QPR have made a clear statement of their new intent by moving quickly to secure a pair of promising 22-year-olds from Swindon, but they must work hard to ensure they don’t suffer the same fate as their predecessors.
He scored six goals and had eight assists to his name last season, and made the division’s Team of the Year, leading to links with Aston Villa this summer where former Spurs academy head Tim Sherwood is, of course, now manager. Luongo was also named Player of the Tournament at January’s Asian Cup, where he scored in the final for Australia as they beat South Korea 2-1. He has a dozen caps and two goals for the Australia senior team so far.
Born in Sydney to an Italian father and Indonesian mother, Luongo started his football at APIA Leichhardt Tigers FC down under before heading to these shores in 2011 to join the Tottenham academy. He was loaned out first to Ipswich Town for the first three months of the 2012/13 season and scored one League Cup goal in eight starts and three substitute appearances for Paul Jewell’s side.
He was then one of a clutch of Spurs players sent on loan to Swindon, with manager Mark Cooper playing a progressive, attractive, intricate style in League One that attracted the Premier League club to send their best youngsters there. He was part of the Swindon side that impressively dispatched QPR from the League Cup in 2013/14 at Loftus Road. His form persuaded Swindon to spend £400,000 to acquire him permanently, although Spurs maintained first-refusal on him at that price should he move on and have a generous sell-on clause in the agreement should he go anywhere else — as has now happened.
Pedigree-wise, Ben Gladwin couldn’t be more different. Also 22 and also joining from Swindon, the physical, versatile attacker joined the Robins in July 2013 after coming up through the non-league game with stints at Wallingford, Windsor and Eton, Hayes and Yeading and Marlow after being released from Reading’s youth set up as a boy.
He scored 11 times for Swindon last season, including eight in the final seven fixtures of the season as the Robins made an ultimately unsuccessful bid for promotion through the play-offs.
Luongo and Gladwin have both signed three year contracts at Loftus Road. The combined fee for the two players is in the region of £3.5m.
"Ben’s a fine addition for us and someone myself and Les have been monitoring for some time. I'm happy we've persuaded him to come here because there was a lot of interest from other clubs, some in the Premier League. He just wants to come in and play and he'll get that opportunity with us. I'm looking forward to coaching him and working with a player I believe can only keep improving.”— QPR manager Chris Ramsey.
"Regular football is important to me. That’s why QPR appealed to me. I’m at my best when I’m playing week in, week out — I’m all for playing as many games as possible in a season. The step up to the Championship is going to be a challenge, but I’ll always back myself. I sat down with the manager and the big thing for me was where he wants to go with the club. Also, how he wants me to be involved attracted me. He sold it to me really well. I never want to rest on my laurels — I always want to push on. I’m very excited to now be a QPR player. I can’t wait to start pre-season and get my head down.” -Massimo Luongo
"There was interest from the Premier League but for me, personally, I think this move is a little more realistic at this stage of my career. Playing is what it’s all about. Sitting on the bench is no way to improve your game. Chris Ramsey is a fantastic coach and I’m sure he’ll improve me on the training pitch. I spoke to him earlier this week and was hugely impressed by what he had to say and where he sees me fitting in. Everyone I’ve spoken to about QPR said it would be a good move for me. I can’t wait to get going here.” - Ben Gladwin
I say that because last summer I thought our signings were decent. Rio Ferdinand apart, which was always a vintage modern-day QPR ego fest likely to blow up in their faces, the players brought in were of better ability, age, attitude and pedigree than the wasters the club had lumbered itself with before at greater expense. I still think Jordon Mutch is a fine player, and that Stephen Caulker was a very good signing — he still has time to turn things around, if he can stay out of pub brawls. Isla and Vargas had enjoyed good World Cups and Leroy Fer had shone in a relegated Norwich team.
Yes they came in late, but the play-off finalists are always at that disadvantage and it was exacerbated by a South American World Cup. And, yes, it was a typical bit of latter-day Harry Redknapp nonsense to sign players thinking he was going to play a back three and then abandon it after a game and a half, leaving the squad short in key areas. But Caulker, Mutch, Fer, Isla, Vargas were all good signings on paper. Tony Fernandes repeated that over and over again when things started going badly - we'll be fine, learnt lessons, got good players.
The problem is if you're making a rancid Bolognese sauce, it takes more than a couple of garlic cloves to turn the thing around. These players are just the latest names to go onto the list of those who looked great elsewhere, but came to QPR and performed poorly. Junior Hoilett, fantastic at Blackburn, now barely looks like a footballer. We brought them into a broken club. Once is fine, twice is fine, three times is concerning, but it has happened over and over and over again at QPR. And if it's still the case, then Massimo Luongo and Ben Gladwin need to watch their careers or risk being swallowed up by the blackness too.
The departures of Shaun Wright-Phillips and Joey Barton, on the same day that Clint Hill and Ale Faurlin were given a chance to extend their stays here, give hope — that dangerous commodity again.
We can debate whether Joey Barton is actually any good or not until the cows come home. We can hear from people who say that, actually, Wright-Phillips was a good influence around the training ground, setting an example to the younger players and what not. And we can say that Faurlin will be lucky to ever walk up the stairs again, never mind play football, after what he's been through and Clint Hill, who was only meant to be good enough for one more year four years ago, is starting to struggle. But we'd be missing the point if we did.
The fact is, whether you like Barton or Wright-Phillips or not, they represent what has been wrong at QPR over the last four years. All about ego and name and individuals and money. Faurlin and Hill, who have constantly put the club above all else, represent everything we want QPR to be.
Whatever the exact figures of the wages paid to Barton and Wright-Phillips - and estimates vary wildly - it was far in excess of what anybody else at the club was on when they arrived. There will always be high earners and low earners at a football club, but QPR took a spirited squad that had worked hard for promotion and basically cast them aside, slung a whole clutch of people who'd done nothing for the club in there on ten times the money, and wondered why it put a few backs up.
And that money never reduced over four years, whether they played or not, whether the club did well or not, whether it stayed in the Premier League or not, whether they behaved themselves or not — Joey and Shaun got their money regardless. The deals they were given highlighted how desperate QPR were to have them, like we were privileged to get such big-name players to our little tiny club. It should always be the other way around: signings should always feel privileged to be coming here.
There has been no uniform standard of behaviour at QPR during their time here and they’ve both taken full advantage of it. Neil Warnock talks in his book about Wright-Phillips taking the piss out of him during training when he'd tried to fine him. Joey Barton has been involved in countless incidents on and off the field. He's been sent off four times, all for reactions rather than fouls, in four massive matches for the club. He has regularly brought the club into disrepute with his conduct on social media, recently telling supporters reacting to a newspaper story about him they know nothing because they "work in Sainsbury's" as if people who work in Sainsbury's can't have their say. He also spent an entire afternoon before a match abusing Rodney Marsh who, whatever you think of him, won a cup final here and did far more for QPR than Joey Barton has ever done. For all this QPR made him the captain, and Joey was allowed to Tweet and Whats App message the chairman. This sort of thing should never be allowed to be the case again.
You cannot impose standards, wage structures, behaviour protocol, social media guidance and what not while people like that are still around. They’ll look at the contracts you gave them and laugh. "Joey, I know all the Newsnight and Twitter stuff has been fine for the last three years, but we’d like you to stop now,” isn’t going to wash, particularly as the chairman himself is just as bad for it. With them gone, you can start to enact change. Keeping people who have behaved well, performed well, and treated the club and its fans with respect sets a standard that the younger, hungrier players the club now wants to be its signature signings will be asked to abide by.
Both Luongo and Gladwin will see this as a big move and opportunity for them, as opposed to doing us a favour or "moving for the money” as Barton so tactfully described his original transfer to Loftus Road. A sensible approach from the club to today’s season ticket prices means the patience Chris Ramsey has pleaded for will be afforded — high prices have poisoned the atmosphere at Loftus Road before and would have created an inappropriate environment for Ramsey and Les Ferdinand to do what they seem to be planning to do.
These signings bode very well, and it sounds as if more will follow in a similar vein. Ferdinand’s plan for the club is taking shape but that culture of behaviour, respect and team ethic needs to be right or we risk simply put together a collection of disparate individuals once more.
All in all, it’s been a fantastic week for the club.
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