QPR continue to shop Australian, with Macarthur’s 22-year-old right back Kealey Adamson joining Daniel Bennie and Jaylan Pearman at the club for an undisclosed fee.

Facts

Kealey Adamson is a 22-year-old Australian right back who is signing from A-League side Macarthur Bulls for an undisclosed fee, said to be in the region of £250k and a three-year contract. He will officially join QPR on July 1.

From St Leonards in New South Wales, he came through the ranks at Sydney FC and played for their U21s in Australia’s second tier before he made his senior debut for them in the 2023 Australia Cup. They won the trophy that year, beating Brisbane Roar in the final, and he finished with 19 appearances in the senior side.

His performances there quickly saw him picked up by Macarthur with whom he repeated Australian Cup success in 2024, beating Melbourne Victory in the final. He made 13 A-league appearances that season. In the most recent 2024/25 campaign he started 25 times and made one sub appearance (ever present) the A League, scoring against Brisbane Roar and Adelaide United.

His performances saw him awarded the clubs’ Macaurthur Medal as their outstanding player of the season.

He has two caps for Australia at U23 level.

Analysis @Greg_Spires

As QPR dip into the Australian market once again, the arrival of Kealey Adamson raises lots of questions from fans as a relatively unknown entity. A player I watched on occasion in the 2024/25 season, and wrote a scouting report on in January, there’s certainly potential to his game. Here’s what R’s fans can expect from our latest import from down under…

Defending & Physicality
There are a couple of elements to Adamson’s game that are really exciting and can translate really well to Championship football. He has an innate aggressiveness to his game, but controlled aggression that leads to him having such impressive defensive statistics. His willingness and determination to press attackers in order to hassle them and create turnovers is something that’s hard to coach into players. Adamson is quick to deny space and create frontal pressure for attackers – allowing him to use his strong instincts to tackle or defend 1v1 in wider areas.

When describing Adamson as an ‘athletic’ player, let me explain what I mean.

While he has the physical capacity to work up and down the field, covering ground constantly, he also has the ability to adapt his feet or body to change direction quickly. Flipping his hips to change direction is essential for full-back positions and Adamson possesses the physical capabilities to defend effectively. While Adamson isn’t rapid, he has enough pace to match most wingers and strides into wider areas to deny space in a smooth manner. For me, his 1v1 defending will require some work if he’s to be a competent Championship full-back – especially his habit of getting squared up and being baited by wingers who change pace. He tends to be beaten on his inside shoulder by attackers too, although this appears to be commonplace for the majority of modern full backs that face the ‘wrong-footed winger’. Adamson showed a strong defensive capability in terms of reading the game, anticipating and interjecting to halt opposition attacks.

The nature of the A-League is quite transitional and basketball-esque, where his physical and defensive capabilities were tested. While I am a massive fan of the entertainment and players the A-League produces, I’ll be interested to see how he handles more settled and technically demanding games in the Championship.

At roughly six feet tall, Adamson is perfectly placed between Kenneth Paal and Jimmy Dunne when it comes to aerial prowess. Capable of challenging aerially, and brave enough to do so, but lacking the explosiveness and physical dominance to be considered an aerially dominant defender.

In-Possession

Adamson has spent the majority of his playing career as a right-back but was deployed further forward in the second half of the 2024/25 season due to the departure of starting right-midfielder/wing-back Jed Drew. Adamson has a good technical base; showing composure on the ball, and an ability to understand and execute a variety of first touches to evade pressure. When pressured by opposition full-backs he drives in-field and is effective at evading pressure with sharp burst and quality close control. He has capabilities to pass and cross off his left foot, which is an option he often takes when driving inside as the options open up to him.

Furthermore, Adamson is capable of varying his crossing and found greater success with floated deliveries to the far post zone. He has a tendency to loft crosses with little whip on the ball, making them easier to judge for defenders and to claim for goalkeepers, so there is an opportunity to work on his whipped crossing technique for me. He is a capable long passer, often hitting passes into front or into space beyond the defence - depending on the movement of his attackers. He has better execution on balls into front than into the channels however, he has shown a resilient nature to hitting a plethora of long passes despite mixed quality.

The greater speed and intensity of the Championship will certainly test his capability to handle pressure and pass & receive with technical quality – which I believe Adamson has the potential to show if given time to settle.

How does he fit in at QPR?

Whilst it’s clear that Jimmy Dunne will be first in line for minutes at right-back for the forthcoming season, Adamson can play an important role as an understudy through hectic periods of the season. A player that has tactical flexibility during build-up (inverts, pushes high or drop deep) which allows the team to set up in different ways and problem solve during build-up to a greater extent. He will offer more dynamism along with totally contrasting qualities to Dunne and I think the coaching staff will enjoy working with Adamson because of the high floor that he already has - built upon athleticism, fearlessness, and intelligent play.

We have seen with other signings that there’s a requirement for patience, especially those moving across the world at a young age and trying to step up a level. I believe Adamson has a high floor and there are traits in his game that will translate well to the Championship with potential to make him an impactful player for QPR beyond this season. I’d be surprised to see him given a prominent role this year, but the Stéphan regime may take us down an unforeseen path with Adamson seeing more minutes than all of us expect. For a rumoured £250k fee, there is certainly a low risk, high (potential) reward feel to the transfer. Overall, Adamson should be a player that fans are patient with and rally behind – which I am confident they will.

Reaction

“QPR is a massive club and an old club with lots of history. Even in Australia, I feel everyone knows who QPR is. It’s a really attractive club, really well supported and the list goes on. I’m just keen to hit the ground running and get to work. I like to think I'm a very modern right-back. I'm lucky I've got an engine, I've got pace to be able to get forward, join the attack a lot when I can and still be able to come back and be disciplined in defence. So, I feel that work-rate is the biggest thing you're going to get. I'm going to be at both ends of the pitch and hopefully you'll be seeing two of me on the field.I'd heard a lot of good things from afar, but I think since having touched down, seeing the facilities, meeting the staff, meeting all the support network around the first team, I think it's just super clear to see how I'll be able to grow my game and how other players have grown their game in the past.” Kealey Adamson

“He's a massive QPR fan. I was keeping up to date with the results even before I knew there was any interest because he would just come into the changing room watching the end of games, watching highlights, so I feel like really there was a connection without me even knowing it. I told him a little bit about the interest and he goes: ‘You're going, you're going, you're going!’ He was very excited.” -On the influence of his former Macurthur team mate, Ollie Jones (hi Ollie!)

“We are delighted to be able to welcome Kealey to the football club today. He was the stand-out right-back in the 24/25 edition of the A-League. With an elite level of athleticism, we are excited to continue to help develop his qualities within our setup.” -Christian Nourry

Opinion – Network Ten’s Simon Hill

When the A League returns for its 21st season it will do so without the voice of Simon Hill for the first time. The British-born commentator has become the voice of the A League on SBS, Fox Sports and more recently Network Ten, commentating on the game in Australia for the last 22 years and covering the last 16 grand finals. He is now preparing to return to the UK. You can read more about his fantastic career Down Under here.

We were delighted to catch up with Simon this week for his opinion on QPR’s most recent recruits from Australia…

“Jaylan Pearman is a promising young talent, who has got a great touch, an eye for goal, and can assist too. He emerged this (last) A-League season, but really, he is still very raw. At 19, I see him as a project player for QPR - in the mould of Daniel Bennie. I think he has gone over too early to be honest, and could have done with another year in Australia to develop, but this is the way it is with these young kids - 80% of which (according to some research a few years ago), end up back in the A-League within two years of going overseas. Is Pearman different? Possibly. But with only half a season under his belt, it's impossible to know which way it'll go. He's certainly got the ability, but has he got the physicality and mentality to succeed? I am guessing he'll work more with your development squad and maybe head out on loan at some point.

“He has an interesting background - his dad is Tanzanian, his mum is Irish - and his parents really had to scrape around for the fees required for him to play as a kid, so that's why I think he's got a real chance. He's not had it easy, but he's a gutsy fella, who won't die wondering.”

Context

There are always themes which develop through a summer set of these signing pieces and the first is how this is all going to fit together into a team. As we recalled in the Mbengue piece, there were individual success stories among QPR’s summer 2024 intake but they didn’t add up into a functioning Championship team so we’ve got to improve on that this summer. Coherent team building, not grabbing at shiny individuals.

Julien Stéphan has a reputation for pragmatism and working with what he’s got. Apart from regularly picking two up front he doesn’t seem closely wedded to any particular formation or style. The old school among the support immediately seized on a fondness for 4-4-2 in our piece with the French journalists last week, but you’d be bold to pick that here with our midfield and it doesn’t really suit a squad packed full of players who want to play ‘ten’.

In defence he’s used both a three and a four and that’s going to be interesting per our recruitment so far. Jimmy Dunne has been surprisingly retained when it looked for all money like he’d be off – has that been done with the idea of him continuing at right back in a four, as one or two centre backs where he has been a bit ropey in the past, or on the right side of a back three? And which of those roles is Amadou Mbengue earmarked for, as a more athletic and pacey version who can play all three of those positions. Jake Clarke-Salter and Ronnie Edwards both showed how our team transforms when we’ve got a defender who can carry the ball out so you’d think the Reading man is going to be pretty key. Liam Morrison impressed last season, there are doubts over how much Steve Cook is going to feature after his injury and begrudging “captain refuses to leave” statement of him taking up the option on his contract.

Add into that equation Kealey Adamson, a much more attacking full back or wing back than we’ve been used to of late. I very much doubt he’s been brought here as an immediate starter, but at 22 he’s not a development squad signing by any means. With Kenneth Paal released it feels like we’re trying to change the profile of our full backs and go much more attacking from there on both sides. And pace. The jungle drums so far are that Ziyad Larkeche will get a go at replacing Paal wide left after a decent loan at Dundee, but I can’t see us risking it going into a season with him and Esquerdinha as our only two options there.

Another theme is whether we’ve learned lessons from last season.

In the positive column here, Adamson is athletic, so along with Mbengue and Poku it seems that we’ve finally, after several summers, decided to make a concerted effort to put some physicality and pace back into this team. We need to find ways of getting the ball further up the field and pacey players carrying it forward is one way to do that. Particularly in wide areas. This is a very welcome development.

In the negative, perhaps being harsh, but this signing has a big touch of the Hevertton Santos about it for me. Another ‘attacking’ full back, signed from an even poorer quality league than the one Santos was playing in where, at most, you play 30 games a year. All the positives about Mbengue being robust, aggressive, experienced in three-game weeks, couple of EFL winters under his belt, do not apply here. The Championship and the A League are worlds apart, and it’s interesting we’re picking up prospects from there at the current rate.

But then if you can’t say anything nice… let’s instead focus on the issue of the ‘Brexit tokens’ which QPR are currently juggling - it’s worth following @GBEEpertHub on socials or his blog here who’s been doing a lot of analysis about how QPR are working with this system on both player and manager recruitment at the moment.

To sign players from abroad post Brexit they have to qualify for an International Sportsperson Visa under the FA’s Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) rules. There’s a points system based on appearances, the level played at, international caps and so on, and players have to be at 15 points or more to get a permit.

The good news is this has opened up the rest of the world to English football – much easier to sign players from Latin America than it ever was before, for example. However, the Premier League complained it would restrict them from picking up promising young prospects from round the world who haven’t been playing long enough to accumulate those points, while the Championship were concerned that the level of player they’re looking at to come and play second tier football meant they often wouldn’t meet this criteria – Lucas Andersen, for instance, didn’t make the 15 points despite being around for years and in his 30s. More on him to come. You can all have the political debate about this being the whole point of the exercise – more British players in more British squads, less immigration, etc etc on your own thanks.

The solution, from June 2023, was each club in the top two division gets four slots for players who don’t qualify - Elite Significant Contribution (ESC) slots. Premier League and Championship clubs can have a maximum of four ESC slots, while League One and League Two clubs are limited to two. Once signed you can bring the players off the ESC exemptions by them hitting the 15 points while they’re with you or playing them in more than 50% of your games.

The criteria for qualifying for an ESC is typically fuzzy, although there is vague reference to the club having to evidence the player is an elite player and will make a significant contribution to the sport. You can help show this by them playing at least one competitive youth or senior international for a top 50 ranked nation, or five games at either level for a country outside the top 50, played in at least one continental competition game (Europa League, Conference League, Copa Libertadores etc), or at least five domestic competitive games.

Now clubs don’t have to reveal who’s on and off quota, and if you don’t have to reveal it you can be sure as fuck QPR won’t be revealing it, so much of the following is guesswork and it’s quite possible some of these Australians have British parentage and so on but on the face of it… QPR have been using this system extensively under Christian Nourry. With Jaylan Pearman and Daniel Bennie already here Adamson I think makes it a full quota of four including (probably, though again we can’t be sure) Zan Celar. It’s one of the reasons Lucas Andersen had to go, so we could do this deal – that and he can’t run any more.

Three of those four are not first team players - certainly you would think unlikely to make the 50% appearances necessary to come off the quota this year – so to take up a loophole that you can use for first team players on development prospects is certainly an interesting strategy.

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Pictures - Reuters Connect

highleverhoopL added 18:21 - Jun 29 Piece said Adamson Mum Irish = Irish Passport= being able to work freely in UK I believe
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SuffolkHoop added 08:12 - Jun 30 Jaylan Pearman's father is from London. He's very likely to have a UK passport.
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SuffolkHoop added 08:14 - Jun 30 There are something like 1 million UK Citizens in Australia out of 27 odd million. In Perth alone there are around 250k UK passport holders, thats approx 10% of the cities population. If either parent was born in the UK you are eligible for UK citizenship, and for Ireland it also counts for grandparents.
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SuffolkHoop added 08:19 - Jun 30 Correction - apparently it is around 100k with a much larger number eligible via descent (children of 10 pound poms etc).
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