QPR took the unusual step of running three goalkeepers on rotation during 2025/26, and in the first of our annual report cards on the squad’s performance we look at just how well that went for them.

If you want to hear the LFW panel of Simmo, Andy, Jack Supple and myself debate the marks for this year’s report you can do so via all three subscription tiers in our Patreon. Part one, keepers and defenders, is live now.

13 – Joe Walsh D

It has, by his own admission, been a “challenging” season for Joe Walsh.

To a certain extent it was always going to be – stepping up from the youth and reserve levels he’d spent his whole career at to this point and being a starting Championship goalkeeper isn’t easy, otherwise everybody would be doing it. Not many keepers come out of the packaging readymade, it’s a position that benefits from experience, physical growth and maturity. Teething problems were inevitable and he has shown good strength of character to come through several mishaps and hammerings without going under completely.

Given he’s 24 now, this season was always a case of “if not now, then when?” for Walsh, but the way we went about that didn’t do him many favours. The desire for him to be the starting keeper this year ahead of Paul Nardi burned bright before the end of last season and Walsh extended his contract before the new head coach was appointed. Rangers might have been better off aiming to finish the season with Walsh as their number one, rather than start it. Stick with the status quo, play Nardi to begin with or loan a senior keeper in, let Walsh play the cup games (I know, I know, but we didn’t have to turn Plymouth into a performative creche) and then if he plays well in the FA Cup in January let him stay in with the aim of him playing the last 20 games in a midtable team with not much riding on the games ahead of Nardi’s inevitable release in the summer. Let him find his feet/gloves.

Relying on somebody who’d only ever started two games of Championship football in his life (both last day dead rubbers at Coventry and Sunderland) for a full 48-game season was always risky. QPR currently make a lot of decisions based on ideals (we don’t want loan players, we want development prospects, we want the youngest average age in the division, we want pathways to the first team) in the belief it will benefit them long term even if that’s going to cause them some short term pain when faced with the pragmatics of three game Championship weeks, Southampton away, Coventry away, Millwall away etc. This was certainly one of those.

Having made the decision to teach Joe Walsh to swim by throwing him in the river, the priority then should have been to simplify.

This boy had got enough on his plate, let him focus on saving the shots, catching the crosses, commanding his area. Nothing else. Instead… the goal kick routine was back. We’re going to make him play out from the back to Steve Cook and Jimmy Dunne, 19-year-old Kieran Morgan out of position at right back, Amadou Mbengue new to the level on the wrong side at left back, Esquerdinha, and a central midfielder who wouldn’t turn around if you fitted him with an electric shock collar, are we? That wasn’t fair on him, because it’s the goalkeeper who looks bad when it goes wrong – which this was obviously going to do.

Walsh, like all our goalkeepers, does not have the skillset for this and looks outwardly terrified trying to do it. We’d seen this in the cup at Cambridge the year before where he cost us a goal with a lousy pass, while otherwise playing very well on the night. How have we got ourselves into a position where we belt our kick offs long and straight into touch, but we play our goal kicks around the six-yard box? This really should have been knocked on the head after the farcical 6-0 pre-season defeat to Spanish second tier outfit Castellon (in which Walsh had a nightmare) and instead he was sent out into a cauldron at Coventry and conceded seven times – one of which from a Kieran Morgan cross into our own box. A less strong character would have been destroyed by this alone.

By mid-August QPR had taken one point from their first three league games, been dumped out of the cup by League One opposition, while Walsh had conceded ten times in three appearances and broken his wrist. Little of this was his fault, in my opinion. It’s a shame really that he got injured when he did, because Julian Stéphan rightly kicked the bloody game model into touch and went more direct which would have done Walsh the world of good – Walsh got a win under his belt against Charlton and Paul Nardi subsequently went unbeaten in his first five league appearances in his stead.

What then happened is what probably should have happened in the first place. Walsh came back into the side for the FA Cup game at West Ham where he made a set of eye-catching, confidence-building saves in front of a big away following. Crowd firmly on his side, he kept his place on the back of that and clean sheets followed in dire games at Stoke, Oxford and finally Charlton where Rangers were terrible all night against a poor opponent and took a point largely because of five stops made by their goalkeeper. Sky and LFW man of the match awards bagged. There were though, sadly, plenty of ricks thrown in there as well: Walsh contributed more than most to the injury time capitulation at home to Wrexham; and while it’s not often I come away from a game of professional football thinking I could have done better myself, Southampton away was one of those nights.

As pointed out by our regular contributor Steve Bernard (@LoftusIQ) Walsh’s overall numbers are skewed by his and the team’s propensity to fall in a massive hole against the top five teams in the division. QPR lost nine of their ten games against Coventry, Ipswich, Millwall, Boro and Southampton this year conceding a whopping 33 goals in the process. Walsh conceded 3.7 goals a game against the top five sides, and 1.2 against the rest of the league. In total, 52% of all the goals Walsh conceded were in just 26% of his matches played.

Steve, not unfairly, says that makes it very difficult to conclude at this stage that Walsh isn’t “up to the level” – because against the majority of the league, he has been. Personally, I’m more minded that Walsh is basically a career number two goalkeeper. I don’t think his footwork is good enough (Preston A), I don’t think his command of the box is really any better than Nardi’s (second goal at Southampton, second goal at home to Wrexham), his communication with his defence seems poor to me, and his principle strength seems to be shot stopping – which is an absolute bare minimum requirement, and even then doesn’t seem to apply to shots from long range (Wrexham third goal). His save percentage (61.8%) is among the worst in the league and Opta has him on -7.7 goals prevented (essentially, he cost the team eight goals he should have saved) which is the Championship’s worst total (Radek Vitek was top with 8.5 followed by Carl Rushworth on 8.2, effectively a 16-goal swing for want of a better goalkeeper).

Walsh reminds me in build, style, strengths, weaknesses and output so much of Joe Lumley – another career number two goalkeeper we tried to make a starter without success. He can be fine, for long periods of time, against most of the drek in this division, but disaster lurks, particularly when you’re playing anybody half decent.

The club have a couple of decisions to make now, and the way they go might tell you a lot about the level of ambition for next season because if you’re happy finishing 15th as long as the average age is coming down and you’re not loaning players and costs are being reduced then Walsh is probably fine, but if you do want to compete for an expanded play-offs come May he’s probably not. Three of the top four this year had a loaned keeper (Cov, Southampton, Millwall) and the top three glovesmen in the league statistically were all loans (Vitek, Rushworth Peretz).

As said, there were always going to be growing pains with Joe this season. Having gone through that and got 24 appearances into him do you persevere, in the hope that he comes out better and stronger for the experience? Or do you conclude now that he’s not quite good enough and prioritise a new keeper this summer? Given the club is running pieces with Nardi and David Seaman talking him up, it feels like the former is likely.

In numbers…
24 starts, 0 sub appearances, 2,070 minutes, W6 D6 L12, 25% win percentage
44 goals conceded (1.83 a game), 4 clean sheets
0 yellow cards, 0 red cards
3 LFW MOTM awards (West Ham A, Oxford A, Charlton A), 2 supporter MOTM awards (West Ham A, Charlton A)
LFW Ratings — 6, 5, 1, 5, 7, 7, 7, 5, 6, 7, 5, 7, 2, 5, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 5, 7, 5, 6, 5 = 5.50
Interactive Rating – 5.46

1 – Paul Nardi D

The fall out from all that made life very difficult for Paul Nardi and I have, on a human level, really not enjoyed watching what’s happened to him this year at all. I’m not going to sit here and make out like he’s a brilliant Championship goalkeeper, like teams hadn’t figured out you’d have to light the guy on fire to get him to come off his line by the mid-point of the previous campaign, but to be dropped on three separate occasions was tough to watch.

Having been deposed as number one last summer, bar having to stand behind a group of school children and try keep the score down at Plymouth in the cup (where he saved a first half penalty), we then had to go cap in hand back to the Frenchman before the end of August and say ‘actually, can you play 40 games for us this season after all?’ when Walsh fractured his wrist. Nardi was then part of some ship steadying through September, winning his first two games back between the sticks (Stoke H, Wrexham A) and going unbeaten in his first five. Familiar problems soon surfaced, though. His flying air punch for Sheff Wed’s opener at Hillsborough was more Viz than Marvel Universe. Similarly, Millwall’s two first half goals at Loftus Road exposed his key weaknesses.

Nardi was then dropped all over again. Having brought a jobbing number two goalkeeper out of retirement at 38 to sit on the bench, QPR decided he should start. This latest great idea lasted only as long as it took Steve Cook to accidentally put a knee through Ben Hamer’s face at Blackburn necessitating another trip to the cloth cap shop and sidle up to Nardi’s door to ask if he wouldn’t mind keeping goal for us after all (again). This was all starting to get a bit like trying to throw Barney out of Moe’s.

In circumstances even Mark Lazarus might find a bit excessive, Nardi came off the bench at Ewood Park and made important saves in a clean sheet and 1-0 win.

Implausibly, QPR then decided to rotate their goalkeepers match by match through December, because that’s worked for loads of teams before and apparently even 38-year-old Ben Hamer playing in a protective face mask was a better option.

The Frenchman finished with a 38.89% win percentage, exactly the same as last season to the point and above average for the team this season (33.33%). Nevertheless, with Walsh back in favour and Hamer fit again after January, Nardi was then told once more that he was very distant third choice and wouldn’t be playing any more (again, again). He said he’d changed this time, mum.

Whatever you think of Nardi’s performances, he has dealt with everything this club has thrown at him with professionalism, good humour, calm nature, and a smile on his face. He was afforded a farewell performance in the home game with Derby, which didn’t go particularly well but won’t when you bring a goalkeeper out of cold storage and sling him in like that. He even happily sat down for a video interview on the club channels at the end of the year and talked about how much he’d enjoyed his time here, which I was pretty astounded at and I think speaks to what a decent fella he is and how much he enjoyed his first year.

Nardi was very important to a struggling team in the first half of 24/25 and really connected with the fans during that time. He made vital saves in games at Watford, Norwich and Cardiff that put points on the board at a time when we were desperate and proved vital in us avoiding a League One relegation. I think he deserved a bit better than his treatment this year but, hey, maybe he thinks it’s all fine and I’m the one being a bit Married At First Sight Australia about it this time.

In numbers…
17 starts, 1 sub appearance, 1,511 minutes, W7 D2 L9, 38.89% win percentage
30 goals conceded (1.66 a game), 4 clean sheets
1 yellow card (Stoke H time wasting)
1 LFW MOTM award (Boro A), 1 supporter MOTM awards (Norwich H)
LFW Ratings — 6, 6, 5, 4, 5, 6, 57, 4, 3, 5, 7, 4, 7, 6, 7, 5, 5 = 5.46
Interactive Rating – 6.29

29 – Ben Hamer B/C

And if you think any of that is harsh or over the top, well here comes Ben Hamer.

If you’re having to sign a career number two, 38-year-old keeper out of free agency between transfer windows then something has obviously gone wrong somewhere. Whatever your plan, this surely was not it. If, despite him not playing a single game of first team football at this level for 18 months prior to his arrival, you then end up starting the guy, then it’s gone very, very wrong indeed. And if that bloke then turns out to be better than the two goalkeepers you had on staff in the first place, then you’ve got big problems in that position.

The top save percentage in the Championship was Peretz at Southampton who stopped 77.5% of all thew shots he faced according to Opta. Both of QPR’s first choice keepers rank in the bottom four (Walsh 61.8%, Nardi 59.7%) of keepers with more than 15 starts along with Gavin Bazunu (60.4%) who split his time between Southampton and Stoke and West Brom’s Josh Griffiths (60.5%). Incidentally if you include all the keepers regardless of appearances no surprise to see Asmir Begovic was the worst in the division – 55.3% across 11 starts. There are slight discrepancies between the Opta and FBRef stats on this, but it doesn’t make material differences to the standings.

Hamer was better, but not much, 64.7% (37th on the list of all keepers with a Championship appearance this year, Walsh 42nd, Nardi 45th). There were understandable moments of extreme rust (goal on the near post at home to Hull) but he started with a man of the match performance and clean sheet at Sheff Utd which featured a terrific save to get a header from Danny Ings up and over the top in improbable circumstances, and in the end would lose only one of his seven starts for the club.

That, more than anything else, probably tells you a lot about how much better the team would be with even a moderately good goalkeeper between the sticks. Only Sheff Wed conceded more goals than QPR this year.

Will make a good quiz question in the years to come.

In numbers…
7 starts, 0 sub appearances, 559 minutes, W4 D2 L1, 57.14% win percentage
6 goals conceded (0.857 a game), 3 clean sheets
0 yellow cards
1 LFW MOTM award (Sheff Utd A), 1 supporter MOTM awards (Sheff Utd A)
LFW Ratings — 7, 5, 6, 6, 6, 5, 6 = 5.87
Interactive Rating – 6.14

Others >>> Murphy Cooper had impressed at Stevenage in 2024/25 and went back to League One to be part of a supposed promotion push at Barnsley. That didn’t materialise, and Cooper was rather prone to problematic walkabouts outside the area while at Oakwell. Still, such is the hectic nature of League One, he managed to get another 27 starts under his belt (W11 D6 L10, 40.74 win percentage). Just the three clean sheets, two of them against Peterborough, and 53 goals conceded (1.96 a game), albeit ten of those against Brighton and Liverpool in cup competitions. Surprisingly returned after the cup loss at Anfield he then took advantage of Sheff Wed’s bizarre propensity to injure their goalkeepers by getting a Championship move in January that would, at least, involve a lot of practice. Cooper only managed eight appearances for the Owls before succumbing to injury himself, no surprise really that he lost all eight games and conceded 14 goals given their state but his save percentage of 68.9% was better than all of QPR’s other keepers in the second tier.

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

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