QPR dodged one ex-Chelsea transfer bullet – but West Brom didn’t | OneFootball

QPR will feel relieved they missed out on Nicolas Anelka to West Brom, who gave the Baggies a headache during his time at The Hawthorns.

During the 2012-13 campaign, Queens Park Rangers were looking to consolidate their place in the Premier League after narrowly avoiding relegation under Mark Hughes.

The R’s had secured a 17th-placed finish on their return to the big time, and in their quest to become top-flight regulars, showed intent by looking to spend big and target some ambitious arrivals.

QPR eventually were under the guidance of experienced boss Harry Redknapp from November 2012 onward, and were forced into bolstering the squad in the January transfer window as they were odds-on favourites to suffer relegation.

In the end, it would count for nothing, with the West London outfit finishing the campaign at the foot of the table and resigned to Championship football, with the R’s unable to replicate the success of their first season back in the Premier League.

One of the names the R’s were linked with at the time was Nicolas Anelka. The former Chelsea frontman departed Stamford Bridge and was in a malaise, moving to Chinese outfit Shanghai Shenhua in 2012 but netting just three times in 22 appearances, while he spent the rest of 2013 on loan at Juventus, but played a measly two games.

Seeking a return to the Premier League, it looked as though QPR were going to hand him the route, but it never materialised, with West Brom, instead, landing the forward, who would go on to have a short and controversial time at The Hawthorns - something QPR will be glad they managed to avoid.

QPR interest in Nicolas Anelka and controversial West Brom stint

As QPR looked to go all out to save their Premier League skins, the R’s were linked with making moves for some big names in the game.

While it was ambitious, it was their only hope to remain in the top-flight as they continued to struggle under Harry Redknapp, and the Metro’s Jamie Sanderson detailed some of QPR’s targets.

The report outlined the Hoops were showing interest in Mohamed Diame, Robbie Keane, Tim Cahill, Yann M’Vila and Loic Remy at the time, while Nicolas Anelka was another name on the list who was desperate to return to England’s top division.

However, the deal couldn’t get over the line, and West Brom stepped in to lure Anelka to The Hawthorns instead, with the former Arsenal and Bolton Wanderers man joining on a free transfer following his exit from China.

But after the way Anelka’s spell unfolded at Albion, QPR will have breathed a mighty sigh of relief that they missed out on someone who was so disruptive.

Anelka was keen to make West Brom his sixth and final Premier League club before retiring, but just one month in, reports began to circulate regarding his behaviour.

In August 2013, reports emerged that Anelka had walked out of a training session, telling staff he was leaving the club. The reports were swiftly denied by Albion, who revealed that Anelka would miss one match through compassionate leave following the death of his agent.

It would take the forward until late December to grab his first goals for the club with a brace in their 3-3 draw with West Ham - coinciding with his first appearance for the club in almost two-and-a-half months.

After his goal, he performed a quenelle, a hand gesture popularized by his comedian friend Dieudonné, and described by some critics as an inverted Nazi salute.

Two months later, an FA disciplinary hearing banned Anelka for five matches, fined him £80,000 and ordered him to complete an educational course, while the forward admitted in 2020 during his Netflix documentary ‘Anelka: Misunderstood’ that the gesture was in protest to then manager Steve Clarke.

Later in March of that year, Anelka had communicated on social media that he was leaving West Brom with “immediate effect", after failing to reconcile his differences with Albion over the gesture.

In turn, Albion elected to sack Anelka for his gesture and social media outburst, bringing a problematic 12-game spell in the Black Country to an end.

It was a short stint that did no favours for either the player or the club, with Anelka showing himself to be consistently argumentative, while the Baggies had the difficult task of managing all of his antics, before finally pulling the plug due to such unprofessionalism.

Nicolas Anelka was a player QPR didn’t need in a difficult period

Queens Park Rangers were already going through enough problems being stuck at the bottom of the Premier League table and staring Championship football in the face, so avoiding someone like Nicolas Anelka would have been a small comfort.

Anelka was clearly past his best on the pitch after leaving Chelsea, with just four goals in two seasons before his West Brom switch backing that up, but his outlandish conduct on top gave clubs headaches in how to deal with him.

For QPR, Anelka would have surely caused further unrest to an already flat QPR squad who were struggling so badly in the top-flight, and it’s likely the way Anelka’s stint at West Brom would have unfolded a similar way at Loftus Road, which would really have typified their woes.

Although it won’t be much of a positive, the R’s at least avoided the saga of having someone so unprofessional on their books, while he would have taken up a sizeable chunk of their wage budget for very little return.