The departure of Dexter Blackstock to Nottingham Forest has attracted much debate around the QPR message boards this week. Is the decision to sell our chief goal threat at a time when we look light on strikers as barmy as it sounds?

A camel’s back breaker
Just when you think the farce at QPR cannot get any deeper and murkier, they do something else to surprise and alienate you. “Things can only get better,” said Custer, just before a load more Indians turned up wearing Nottingham Forest shirts.

Last season QPR were a dour team; at the back few could match us in this division and with Gorkss, Stewart, Connolly and Cerny all fit and raring to go that is unlikely to change this season, or at least you would hope it isn’t. Up front though things were embarrassing at times with 23 blank afternoons for the long suffering supporters to sit through at £30 a time. The task this summer seemed simple - strengthen the attack, buy strikers. There are a few knocking around for not particularly outlandish money - Leroy Lita is available on a free, Leeds only want £1m for Jermaine Beckford with his contract up next summer, Ched Evans is being sidelined by the Man City revolution and being eyed by Sheff Utd, some of the less sane would even say paying to watch Marlon Harewood would be better than another nine months of watching us lump long balls at the head of Sam Di Carmine.

But no, instead what we have decided to do is add another midfielder, wave Di Carmine good bye and now sell Dexter Blackstock who, even in a side as shot shy as our own, bagged 12 goals last season and finished as the top scorer. Top scorer despite being left out of the team regularly after Christmas and eventually bummed off on loan to Nottingham Forest where, guess what, he scored two crucial goals to keep them in the Championship.

Blackstock is still only 23. He was a member of the England Under 21 squad recently and came from a good football grounding at Oxford and then Southampton whose academy and youth set up is second to none despite the financial disaster and problems with the first team. QPR secured him at a very good price, £500k, and although he was booked for diving within fifteen seconds of his debut beginning against Southend at Loftus Road in 2006 has served us very well over three seasons. In the first, under first Gary Waddock and then John Gregory, he struck up a lethal partnership with Lee Cook in an otherwise dire QPR side. His 14 goals, 12 of them supplied by the little left winger, played a huge part in our unlikely survival that year and few will ever forget his goal of the season winner against Preston at Loftus Road - a vicious 25 yard volley into the roof of the School End net.

His second season at Loftus Road was a rough one for him, the death of close friend Ray Jones early in the campaign clearly had an effect on the young man, but he still came roaring back with four goals in the final seven matches and hopes were high that he would enjoy a prolific 2008/09 with the team improving immeasurably after the takeover. Five goals in the first six games last season hinted at a first 20 goal season of his career and he was still on course for that at the turn of the year when a winner against Preston and equaliser at Charlton over Christmas followed by another against Coventry in January took him to 12. Back in form, back amongst the goals and with 20 games still to play a 20 goal haul looked almost certain at this stage.

Blackstock though was moved in and out of the team. Strikers like to play every match and on occasions his absence was mystifying - his goal against Preston came off the bench where he had been dropped by Paulo Sousa who then dropped helguson for the next match at Charlton despite two goals against North End. The systems changed as well - two up front, one up front, four man midfields, five man midfields, diamond set ups. Blackstock’s goals had come when used consistently, in a consistent team selection. It was no surprise he dried up in the second half of the season and even less shocking when he excelled in a 442 formation with decent wingers crossing him the ball at Nottingham Forest. At QPR he has seen managers come and go, mourned the loss of his friend, played in some abysmal teams and still come out the other end trying hard, smiling and scoring.

Blackstock seemed all set to extend his contract at Christmas only for the offer to be mysteriously withdrawn leaving him with just a season left on his current deal. With Paulo Sousa claiming he had no knowledge of the Forest move, and no desire to see his top scorer leave, this has the leathery whiff of Flavio Briatore about it. For various footballing and other reasons the chairman does not like Blackstock, does not like Damien Delaney, and certainly does not like Lee Camp - and all three have been quickly moved out this summer. This despite manager Jim Magilton saying everybody would start with a clean slate and then just last week saying he had been impressed with Dexter’s application and considered him a part of his squad. It seems our new manager is going through the same eye opening process Iain Dowie endured this time last year. They’ll tell you you’re in charge Jim, that it’s your decision, but ultimately if Flav wants rid of the best striker you have got then there is not much you can do about it mate.

And to make matters worse still he has been allowed to join Nottingham Forest who now have six good options in attack for next season - Blackstock is joined by existing squad members Joe Garner, Nathan Tyson and Robert Earnshaw and new arrivals Dele Adebola and David McGoldrick. There’s a good mixture of prolific goalscoring records, physical presence, pace, aerial ability, youth and experience among that lot and already, partly thanks to us, one of our rivals for a play off spot next year are ahead in the race. We are left with Vine coming back from a broken leg, the terminally unfit Heider Helguson and the rarely prolific Patrick Agyemang. A long season beckons.

I’ll drive him there myself
There is a lot of revisionist history floating around about Blackstock this week so let’s start with some facts. Dexter Blackstock, at 23 years of age, has never once scored 15 goals in a Championship season. Even in 2006/07 when Lee Cook was in the form of his life and laying goals on a plate for him he only got 14, even in 2007/08 when during the second half of the season QPR poured forwards at every opportunity and were top scorers in the league bar Cardiff after Christmas he managed just six, even last season when he was up to 12 by Christmas he only subsequently finished with 14.

People point to him being dropped altogether at the turn of the year and it simply is not true. Just prior to joining Nottingham Forest he played five games on the spin for QPR - at Southampton, Doncaster and Barnsley and at home to Norwich and Sheffield United. That hardly reads like a who’s who of Championship success stories 2008/09 and yet Blackstock did not score, or even look like scoring, in any of those matches. At Southampton, against a team he used to play for and presumably would want to do well against, a team that finished the season relegated, he flopped about like a dying fish on the deck of a boat for 90 minutes offering absolutely nothing. I was tempted to go out and clunk him over the head with an oar myself.

People say Sousa played him as a lone striker and that’s the reason for the tail off in form - but that’s not true either. He played with Di Carmine against Doncaster and Sheff Utd and Helguson against Norwich and Barnsley. He has played 96 times for QPR, and made a further 20 sub appearances, and scored just 32 goals. The same QPR fans that laud Dexter and mourn his departure scoff at the idea of signing DJ Campbell as his replacement but even his ratio of goals to games is better than that.

His apologists say he has never had a settled time at QPR with a manager and they’re right, but I would say look at it a different way - not one of the managers we have had has managed to find a prolific goal scorer in Dexter Blackstock. He has played in a free flowing attacking side with De Canio, a passing side under Waddock, a more direct team managed by Dowie, a defensively minded set up with Sousa and a let’s all do it for each other bunch of heroes under Gregory and never scored prolifically. Every now and again he has found a little form, but his purple matches are more mauve and never last very long. He is far more likely to go 20 games without a goal than a spell of four in eight.

Blackstock does not look like a footballer. He has the body tone of middle aged golfer and, judging by the ‘lighthearted’ programme interviews a diet similar to my dog. His touch is often wayward and his anticipation is non-existent. When a ball drops Blackstock reacts, the great goal scorers (and a few of the not so great ones too) anticipate that drop and are there first. The magnificent Preston goal apart Blackstock’s goals were often bundled, close range efforts scored through bravery or brute force rather than any genuine skill or anticipation. He has the balance of an old drunk as well - not since the anti-Fulham merger protests has anybody spent quite so much time sitting down on the Loftus Road playing surface.

Yes he was our top scorer last year but there are better players out there available for the same money, and if we have to sell to buy then I’m afraid Blackstock, popular though he obviously was, was always going to be the man to make way. Spending the money on a Beckford or Evans would vastly improve our team overnight. The clear blue fact is Blackstock has never shown any hint that he could be a 20 goal a season man in the Championship, doesn’t have a sufficiently well rounded game to bring other things to the team apart from the odd goal, and has barely improved since the day we brought him here which makes the profit we have apparently made on him today all the more remarkable and welcome.

In conclusion
As ever, the truth lies somewhere in between the extremes and we’ll only know it for sure this time next year. If Blackstock scores 20 goals for Forest who finish above us while we struggle up front again then it’s a silly move. That’s an obvious statement of course, and comes from perched high on a fence. If I had to commit at the moment I would say that if we have brought in £800k rising to £1.6m as I believe we have for a striker we paid £500k for three years ago, who has never got 15 goals in a season and who hasn’t made any noticeable progress since he arrived then I think we may have done a good deal.

However it is certainly a gamble to allow our main goal threat to join a rival and leave us only with Helguson, Agyemang and Vine who have rarely been prolific scorers in their careers and all had big injury problems last season. We need to replace him adequately for this to work – and I do think we can for the money we have apparently received. If we do that then when have done the right thing. Adel Taarabt’s arrival is certainly a step in the right direction – and while he is only on loan initially I would certainly rather see Taarabt up front than Blackstock. Alongside a focal point like Helguson, Agyemang or possibly Pellicori Taarabt would do a far better job in my opinion.

During his time with Rangers I have been torn between thinking he is a good player that suffers dips in form, or a mediocre player who enjoys occasional peaks. I’m still wondering three years on, though the way he fails to anticipate the play and his poor touch on the ball leads me to believe it could well be the latter. He’s an honest player, a really hard worker, but I think he is just a standard Championship forward. He is probably the best of the forwards we have now, which is why this only makes sense if we adequately replace him, but I do think we need a better striker than Blackstock to progress.

While I am broadly, cautiously in favour of the sale at the moment one concern I do have is exactly who made this decision. Both Blackstock and Magilton seemed happy for the player to continue at QPR and yet now he has gone. Was this Magilton’s decision? I personally doubt it was unless he was given assurances he could use the money to bring in a target of his choice. I was not in favour of the Magilton appointment but he has now to be given the chance to build the team as he sees fit, even if the owners don’t like a particular player, and not have decisions foisted upon him. In the meantime, he has under three weeks to replace Lee Camp, Damien Delaney and now Dexter Blackstock as well as covering the problems we already had before selling those three. I don’t envy him his task.

Photo: Action Images

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