At least there is one bright light in what has been a gloomy couple of games for Queens Park Rangers.
And let’s face it, we need all the bright spots we can get right now. I’m talking of course about Conor Masterson. The young defender has slowly made the centre-half spot his own, placing in the top three performers on average in defence this season according to WhoScored.com.
And it looks like his time in the first team is set to continue for the time being despite the goals that the team have been shipping. Speaking after the defeat to Blackburn, QPR boss Mark Warburton mentioned that he is in the team on merit, but that his place as a starter isn’t necessarily assured:
“You have to look after young players. They come in, they have that initial adrenaline burst and they do really well but young players need to be managed appropriately. A lot of thought goes into it by myself, John Eustace and the staff into how best to use them. All credit to Conor because he is doing exceptionally well – I wouldn’t pick him otherwise. I am picking him because he deserves to be picked.”
This is part of the risk that I talked about when Warburton made the call to keep him in the squad rather than send him out on loan, that he needed to make sure that he made the right call and that he had to commit to it one way or the other.
Now though it sounds like he’s having second thoughts about it, that’s why he’s talking about ‘managing him appropriately’, which to me sounds like he is going to take him out of the firing line and put some more experienced players in.
I don’t think that would be the right way to go about it though, now that he has made the decision to stick with him, and with Toni Leistner seemingly on his way out, we have reached a point of no return when it comes to Masterson.
Will Masterson be a first-team regular for the rest of the season?
Yes
No
Call it tough love if you will, but we can’t be mollycoddling him at this stage. He needs to go through this stuff to grow as a footballer, and he’ll come out much better for it on the other side if we stick to it rather than pushing him onto the bench.
