After Jack Colback, Steve Cook is another veteran footballer from Nottingham Forest bringing much needed ability and experience to QPR’s beleaguered team, but once more the club has had to offer a chunky contract to make it happen storing up further problems for later on.

Facts

Hastings-born Steve Cook likes the South Coast almost as much as Rob Dickie likes the M4 corridor.

Having graduated through Brighton’s youth system during their League One days, and debuted in a shock League Cup win against Man City in 2008, he spent time on loan with Havant & Waterlooville, Eastleigh, Eastbourne and Bournemouth before joining the Cherries permanently in 2012. In fact, at one stage Albion loaned him to Mansfield and manager Gus Poyet said the move was intended to get him away from Sussex so he could “grow up” a bit.

After an initial eight-match loan spell at Dean Court the move was made permanent for £150,000. Bournemouth finished eleventh in League One in his first year, 2011/12, but Cook would go on to be something of a club legend there. Over a ten-year stint he saw the club absolutely transformed from a lower league, and often financially destitute, regular to a team promoted up through the Championship, into the Premier League and consolidated there. He made 379 appearances across three divisions scoring 21 times from centre back.

Grimsby legend Paul Groves was Bournemouth manager when Cook signed. Eddie Howe’s initial job in rescuing the club from financial oblivion and seemingly certain relegation to non-league, followed by a promotion from League Two, had seen him poached and taken north by Burnley. Things didn’t work out for Groves on the South Coast, who won just one of his first 11 games in 2012/13 and was sacked with them bottom of League One, or for Howe at Turf Moor. In October that year club and Howe were reunited and so began a spectacularly successful second stint that would see Bournemouth become an established Premier League club.

Cook played 38 times in the League One promotion campaign, and then another 40 as they consolidated in the Championship with a tenth-placed finish. They cut loose the following year. Cook played every minute of a 14 match unbeaten run through the autumn which included a club record 8-0 away win at Birmingham. Another unbeaten sequence of 13 began in the spring and ended in promotion to the top flight. Cook scored one of his four goals for the campaign in another ridiculous away win, this time 5-1 at Craven Cottage against Fulham. He was ever present across 46 games as they were crowned champions.

Cook scored another four goals, and played another 38 times, in the first Premier League season. Three of those strikes came in late season wins against Southampton, Swansea and Villa as they kept the relegation whirlpool at arm’s length in sixteenth. In 2016/17 the Cherries recovered from 2-0 and 3-1 down to beat Liverpool for the first time in their history – Cook notching one in the 4-3 miracle. Another near ever present year of 39 league and cup appearances as they finished ninth preceded 40 appearances and three goals in 2017/18 when they were twelfth. They were now, however, on a bit of a wane, and finished fourteenth in 2019 before being relegated a year later. Cook was omnipresent through both (35 and 31 appearances respectively) and then became a key figure of another Championship promotion push across two years under first Jason Tindall, then Jonathan Woodgate and finally Scott Parker.

With Parker heading in a different direction, on one of his usual mad trolley dashes/much needed backing from the chairman, Cook was free to leave the club in January 2022 and for much of the month seemed destined to be heading to Loftus Road to join what was then a serious promotion tilt by QPR under Mark Warburton. Placed fourth, and pushing Bournemouth for second, Cook was wanted for the final run in but Rangers were gazzumped late on by Nottingham Forest who came home with a wet sail to win a controversial Wembley play-off final against Huddersfield, while Rangers sadly tanked into midtable. Somewhat ironic that QPR are now calling on Cook to help dig them out of the smouldering FFP crater left by the spending that year.

At 32 years of age, Cook has signed a two-year contract at Loftus Road for an undisclosed, nominal, fee.

Reaction

“Playing football is the most important thing for me but I also pride myself on being a good character around the group. My time in the Championship has been quite successful, and that success is something I want to bring here. I don’t want my career to peter out, I still really want to be successful and to contest. I still have aims and targets I want to achieve and I’m hoping that the success I’ve had in my career so far continues so that I can help push QPR forward. I thought I would be here for the first game but after seeing the result I felt even more desperate to come down to try and put things right and contribute to the group. I feel l can do that in the long run and short term as well so it wasn’t nice to watch but I’m really looking forward to putting it right.” -Steve Cook

“We have had to be patient with this one but the season is a marathon and waiting for the right one was key. I am really pleased we have been able to get Steve in and, from his point of view, his preference was to join us which is nice to hear. Steve will bring leadership and experience into the dressing room and he already knows Asmir and Jack very well so he will come in and there will be familiarity from the off. He is the ultimate battling centre-half. He will put his body on the line for the cause and he is a huge organiser so I am delighted to have him with us. He has been training at Forest so he will come straight into contention for this weekend’s trip to Cardiff.” - Gareth Ainsworth

Opinion

You could essentially copy and paste this section from last week’s Jack Colback piece.

Steve Cook brings the sort of experience, leadership and voice that we’ve been banging on about for years now apart from a brief uptick when Charlie Austin and Stefan Johansen first arrived at the club. The team on the field at Watford looked completely out of its depth and lost. It also looks like a good chunk of it just isn’t having Gareth Ainsworth, or his tactics and style – tactics and style which, to be fair to them, are wholly unsuited to all of our better players bar Lyndon Dykes. Strong, on-field leadership from people who are, presumably if they’re signing now, going to buy in to this is desperately required.

As we said with Colback though, more importantly still Steve Cook is capable of playing football at Championship level. It was painfully, almost cruelly, obvious at Vicarage Road that a good chunk of that line up simple isn’t at the standard required – either because they’re simply not capable, and are never going to be, or because their attitude and commitment to the current situation is now so checked out they’re not able to perform as they could/should. Put more simply, a lot of our players aren’t good enough. The one positive I took from Saturday is that with players still to come back to fitness, the inevitable arrivals on loan later in the window, and one or two signings, a good seven or eight of that team hopefully won’t be regulars and the side will look very different by early September – Cook is the first step on that road.

He’s also, like Colback, a warm body in a position we’re short on numbers in. Two injuries at centre half left us fielding mediocre left back Morgan Fox at right centre back after 60 minutes of pre-season action at Hanwell, and giving a league debut to Joe Gubbins whose performance we’ll just leave where it is out of kindness. We’re not allowed to know exactly what’s wrong with our first choices there under Gareth Ainsworth’s increasingly infuriating attempts to have Championship managers cowering in fear at the prospect of maybe having to play against Jimmy Dunne when they didn’t expect to, but trying to do a 48-game season with only Dunne and the ever-fragile Jake Clarke-Salter as your options in the middle of the defence and only Fox and Gubbins by way of cover is just asking for trouble.

Our Forest man sends another good reference, as he did for Colback last week. “Another really solid signing. Great, committed, no-nonsense pro with bags of experience. Won't hear a bad word about him from Forest fans. Was integral in our promotion - bringing him in allowed us to play three at the back, and we looked so much more assured with him in the middle of that three. He also scored an emphatic penalty in the playoff semi shootout. Reads the game well and relatively safe with the ball at his feet, but no longer quite quick enough for the Prem. Still had a few decent games last season - lovely volleyed cross assist when we beat Liverpool at the City Ground. Just missed out on the 25-man squad in the second half of the season, and even then we tried (unsuccessfully) to register him just after the deadline when two of our centre halves got injured in the same minute at Craven Cottage. A good illustration of his character was that he was in the away end with the fans that day. He hasn't played football this year, though - and he hasn't featured in pre-season - so will need at least a few games to get up to speed.”

The drawbacks are exactly the same as well though, right down to his lack of action and time it might take to get up to speed – he’s had a foot injury, didn’t make Forest’s 25-man squad for the second half of last season, and therefore hasn’t played football competitively for anybody since January 7. You’re also committing money, wage, and a place in the team, to a player you’re never going to sell. We will never break out of this doom cycle we’re in without regularly selling players for good money, if that’s not clear to you this summer with the Eze money rolling out of our FFP calculations and the mess it’s caused then it never will be.

The team is so woefully inadequate everybody’s willing to park that issue in favour of short term, proven, stop gaps to just try and arrest the seemingly inevitable slide into League One and prevent repeats of the absolute embarrassment we suffered on day one. But in that desperation, we’re committing to contracts you ideally would not be offering. Jack Colback, 34 in October, was given a two-year deal with an option for a third (!!) while Cook has signed on for two. Journalist Darren Witcoop, who’s had a decent record this summer as far as ITK status goes and is at least an actual journalist rather than some kid pretending to be one from his mum’s back bedroom, says the deal has been held up as long as it has by wages (please see all the previous stuff about our lack of FFP headroom) but also “the structure of the deal”. Perhaps that’s related to a pay-off from Nottingham Forest, but it smells a bit to me like a low wage this season and a pay rise next term when the £25m overspend rolls out and the headroom increases. Whether that's the case or not, by signing players in their mid 30s on more than a one year deal you are, like last summer’s Taylor Richards deal, just spending tomorrow’s money today, and lining up new problems for yourself down the track. QPR have already paid Stefan Johansen to leave this summer, and have Albert Adomah clearly a million miles off the pace but with another year of his contract still to run.

You should only ever be offering stop gaps like Colback and Cook one year, with at the very most an option on your side for a second. To persuade them to come here we’re having to offer them more - Cook's comments in the signing piece sound great and sincere, but he could have been here 18 months ago if he was so keen on the place and went somewhere else for more money. If there was only a one-year deal on the table now he'd be going somewhere else again. I’m sure anybody at Watford on Saturday now just thinks “fuck it, get it done regardless” but a year from now you’ve already spent headroom you wanted to use giving this squad a much needed rebuild, you’re potentially going to be in the situation where you’re paying people to leave early again, and if you’re in League One you’ve got mid-30s players hanging around on Championship (and potentially increasing in year two) money.

It's about our only option currently bar just surrendering to finishing bottom and getting our arse handed to us every week, but it’s still pretty bleak and desperate.

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062259 added 04:56 - Aug 10 Yup
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hoops_legend added 08:25 - Aug 10 Good pro by sounds of it. My worry is do any of these players care enough about QPR and want to contribute to the project but surely Cook is one of the good ones
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Burnleyhoop added 11:32 - Aug 10 I understand the concern with bringing in seasoned pros on big(ish) money with no re-sale value two years down the line, but our record of picking up youngsters or developing our own to sell on for profit is pure fantasy. Our record is abysmal and there are no signs it is likely to get better. Never has there been more of a time for pragmatism than this very moment. If we can get Dunne and Cook in the center of defense along with Field and Collback in central midfield, we just might have a chance of stopping the rot. Getting Chair and Willock back together ala the good old days would also be ideal.

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stainrods_elbow added 20:08 - Aug 10 Yeah, it looks to me like a solid signing, and if it's a choice between getting him in the building on a two-year deal or offering him one year and him going somewhere else, it's clear we have to cut our cloth accordingly. He's 'not in his mid-30s' either, he's 32 so hardly a 'veteran', though we have to hope he's not too ring-rusty. Frank McLintock was 35 when he was part of the spine of the great 75/76 side that should have won the title, and so was Richard Dunne with a promotion-winning squad. As another poster has remarked, if Belk, Ramsey and Hall were doing their jobs and actually bringing through promising young players that can be blooded, but they're not, so we are where we are. On that basis, welcome, Steve, and please hit the ground running!

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