Eze

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/10631886/sheffield-united-eberechi-eze-transfer-qpr/

It is in the Sun so we are safe for now, perhaps he should speak to his best mate Luke

 

Good that multiple clubs are interested.

There are many factors that determine a player's value, obvious factors including contract length, the track record of the player, age etc.

I think people often ignore (deliberately or not) that the financial state of the selling club is a big factor, as is the amount of clubs with a serious interest to buy.

Sad as it may be, a club with a very healthy FFP balance would be able to sell Eze for more than we can, because they can afford to hold on to him if they only get one offer which doesn't meet their valuation. We can't afford that luxury yet. The only thing that will change this is if we get a bidding war going between Spurs and Sheffield Utd etc. That's why Smithies and Freeman went for lower than our perceived value as I understand it.

I don't want him to go, but if he (inevitably) does, I'd prefer interest from multiple clubs.

 

The most worrying thing is that I have seen £12M mentioned.....we should be looking for more than that!

 

How much do you think stick?

 

I think we should be looking at 20M with bonuses.

 

More worried about the mention of Ravel Morrison - wouldn't want him chucked in as part of any deal ! Agree, we should be looking at £20M+ add-ons

 

£12 million plus Luke Freeman?...

 

£30M if we have to take Ravel, a reverse premium would be required.

 

Could be the last time we see him in hoops today!

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...ofile-championship-transfer-efl-a9276126.html

QPR’s Eberechi Eze: ‘I always dreamt of finally getting here. There was no other option’
Exclusive interview: Coveted England U21 international endured trail of release and rejection before establishing himself as one of the country’s most exciting prospects

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Eberechi Eze has scored 10 goals and added six assists already this season ( Rex/The Independent )
“It’s exactly like going into the teacher’s office,” Eberechi Eze smiles, sitting on a leathery sofa at Queens Park Rangers’ makeshift training ground. The 21-year-old is one of the most exciting playmakers in English football, scorer of 10 goals already this season and coveted by a handful of Premier League clubs, but before that came the demoralising trail of release and rejection that ultimately led him here.

“It started at Arsenal,” he explains. “I was 13 [when I was released]. That was the worst one. I remember crying in my room for a solid week, my mum telling me that it’s going to be OK but not being able to get over it. Then I went to Fulham and I was finally starting to enjoy my football again. We played Arsenal a few months later but, when I went over to shake the academy manager’s hand, I started welling up. All the feelings came back.”


After Fulham came four months at Reading, then a numbing spell at Millwall, where the Spartan aggression and route-one ideology left no space for a floating No 10 who craved the ball at his feet. “Over and over again,” Eze says. “As much as I wasn’t happy at Millwall, it was a platform to play. I didn’t expect to be released, but I was so used to the feeling. As soon as I went into [Neil Harris’] office I was thinking ‘this could go left’. You have to try and just get on with it but it was definitely difficult to cope with.”



Back then, the languid array of skills which have captivated the Championship this season were Eze’s hindrance. He was a raw and addictive talent to scouts but lacked polish and was quickly pigeonholed by academy coaches as a luxury player. After Millwall, the maze grew tighter as second and third chances ground to dead ends – first at Sunderland, then Bristol City and Swansea – with Eze’s work rate consistently cited as the sticking point. “The reason was always that it didn’t look like my desire was there,” he says. “The same thing again and again. All I could think was if you only you knew in my head how much I want this. It’s probably a bad thing but I didn’t think I needed to change [the type of player I was]. I probably should’ve tried to adapt, not play two different systems in one team, but I just wanted to get on the ball and enjoy myself.”


This may well be Eze’s last interview as a QPR player. This month, he’s already been linked with moves to Tottenham, Southampton and Sheffield United and there’s a reluctant acceptance at the club that he’s unlikely to be here next season. Yet, as far-fetched as it seems now, in the summer of 2016 Eze was facing the prospect of a “real life” away from football, preparing to start a part-time job at Tesco and even considering college courses. “I honestly have no idea what I would have done,” he laughs. “I didn’t like anything at school. Even P.E was a drag. When my agent told me I had a trial at QPR I just thought: ‘I have to get in’. There was no other option.”


Eze’s easy charisma is a reflection of his football but, beneath his grin, he admits the potholed ride has scored him with a harder edge. “I’m much more resilient in terms of my mindset and not caring what people think, as long as I’m making the people around me happy,” he says. “Just like last year, you get a lot of people having opinions” – referring to a similar vein of criticism he received during his first season in the Championship – “but it’s your job to make sure you can cope with it. I’ve just learned to stick to my instinct because that’s what got me here.”


His rapid development this season is also a credit to the club’s manager, Mark Warburton. He’s styled the side around Eze’s No 10 role – a brave risk to take on any unproven player – and ensured the team play attractive football along the floor. The shift has unshackled Eze, giving him the freedom to create and take players on. Take one memorable example against Hull earlier this season when he ran almost the entire length of the pitch, tangling three defenders en route, before winning the first of two penalties.

“[The manager] has taught me so much, in working off the ball, my energy levels,” he says. “At the start of the season, he let me know ‘last season is gone, you’re a different player now, you’re in a team where we want to get you the ball’ and it’s helped me a lot. I like doing skills, entertaining, that’s how I’ve played football my whole life.”


It’s the cocksure brand of cage football that’s swept a generation of footballers from south London. Raised in the flats by the Old Greenwich Hospital, staring out at the glassy new-builds opposite, Eze admits football doubled as an escape. “There are the nice parts [of Greenwich] and the not so nice parts. I grew up in a not so nice part,” he says. “It wasn’t the easiest life and you don’t have as much as other kids around you. The first place we’d go after school is to the cage. We’d stay there till our parents called us in, not eating, playing all day and night. There wasn’t really anything else to do. But that’s where the love comes from. [At the time], you don’t realise it’s actually how you’re learning your trade.”

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Tottenham’s Amos opens up on ‘toughest nine months of my life’
And while he is aware of the uncertainty over his future, Eze repeatedly stresses his gratitude to QPR for always encouraging him to stay true to that expressive, flair-driven style he developed at such a young age. “They’ve given me the platform to enjoy myself and helped nurture me into the player they always believed I could be,” he says. “The fact I can do it at QPR, I’m hugely proud.” The speculation he brushes off as “part and parcel of football”.

“They weren’t interested back then,” he says. “From being released, playing academy football, always dreaming of getting to this stage and finally getting there. It’s almost like a relief to see how far you’ve come.”

 

Good read & we had belief in him & the rest is history

 

There's a great clip of the best bits of Eze at Hull embedded in the Independent article too. You can see it by clicking on the link above.

 

it’d be nice if he kept front of mind that QPR were the club that had belief in him and invested in him. One more season and an extended contract, please.

 

Sadly, it doesn't work like that, the first offer from a PL team and he'll be gone. The way he played yesterday underlined that...

 

I don’t for a second think he wasn’t trying yesterday. Brentford made a clear effort to double up on him and BOS and they’re defensively the best team (or one of) in the league for a reason. Warburton should have switched the three behind Wells more to mix it up.

Also he’s 21. No chance he’s going to be at his best every week or he’d be long gone by now.

 

Harsh to criticize Eze for that performance. As soon as we went behind we panicked to the point where we were hoofing long balls and completely bypassing the midfield. Ridiculous as we had Nakhi up front and it just kept coming back. I thought Eze had a good second half once Warburton had moved Cameron to his proper position.

 

The whole team selection was dire in hindsight. Neither Kelly nor Wallace merited being dropped and their replacements were dreadful. Wells away from home as usual was **** even when he wasn’t having to compete for a high ball with a bloke a foot taller or being clattered five yards away from a referee who randomly decided to give him nothing all day.

We really needed to play just BOS and one of Eze or Chair to get another body in midfield. Playing away to arguably the league’s best team in great form you have to be more pragmatic than we were.

 

The ref was awful..and not just for us. At the end of the first there was a blatant trip by Poncey Jansson on the edge of the box and the ref bottled it. Probably thought he might have to show them a card. The free kick for their first goal should have gone the other way, he was totally useless.
We looked so much better in the second half when playing with a proper centre half, I really hope Masterson gets to start against Leeds.

 

Found the second half fairly embarrassing too. They never needed to get out of second gear and don’t think we had a shot on target apart from the goal. Was a poor view but looked like one great chance with fifteen to go that someone fluffed.

The wind totally died at half time too.

 

Which makes our decision to change ends even more wrong. Whose stupid idea could it have been?