Nigel Reo-Coker has been playing in Canada for over a year and not, as had been widely assumed, for Queens Park Rangers.
Rangers fans have reacted with surprise to the news that the gifted but inconsistent Reo-Coker is not a member of their squad, unlike the gifted but inconsistent Yossi Benayoun, the gifted but inconsistent Shaun Wright-Phillips, and the gifted but inconsistent Ravel Morrison.
“He’s a midfielder, he’s not quite done it at the top level and he’s been accused of having an attitude, so I naturally assumed he played for us,” said QPR fan Damian Di Marchi. “I can’t quite believe he’s not made a few nondescript cup appearances before picking up an injury that keeps him out of the team for a few months.
“Was I thinking of Jermaine Jenas? Junior Hoilett? Jamie O’Hara? Does Jamie O’Hara even play for us? I don’t know what to think any more. Maybe I was thinking of the gifted but inconsistent Niko Kranjcar.”
Having previously played for a litany of mediocre Premier League sides and England U21s, it was considered inevitable that Reo-Coker would be signed by Harry Redknapp’s promotion-chasers, including by Reo-Coker himself.
“I often assume I’m a QPR player,” he told FourFourTwo. “It would make a lot of sense for me to have a squad number in the high 30s and spend most of my time hanging around the treatment room with Armand Traoré and Bobby Zamora, but I’ve somehow ended up in Vancouver instead.
“My team-mates here include Kenny Miller and Andy O’Brien, who both sometimes think they must play for QPR as well, which helps me feel at home.”
In other QPR news, Luke Young faces a struggle to persuade the club he still plays for them, after everyone assumed he’d just wandered off on loan to somewhere like Doncaster by now.
