QPR's Jake Clarke-Salter sent "does he trust his own body?" question - R's star fired "one more injury" warning | OneFootball

Jake Clarke-Salter is training to return to the QPR team following another injury, but our QPR fan pundit is concerned that his fitness may not last.

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…

Jake Clarke-Salter has been absent from the Queens Park Rangers team since January with a hip injury which required surgery, but the defender has now returned to training and is expected to be back playing in the near future.

QPR have been something of a defensive anomaly so far this season.

They shipped seven goals at Coventry in August, but have remained unbeaten in the League since then, conceding only three goals in the five league games they've played since.

But there has been one small hiccup in his pathway towards returning. Clarke-Salter's rehabilitation towards a return to first-team football saw him put into the QPR development team for a match this week, but the defender had to be withdrawn after just 11 minutes had been played.

And although manager Julien Stephan confirmed afterwards that his withdrawal was only precautionary and that a subsequent scan revealed nothing, there will be concerns it could be further delayed.

With all of this in mind, Football League World has spoken to our Queens Park Rangers fan pundit Louis Moir about this return, and Louis has concerns about this withdrawal, despite the club indicating that Clarke-Salter was okay following tests.

"I was really worried when I saw that he got subbed early on in a development game," Moir began.

"Since then, there's been tests done and he's not actually injured again, but you've got to question what happened there to get subbed off early on in his first game back.

"That's not even competitive football. It was a development team game and my worry is that he could well be back, fit and ready to play, but does he trust his own body now?"

Louis is concerned that news of a further setback for Clarke-Salter means that Rangers could miss out further on a player who could be hugely important to them.

"If he has one more serious injury, he's finished, I think, and it's a real shame because if he just stayed fit like he did - he played 33 games the season before last - and a what difference it makes for us, having a player of his ability in the team.

"That left-sided, left-footed, cultured centre-half, who's good in the air. So it's just that worry about whether he's going to stay fit for a decent amount of time.

He's concerned that setbacks like this, while they could look minor, could be signs of a more serious underlying problem for the player.

"I don't want to say he's not going to, because that's being negative, and you've got to be optimistic with him now being back, but I just question what happened there, getting subbed off.

"There could be something underlying there, and then you could have an issue where he's got something that's really weak, and if he's going straight into competitive Championship action, I'm not sure if it's going to last. I just can't see it."

But it's not all gloom and doom. Louis rates Clarke-Salter extremely highly, and believes that his return to the first-team would be a huge boost for Rangers.

"But fingers crossed he can stay fit, because if he's fit he's arguably the best centre-half at the club, really.

"It's a real, real shame, because the amount of time he's been out, it's going to take a bit of time to get back up to speed and for us it would be a massive, massive boost for the whole squad, and fingers crossed he can stay fit for his own good, because everyone knows he's quality."

That said, though, Louis is realistic enough to know that QPR can't keep a player on their books who's never available for selection because of injury, and that Clarke-Salter now needs to have an extended spell injury-free.

"It's just that worry. There's always that worry in the back of your mind that he's another injury away from being out for months, and if that happens again it's really hard to say that you'd want him staying at the club, because a player like that is so unreliable, but he's back now training and he needs to stay fit."

Jake Clarke-Salter needs an extended injury-free spell to prove himself at QPR again

Clarke-Salter has certainly had a wretched time of things with injuries since he first joined QPR after being released by Chelsea in June 2022.

Since then, injuries to his hamstring, calf and hip have seriously limited his game time for Rangers. He was limited to just 16 appearances in his first season with the club, and although he more than doubled that in 2023-24, with 33 league appearances for them, a hip injury which required surgery has kept him out of the QPR team since January.

In total, he made just 60 appearances for them over his first three seasons at Loftus Road.

Clarke-Salter's stats demonstrate what he means to his team. During the only season in which he was a regular starter for them, 2023-24, he got an average Sofascore rating of 6.91 for his performances, which is impressive.

And left-footed central defenders are a valuable commodity. Clarke-Salter's heatmap shows a player who's comfortable moving forward to support the left side of their midfield, and Julien Stephan's winger-based way of playing makes that positional sense important.

But it's also true to say that there comes a point at which clubs have to be pragmatic over injury-hampered players. Clarke-Salter signed a three-year contract with an option to extend when he joined the club in 2022, which was extended at the end of September 2024, meaning that his QPR contract expires next summer.

His best chance of getting that contract extended will be an extended period when he demonstrates that he's capable of staying injury-free.

He may even find that, were he to be released by QPR next summer, he might find landing his next contract to be difficult, given that he'll be approaching 29 by then, having missed much of the previous four years injured.

As such, it's very much in both the best interests of Jake Clarke-Salter and Queens Park Rangers that, once he's back to full fitness and returned to the first team squad, he has a lengthy period of playing without worrying that further injuries could set him back again.