QPR’s chronic shortage of quality full backs eased slightly on Saturday when the club confirmed the signing of England international Luke Young on a three year deal from Aston Villa.
Since progressing out of Tottenham’s youth set up in 1997 Luke Young has become one of the most enduring figures in the Premiership, clocking up close to 400 appearances for four top flight clubs. He is one of four brothers – older sibling Neil played for Bournemouth and his youngest brother Jake is in the West Ham academy but Andre Young was found dead in Malia, Crete, in 2009 after suffering head injuries.
At Spurs Luke made 56 starts and and 20 substitute appearances before Charlton paid £4m to take him across London in 2001. At the Valley he was part of the famous Young Fish Costa Fortune back four which formed a bedrock of an excellent Alan Curbishley team with the likes of Scott Parker excelling further forward.
Young has played more games for Charlton, 208 appearances, than any other club in his career but his time at the Valley was marred by a series of transfer requests. He was the club’s Player of the Year in 2005 but asked to leave after falling out with Curbishley. That request was withdrawn when the long serving Charlton boss stepped down but was reinstated when Iain Dowie was appointed because Young said he wanted a new contract that the club was not willing to offer. Young did then sign a new three year deal but Dowie didn’t last long and his replacements, Les Reed and then Alan Pardew, were disasters and the club was relegated at which point Young asked to leave for a third time and joined Middlesbrough for £2.5m – a relatively small amount considering he was a seven times capped serving England international at this stage. Fabio Capello has called him up since, but never used him, and he said he no longer wanted to be considered for the national team in 2009.
Young spent just one season at the Riverside, 2007/08, during which he played 42 times in all competitions and scored one memorable goal against his first club Spurs. That was enough to more than double his price tag apparently and the following summer Aston Villa paid almost £6m to secure his services. Martin O’Neill bought Young, and he was said to be popular with the Villa fans as he split his time equally between right and left back. However after a season as first choice Young seemed to lose the faith of his manager who preferred to play centre half Carlos Cuellar out of position at right back for the 2009/10 season. Young was the subject of a £2.5m offer from Liverpool but rejected the move on the grounds that he wouldn’t play first team football there either.
The Harlow born full back is now 32-years old and has joined QPR on a three year deal for an undisclosed transfer fee. He will wear the number 18 shirt.
"I am ready for a new challenge. There are big things that are going to happen at this football club and I am really pleased to be a part of it. Myself and Joey signing here shows the intent of the club. I am really looking forward to getting started and pulling on the blue and white shirt." – Luke Young
"I've been looking for a defender with vast Premier League experience for a while now and Luke certainly fits the bill. He can play anywhere across the back four and that versatility will stand us in really good stead. Moving back home to London will also serve him well and I'm really looking forward to seeing him in action for us - he's got so much to give and his experience will be vital." – Neil Warnock
Good news but why are we not learning from previous mistakes? I know we QPR fans always look for the cloud outside the silver lining.When Warnock retires he may leave a legacy that might not be great to take on - does he care about that? We all indentified long expensive contracts given to players in the past as a big problem and we are doing it again. When the new financial rules come in these players will still be on our books. I rate Luke Young, but I think a three year deal for him and four year deal for Barton is too long. Somerset Hoops
The two Manchester clubs and Liverpool have spent this summer acting like housewives in Tesco on the Friday before a Bank Holiday weekend – i.e. throwing huge amounts of money around like the shop is never going to open again. But for the rest it has been a summer when a competitive Premiership team could easily have been assembled on a budget. Matt Taylor, Kevin Nolan, John Carew, John Arne Riise, Wayne Routledge, Danny Graham, Kyle Naughton and others have all moved clubs this summer for relatively tiny transfer fees – in fact that list there would have cost you less than £10m.
QPR under the previous ownership wouldn’t even stretch to that and forced Neil Warnock to look at the likes of Bruno Perone and Danny Webber this summer while other decent players were moving for reasonable money. Strange behaviour, you may think, given the riches the Premiership continues to proffer if you stay in it but clearly Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore had no intention of being around to absorb the consequences of their actions next summer and weren’t really in the mood to fit a new kitchen to aid the sale of this particular house.
It’s a relief therefore to find that we haven’t completely missed the boat. There are still one or two gems kicking around at the bottom of the bargain bucket and in Luke Young we’ve certainly got one of those. Young has played in the Premiership his whole life, in some very good teams for some very good managers. He’s a consistent, quality full back who can play on either side of the defence and is exactly what we need. Joey Barton is a good player with baggage, Young is just a good player full stop. He’ll slot straight in with no fuss and improve whatever side of the defence he plays on immediately.
QPR’s main problem at the moment is the full back position. We weren’t very good there to begin with and we’ve since lost three players to injury and suspension. This is reminiscent of the 1990/91 season when Don Howe arrived at the training ground each day to discover another of his centre halves had broken their legs. Howe and assistant Bobby Gould corrected that by signing Darren Peacock from Hereford and Andy Tillson from Grimsby and it seems that for Peacock and Tillson we can now read Luke Young and Armand Traore.
The only issue here is whether or not QPR are making the same mistakes they have done in the past by handing out lucrative, long contracts to players. When I say “bargain” signings it’s all relative – because although the transfer fees are low Joey Barton and Luke Young will not be playing for peanuts. They will both be earning more than anybody has ever earned at QPR before and it seems they’re about to be joined by several others on similar deals. When Young’s contract expires he will be 35 – are we potentially just layering on another load of players who in two years time will be talked about in the same way we now lament Agyemang, Vine, Borrowdale, Cook and others?
To be fair to the club, it’s probably a case of needs must. We need, in the short term, some serious squad strengthening to stay in this league. Young, Barton, Shaun Wright Phillips and others will all undoubtedly provide us with a much needed increase in quality. But these players need persuading to come to a club like QPR with its small ground, limited prospects and indifferent start to the season. We’re getting them here because we’re willing to offer them longer contracts (with the security they bring) than anybody else.
Short term that policy will work if we stay up. Medium to long term though it remains to be seen whether handing out contracts our club cannot afford will come back to bite us.
Listen, if Rodney Marsh is following @loftforwords on Twitter then why aren’t you?