Former Spurs star could be surprise capture. QPR will have to battle Besiktas if they want to bring £3 million rated Rafael van der Vaart back to London. They will also have to convince the Dutch playmaker he wonât be involved in another relegation struggle like the one heâs just suffered with Hamburg. van der Vaart and co escaped Bundesliga demotion by the skin of their teeth. But with one year left on his current contract, Get West London understands the man who thrilled Harry Redknapp when the two were at Tottenham is looking to tie up his financial future in what is set to be the last big pay-day of his career. Turkish giants Besiktas are interested, but the Dutchman, 31, would rather play for someone he likes and admires, and Harry has also made it plain he will only sign the tried and trusted. âIâm not going to sign anybody I donât want, no way. Iâll only sign players I know even if you canât be 100 per cent sure,â was how the Rangers boss laid out the future after Rangers secured promotion via the Championship play-off final. Redknapp is keen on what he calls âreal number 10sâ - those who play in behind the striker. The manager was hoping that might be loanee Ravel Morrison, but the West Ham player drifted out of the scene right at the death as QPR won at Wembley. van der Vaart suffered a calf injury in training last week that ruled him out of Hollandâs World Cup bid, but is expected to be fit for pre-season.
I really hope not. We shouldn't be signing anyone who can reasonably be described as a "celeb"" anymore. Talented or not, they're a poor fit for a club like ours, and will always consider us a step down.
looking to tie up his financial future in what is set to be the last big pay-day of his career Sums us up perfectly, that's exactly how we are seen in the football world.
He was a terrific player for Spurs...need to be sure he won't be walking wounded for us . About the same age as BZ and AJ were when we took them
I'm not opposed to us signing some experienced players in their early 30s, but they have to be right for the Club. Whether VDV is I'm not really sure as I've not heard anything of him since he left Spurs. I wonder whether some of these rumours are just that, and have only surfaced because of the link with HR.
'is looking to tie up his financial future in what is set to be the last big pay-day of his career' That's just the journo's words there, no one is stupid enough to openly state that as a motivation and lets face it the guy will already be more than set financially. As for the football side of things, people would seriously turn down a player of his ability and proven pedigree? they must be ill.
Proven EPL performer, would be a good addition. Interesting balance to the squad, we are old at the back (and with the exit of AJ & BZ) now young up the front. So would probably do a good job.
Why? I don't think the people objecting are saying he's a bad player. He's obviously very good. In terms of being a good fit for QPR though, he's absolutely not. We're a small club that gets 16k home fans a week FFS, why would he ever want to come here? It's a really sloppy uninventive signing, shipping in an aging "big name". It's the way the man on the street would run a football club. For the record, he's scored 12 goals in 55 games since being at Hamburg. Over a 38 games season, that would equate to 8.4 goals. Given the Bundesliga has less strength in depth than the PL, you can assume he'd score even less here. There are younger hungrier players out there who could do an equally good job (on a lower wage), and there's no reason to favour VDV over those guys.
As ever, I'm with Grifter here. A very good player no doubt but players like that and a Club like ours will never be the right match. I never thought I'd say this but I wish we were a selling Club again.
If we're going to have a chronically unfit playmaker we might as well keep Kranjcar. Of course option B is to not have any chronically unfit playmakers at all and option C is Taarabt.
Ok, Harry has won some browny points for winning the play off but please, one can only assume his comments above mean .............. "I'm only going to sign 'golden-oldies' which I can't see being a the answer. Surely we need probably 2 young guns for every old timer ................ and he need to play the young guys more so than the old stagers. Nothing against the 'oldies' but if we are going to plan for the future, the younger guys must play now, to build for the future, otherwise this time next year, same crap all over again. Rant over.
