Ferdinand explains why QPR didn’t sign a striker

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QPR director of football Les Ferdinand says discussions to bring in a striker did take place during the January transfer window but manager Mark Warburton was satisfied with the options already available to him.

Fourth-placed Rangers are the Championship’s third highest scorers this season, with 47 goals – two less than big-spending Bournemouth and 22 fewer than leaders Fulham – but their three striking options in Lyndon Dykes, Andre Gray and Charlie Austin have scored just eight, five and four league goals respectively.


Warburton, who has been vocal in his opposition to having a bloated squad, told West London Sport earlier this month his preference was to sign an attacking midfielder to complement Chris Willock, who has scored seven goals this season, and Ilias Chair, who has found the net eight times.

Ferdinand said because of the Rangers boss’s desire to include two playmakers in his team, there was no real push to bring in another centre-forward.

“We spoke about that but the manager was happy with what he had,” he explained.

“No player comes through the door without the manager wanting it.

“That wasn’t a position he felt he wanted to add to in terms of his squad, it was more a number 10.

“We looked around for what we needed and we weren’t able to get the number 10 that we required. From my perspective, I know centre-forwards are key to football clubs but the manager was happy with what he had.

“Because of the way the team is set up and the way we aim to play, he felt that more times than not we were going to play with one centre-forward and having those number 10s that would fill in those positions.”

QPR were interested in signing both Tom Lawrence of Derby and Jamie Paterson of Swansea but could not agree a deal for either.

“We felt that was the one position that we identified where we really wanted to get it across the line,” Ferdinand added.

“First and foremost, there wasn’t a load of options out there and the options that we wanted, there were other people in the market and unfortunately they could probably afford to pay a little bit more than we could.

“So that was a frustration, but we’re happy with what we’ve done. If we could have signed another forward-thinking player we would have done, but unfortunately we were unable to.”