Kieron Dyer handed QPR contract extension despite season on sidelines

Posted Tuesday, May 22, 2012 by theguardian.com

Queens Park Rangers have handed Kieron Dyer a one-year contract extension despite the midfielder missing all of last season through injury.

The former England player broke a foot during the first few minutes of QPR's opening-day defeat to Bolton Wanderers last August, and did not play again. However the manager, Mark Hughes, has decided to give the 33-year-old another chance as he builds for another campaign in the Premier League.

The defender Clint Hill, the midfielder Akos Buzsaky and the goalkeeper Radek Cerny have all been offered new contracts, but Danny Gabbidon, Danny Shittu, Fitz Hall, Gary Borrowdale, Peter Ramage, Lee Cook, Rowan Vine and Patrick Agyemang are all set to leave when their deals expire at the end of June as the club look to slash a sizeable wage bill.

QPR avoided relegation on the final day of the season despite losing in dramatic fashion at the Etihad Stadium as Manchester City were crowned champions. The chairman, Tony Fernandes, who replaced Neil Warnock with Hughes in January, believes they can now take full advantage of their narrow escape.

"I feel confident that Mark is potentially the man who could take QPR into another era, a stable era, where we become an established Premier League club," Fernandes told London 24. "Mark is immensely impressive. He has got a great personality, is very ambitious, down to earth, has his ego in check and he knows his stuff.

"He was a player in the Premier League for a long time so he has competed at the highest levels. Every club he has been to he has excelled at. I want to be a club like Arsenal or Manchester United, who have had the same manager for a long time, and West Ham as well, when John Lyall and Ron Greenwood were there.

"Stability is important. You can't build anything without that. You can't do things if you don't have time. I am not saying we want to be champions tomorrow, Europe or whatever, but I think the next stage is for us to be a club which will remain in the Premier League for a long time."

Rangers have plans for a state-of-the-art training facility and are keen to explore stadium options, with Loftus Road having a restrictive capacity of just over 18,000.

Fernandes, who is also the chief executive of Air Asia, said: "People might ask how we would fill a 40,000-seater stadium, but I built an airline from a few hundred thousand passengers and now we have 32 million. Build it right, market it right, and people will come. We are in the best city in the world, and in the best part of London."