Dezmo

In this post it is time to reveal the transfers before starting my third season with QPR. I will also show you my results in the first 2 months, August and September, in the league, Carling Cup and the Europa League!

Transfers

A lot of useless players were sold and so I got 24M extra! Let’s discuss most important transfers out: Daniel Pudil is sold because he wasn’t good enough and after getting him on a free transfer last year, selling him now for 3M isn’t bad. Joey Barton is sold because of poor performances last year. Matthew Connoly has the same story as Barton: poor performances led to a transfer to Stoke. Ondrej Kusnir is sold with a loss of 400K because he got a terrible injury last year and he fell back in his stats. Not good enough anymore so sold. Friedrich was getting old and his stats started to decrease. Petar Zanev is sold because I found 4M a good bid and he wasn’t a first squad player anyway.

Now the transfers in:

Sinan Bolat

A really good, young goalkeeper. His contract expired at Belgian side Standard and I couldn’t resist. He is better than Samassa and Jääskeläinen so he will be my first keeper.

John O’Shea

A really good, experienced defender that can be used on a lot of different positions. He does cost a lot of wage but his experience will be decisive in the big games and when having a lot of injuries, he can be important because of his versatility.

Leonel Galeano

A very talented central defender, even played a game for the Argentinian national team! He is young, talented, strong, good in the air, has good tackling abilities, pretty quick for a central defender… A perfect replacement for the old Friedrich!

Benoît Assou-Ekotto

Couldn’t find a good left back that wanted to join me so had to settle for this decent one. Transfer listed by the Spurs, 2.5M isn’t that much but I hope to buy a better left back in either the winter transfer period or next year.

Jack Cork

Good midfielder, was the best player based on average rating last year in the Championship and a good replacement for Joey Barton in my opinion. Also young, so he can stay here for a lot of years. Will be used in a rotation system with Collison and Diamé. Love his mental abilities by the way!

Lucas Andersen

Brilliant youngster from Denmark, will be important in the future I believe. Now Siem de Jong and Adel Taarabt are better but this 18-year old will soon get a first squad player I think! Not expensive either!

Carlos Vela

A personal favourite of me in FM 2011, not because of incredible attributes but he always played good for me when I had him in my team! Hope he will do the same in this edition of FM. He will be used as a backup for left winger Chadli and striker Sanogo.

I also signed Conor Coady as a backup player for central defenders and defensive midfielders, Thorgan Hazard on a free and immediately loaned him out to feeder team Gillingham and Ibrahima Tanda as backup for Chadli and Albrighton on the wings. These are all young and cheap players.

I’m not really happy with this transfer period. I wanted to sign another central defender to play next to Galeano, wanted to buy a better left back as well and was searching for a good right winger but couldn’t find either of them that wanted to join me. But we are stronger than last year I believe. Now let’s go for the CL!

League

Not bad, 9 out of 12. Was dissapointed because of the first league match against Everton, they had a massive 60% possession and had much more chances and deserved the win. But luckily we improved in the next matches. Sanogo hasn’t scored yet in the league but he will score later, I’m sure. Chadli has a very good start, with 3 goals in 3 matches. We played good matches against Sunderland, Villa and Watford and I feel like we can win big matches as well this year if we just improve a little bit more. The top 4 is possible.

Number 8, but we are 1 or 2 games behind the teams that are in the top 7. So the 8th place is not representative.

Carling Cup

A true thriller against Sheffield United, but we did win against the Championship side at Bramall Lane. We took the lead, gave it away, took it again, gave it away again, took a lead of 2 goals, gave even that away!, and finally scored the match winning goal thanks to an awesome Chadli in the 120+2 minute!!!! We played with the first squad so conceding 4 goals against a Championship team got me pretty angry. But the game was brilliant to watch! Next is Chelsea: our big rivals. Luckily it is at Loftus Road so we have a chance of getting to the next round. I want to win either the League Cup or FA Cup so I will definitely play with my first team against Chelsea and try to win! I hope to see a game like the Sheffield game, and win in the end!

Euro League

In the 4th qualifying round we played the Ukranian side Vorskla and won easily. So we made it to the group stage, which is nice, but not good enough ofcourse. I’m going for the quarter finals and reaching the semi finals or getting even further will be a nice addition.

We are in a group with LOSC Lille Métropole, the 2010-2011 competition winners of France. They have a good team and still have the big star Eden Hazard in their team, so they will be my toughest opponent. Aberdeen is a tough opponent but we’re better and should win both matches against them if we want to progress in this league. And Ajax… Big rivals of my favourite team Feyenoord, so I’m really keen to win this double confrontation. I just HAVE to win those matches, otherwise I’ll probably jump in front of a train..

Other

Chadli is awesome so far. I hope he can keep this up trough the whole season! Sanogo isn’t performing that bad, but hasn’t scored a league goal yet. Luckily, Chadli does and in the end it doesn’t matter who scores, as long as someone does! Cork, Collison, Galeano, Assou-Ekotto and Diamé are performing good as well. I expect much more from Siem de Jong, Kyle Walker and Marc Albrighton. Especially Walker who hasn’t played a single good match since I bought him from Blackburn in January. I might let O’Shea start more often because of Walker underperforming.

This will, if I don’t get a lot of injuries and if players aren’t underperforming, be my most used formation. But like I said earlier, Walker will be placed on the bench for the coming games and O’Shea will be in the line up.

Thank you all for reading and please comment, those are always appreciated. Next post will be about the October-December period.

See y’all later! -Dezmo.