By Paul Warburton
QPR are getting a seasoned Championship performer in Albert Adomah, who has joined the club on a two-year contract.
If Fifa 21 is a barometer, he's still got plenty left to offer and what you get with Adomah is a player with pace, even at 32, but one who frequently needs a mental gee-up.
Dribbling gets a high score, but for those about to ‘buy’ him on the game, you won’t get a defender or somebody likely to get stuck into a tackle. He's dispute that.
Adomah, a Rangers fan, started out with Chiswick-based amateur side Old Meadonians as a teenager - a spin-off team from Chiswick Grammar School, who play at Dukes Meadows, as their name implies.
From there, Adomah played semi-pro for Isthmian League Premier Division club Harrow Borough and at the same time was working towards an industrial painting qualification.
If Adomah had been no good with a ball at his feet he would have ended up with a paint brush in his hand.
He was studying for a Level 2 NVQ Diploma in Decorative Finishing and Industrial Painting as a part-timer with Harrow Borough 12 years ago.
So, if that South Africa Rd stand needs a touch up…
His ‘transfer fee’ from Harrow to Barnet - then a League Two side in 2008 - was a pre-season friendly between Bees and Borough with the latter pocketing the gate receipts.
At Barnet, famous football commentator John Motson sponsored him. We wonder if Adomah got a sheepskin coat out of it?
The fee when he moved to Middlesbrough in 2013 was around £1m.
Albert Danquah Adomah to give him his full name, has a a Ghanaian and a British passport.
He made his international debut for Ghana as a substitute in their 1–0 defeat against Brazil on 5 September 2011 at Fulham’s Craven Cottage.
Adomah has previously bemoaned QPR’s failure to sign him, saying: “Ask the scouts. I’m a local boy and played on the Astroturf pitch next door.”
Rangers did express an interest in him while he was at Middlesbrough, in January 2016, as part of proposed swap deal involving Matt Phillips, but it came to nothing.
Speaking after scoring twice against them at Loftus Road for Aston Villa in 2017, he said: “I’m a QPR fan. That’s why I didn’t really want to jump for joy when I scored.
“QPR are a very strong team - obviously I know that because I follow them.
“The majority of my friends, especially the local ones, support QPR.”