Football League World | OneFootball

FLW's QPR Fan Pundit is "praying" that a deal can be made to bring Koki Saito back to Loftus Road

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Koki Saito spent last season on loan at QPR, and the club want to bring him back to West London, but face some competition from Championship rivals and Europe to do so.

The race for Saito's signature has certainly come out of the blue for all involved, with journalist Mike McGrath reporting that Birmingham City, Derby County and Eredivisie side FC Twente are among the teams bidding for the winger.

Valued at £5m, Saito managed three goals and the same amount of assists in 39 league matches during his loan spell at Loftus Road in 24/25.

Koki Saito would add more "quality" to QPR's attack

FLW's QPR Fan Pundit, Louis Moir, claims the reported £5m valuation of Japanese winger Saito is a fair price - despite apparent fierce competition from league rivals.

"I’d find it hard for any fan to sort of say this would be a negative. You could say well it’s not a position that’s a priority but he would add so much more attacking depth and quality to what is an exciting squad we’re building, especially attacking wise," Moir explained.

Moir is confident the 24-year-old would put up better numbers in terms of goal involvements if he was to come back to West London permanently."His numbers weren’t great in his first season in the Championship for us last season," he told FLW.

"But I think you’d see a much more improved player. He was so good to watch he just put a smile on your face and he obviously loved it at the club as well."

QPR might not be able to outbid others in Saito transfer race

Moir admits other clubs could be able to table better offers than the R's in the race for Saito, which could prove the deciding factor.

"It’s a shame that there’s other clubs interested in him but if its rumoured to be around the £5m I don’t think we’ll be spending that much money on him.

"If you’ve got the likes of Birmingham putting bids in, it will be tough to match that, so that could be the thing that lets it down," he added.

Saito made his professional debut in the second-tier of Japanese football for Yokohoma when he was only 16. He played 65 times in total and netted nine goals.

The Fan Pundit remains positive though - based on QPR's very shrewd business during the summer window so far.

"But, hopefully something can be agreed. I doubt many people expected us to pull off the signings of Kwame Poku and Richard Kone, so fingers crossed it can happen."

Moir sees Saito as the ideal addition to complete what could be one of the scariest attacks under new head coach Julien Stephan.

"Saito returning to the club would be absolutely brilliant. Obviously, he loved it at QPR, we loved watching him and fingers crossed it can happen. On that left-hand side really, he would add another option," he explained.

"You’ve got Dembele out there at the moment, Chair maybe can do a job but he’ll be more of a number ten this season, so Saito coming in would be just brilliant."

The R's most recent signing of the window (August 15th) was the highly-sought-after striker Richard Kone, who joined for an undisclosed fee from Wycombe Wanderers.

"If you add in Koki Saitio into the mix where you’ve got Dembele, Chair, Poku behind Richard Kone and then you add Saito in to that - I mean that could be a real, real problem for a lot of sides in this league," Moir continued.

"I’m just praying that some deal can happen where he comes back," he concluded.

In truth, the club that would surely offer Saito the most guaranteed game time is Derby - but Blues could have the better funds out of the three. If QPR actually manage to beat off both of these clubs to Saito, there's no doubt that it would be a massive statement to the rest of the league.