Daniel Nardiello has admitted to the BBC that he expects to leave QPR shortly, with Blackpool his most likely destination as part of the Kaspars Gorkss deal. Meanwhile the club has announced squad numbers for the forthcoming campaign
Only last week Iain Dowie was talking up Nardiello’s chances of first team football at Loftus Road but he didn’t feature in the friendly win over Stevenage on Saturday and this week he played for the second string at Windsor last night rather than going with the first team to Northampton this evening.
By all accounts Nardiello’s performance and attitude in the Windsor friendly is unlikely to win him many admirers either at QPR or any potential new club but he told the BBC afterwards that he expected to be on his way.
Nardiello said: "There's things going on - negotiations and things like that. I can't really say I'm going to be here in the near future. I think I'll be getting off. I've just got to sort a few things out. I want to be playing games and need to be somewhere I can do that.”
LFW understands that the ‘negotiations’ he refers to are over a settlement of his current QPR contract which has a year left to run. Rangers and the player have been someway apart on what they believe a reasonable settlement payment would be to this point but once negotiations are concluded Nardiello would be free to leave the club, with Blackpool his most likely destination.
The striker signed for Rangers from Barnsley this time last year but failed to settle in London and failed to score in eight appearances before being loaned back to Barnsley for the second half of the campaign. QPR have offered Blackpool a number of squad players this summer to try and hurry along the drawn out signing of Kaspars Gorkss.
Although the Latvian has a clause in his contract allowing clubs to buy him for just £250k Pool have accused Rangers of making an illegal approach and been reluctant to see the deal go through – a player exchange has been seen as a way of smoothing the choppy waters and a scout for Simon Grayson was at the Windsor match last night as Chris Barker and Zesh Rehman also featured. Gorkss has been taking part in pre-season training with QPR this summer and it is hoped that he can play some part in the two Scottish friendlies next week.
Iain Dowie has told the Kilburn Times today that Rangers will not be pursuing another centre half if the Gorkss deal falls through despite reports in the national media today that the R’s are back in for Birmingham’s Martin Taylor.
Dowie said: "Yes, we'd like to get Kaspars here. We've put a bid on that we believe is the right bid, given the clause in his contract, and I felt that was fine. Certainly I haven't talked to anyone untoward, but this is obviously rumbling on and that's for people in a higher position than me to deal with. We've made our choice and we hope to see it over the line, but we'll have to wait and see."
Meanwhile the club has finally announced the squad numbers for the forthcoming season and for those that like to read things into this the big winners were Hogan Ephraim (25 down to seven) Mikele Leigertwood (32 to six) Patrick Agyemang (17 to 11) Rowan Vine (26 to eight) and Angelo Balanta (36 to 19). The big losers were Chris Barker (three to 23) Adam Bolder (seven to 12) Gareth Ainsworth (11 to 26) and Daniel Nardiello (eight to 25). A full list of the new numbers is available by clicking here.
The R’s are back in action tonight as they face League One promotion hopefuls and infamous bogey side Northampton Town at the Sixfields. Tony Gibson is the LFW man at the match tonight and will be filing a match report later - watch this space as they say. Match Preview
Discuss this story on the Message Board
Click here and be the first user to comment on this story