 Monday, 11th Jun 2012 19:58 by Clive Whittingham The annual end of term report analyses each QPR player’s performances and stats over the previous nine months. The first of three parts this week focuses on the backline. Stats Key: Key Facts – goals, assists, Man of the Match and appearance data Fan Rating – average rating over the course of the season from interactive match ratings LFW Rating – average mark from the match reports Rating breakdown – marks out of ten from the LFW match reports over the course of the season, a dash signals player on the field for less than ten minutes Discipline – number of cards and reasons for them 1 Paddy Kenny - BIt would seem that likeable goalkeeper Paddy Kenny, famed for his outlandish saves and controversial parties, has played his final game for Queens Park Rangers. A year ago that statement would have had gangs of Rangers fans marching down the South Africa Road with pitch forks demanding answers, but 12 months on it's barely warranted a discussion. Kenny came into the campaign as the reigning Players' Player and Fans' Player of the Year, and ended it as a fondly remembered squad member who most seem to believe needs to be improved upon. The reasons why Kenny's form has cooled somewhat from last season are hard to pinpoint. Premiership strikers are, of course, more clinical with their chances than Championship ones and Kenny found himself playing behind a constantly rotating and often very poor QPR defence for the majority of this season as opposed to the formidable, settled unit of last term. There's a hell of a difference between taking on Theo Robinson with Kaspars Gorkss for company and facing Wayne Rooney with only Fitz Hall and Danny Gabbidon between you and him. But there were occasions this season, most notably at Blackburn away, where Kenny was not only conceding goals he would have saved last season, but was conceding goals I would have fancied myself to save. In mitigation he's always been an unorthodox goalkeeper; built like a stopper from a bygone age in the era of the brick shithouse last line of defence. The physique of the two goalkeepers was one of the things that stood out for me during the Champions League final, and rather than worry about his handling or mental fortitude United have ordered the talented but slight David De Gea to spend his summer scoffing raw steak. He's also apparently been carrying a hip injury for much of the season – an injury that forced him out of the team for six games during the winter. But still, he just didn't seem quite the same this season. Last year at times he looked unbeatable, and this year he made me nervous. I can recall miracle saves from last season – Yakubu v Leicester at home – but apart from an extraordinary second half performance at Man City on the final day such incidents were thin on the ground this year. At 34 and with Leeds, and perhaps Ipswich as well, showing an interest it may be best for both parties if we go our separate ways at this stage. He'll certainly be remembered fondly, but it just feels like we've come to the end of the road with Kenny. Stats: Key Facts – 60 goals conceded in 35 appearances, two Man of the Match awards Fan Rating – 6.55 LFW Rating – 6.46 Rating breakdown – 6 8 7 7 7 7 5 7 7 8 7 6 7 6 6 7 6 7 7 7 6 3 6 6 6 7 6 8 8 6 5 8 3 6 7 Discipline – No cards 24 Radek Cerny - ARadek Cerny on the other hand lives to fight another day. Now aged 36 the Czech deserves his one year extension after a tremendously impressive cameo in the top division. I've never been a massive fan of Cerny truth be told, I see him as nothing more than a shot stopper and he has almost zero command of his penalty area with questionable distribution. In that respect perhaps he was lucky to come in for the games he did – Liverpool away and Man Utd at home in particular – where plenty of shots to save was the order of the day. He was magnificent at Anfield, reminiscent of his performance at Man Utd in the League Cup a couple of years ago which added further weight to the idea that he's well suited to a game where you're going to be facing upwards of 30 shots on goal. Ultimately Cerny is back up, and he's shown this season that he's a real asset to have with his experience and ability in reserve rather than an untried kid or mid-20s keeper getting frustrated at a lack of action. An intelligent, grounded family man by all accounts and somebody I'd hope would stick around as a coach when he does eventually hang the gloves up. I'm pleased he's staying. Stats: Key Facts – Six starts, eight goals conceded, two Man of the Match awards Fan Rating – 7.43 LFW Rating – 7.16 Rating breakdown – 6 7 9 8 7 6 Discipline – No cards Others >>> Brian Murphy can probably count himself as one of the unluckiest players at Rangers this season. Selected once for a League Cup defeat against Rochdale when he didn't look good but had to play behind a back four of Harriman, Shittu, Perone and Connolly and then missed his big chance of Premiership football when he got injured at exactly the same time as Kenny. Future up in the air I would say. 2 Bradley Orr – C/DOne of the main criticisms of Neil Warnock’s performance last season was the speed at which he abandoned the players who had done well for him in the Championship in favour of supposedly Premiership quality names like Danny Gabbidon, Joey Barton and Shaun Wright-Phillips who then all underperformed. There’s a big dollop of hindsight involved here because I spent all last summer saying we’d built a team for the Championship and would need to completely overhaul it for the top flight too but as it turned out Warnock and I were both wrong because people like Clint Hill, Heidar Helguson and Shaun Derry came in later in the season and were excellent. Bradley Orr, however, is a Championship right back. He’s a good Championship right back, but a Championship right back all the same. He started the season for QPR and looked somewhat out of his depth in an admittedly poor team and was then soon replaced by Luke Young. In January he then completed a strange switch to our relegation rivals Blackburn Rovers who no longer wanted to play first choice right back Michel Salgado for fear of activating a clause demanding a contract extension for the Spaniard. Orr was mediocre in a poor Rovers team and relegated. It rather sums up the situation at Ewood Park that they would replace Michael Salgado with Bradley Orr in the midst of a relegation battle, thereby seriously weakening the right side of their defence. Orr has made few friends in Lancashire with his public backing of unpopular manager Steve Kean. All that seems rather uncharitable on my part for a player who was excellent for us in our promotion season and never let anybody down at Loftus Road. He’s certainly a trier and an honest, likeable lad but he was never going to be good enough for the Premiership and so it proved. Stats: Key Facts – Three starts and five sub appearances for QPR, ten starts and two sub appearances for Blackburn. Fan Rating – 5.04 LFW Rating – 5.66 Rating breakdown – 5 7 5 5 6 6 - - Discipline – Two yellow cards for Blackburn. 3 Clint Hill – APerhaps it should have told Neil Warnock something when, just days after loaning Clint Hill to Nottingham Forest, Rangers were beaten 6-0 at Fulham. Looking back now that decision was ludicrous, as Hill returned and led the team to safety before picking up both the Players’ and Supporters’ Player of the Year awards but at the time I actually didn’t think it was such a bad move. It seemed strange to loan out a man who was named in the 25 man squad, particularly as we went into that Fulham game without Armand Traore through suspension and ended up playing Bradley Orr on the right and Luke Young out of position on the left, but I could see the logic. Hill had played well in the Championship but soldiered onto the end of the season with an ankle like a cement mixer and the general opinion seemed to be that he was coming to the end of the road. He started at left back on the first day and was absolutely destroyed by Bolton’s Martin Petrov, culminating in a sending off born out of total frustration. I was of the opinion, and it seemed Warnock was too, that it was time for a “thanks for your efforts, good bye.” Two things then changed. Firstly Warnock and later Mark Hughes put together a back four without a loud, ball breaking, leader character in there. Anton Ferdinand, Nedum Onuoha, Luke Young, Armand Traore and Taye Taiwo are all very reasonable players, but you can’t imagine any of them with a captain’s armband can you? Secondly, when Hill returned to the team he came in as a centre back where his lack of pace wasn’t exposed quite so often, his leadership was invaluable and his experience guided him through. He was ripped to pieces by Fernando Torres at Chelsea but was otherwise superb and a very worthy winner of the club’s two main end of season awards. His heading ability is second to none and I often lose count of the amount of crucial headed clearances he produces in his own penalty area. He’d score more goals at the other end if our set piece delivery was better and Bob Pollock wasn’t running the line. Hill is everything I want in my QPR players: a grounded and reasonably intelligent guy who has worked his way up from the very bottom and therefore values his career and place in the Premiership more than some teenager who was handed £60,000 a week with his first contract without ever doing anything to earn it. He absolutely had to be given a contract extension and I can see him leading that back four again next season before then being gradually phased out. Rangers were far too quick to turn their back on players, and people, like this in favour of the Joey Bartons of this world and they stayed up only because they realised in time and returned them to the team – similar sentiments will follow in Shaun Derry and Heidar Helguson’s write ups. A terrific ambassador for the club, a great role model for our younger players, a fantastic leader for our team, a deceptively talented player and a crucial part of our promotion into the Premiership and subsequent survival. Well done and thank you Clint Hill. Stats: Key Facts – 22 starts, three sub appearances, no goals, two assists, three Man of the Match awards. Fan Rating – 6.77 LFW Rating – 6.625 Rating breakdown – 5 8 -7 6 6 6 7 6 5 6 7 6 6 7 8 6 8 8 8 7 8 2 7 9 Discipline – One red (violent conduct) and four yellows (foul, foul, foul, foul). 5 Fitz Hall – DAhhh Fitz. For five summers now I’ve sat down here and written this article and to be honest I could pretty much just copy and paste the previous four write ups on this waste of space. First of all I found it very strange that having preferred Kaspars Gorkss to him for almost all of last season Neil Warnock then decided last summer that Gorkss could go and Hall would start in the higher league. As discussed I think this, and the decision to allow Clint Hill to go to Nottingham Forest on loan, was part of an over emphasis on the importance of pace in the Premier League. Sure, it’s a quick league and you’ll get found out if there isn’t enough speed in your team, but we saw with Clint Hill at the end of the season that it isn’t the be all and end all. Hall may well be quicker than Gorkss, but he’s half the player the Latvian is. In mitigation it was probably the case that Warnock had to sell a player to get some money together for DJ Campbell, a signing almost everybody rated at the time, and Gorkss was the only one anybody wanted but on the face of it preferring Hall over Gorkss was a stupid decision. All the usual problems with Hall were there from day one. At Wigan he decided early in the game that his back hurt and a substitute was readied, but then he decided he could play on. Well, sort of play on. He lumbered around playing people onside, clutching his lower back whenever the ball was out of play, and sitting down and demanding treatment from the physio every 20 minutes or so. Everytime the physio came on the substitution was prepared again and every time Fitz decided to soldier on, playing people onside and failing to close down players on the edge of the box. We lost 2-0 at Franco Di Santo, one of the division’s worst players, scored twice. Then he performed this same trick again at Fulham – yes I’m injured, no I’m not, I need to come off, oh no I don’t, let’s give it five minutes etc etc – and they had a somewhat more potent attack than the Latics so won 6-0. The guy is a liability. When he is fit and running about he’s a poor footballer, and most of the time he’s hobbling around pathetically and engaging in debates with the bench about whether he should come off or not that often last up to an hour. His fitness means the defence is constantly unsettled – either before a match to bring him in or take him out, or during the match when he thinks he might be hurt but he’s not sure. My granddad would have described him, loudly, as an absolute tart. Thankfully the ludicrous contract we gave him when he arrived is now up and he’s gone – even having the nerve to criticise the way the club handled his release via Twitter despite thieving a living from Loftus Road for the best part of five years. Good bye Fitz, don’t let the door smack you in the arse on the way out. Stats: Key Facts – 13 starts, three sub appearances, no goals, no assists Fan Rating – 5.52 LFW Rating – 5.92 Rating breakdown – 5 7 5 – 7 4 5 8 - - 7 5 7 7 7 3 Discipline – Four yellows (foul, foul, foul, foul) 6 Danny Gabbidon – BThe best term I can think of to sum up Danny Gabbidon’s influence on QPR this season is ‘par for the course’. Gabbidon is not particularly good in the air, not particularly quick, not particularly loud and not particularly good – he’s just steady at everything, the very definition of mediocre. He was signed, on a free transfer from West Ham, at a point in the summer when Flavio Briatore had made it very clear to Neil Warnock that there would be no money to spend and we were desperate for some reinforcements. Warnock’s initial reaction to that news – signing Danny Shittu and Peter Ramage on one year deals – tells you everything you need to know about the situation we found ourselves in at that point and all things considered Gabbidon was actually quite a good signing as he brought years of Premiership experience with him. During that time at Upton Park he’d never stood out as being particularly good or poor and that was exactly the case for the first half of last season at Loftus Road; he was ok. One calamitous own goal against Bolton on day one apart he didn’t let anybody down, nor did he impress greatly, but we saw in the Wigan away game when he was QPR’s best player that he was an improvement on what we would otherwise have had available. Whether he was an improvement on Kaspars Gorkss, strangely sold to Reading before the start of the season, I strongly doubt but we should remember him fondly for finally breaking our FA Cup hoodoo after 11 years with a headed goal in the replay against MK Dons at Loftus Road. It was no real surprise to see Mark Hughes, who’d worked with him previously with Wales, usher him aside after taking over and he has been released on a free transfer this summer. Stats: Key Facts – 17 starts, two sub appearances, one goal v MK Dons, one Man of the Match award v Wigan Fan Rating – 6.25 LFW Rating – 6.05 Rating breakdown – 5 7 7 6 7 6 6 7 5 6 7 7 4 6 6 5 6 6 - Discipline – One yellow (foul) 13 Armand Traore – BTraore is a player I worry about. I think there is real potential here for this guy to be an absolute star, but I worry that it’s going to be for somebody else and not QPR. He’s been in and out of the team, playing left back and left wing, and just doesn’t seem to be able to put a run of games together either through injury or suspension. I like him in either position, although clearly his big asset is his pace down the line and crossing ability which brought about two fabulous headed goals for Helguson and Mackie at Stoke and Man City. I wonder if the apparent cooling in our Taye Taiwo interest is because Mark Hughes has decided that Traore is going to be the first choice left back – personally I’d like to see them paired together down that left flank and left to it because I think they’d be excellent as a defensive duo and dangerous going forwards. The thing that worries me though is that while Traore is still only 22 years old he has never been a regular first teamer anywhere – surely if he was as good as I believe him to be he’d be playing regularly somewhere by now. At the moment I think he’s underused, and I want to see a lot more of him next season. Stats: Key Facts – 18 starts, five sub appearances, four assists, two Man of the Match awards Fan Rating – 6.65 LFW Rating – 6.39 Rating breakdown – 7 8 6 6 6 7 8 7 7 7 6 7 6 7 6 4 6 7 6 7 6 3 7 Discipline – Three yellows (foul, foul, foul), one red v Villa home(two bookings) 16 Matthew Connolly – C/DIt would seem that time is about to be called on Matthew Connolly’s QPR career after he spent the second half of the season on loan at Championship side Reading. He appeared briefly for Rangers prior to Christmas, just about holding onto the Man Utd home game by his finger nails and then being taught a sound lesson by Sunderland’s Nicklas Bendtner of all people, and just didn’t look cut out for Premiership football. Too nervous, not assertive enough, too willing to let the ball bounce, too easily bullied. I saw enough in Connolly in his early days with the club to suggest there is a quality player in there somewhere, but the fact remains that four years after he first arrived here from Arsenal he’s still exactly the same player we bought, making the same mistakes. I cannot think of one facet of Connolly’s game that has improved during his time with QPR. That’s not a disastrous thing, because he was a sound player with plenty of promise when he first arrived, but being sound with promise is fine at 19, not when you’re 24. I suppose the problem he’s had is there has never been a manager at QPR during his time here that has stayed long enough to work on coaching the players over a long period of time. Managers have come in, frantically signed six new players in every transfer window, and then been sacked after about eight months if that. Connolly has needed a coach, and probably a shrink, to spend time with him and work on his game for some time and it just hasn’t happened. His loan spell at Reading brought six appearances, five wins and four clean sheets hinting that perhaps a change of scene would do him good but the fact he only appeared six times brings up his injury proneness which is another issue that’s becoming a real problem with him. Will probably make a Championship club a very good signing this summer. Stats: Key Facts – Six starts and one sub appearance for QPR with no goals or assists, six starts for Reading on loan. Fan Rating – 5.82 LFW Rating – 6.14 Rating breakdown – 7 6 6 6 7 5 6 Discipline – Two yellows for Reading 18 Luke Young – B/CThe future of Luke Young at QPR seems to rather depend on what Mark Hughes decides to do with Nedum Onuoha. Originally it seemed that the plan was for Onuoha to partner Ferdinand at centre half with Luke Young at right full back, but for reasons I’ll go into shortly in the Ferdinand and Onuoha assessments that didn’t work out. The form and leadership qualities of Clint Hill saw Onuoha moved out to right back instead of Young where he didn’t really impress anybody over the closing weeks of the season so Young can feel hard done by at a lack of action. Age comes into this – Luke Young perhaps has only another two seasons in him while Onuoha is a long term prospect – and also form because while Onuoha didn’t exactly play well I can’t remember faulting him individually for too many goals. Young played well in the early part of the season but had a nasty habit of getting caught out for goals at the far post – Luis Suarez’s winner at Anfield springs to mind immediately but there were others. It will be interesting to see what Hughes does here but at the moment it looks like Young is at risk of being back in the situation that caused him to leave Villa in search of first team football in the first place. Stats: Key Facts – 26 starts, two goals against Norwich and Stoke, one assist, one Man of the Match award Fan Rating – 6.57 LFW Rating – 6.5 Rating breakdown – 8 7 7 5 7 7 6 6 7 8 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 6 6 6 7 7 6 7 6 5 Discipline – Six yellows (foul, foul, foul, foul, foul, foul) 34 Taye Taiwo – A/BQPR's interest in signing Taye Taiwo permanently seems to have cooled this summer which I find a bit odd, and a real shame because I think he's not only a good player but just the sort of character that tends to thrive at our club i.e. he's absolutely barmy. I'm not sure whether my favourite Taiwo moment was his yellow card against Swansea when, having slipped over, he impeded Danny Graham's path to goal by tackling him with his face or him going up behind Joey Barton after a home win and very slowly and painstakingly emptying an entire large bottle of water over his head. On the first occasion he creased up laughing in the face of Graham's angry protests, and on the second Barton turned round after ten seconds or so to tell whoever it was to pack it in, saw Taiwo's gigantic frame and wide smile, and decided to let him get on with it. His mad African double act with Samba Diakite has been worth the admission money alone over the closing weeks of the season. As well as being absolutely hilarious, Taiwo is a fine player. A nervous start was nowhere near as calamitous as some fans made out and once he settled he was a very solid and dependable member of the defence. Lung busting overlapping runs in attack aren't really his forte but he's not shy of going forward and his cross for Djibril Cisse's equaliser against Liverpool was an absolute peach. Then there's the free kicks to consider which, if the fabulous but sadly irrelevant goal at Sunderland is anything to go by, could bring us an extra three or four goals a season from a full back. I like him, as a player and a character. He's very QPR, and I hope we sign him this summer. Stats: Key Facts – 13 starts, two sub appearances, one goal, three assists, one Man of the Match award Fan Rating – 6.44 LFW Rating – 6.14 Rating breakdown – 5 6 4 5 – 7 6 8 7 7 7 8 2 6 8 Discipline – One yellow (tackling a man with his face) 35 Anton Ferdinand – BAnton Ferdinand's numbers are telling; the long list of all his ratings from this website below show he started well, faded in the middle and then got better at the end. Now, of course, the entire team did that so to a certain extent his form merely mirrored that of the rest of the players, but in Ferdinand's case I think it tells us a lot about the player we have on our hands here. Firstly I think it's clear that Ferdinand, more than most, is a confidence player and secondly, though I hesitate to say it because he doesn't come across as the brightest, is prone to over-thinking somewhat. When he first arrived at Loftus Road there was a feel good factor around the place, the team's form was good and the results were positive. I recall a message board thread in October asking for early Player of the Year so far nominations and he figured prominently in that. The crowd took to Ferdinand and he always takes time at the start and end of each game to acknowledge them which, along with having Ferdinand as your surname, is always going to buy you time and understanding in W12. Impressive performances and Man of the Match awards followed. Prior to Christmas three things happened: the team's form declined during a tough run of fixtures, Neil Warnock started to change the back four on a weekly basis bringing in a host of different centre half partners for Ferdinand, and the Terry incident. What we learnt during that period, and over the subsequent remarkable recovery from the team, is that Ferdinand needs to be confident, he needs to be focussed and he needs to be led. When Mark Hughes paired him with Clint Hill and left them to it, and the team started to win, he was excellent again, particularly in the final few matches. The problem with these problems is that Clint Hill is not getting any younger and Mark Hughes seems, rightly, to believe that in time Nedum Onuoha is the long term option for the club at centre back. Onuoha isn't much of a talker or a leader either and when paired with Ferdinand early in Hughes' reign wasn't a success. Unless Ferdinand, at the age of 27, can discover a bedrock of self belief and confidence to see him through the bad times and a stronger voice that will make him a leader rather than someone who needs to be led then he's vulnerable to replacement. All the raw attributes are there though. Stats: Key Facts – 33 starts, no sub appearances, two assists, no goals scored, four Man of the Match awards Fan Rating – 6.74 LFW Rating – 6.45 Rating breakdown – 7 8 8 5 6 9 7 7 6 5 6 7 7 7 7 7 7 6 6 3 6 6 5 6 5 8 7 7 6 8 3 7 8 Discipline – Two yellow cards (dissent, foul) 42 Nedum Onuoha – CThe LoftforWords curse is a powerful thing. I'm convinced Mark Hughes' sudden, surprising decision to restore terminally out of form Shaun Wright-Phillips to the starting line up instead of Adel Taarabt for the final match of the season at Man City was due in no small part to the LFW Travelling Crew turning up en masse wearing fez hats. Perhaps it has struck Nedum Onuoha as well given that I rated him as by far the best of Hughes' January transfer deals and he's actually turned out to be the worst so far. At centre back he looked nervous and rusty, and then after being switched to right back he was adequate in most games while adding little going forwards and dreadful in one or two including Chelsea where he wasn't alone and West Brom where he was probably QPR's worst player. I've been surprised and disappointed so far. Onuoha is exactly the sort of young, athletic, versatile, intelligent, English player our club should be looking to pick up in the short term and create for ourselves in the longer run. He's come through a superb academy at Man City so will be well coached, his family act as advisers so there's no unscrupulous agent loitering around the place, he's played regularly for England Under 21s and he's clocked up almost 150 Premiership appearances by the age of 25. On the face of it he's ideal. So what's the problem here? Well, the circumstances surrounding his arrival weren't ideal. He came into a poor team that was struggling badly and had just been taken over by a new manager, he was initially played at centre back with Anton Ferdinand and then switched to full back where for the most part he didn't actually let anybody down but didn't really impress either. He also arrived without a first team appearance of any sort to his name for the previous seven months so being expected to just walk into that QPR team, playing the way it was at the time, and hit top form immediately was a tall order for the lad. A good pre-season in a more settled, confident and relaxed QPR set up should see him hit the ground running next term because, without wishing to jinx him for a second time, he's a player I really rate and believe will be a star at our club. Nevertheless, sticking with the school report theme, he must do better. Stats: Key Facts – 16 starts and no sub appearances, one assist, no goals scored, no Man of the Match awards. Fan Rating – 6.31 LFW Rating – 5.87 Rating breakdown – 6 6 4 6 7 6 6 4 8 6 6 5 7 4 6 7 Discipline – Two yellow cards (foul, foul) Others >>> A real mixed bag of other defenders claimed a wage from QPR during the season while hardly appearing at all. Bruno Perone seemed a strange signing in the summer – described beautifully by journalist David McIntyre as a player who QPR had no interest in but slowly warmed to as his performances in pre-season got worse. He looked awful throughout the summer and indeed on the one occasion he did make the first team in the league, at Wigan away, he was a little wild. Michael Harriman also got a run out at Wigan, and against Rochdale in the League Cup, and looked tidy but extremely small and lightweight. Must eat more steak. Perhaps he could take diet tips from Danny Shittu who had his contract extended by Warnock in a panic last summer when Britaore set the transfer budget at zero but ultimately only appeared in the Rochdale game to no great effect. Gary Borrowdale, Peter Ramage and Max Ehmer all played their football out on loan this season. Borrowdale was poor for Barnet and is finally leaving, Ramage was steady for Palace and Birmingham and goes with our best wishes, Ehmer wasn’t as good for Yeovil as he had been the previous season and finished the season at Preston – he’s in the maybe pile now. Tweet @loftforwords Pictures – Action Images Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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