Catch 22 is required reading at Loftus Road this week.

QPR need new players this January, but no one is selling at sensible prices I’m told on the grapevine.

Do Rangers go down the well travelled road of paying top dollar as they have in the past, or do they gamble on sticking with what they’ve got and hope?

Rangers chiefs feel they have been done over in the past by new acquisitions and are now wary. They have already sent out a message they will no longer to be taken for a ride, despite the accumulated wealth of the board.

For all that, they desperately need a new striker.

Charlie Austin scored a brace to sink Huddersfield on Saturday and his 14 goals in total is more than the next eight in Hoops put together.

Queens Park Rangers v Huddersfield Town - Sky Bet Football League Championship
Goal machine: Charlie Austin has netted 14 times in 27 games

Ishak Belfodil might be the answer, but Rangers want the Inter Milan striker on loan – Parma are also co-owners and want to sell him for £7million.

Yikes! £7m for an unproven 21-year-old from Serie A? It smacks of past mistakes waiting to happen. Chris Samba at £12m was to be last year’s saviour, only for the giant defender to arrive unfit and out of form. At the time, he looked a sure-fire thing.

There is also the not-so-small matter of a new right-back.

Before the FA Cup tie at Everton, Harry Redknapp said out loud he was resting the hard-worked Danny Simpson, only to discover he couldn’t, because the manager has no one else.

That’s another accident waiting to happen. Burn out or a battering waits in the wings to put a full-stop to a player ever-present in all 29 games so far.

But even if I could touch wood and type at the same time, Rangers will need to either get super lucky in the loan market or prepare to shell out more cash. It's deja vu with an amber warning.