Best Ever Loan Player?

I was just trying to search ex-loanees via the net. Hoping to see if I could drag up some forgotten gems and coincidently found this recent article.............

http://www.qprnet.com/index.php/features-2/thetops/282-top-five-loan-signings

By: Ron Norris ..c/o qpr.net

With Niko Kranjcar reducing grown men to gibbering wrecks of admiration and envy it appears the Croatian may well go on to be considered one of our greatest ever loan signings but who would he rank alongside? We pick our favourites.



It is fair to say that QPR didn't start making huge use of the loan market until the late 90’s and we really got into our stride as we moved into the new century with a flurry of temporary transfers arriving in various attempts to plug gaps or dig us out of holes. We have seen a very mixed bag of results over the years as a result.

There have been over seventy players join us on loan since we departed the Premier League in 1996, some made an impact whilst others left without anyone ever realising they were even here. For every Michael Mancienne there is a Bob Malcolm, for every Ishmael Miller a Steve Lovell, or Paul Peschisolido or Gareth Taylor or Robert Taylor or Calum Willock or, well you get the picture.

Whilst there has been plenty of rough there have been some real diamonds in the there too so here’s our five picks for best ever loan signings

Adel Taarabt

Arriving at the tail end of the 2008/09 season for a short spell who would have predicted this mercurial Moroccan would go on to have such an impact on Rangers, both positive and negative, for the next four years.

He played six times for Paulo Sousa’s side, scoring one goal and helping arrest a slump in fortunes that had seen the Portuguese win just twice between Christmas 2008 and Taarabt's arrival in mid March 2009. Sadly for Sousa it didn’t prove enough to save his job, he was sacked three games into Taarabt’s first spell.

Adel returned the following season for a full year on loan and it was over the course of this campaign that we really began to fall in love with him. His incredible solo effort ten minutes into the home game with Preston will live long in the memory and was rightly named goal of the season for 09/10.

His loan form led to a permanent move in 2010 and of course saw Adel go on to even greater things as a full time QPR player.

Mark Kennedy

After impressing at Millwall and getting himself a big move to Liverpool in 1995 Mark Kennedy’s Anfield career had started stagnating by 1998. It was a short loan spell at Loftus Road that got him noticed again.

With Ray Harford’s QPR side struggling in the second tier Kennedy was signed to give us a boost and his arrival provided a burst of craft and skill that we desperately lacked.

He played eight times in Hoops scoring two goals, a brace against Crewe at home that earned three important points. Whilst his performance in his last game, a five nil stuffing of Middlesbrough had the R’s fans screaming for him to be signed.

It wasn’t to be, Kennedy returned to Liverpool and opted for a move to Wimbledon instead. Rangers took his Anfield team mate Neil Ruddock on loan and survived relegation by a point thanks to that famous Jamie Pollock own goal.

Kyle Walker

Easily the best we had seen at right back since David Bardsley, although in fairness there wasn’t an awful lot worthy of comparison in those intervening years, Walker arrived raw but full of energy and added pace to a back four that for much of the time was himself alongside Matt Connolly, Kaspars Gorkss and Clint Hill.

That’s how the they lined up for the first nine of his twenty games with us and the four of them built an excellent understanding and organisation under Neil Warnock. Whilst we hadn’t exactly been porous before Walker was signed that back four conceded just once in his first seven games.

By the time Kyle said farewell in early January it was clear we had witnessed the start of a great career. Within a week he was sent to Aston Villa by Spurs to get top flight experience and the following season he was breaking into the Tottenham set up with England honours soon to follow.

Lee Camp

With QPR all out of ‘keepers and a trip to Hartlepool on the agenda R’s boss Ian Holloway sent his scout, Mel Johnson, to find him a loan goalie and he came back with Lee Camp.

Camp’s parent club Derby had two good youngsters in him and Lee Grant and with Grant prefered over his namesake Camp was allowed to link up with QPR in March 2004. It turned out to be the first of three spells at the club.

His initial loan lasted from March until the end of the season and culminated in a promotion party at Hillsborough that May. Camp played twelve times and kept four clean sheets as Rangers returned to The Championship in runners up spot.

Hopes were high that Lee would return, indeed he did but it wouldn’t be for nearly three years when Derby let him out on loan for a second time. Another eleven appearances were made, another four clean sheets kept and this time the temporary was made permanent when Camp joined full time in the summer of 2007.

He would play another fifty games in a two year spell before being sold to Nottingham Forest in 2009. For a goalkeeper of his talents it really is a shame that he’s spent all of 2013 playing second, and sometimes third, fiddle at Norwich and West Brom.

Andros Townsend

Having seen Kyle Walker kick off his career at Loftus Road Spurs were perhaps happy to send Townsend to us in the early part of this year. With QPR a Premier League side this would give Townsend some valuable top flight experience albeit in a struggling side.

Indeed when Andros arrived Rangers were drifting towards relegation, one win six had left the victory at Stamford Bridge seeming an age before and whilst no one wanted to admit it we were a club that was clearly doomed.

As a young player there was little Townsend could do to save us but his arrival gave us something to enjoy in a wretched season, his form a times was a delight and for much of 2013 he was the only thing worth watching at Loftus Road.

His goal against Sunderland in the 3-1 win at home was a ferocious, incredible strike that for the briefest of moments helped give us a glimmer of hope that we might yet survive. His second QPR goal followed in the very next game at Aston Villa in a defeat that quickly extinguished any of that talk.

Much like Walker before him Townsend returned to Tottenham, broke into the first team and is now making waves at international level and much like Walker before him it’s fair to say that it was his short time at Loftus Road that kicked it all off.

So that’s our top five however honourable mentions go to Ishmael Miller, if only for that incredibly important goal against Leicester. Gavin Peacock, who played some fine football on his return to Loftus Road, something that gets lost in the fact we were so terrible on and off the pitch for much of his time with us. Martin Cranie, who did extremely well before returning to Portsmouth in plaster and Lee Cook whose initial loan and early part of his first spell at the club gave us the deadliest looking left winger since Andy Sinton.

And while we are at it we can cast a disapproving shake of the head towards the worst five, Gus Caesar, Calum Willock, Tamas Priskin, Bob Malcolm and Federico Macheda. We’re not angry boys, just disappointed.