Queens Park Rangers manager Steve McClaren named his 28-man squad for our pre-season training camp out in Portugal yesterday and one clear omission was goalkeeper Alex Smithies.
The squad headed out yesterday afternoon for a week-long stay at the Cascade Wellness & Lifestyle Resort in Lagos.
Goalkeepers:
Matt Ingram, Joe Lumley, Seny Dieng.
Defenders:
Darnell Furlong, Osman Kakay, Alex Baptiste, Grant Hall, Giles Phillips, Joel Lynch, Jake Bidwell, Niko Hamalainen.
Midfielders:
Josh Scowen, Sean Goss, Ilias Chair, Luke Freeman, Ebere Eze, Jordan Cousins, Charlie Owens, Ryan Manning.
Forwards:
Paul Smyth, Pawel Wszolek, Bright Osayi-Samuel, Olamide Shodipo, David Wheeler, Idrissa Sylla, Conor Washington, Matt Smith, Aramide Oteh.
As the club confirmed that Smithies would be missing, it wasn’t long before the rumour mill was dominated by stories linking him with a switch to Cardiff City. Sky Sports suggested that talks were at an advanced stage and that he was actually in Cardiff for a medial on Wednesday afternoon.
Writing this as a mini recap to start Thursday morning, I now find out if the deal has been announced before this piece goes live!
Sky said they had been told that a fee of around £4million had been agreed between the clubs for the goalkeeper and I guess many will think if that fee is accurate we probably should’ve held out for a bit more. Especially as the 28-year-old former England Under 19 international hadn’t long ago signed a new three-year deal with us.
