Reading’s athletic centre back Amadou Mbengue is QPR’s first senior signing of the 2025 summer transfer window – an acquisition that shows desire to learn from the recruitment mistakes of 24/25.

Facts

Amadou Mbengue is a 23-year-old French footballer of Senegalese parentage who plays centre back or defensive midfield. He’s small for a central defender at 5ft 11ins tall, but then Paul Parker was pretty tiny as well and the pair share great athleticism and physicality to make up for that.

Joining the club when his contract with League One Reading officially expires at the end of the month, he moves to Loftus Road having spent three seasons with the Royals.

As the financially stricken club were relegated from the Championship in 2022/23 he made 19 starts and nine sub appearances in a debut season in English football, scoring two goals against Coventry at home and Man Utd away in the League Cup.

In the division below, Mbengue has become a popular stalwart of a side that has defied the odds and financial collapse to finish 17th and 7th over the past two seasons. He made 32 starts and 12 sub appearances in 2023/24 and then 34 starts and three sub appearances with a goal against Crawley as the Royals (hilariously) finished three points shy of the final play-off spot.

Mbengue is a graduate of the youth system at Metz in France. He mad ehis debut there in October 2021, coming on in just the third minute having initially been selected on the bench. He went on to start five games and make a further seven sub appearances in Ligue 1 that season.

He has two caps for Senegal at U23 level.

Expect cards. He’s been booked 29 times and sent off once across his 90 starts and 31 sub appearances in professional football.

Analysis @Greg_Spires

I was fortunate enough to watch our new signing on a few occasions last season, and my three words to sum him up are: aggressive, athletic, fun. A defender that plays with incredible energy and is very likeable from a fan’s perspective – this could be a smart piece of business to bolster the squad’s defensive options.

Defending
Mbengue’s athleticism is really impressive, quick over shorter distances and he has the recovery speed to stifle attacks. He uses his athleticism and burst to stride in wider areas to intercept or meet his opponent at the point of contact and tackle aggressively. If you’re a fan of old-school, full-blooded tackles– you might just have a new favourite player. He doesn’t always time these challenges well and can be a liability as he mistimes them on occasion, but I think his temperament is naturally bold and aggressive which I personally like. Looking into some of the data, he’s a player that wins over 60% of his ground and aerial duels – a massive green flag and one which demonstrates his gradual improvement over several years of regular gametime.

Mbengue isn’t the tallest, but he is a fairly reliable box defender, positioning well to block crosses and being brave to get himself in the way of shots/crosses/passes into the central zones. He may look a bit awkward and ‘limby’ at times but ultimately, he’s keen to defend and attack balls whipped into dangerous areas to alleviate pressure.

Unfortunately, he was a little bit of a liability when defending blindside runs at the back post last season. Wrexham scored twice from balls to the back post where one of their plethora of ex-Premier League strikers could attack the cross, while Mbengue was all at sea. Might be something that teams look to target, although it might depend on whether he’s utilised as a centre-back or a right-back. He has the explosiveness to leap high and compete aerially, but he requires space to run up and attack the ball aggressively – getting exposed for being too square at times.

For me, Mbengue’s defensive positioning needs some work as he steps up to Championship football. The adaptability he has to play at centre-back and right-back is generally considered a benefit, However, his eagerness to engage in wider areas can leave large gaps & expose his teammates. His athleticism and determination to break into wide areas and make challenges is commendable, but he can get caught in no man’s land at times, opening up the space in-behind which could easily be exploited at this level. Furthermore, his awareness from second phases could be better – sometimes looking lost in central areas as runners attack space from his blindside. Being positionally ill-disciplined could leave the likes of Steve Cook and Jimmy Dunne exposed in a 1v1 footrace towards their own goal – the stuff of nightmares for QPR fans. Learning off the experience of the aforementioned R’s defenders, hopefully Mbengue is able to be a bit more disciplined and structured in his positioning and more measured in his decision-making of when to release out wide too.

In-Possession

Mbengue has the ability to carry the ball out of defence, stepping into opposition structures and bypassing the first line of the press. It’s a fantastic tool for defenders, creating doubt and problems for opposition defenders – with Mbengue capable of striding forward at pace to move up the thirds. His ability to break lines by carrying brings a different dimension to how we build-up, especially if he plays at centre-back, as we saw with Ronnie Edwards last season. Once he’s in space, he has a tendency to lose control or make poor decisions, but hopefully he is able to work on his composure and decision-making once through the first line of the press.

He’s capable of breaking lines and sliding players in-behind either centrally or in wider areas too. This would pair nicely with Kelman/Celar running into channels and the movements of our attacking midfielders/wingers that create new passing lanes too. Furthermore, the thing that excites me the most about Mbengue is his comfortability receiving and playing centrally or in wider areas during build-up. With tactical flexibility expected from Stéphan, Mbengue will be a dream as he can alter the patterns and structures due to his comfortability on the ball. His diagonal ball to 6’3” left-sided forward Kelvin Ehibiatiomhan was something of a signature move and was effective in creating transitions for Reading over the past few seasons. While we don’t have any target men, other than Frey, this is something we will rarely see down at Loftus Road.

He appears very composed on the ball and rarely forces passes and risking losing possession. Sometimes displays a very laid-back attitude on the ball, which can lead to errors and playing passes backwards into pressure. The faster pace of the game in the Championship will force him to play quicker and make quicker decisions, which should create greater awareness and scanning – which I believe can make him a very effective player on the ball. However, I’m confident that playing in a team who were very effective at building out from the back under Selles and Hunt, Mbengue can be a real asset for QPR’s gameplans.

AOB

There’s good news for those of you who are fans of set-pieces, putting it in the mixer and Paul Smyth being phased out of the team. Amadou Mbengue has a long throw. When I say long, it’s enough to get to the edge of the 6-yard box and cause carnage, although he throws with a side-winder technique that makes the ball dip aggressively last minute – with flick-ons being your best bet of creating a goal-scoring chance. While he won’t be afforded the space to run-up and launch at Loftus Road that he was at the “Select Car Leasing Bowl”, his potential to throw long distances is a nice added bonus to alleviate pressure defensively or threaten from attacking set-pieces.

Furthermore, he appears to be a player that was adored by Reading fans – motivates the crowd, ‘gets the club’ and plays with passion and desire consistently. He’ll surely be a likeable character when he gets into the flow of things at QPR and I look forward to seeing his passionate and aggressive performances in the real blue and white hoops.

Reaction

“I am happy to be here and ready to work. I was talking with Christian and the idea and the project he has for the club is very, very good. We are on the same page and that is why I chose QPR. They have a lot of objectives for the future. I enjoy the game and I enjoy life,” he said. “After a game when we win, I’m here to enjoy it with the fans. I think it's important to make them happy.” - Amadou Mbengue

“Amadou brings pace, power, defensive nous and an infectious personality to the first-team squad, as well as EFL experience. We are pleased that he has chosen QPR to take his next step.” - Christian Nourry

Context

The way 2024/25 progressed for QPR, and certainly the way it ended with Marti Cifuentes on garden leave, did little to sooth the weird inter-generational divide among the club’s online fanbase. Your opinion on where the club is at this moment likely depends on whether you consume it through Twitter, where Christian Nourry is approaching a God-like status, or message boards, where there’s a dislike of the club’s DOF/CEO that often descends into paranoia. The truth, as ever, is likely somewhere in between.

There are a few things he could do this summer and into next season to bring the two entrenched groups back together in his favour and, naturally, one of them is simply getting the team to perform on the pitch. It wouldn’t take much: few more wins, particularly at Loftus Road where we’ve been in the bottom three of the Championship for home results for far too long; a little bit more fun in the cups, particularly as it’s the demographic which seems most suspicious of Nourry that values cup runs the highest and felt most let down by Cifuentes at Leicester in January; more attacking, entertaining football; couple of league positions gained…

Julian Stéphan not only has a reputation as a cup specialist, but he also tends to make very fast starts to new jobs (we’ll leave his propensity to fade just as fast for now). The release of today’s fixtures should aid him in hitting the ground running in W12. It’s a far kinder list than a year ago where Rangers started with two relegated Premier League teams on the road, and had midweek slogs to Middlesbrough, Hull, Cardiff and Swansea. It’s a soft start for Rangers this year, particularly at home, and they don’t face a parachute payment team until November 1 (albeit they then get three in a week). We could be motoring by then, but we should at least be able to avoid going 2/17 to start with for the third year in a row. Nothing succeeds like winning - you’ll see opinions change and the mood shift even among us grumpy old sods.

The main criticisms of Nourry are based around his over-controlling, tell-them-as-little-as-possible-as-late-as-possible communication style, and also simply that he’s not anywhere near experienced enough for the jobs he’s been given here – the 27-year-old who’d never been a CEO or DOF anywhere before in his life but somehow concluded an audit of the club by deciding they should give him both jobs.

While the stage managed coms shows no sign of abating, and the ChatGPNourry speak is in full flow (all very well being able to move the ball through zones one and two, but the training ground is in zone five mate), the signing of Amadou Mbengue from Reading today is a positive sign that lessons have been learnt from last season and a new approach is being taken.

For his critics, Nourry’s unsuitability for his role manifested itself most obviously in last summer’s recruitment. The Championship isn’t a particularly skilful, technically adept, footballing rocket science; but it is attritional, it is physical and it is logistically difficult. QPR seemed to overlook this entirely in their summer 2024 incomings. By signing a dozen players, all but Paul Nardi under 25, all but Harrison Ashby from European backwaters, and all but Ashby, Morrison and Dembele with zero experience of British football and the EFL, Nourry and the club showed themselves horribly naïve. There were some individual success stories within that intake – Nardi, Morrison, Saito, Varane – but it didn’t add up collectively to a cohesive team which could compete in this league. I’m sure if you sent your kids on a trolley dash round Sainsbury’s the basket would come back with some nice, shiny things in it, but I doubt it would add up to a set of family meals for the week. The team lacked game smarts, it lacked physicality, it was fantastically slow. You had to pick Paul Smyth despite his obvious shortcomings because he’s the only one who can run, and Jimmy Dunne became pivotal as the only one who won headers in either box. You ended up with five different players, all of them 5ft 5ins tall, all trying to play ‘ten’ because you “wanted some players who were fun for the fans”.

It was not, to put it mildly, a Championship team, and we’re fortunate it stayed up.

What you want to see from there is learning and progression, and lo here comes Mbengue ticking all sorts of those boxes. Pace (my kingdom, my God), athleticism, aggression (12 yellow cards last season more than anybody at QPR). We’ve been too nice, too easy to play against, far too slow, we need some signings that change that, this could potentially be one. Perhaps more importantly still, a player experienced in those hard EFL winters – 37 appearances last season, 44 the year before – who we can rely on to be regularly fit in a position where there are big question marks over Steve Cook, Jake Clarke-Salter and, yes, Liam Morrison as well after injury ravaged 24/25s. The Reading fans absolutely love him and, when you chuck in what’s been going on at that club and the added EFL Trophy commitments you have in that league, somebody who’s come in from Metz and impressed and adapted in that situation is notable.

Peterborough winger Kwame Poku is also allegedly close but even if that one doesn’t materialise there’s a “best of the division below” theme developing this summer which not only fits QPR historically, it’s also much more suitable for a club in our league operating on our budget.

QPR are, infamously, 10% worse than their mean in game three of a three game week, easily the biggest drop off in the Championship. There seems to be a real drive this year, in appointing a manager who did 56 games in his first full season, and in these signings, to put a much-needed emphasis on durability.

No signing is failsafe. Mbengue might be a disaster. A lot of what Greg has said, and his record, sounds a bit Samba Diakite-like. He might not be up to the level. He’s certainly a chaotic watch. He's going to be a lot of fun, we're going to fly by the seat of our pants. But for me the most important thing is it shows learning from last year and a desire to improve on where we were weak rather than stubbornly double down and entrench your position on strikers from the Swiss league and giant Danes who refuse to head the ball.

Whatever side of the divide you’re on, that is really all you can ask for.

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Pictures - Reuters Connect

Royboy48 added 09:33 - Jun 27 Clive Would love to get your insights into the squad and Stephani Come join the FL Block Summer Summit at the C & S tomorrow lunchtime. Peronis await…
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Royboy48 added 09:33 - Jun 27 Clive Would love to get your insights into the squad and Stephani Come join the FL Block Summer Summit at the C & S tomorrow lunchtime. Peronis await…
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loftupper added 17:03 - Jun 27 Trying to think of a time when the summer recruitment did actually result in a, as you put it "set of family meals for the week". Not saying I disagree but feel like he is being held to higher standards, recruitment has been poor for a long time not just last summer.
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Northernr added 17:24 - Jun 27 True, but he's in charge of it this summer, so it's relevant to now. If Les was still doing it, we'd be looking at his record.
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