QPR: good squad, little hope

Queens Park Rangers are currently bottom of the Premier League with 17 points from 26 games, 4 points from the nearest team (Wigan on 21 points) as well as being 7 points from Aston Villa in 17th. Despite the appointment of Harry Redknapp it would still require a gargantuan effort as well as a huge slice of luck for them to begin the 13/14 season as a top flight club. Where has it all gone wrong for them?

One thing it most certainly isn't is the quality of the squad. The Malaysian money provided be Tony Fernandes have allowed them to buy players with a surprising amount of experience, in fact I have prepared a table stating the number of Champions League, Europa League (or UEFA Cup) and International caps acquired by each player currently available to QPR, also in the right hand column I have added together CL, IC and EL multiplied by 0.66, as it is deemed a lesser competition I considered it unfair for it to carry the same weight.

	CL	EL	IC
Remy	18	7	17	37
Samba	0	15	26	36
Fabio	14	2	2	17
Cesar	52	0	65	117
Traore	2	2	4	7
Park	54	3	100	156
M'Bia	15	4	41	59
Taarabt	0	4	15	18
Granero	15	9	0	21
Jenas	14	38	21	60
Zamora	0	21	2	16
Onuoha	0	6	0	4
Bosingwa	63	4	24	90
Mackie	0	0	9	9
Hoilett	0	0	0	0
Diakite	0	0	8	8
Wright-Phillips	17	20	36	66
Johnson	0	15	8	18
Ben Haim	1	14	63	73
Young	0	8	7	12
Bothroyd	0	2	1	2
Green	0	0	12	12
DJ Campbell	0	0	0	0
Clint Hill	0	0	0	0
Yun Suk-Young	0	0	1	1
Cerny	0	23	3	18
Murphy	0	0	0	0
Derry	0	0	0	0
Ephraim	0	0	0	0
Townsend	0	9	0	6

A startling amount of experience is held just between Park, Cesar and Bosingwa, who all happen to have won the Champions League. There are, however, 2 worrying things about having so many big players within a team like QPR. Firstly, without looking it up I think it's safe to say that none of QPRs stars (bar the man mountain Christopher Samba) have been involved in a relegation battle before.  Secondly, should QPR get relegated there would have to be a mass exodus of players. A championship team would struggle to pay for the wages of that many big names, players like that understandably want to be playing top flight football and as none of the "big" players have been at QPR very long it seems unlikely that they would have developed the loyalty to take a pay cut and stay to help fight for promotion.

With all of this taken into account I think QPR would have to rely on a run of form based on being the better team in order to stay in the league (i.e. being the better team in all of the games they play as opposed to nicking wins despite being dominated). If we look at all of the Premier League fixtures they have reaming;

Opponent	Venue	Date
Manchester United	Home	23/02
Southampton	Away	02/03
Sunderland	Home	09/03
Aston Villa	Away	16/03
Fulham	Away	01/04
Wigan	Home	07/04
Everton	Away	13/04
Stoke	Home	20/04
Reading	Away	28/04
Arsenal	Home	04/05
Newcastle	Home	12/05
Liverpool	Away	19/05

How many of them are winnable? There are 5 games between Manchester United and Everton which present QPR with a brilliant opportunity to pick up points, followed by Stoke and Reading. So if QPR are to stay up, which doesn't look impossible, they can hardly afford to drop any points in these 7 fixtures and must aim to cause upsets in the other 5 games. Can I see them doing it? No. Expect to see the big names leaving Loftus road for cut prices in the summer.

By Alex

Follow US on twitter: @ChapsTalkFBall

All statistics and facts are from the marvellous sites transfermarkt.co.uk and whoscored.com

England and Spain Squads

	England
Squad No.	Position	Name	FIFA 12 Rating	Value/£m	Average Match rating 11/12 season
1	GK	J. Hart	83	18.5	6.86
2	DEF	G. Johnson	80	12.5	6.83
3	DEF	A. Cole	85	15	6.91
4	MID	S. Gerrard	87	18.5	7.00
5	DEF	G. Cahill	79	14	6.54
6	DEF	J. Terry	86	21	6.89
7	MID	T. Walcott	82	15	6.60
8	MID	F. Lampard	87	8.4	7.22
9	ATT	A. Carroll	81	15	6.68
10	ATT	W. Rooney	90	57	7.63
11	MID	A. Young	85	22	7.22
12	DEF	L. Baines	80	16	6.96
13	GK	R. Green	78	4	6.00
14	DEF	P. Jones	76	16	6.99
15	DEF	J. Lescott	80	13	6.73
16	MID	J. Milner	81	17.5	6.80
17	MID	S. Parker	82	12.5	7.03
18	DEF	P. Jagielka	80	10.5	6.72
19	MID	S. Downing	82	14	6.60
20	MID	A. Oxlade-C	69	8.8	6.74
21	ATT	J. Defoe	81	9.7	6.85
22	ATT	D. Welbeck	76	11.5	7.42
23	GK	J. Butland	63	0.2	6.00
		Average	80.6	15.2	6.84

Squad No.	Position	Name	FIFA 12 Rating	Value/£m	Average Match rating 11/12 season
1	GK	I. Casillas	89	31	6.83
2	DEF	R. Albiol	82	7.9	6.6
3	DEF	G. Pique	88	33.5	6.85
4	MID	J. Martinez	74	19.5	6.89
5	DEF	Juanfran	79	7	6.84
6	MID	A. Iniesta	91	57	7.4
7	ATT	Pedro	85	24.5	6.92
8	MID	Xavi	92	31	7.78
9	ATT	F. Torres	86	31	6.87
10	MID	C. Fabregas	88	48.5	7.55
11	ATT	A. Negredo	82	16	6.95
12	GK	V. Valdes	85	17.5	6.49
13	MID	J. Mata	86	30	7.19
14	MID	X. Alonso	86	31	7.36
15	DEF	S. Ramos	85	30	7.16
16	MID	S. Busquets	83	31	7.36
17	DEF	A. Arbeloa	83	10.5	6.87
18	DEF	J. Alba	77	8	6.57
19	ATT	F. Llorente	83	22	6.89
20	MID	S. Cazorla	84	17.5	7.6
21	ATT	D. Silva	87	40.5	7.43
22	ATT	J. Navas	84	17.5	7.35
23	GK	P. Reina	84	16.5	6.42
		Average	84.5	25.2	7.05

That's a table I have made comparing the England and Spain squads for Euro 2012. I think it is fairly self- explanatory. Basically, I have taken the FIFA 12 rating, Value and Average Match rating of each player from both squads, and compared them. The results clearly show that the England Squad is just not of the same caliber as that of Spain. It would seem we have very little chance at Euro 2012 if that is how poorly we compare.

By Patrick Milnes. Follow me on Twitter @thepaddy

The stats in this blog are from fifafantic.com, whoscored.com and transfermarkt.com