QPR were true to their promise in the transfer window.
Once bitten, although once is pushing it, twice shy was something of a mantra as they refused to pay out big bucks.
The temptation was great. A month’s groundwork went into the proposed transfer of £7m rated Ishak Belfodil. But the Serie A striker’s people and clubs, he is jointly owned, pushed their luck as Harry Redknapp suggested.
“They couldn’t agree on the way we wanted to structure. We’re in the Championship – we’re not prepared to splash silly money,” was how the boss dismissed the failed deal.
Wouldst it was the same in the past.
Rewind 12 months and 12 months before that, and QPR were left with not so much an account in the red, but something closer to purple as the spending totted up.
In fact, it says something for Rangers nerve that with the carrot of Premier League football a bite away, they held out for a clutch of loans and short-term deals.
Kevin Doyle and Modibo Maiga hit the ground running, and the other three may follow suit.
But if not, then at least Rangers won’t rue another January that left them financially cold.
Not so at Fulham, perhaps.
They really are going for broke. That minimum £60m just for staying in the Premier League is slipping like sand though desperate fingers, and £11m for Konstantinos Mitroglou is a gamble in anybody’s book.
The striker hit 14 goals in 10 Greek Super League games, although what’s super about it I’d like to know.
The Premier League is another matter, as many imports have discovered to their clubs’ cost.
If he fails to hit the target on a regular basis, Mitroglou will be as much the baddie as Basil Rathbone's character in the Robin Hood classic he resembles.
He hasn’t been to Doncaster on a Tuesday night in February, but he might get to compare Cup loss and Keepmoat next season.
