The club shop have got 500 limited edition t-shirts of our new star Emmanuel Ledesma on sale from tomorrow. Never one to miss an opportunity to make some money from the fans as we have seen this summer since the season ticket rises and silly postage charges, the club has moved to release a t-shirt at the end of a week when one player has scored four goals in two games. Ok, these are bound to be a hit and I might just have to get one to strut around the local rec in while I imitate his silky skills (badly) but is the hype building too quickly for Ledesma or is the club not wanting to miss out on making some cash? Probably a bit of both. On the pitch though so far he has been the outstanding player in four of five games this season but maybe we should take in what Tim Flowers told QPR this week that he is still learning his trade and it won’t be long until teams pay particular attention to him now he is making the headlines. Paladini has told the BBC this week that the club are in no hurry to make the signing permanent and it seems both parties are pleased with the player himself talking of his happiness at the club. I can see there being games this season where the tricks don’t come off and he gets double teamed by opponents, but as crazy as some of the comparisons to Stan Bowles have been, he may end up writing his name alongside him and become the flair player of this era.

This is the first of an occasional foray into the times QPR have made an appearance in the media in ways other than the obvious like a match report or our chairman being held at gunpoint. We mean Loftus Road being used as a location like in this post and other mentions or uses of the club. The first is a music video by UK Hip-Hop legend Blak Twang. Although an Arsenal fan the location of his video for Kik Off was at Loftus Road where you can see many Hip-Hop poses in the dug out with the stadium in the background and also a few shots of a rub down in the dressing room.

Thoughts from Saturday

1. The foreign antics may become increasingly frustrating, but we’ll put up with them for the skill on display from Ledesma.

2. Each week he’s gona inevitably get a mention on this list!

3. We’ve yet to see Lee Cook get into his stride but unlike his last spell with us, he isn’t the only go to guy now that we can turn to.

4. Something Dowie will be keeping an eye on I’m sure, but Parjeo is going to talk himself in to quite a few bookings this season.

5. Damion Stewart played very well; knowing he’s one mistake from being dropped certainly helped him.

6. We were much quicker out the traps but took our foot off the gas when more goals were on offer later on.

7. This column might as well now be called thoughts on Ledesma.

All eyes on

Dexter Blackstock is someone that splits the fans views on his place in the side. Apart from his run at the end, last season was pretty much a write off with injuries and suspension adding to his bad form. Mentally the death of Ray Jones hit him more than most as the pair had built up quite an understanding the season before and I believe had become good friends off it. So it was more than pleasing that he opened the scoring and celebrated with a touching acknowledgement of his late friend and former teammate. The goal spurred him on and gave him that extra lift which saw him chasing down lost causes and linking up well as the lone striker with his attacking midfielders. Before the season I believed that Blackstock could find that form of his first season with us and getting two goals in the opening four games will have helped. I would still like a striker to be signed before the deadline but I have no doubt that there are 15 goals in Dexter this season which will contribute in what is an important season for the man.

Talking Point

Fitz Hall’s two goals and penalty farce that opened the season will be talked about for a long time to come, but it’s his injuries that are going to increasingly overshadow anything he does and again on Saturday he limped out of action. For the money spent and the transfer fees previously paid for his services I thought we were getting a very good defender to sure up our defence. With little or no match practice before he signed in January maybe it was a bit too much to ask to make such an impact and once he got a pre-season under his belt then we could see fully the player we bought. He was rested against Swindon and still needs more match practice to get going but I do hope that his injury on Saturday, albeit an unlucky one to pick up isn’t going to become a theme again for this season. The always impressive Matthew Connolly came in for him and was as accomplished as ever, while Damion Stewart was on his game but for the fee we’ve paid, I do hope we get to see a fully fit One Size justify his transfer fee.

Man of the match

I’m going to run out of things to say about this guy each week…mentions for Stewart, Parejo and Blackstock but it has to go to Ledesma again, writing his name fast into R’s folklore.

QPR v Sheffeild United Preview

On Tuesday night saw a shock result in the League Cup where we actually won a game that on paper we should do anyway. But supporting QPR is never predictable and it was a relief to get through to the next round against Carlisle with a win. The fact that the win brought about some of the best creative play seen from an R’s eleven in recent times means this Saturday’s game is not so clear to predict.

Banishing our burdens in the cup on Tuesday was one thing, but if we are to be taken seriously as promotion candidates this season then we need to start picking up more wins away from home. Too many points were lost last season and if concentration levels hadn’t dipped in the last ten minutes then we would have finished much higher than our 14th place finish.

The players have talked about how much fitter physically they are so mentally they should be more switched on to handle a late siege from Sheffield United if we are hanging on to a win or a point. With such attacking options on display in this one it promises to provide plenty of entertainment and makes for a more open game then both managers would like.

James Beattie is still out for Sheffield United who were so unlucky not to come away from St.Andrews with a point last week, but apart from that have no extra injury worries. For us then it’s take your pick from Cerny or Camp, Balanta or Pat and whether Dowie decides to recall One Size and Mahon after their knocks last week.

I can see us sharing four goals here but with the attacking options we have now, it’s not unthinkable to expect us to go and put on a show and come away with the three points.

10 thoughts on our cup upset at Swindon

1. We actually won a cup game. Always a shock.

2. Good to see Parejo get a full run out. His set piece delivery was good and we’ll be saying what a coup he is many more times this season.

3. Good to see Dexter get a goal early to carry on how he ended last season. No surprises the assist was from Cook but he worked hard and could have added more.

4. Ledesma impressed again. Can we pay Genoa now?

5. If we had gone and signed some strikers I thought Balanta may have seen his chances limited but I’m glad to hear Dowie has spoke of his praises and it’s going to be exciting to see him develop further this season

6. Delaney is one of my favourites in the team and being named captain just shows how important he is off the field too.

7. Camp made a great save in the first half and I hope it is not a clear-cut choice for Dowie in putting Cerny back in goal on Saturday.

8. The creativity in the team was a joy to watch. We have some wonderful midfield talent that linked up well, supplied chances and created many of their own.

9. Plenty of goals between them mean signing this twenty-goal striker may not be such a priority.

10. The average age of the team that started was just 23. Promotion is the goal this season but whether it happens or not the future is certainly bright for this talented young team.

All eyes on & Man of the Match

After his performance that ended with a standing ovation against Barnsley all eyes were on Ledesma to see what he would conjure up here. We’ll ignore the moments that we expect and that frustrate from opposing foreign players and just enjoy the moments of sublime skill and creativity that we’ve seen so far and which we are going to see more of this season. His shooting could be improved but there is no doubting the quality of his delivery, it doesn’t matter that he is on the right and defenders instinct may be to play him outside be can still work the angle for a cross and is more than capable of using his right peg. He left with another standing ovation and even the Swindon fans joined in. The guy is soon going to be a targeted man from opposing teams with the waves he is currently making and we can’t expect performances like this every week, but he looks the real deal and think it’s a good bet that he will make double figures in goals and assists this season.

Congratulations to Dave Thomas and the team on winning Championship Fanzine of the year 07/08. With a new look and cover price the first issue of this season is now out. Always an excellent read, the fanzine now has its own website up and running which will have more added as the season goes on and where currently you can read past articles.

Pick up the new issue from one of the team at the next game and check out the site here.

This may be a new era at the club but to really make sure the club has embraced its new beginning then it must banish one of the haunts of days gone by and win tonight’s League Cup clash against Swindon. The tie has upset written all over it but hopefully with the players we now have at our disposable we can be professional and get a result. Swindon had a good start to the season on Saturday and it goes without saying that a better performance is needed than what was on show against Barnsley, as the Robins will have nothing to fear.

Pat Kanyuka was very excited about the draw and putting one over us but not surprisingly the once promising youngster plagued with injuries, has still not recovered from injury and will not play a part tonight. Someone that should play a part tonight though is Lee Camp as Iain Dowie looks to keep both his keepers happy. Also expect if not from the start, then longer action for Daniel Parejo and Mattheo Alberti, who both showed impressive glimpses on Saturday and some minutes after his injury for Matthew Connolly. This season in the League Cup teams can name seven substitutes so Damion Stewart and Samual Di Carmine should take a place on the bench after suspensions.

Dowie has said that he will be taking tonight seriously and sending out a strong team and although at times I’d expect us to be put under the cosh, we have enough about us to get a result here. It might be another below par performance like Saturday, but for the moment I’ll take that if it means we progress to the next round.

10 Quick thoughts on Saturday

1. Ledesma looks like being a hell of a find, but also a theatrical one if he keeps up his play-acting to win the foul.

2. There weren’t too many trademark Lee Cook runs but wasn’t it great to see him back at Loftus Road in the blue & white.

3. I don’t care what Dowie says; Fitz Hall was not the designated penalty taker!

4. We’ve all done it at other grounds, but wasn’t it weird to look straight up to the top of the School End to catch the replays on the big screen?

5. Lee Camp has got to be one p*ssed off player, harshly dropped.

6. It wasn’t convincing, but it looks like there is plenty more to come from this team.

7. Parejo looked very composed when he came on. Alberti was another positive in his brief cameo, how bloody quick is he?!!

8. When was the last time you got soaked so much on the first day of the season?

9. At least we won. And we still have Rowlands, Vine and Buzsaky to come back.

10. The Euro's and all these pre-season tournaments may give us something to watch, but you can't beat the start of the football season and being back at Loftus Road.

Man of the Match

A lot of the papers gave it to Fitz Hall, which was the easy thing as he imposed himself on the match with his two goals and missed penalty. But for me it had to be Emmanuel Ledesma. He looks like a real find and if the coaching staff can curb some of his theatrical moments he is going to be a real match winner for us on a regular basis. A couple of his deliveries went a stray but the two goals came through him and in one possession he shrugged of two Barnsley men close by before picking out the right man to show he has the skill and also the strength to hold off his marker. He’ll get plenty more tackles thrown his way and two tricky away games this week will quickly get him accustomed to what to expect the rest of the season, but it was a debut of real promise and he fully deserved his standing ovation when he made way for Alberti.

Talking point

Could easily say the whole penalty debacle but away from the headlines of Dowie saying Fitz was the designated man, the talking point for me was the decision to drop Lee Camp. You can’t say he was dropped in the traditional sense after a bad performance and it was more that Dowie preferred Cerny, but Camp hardly put a foot wrong last season and it seems that the bigger name after his Spurs heroics last season won here. Let’s hope for the sake of a Cerny in goal for a few years we don’t lose Camp when he should be our number one long after Cerny has hung up his gloves or moved on.

All eyes on

Daniel Parejo. Had just under 20 minutes to make an impact but showed that he has a lot of talent and his early touches gave a glimpse into what to expect when he gets more minutes and accustomed to life in the Championship. The tackle by Marciano Van Hoemet was certainly that but he dusted him self down and was involved in one of the few good passages of play when he linked with Alberti whose cross almost picked out Blackstock. Won’t be long till he gets a first start and I reckon he will more likely be supporting one of our front men to begin with rather than in the middle as there won’t be much defensive cover with just one of Mahon or Leigertwood providing cover for three attack minded players in Cook, Ledesma and the man from Real Madrid.

Match Reports from the press

Daily Mirror
The Sun
News of the World
The Times
The Guardian
The Independent

Iain Dowie was making preparations without him yesterday, but Daniel Parejo has received international clearance and as expected will play some part in the season opener tomorrow. What was holding up the clearance is anyone’s guess, before playing in the Emirates Cup last weekend it was the worst kept secret that he would sign for us so surely plans were in place to gain his clearance, or maybe someone at the Spanish FA was sipping San Miguel and still celebrating their Euro glory.

To have someone signed from Real Madrid in the squad tomorrow, as well as signings from Fiorentina and Newcastle amongst others makes a refreshing change from the squad to choose from last year and shows how far we have come with developments off the field. The players now have to show how far they have come on the pitch in a season where expectation levels are much higher.

This is the first season in a long time where we can enter a season with genuine hope for success and the singing of ‘Next year, we’ll be champions’ at the West Brom game is more justified than the cringe worthy airings of it in previous years after another lacklustre season closed.

How the player’s cope with the expectation is yet to tested and here’s hoping the rumours in the week of a bust up between Dowie and Briatore haven’t unsettled any of the players. Pre-season may not have had the mouth watering performances but come kick-off time tomorrow you can expect the team that goes out to face Barnsley will be ready to turn it up a notch.

Despite missing the quality of Rowlands, Buzsaky and Vine tomorrow there is still plenty of options to choose from and dilemmas for Dowie. He said before the Chievo game that the team he picked would be the likely starting line-up tomorrow. But with the additions of Parejo and Lee Cook now in the mix it would be unlikely that both would have to sit on the bench. In goal Cerny was chosen ahead of Camp but after all the fine work Camp put in last season to not start the new one in goal seems harsh.

Some of the players from Barnsley have been talking up their side’s chances to win but would expect the R’s to prevail here. We are a better side than the ones that have beaten Barnsley in previous years so it should be an enjoyable start to the season. But then, when was anything ever simple supporting Rangers?

Dowie denies any rift to the Daily Mail

Bhatia in The Independent

Fans have our name on the Championship

Guardian's preview to the season

Although not a full round-up these are some of the predictions from the media that I have picked up this week and below is how much the Daily Telegraph value our players in their Fantasy Football Competition.

Predictions

WSC - 2nd
442 - 6th
Setanta - 3rd
Skysports - 6th
The times - 3rd

Daily Telegraph Values

L Camp £2.5m
R Cerny £2.1m
F Hall £2.6m
D Stewart £2.4m
P Ramage £2.3m
D Delaney £2.2m
K Gorkss £2.2m
C Barker £2.0m
M Connolly £1.8m
A Buzsaky £3.5m
E Ledesma £3.0m
M Leigertwood £2.8m
M Rowlands £2.7m
L Cook QPR £2.5m
G Ainsworth £2.5m
M Alberti £2.2m
H Ephraim £2.2m
A Bolder £2.1m
S Di Carmine £3.5m
P Agyemang £3.4m
D Blackstock £3.2m
R Vine QPR £3.1m

1 LEE CAMP
2 DAMIEN DELANEY
3 DAMION STEWART
4 GAVIN MAHON
5 FITZ HALL
6 MIKELE LEIGERTWOOD
7 DANIEL PAREJO
8 ROWAN VINE
9 DEXTER BLACKSTOCK
10 AKOS BUZSAKY
11 PATRICK AGYEMANG
12 ADAM BOLDER
13 KASPARS GORKSS
14 MARTIN ROWLANDS
15 PETER RAMAGE
16 MATTHEW CONNOLLY
17 LEE COOK
19 ANGELO BALANTA
20 EMMANUEL LEDESMA
21 MATTEO ALBERTI
22 SAMUEL DI CARMINE
23 CHRIS BARKER
24 RADEK CERNY
25 HOGAN EPHRAIM
26 GARETH AINSWORTH

As has been mentioning elsewhere the ABC loan has finally been paid off by the club, but it hasn’t been announced clearly by what means.

The official site states that the loan has been repaid in full and cancels the option the ABC Corporation had over Loftus Road but according a letter to shareholders it states that another loan of ₤10 million had been taken out at a lower interest with Amulya Property Ltd. Yet there is no mention of this on the official sites release.

The rate isn’t much lower at 8.5% and the company, with links to Flavio Briatore and Amit Bhatia has an option on our ground like ABC at the end of the two years time if it’s not repaid.

Now if it wasn’t obvious by now promotion is certainly the target by then if not this season, which would clear the new outstanding debt to Amulya.

No doubt if we don't reach promotion by the end of the deal then we won't be in such a dangerous position as we could have been last week without our new owners and you'd expect something would be sorted.

The main thing though is that this announcement can finally close the chapter on the dark era at Loftus Road where each week we heard stories of bills not being paid, winding up orders been served and threats of administration.

Now we can just concentrate on whether Iain Dowie will see September at Loftus Road!

Dowie heads for the exit door

Walton become Plymouth’s record signing

Links with Juventus and AC Milan

Interview with Daniel Parejo by Spanish Football expert Guillem Balague

Cook here to stay for the next three years

Last summer we were all pleased at the signing of Daniel Nardiello from Barnsley on a free. With no money to spend and the sale of Lee Cook to Fulham, managing to sign a player capable of adding to Dexter Blackstock’s 14 goals with a similar figure of his own was a real steal.

Of course we all know how the story ended but this summer we are looking forward to welcoming a new Daniel grace the Loftus Road turf in much more spectacular circumstances.

Daniel Parejo signed on for a deal which could see him here for two years from Real Madrid and the 19 year old immediately brings a glowing reputation with him.

Heralded as the ‘jewel’ in Real Madrid’s youth team by none other than Real legend Alfredo Di Stefano, our owner’s connections have managed to pull off the coup of the summer for one of the hottest prospects in Europe.

Arsenal were looking to sign him for ₤8 million but Real were reluctant to let him go permanently, while a host of other Spanish clubs were after the loan signature of the player who led the Spanish under-19 team to victory at the European Championships in 2007. He also scored the winner for Real against Hamburg in the Emirates Cup at the weekend.

Again we have Flavio to thank for using his contacts and it could be that more of Europe’s talented youngsters ply their apprentiship at Loftus Road after mentioning his similar arrangements a possibility with his contacts at Juventus and AC Milan.

One thing for sure is that for all that has happened to the club in the last year, it is one thing to be excited about signing Daniel Nardiello and another to be excited about signing one of Europe’s top talents.

It is going to take a while before we look at signing players of Parejo’s talent as standard procedure and what happened yesterday is just another landmark in the resurgance of this club and the thing is…it doesn’t look like being the last.

People on the message boards may have been joking/drunk/off their rocker when they said we were signing Thierry Henry but in a few years time it may be a realistic proposition that we are genuinly linked to players like this.

If you didn't see his goal for Real in the Emirates Cup this weekend, click here.

In what has surely been one of the longest transfer sagas in the clubs history, Lee Cook finally returned to the club last Friday when all had seemed to accept that the hardball being played by Fulham had prevented any hope of seeing him in a hooped shirt.

Not a day went by this summer without someone on a message board mentioning that he was down the training ground, having a medical or was seen walking down South Africa Road. If every one of those posts were true he must have had more medicals than the current playing squad put together have had in their careers.

In the end though while talks of Adam Johnson, Jay Tabb and other potential wingers were linked to the club many were putting what Cook had done to the past and ready to move on.

A fair point made and it remains to be seen whether he can produce the consistency of 2006/07 that brought him his end of season accolades. But if any player of the past few years that has experienced our troubled times deserved to be around now in these exciting times, then it is Cookie.

In fact he would have never have left if we weren’t in the financial mess that we were in last summer and it’s worth remembering that for what all Briatore, Ecclestone and Mittall’s money has done since they took over, if Cook hadn’t gone to pay the bills there may not have been a club for them to take over and rescue.

One player no doubt pleased about his return will be Dexter Blackstock, whose bulk of the 14 goals he scored in his first season was down to his assists but one player may not be so happy about his return.

What this means for Hogan Ephraim time will only tell, but nothing hurts than some friendly competition amongst the squad and it may mean we see a repeat of the Cook we last saw playing for us when then he didn’t have any competition for his place. He will now know that he will have to reach that level of performance once again if he wants to keep his place and prove that his last season with us wasn’t a one off.

Welcome back Cookie!