Queens Park Rangers Story: August

As August came upon me, I knew that I needed to get rid of some more deadwood. 5 players were either sold, sent out on loan, or released within a fortnight of the August transfer window. Varying amounts of money were involved, and I was very happy at the end to see who I had shipped out. These were:

Mikele Leigertwood (DMC, MC) - Reading - £575k
Patrick Agyemang (ST) - *Released*
Hogan Ephraim (AMR, AML) - Colchester - *Loan*
Angelo Balanta (ST) - Blackburn - £6.25m
Niki-Lee Bulmer (GK) - *Released*

All in all, pretty good business I think, with Ephraim having a future fee of £750k and Angelo Balanta's transfer fee possibly going up to £8m. I didn't want to sell Balanta as he was a real talent, and could aid me in my push for the playoffs, but the amount of money involved was too good to resist. With that money, and the £2m left over from July, I decided to start looking for some strikers. With my 4-2-2-2 tactics, I obviously could not survive on a single good striker (Rowan Vine), so I set about using my money for a good cause - our strike force! I snapped up Kevin Doyle from Reading for £6.5m, taking out a big chunk of my transfer budget and a bigger one out of my wage budget. I adjusted the budgets so I had enough for wages, but it ended up as only a £1m budget for transfers. After a lot of scout reports and searches, I finally found a good free striker, who was not too old (31). The name? Sebastian Abreu, a skillful Uruguayan. After I bought him, his value was set as a measly £50k, but as soon as he started playing, my doubts vanished as I saw him grab 3 assists in his first 2 games for the club!

While the wheeling and dealing were being finalised, we had some key games coming up - the start of the Championship colliding with the first rounds of the League Cup. Here are the results of the games in August:

Crystal Palace 1-2 Queens Park Rangers (CCC)
Hereford 1-2 Queens Park Rangers (LC)
Queens Park Rangers 1-1 Coventry (CCC)
Bristol City 2-1 Queens Park Rangers (CCC)
Queens Park Rangers 5-2 Doncaster Rovers (LC)
Queens Park Rangers 2-1 Nottingham Forest (CCC)

So far so good for the Rangers, mostly close games ending in a victory for us, but the Coventry and Bristol City games were disappointing, especially as we dominated both games. August buys Kevin Doyle and Sebastian Abreu arrived at the club just before the Doncaster match, with Doyle grabbing a brace in the game. He also scored 1 in the Forest game, with Abreu setting up all 3. Could this be the start of a terrific partnership? God, I hope so! September coming up soon, thanks for reading!