tony to decide what people he has around him, and was more than happy for him to bring Gerry in for his Premier League experience. As far as I am aware, Gerry has been very valuable to him and been an important part of his immediate football management team."
Finally our former England international striker Les Ferdinand has been speaking out the R’s return to the big time. Les told Al Jazeera: “"It is great to see QPR back in the Premier League. Football today is very different because there is a lot of rotation. In my day if I scored two goals I knew I would be in the team the next weekend, but you are not guaranteed that these days even if you get goals I think everyone expected it to happen a few years ago once the money came into the club, yet it wasn't to be. But they are there now and I'm delighted for them.
"Like most clubs who come up from the Championship it will be a struggle for QPR. They need to spend, and spend wisely, and if they do that, they will give themselves the best chance. But Neil Warnock is a wily manager who has had a taste of the Premier League and knows what it is all about and deserves another crack."
- It’s easy to forget, having written all that, that QPR are now a Premiership side and therefore stories like this are now relevant to us. Arsenal say they will sell captain Cesc Fabregas for the right price this summer. Barcelona have already had a £27m bid turned down with the Gunners holding out for £35m. Elsewhere midfielder Alex Song has been fined, and Spurs defender Benoit Assou-Ekotto has been reprimanded, for a row with Samuel Eto’o while on international duty.
- Man Utd have completed the anticipated signing of Villa winger Ashley Young for £16m, and agreed terms with 20-year-old Athletico Madrid goalkeeper David De Gea as the search for a replacement for retiring Edwin Van der Sar kicks into gear. A fee of £18.9m has been agreed.
- Bad news, reduce the amount of goals you expect QPR to score next year by two - West Brom keeper Scott Carson is finally leaving the Premiership. The accident prone former England keeper, who treated the R’s to two in a 3-1 win against the Baggies just over a year ago, is joining Turkish side Bursaspor for £2m. A shame.
- Newcastle have failed in a bid to sign Swansea defender Neil taylor after an undisclosed bid was rejected. The Magpies have themselves rejected a £1.5m offer from Celtic for goalkeeper Fraser Forster who spent last season on loan at Parkhead. Manager Alan Pardew this week said Forster got little from the spell with Neil Lennon’s side where he described the quality of football as “poor”.