£9m QPR investment was a Loftus Road miss – It looked so exciting on paper | OneFootball

Queens Park Rangers failed with the £9 million signing of Real Madrid midfielder Esteban Granero in the summer of 2012.

Queens Park Rangers were often the story of the summer transfer window during their early-to-mid-2010’s as they pulled off ambitious and big money signings with a fair bit of regularity, albeit they often didn’t work out.

One such signing was not necessarily one that involved a player with an extremely high profile in England, such as Julio Cesar in 2012 or Rio Ferdinand in 2015, but still a player with immense pedigree that should have been able to succeed, but perhaps more so because of the way in which QPR operated, and that was Esteban Granero.

Constantly attracting the headlines, QPR managed to get themselves promoted to the Premier League in 2011, and they tried to go big before the close of the window, following the takeover of the club by Tony Fernandes.

Following Fernandes’ arrival, QPR brought in Joey Barton, Luke Young, Armand Traore, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Anton Ferdinand and Jason Puncheon in a flurry of late summer additions; all arriving at Loftus Road in just over a week. January saw a continuation of that scatter-gun approach with the arrival of Djibril Cissé headlining their activity.

Having survived on the final day of the campaign in fortunate circumstances, QPR appeared to have learned no lessons at all and continued to splurge on recognisable players that were destined to underwhelm due to the haphazard nature of QPR’s recruitment and overall structure.

Experienced players such as Rob Green, Ryan Nelsen and Andy Johnson were first to arrive alongside Samba Diakite, joining on a permanent deal after a loan stint and Manchester United defender Fabio, signing on loan.

The summer splurge continued with Park Ji-sung being brought in from United alongside Blackburn Rovers attacker Junior Hoilett and then Jose Bosingwa arrived about ten days or so before the signing of Julio Cesar.

QPR became renowned for their ‘deadline day’ business, but only one man had joined, Stephane Mbia from Olympique de Marseille, because the supposedly stellar piece of incoming business done late in the window for the R’s had come the day before with Granero, but it was not to be for the Spaniard.

Esteban Granero was a major flop for QPR

Having arrived from Real Madrid for a fee believed to be in the region of £9 million, Esteban Granero arrived with the expectation of being the absolutely essential key man for a QPR side seeking to now push themselves up the Premier League table.

However, with Mark Hughes at the helm, QPR and Granero majorly struggled, with the Hoops going winless in their opening 16 matches of the campaign, and Hughes left in mid-November to be replaced by Harry Redknapp.

Known for his touch and technical skill, Granero arrived in West London having gone through the ranks with Real Madrid C and Real Madrid B before establishing himself in La Liga with Getafe.

His form at Getafe was so impressive that he earned a move back to Los Blancos in the famous summer of 2009, as Madrid rebuilt their so-called ‘Galacticos’ project with returning president Florentino Perez at the helm. Granero re-joined in the same window that saw Madrid sign Antonio Adan, Raul Albiol, Ezequiel Garay, Alvaro Arbeloa, Xabi Alonso, Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo, Alvaro Negredo and Karim Benzema.

To a much, much lesser degree, there were similarities to the Real Madrid window of 2009 and QPR’s of 2012; a focus on signing names that didn’t necessarily make sense in terms of building squad cohesion. They both appeared brilliant on paper but, again, to very different extents, didn’t really deliver on the pitch.

Granero had been a highly-rated and sought-after midfielder, hence the hefty fee that QPR shelled out for him, and he did begin with real signs of promise.

He started just a couple of days after his arrival, given no real time to acclimatise or settle in but he did on to play 90 minutes in a defeat to Manchester City, with three tough first starts against City, Chelsea and then Tottenham Hotspur.

The Spaniard came to life, though, when Hughes opted to shift him out-wide, rather than from play in his preferred central position, and he scored whilst producing an assist as QPR suffered a hard-fought 3-2 defeat to West Bromwich Albion.

Once moved back into the middle, though, Granero struggled again and by the time Redknapp had arrived, it appeared inevitable he would no longer be the guaranteed starter that he had signed as.

In fact, having started and played reasonably well, albeit generally without much incision as a number ten against Sunderland in a goalless draw in Redknapp’s first game in charge, he went on to make just 12 more appearances for QPR that season, with a hamstring injury ruling him out of two matches but Redknapp opting to keep him as an unused substitute on ten occasions instead.

A club like Swansea would have been better suited to Esteban Granero

On the opening day of the 2012/13 campaign, a couple of weeks before Granero arrived in England, QPR started their season for a second successive campaign after a 4-0 loss at home to Bolton Wanderers the previous year, with a heavy home defeat.

QPR were hammered 5-0 by Swansea City, who were under the management of Michael Laudrup, and had become lauded for their so-called ‘Swansalona’ style of football, which had continued to evolve that summer.

Spaniards Chico Flores, Pablo Hernandez and Michu arrived alongside Villarreal loanee Jonathan de Guzman to go with Angel Rangel and the already Spanish-like possession-based style of football that had seen them thrive, and would eventually see them win the League Cup that season.

QPR were a team that had thrown money around for around 12 months or so and had managed to survive the previous season due to the haplessness of Bolton, Blackburn Rovers and Wolverhampton Wanderers, rather than anything to do with their own strategic genius.

The Hoops were circling the drain quickly and, with the still prosaic coaching methods and ideas of Hughes, followed by Redknapp, indulging a creative, technically gifted Spanish midfielder was not something that would ever be likely to happen at Loftus Road.

Esteban Granero went on to continue an excellent career in La Liga but will be aware that his one move to the Premier League was very much to the wrong club and had he been paying attention a couple of weeks earlier when Swansea, a team far more suited to his style, had dismantled them, he would avoid the ignominy of beginning the following season in the Championship before a move to Real Sociedad.

However, his apparent planning and foresight appears to have been as thorough as QPR’s squad building, which led to them suffering two Premier League relegations in three seasons, and they haven’t been back in the top-flight since.