To those thinking it is all about money with him - he does have a house in London that he has recently built (my company did some work on it) therefore he is likely to be looking to move south anyway.
It's a no from me. It's not because I'm certain that he won't be good for us (the jury is out but I'm willing to believe he could be excellent). Reasons against:- 1) Some other teams promoted from the Championship manage to stay up without having to call upon vastly experienced pros. 2) It's another stop-gap to buy ourselves some time to build the right squad to compete whereas we have that chance right now (ie it has no long term future). Why put off until tomorrow what you can do today? 3) How many wise heads do we need? How many leaders? If we did a mentoring scheme, the under 30s would have about 3 mentors apiece. 4) What do we think a realistic maximum wage should be for a team in our position? Does anyone think that Rio falls below this limit? The reality says that if we weren't overpaying for him then he'd have a better 1 year option on the table. 5) To paraphrase a Flyerism - there's no return on investment on the player (and yes, we could muddy that by speculating that he could be the sole reason we might stay up so earns us our TV rights money). It could be that this is the first signing followed by five early to mid 20 year olds but this is all we have to go on at the moment. He's the right "sort" in terms of character, leadership, application and skill even but the completely wrong sort in terms of age, wage and the message it send out to all agents and similarly qualified waning stars. It doesn't dispel the "more money that sense" QPR image that we nurtured last time round. I'd prefer someone without his previously proven pedigree but that fitted into a "wage structure". I'd prefer players that haven't been to the World Cup (and are now overpriced) than any big names or wise old heads. Last season did require some shoring up and gritty pragmatism but I think now we do need to gamble a bit, at our correct level (small club in a big league) and perhaps even pocket some excess cash if the gamble doesn't work rather than zero assets and nothing left but to start again next season either way.
No I am completely against those 3 but ok with Rio. This is on the basois that we balance this and dont go and repeat mistake so flast year and make the majority of our signings short term signings- Need Ince, Bryson, Caulkers etc to balance it and then Rio is okay. Overall i feel that Rio will be more in the Hill, Derry and Nelsen category of veteran signings and not in the Park or Bosingwa bracket
We need a CB as Hill will be a bench-warmer and Dunne has as much pace as my Gran. Hopefully one season only, he's been there and done it in the top flight so it's a yes from me. We also need a playmaker and a proven forward.
Age would only be an issue when signing midfielders, full backs and forwards. CB's only get better with age, like fine wine. And someone with Rio's experience knows how to play without relying on pace.
Didn't Tony say we had learnt the lesson of signing players from the top clubs at the end of their careers. Last pay day for someone who wouldn't want to be here otherwise. Where's the motivation? Don't anyone mention self-motivation given our experience.
The loss of pace argument shouldn't really be used as a reason not to sign him, I'm sure he's like Usain Bolt in comparison to Dunne and Hill.
One thing's for sure, we'll be an absolute laughing stock if this happens (more so than currently). Opposition fans are going to kick us from pillar to post- and rightly so. For once there'll be no grounds for defence
I'm sitting on the fence for the moment. Going to give him 10 games or so and then I will express an opinion. I hope he performs well for us. I don't think he is SWP part 2, I hope not.
While I appreciate his obvious skills, last season for Utd, when he played, it seemed that he was continually getting caught flat-footed, out of position, lacking basic CB man marking skills and ultimately sharing responsibility for goals conceded. I could see him used as a back-up CB in our squad, on a 1 yr contract, assuming his salary demands were sensible (no more than £40K/wk) but not sure if he should really be starting matches for us at this level - obviously Utd thought the same resulting in him not being played much last season.
I not sure how we can rely on the existing squad plus a few untried players to guarantee survival. Anything less than a bit of experience is more of a gamble. Rio F fits the bill but he's an old part of a changing jigsaw. Harry will blend both youth and wise heads this season. Let's be patient. In 'Arry I trust.
He had 14 league appearances last season, his least since the 2000-2001 campaign. Given how poor Utd were, it says a lot that an experienced head like Rio wasn't called upon more often. To put things into perspective, Park Ji Sung had 17 league apps for Utd the season before he joined us. Similar to Park; someone of Rio's stature isn't going to take a massive step down to QPR, and a massive pay-cut, if he's not guaranteed 1st team football. Rio's not going to knock around on QPR bench as 3rd choice when he could be paid £150,000 a week for regular football in America. He'll probably be made captain too The 'yes' group are saying they'd prefer Rio be signed as first choice, than Williams, Vlar, Fonte, Hangeland, Caulker etc.
