Queens Park Rangers will be looking to strengthen their squad ahead of the 2025-26 Championship season following QPR’s 15th place finish in England’s 2nd tier in the 2025-25 campaign.
With an 11th season in the Championship also set to get underway at the start of August for the London side, they will be looking to build a squad that is good enough to push them higher up the table and closer to the elusive play-off and automatic promotion spots at the top of the table.
To do this, changes within the playing squad may need to made such as bringing new, more improved players in whilst selling on other players who are currently in the Queens Park Rangers squad.
However, news that midfielder Jonathan Varane has attracted interest from European sides in both Spain and Türkiye including Espanyol who have been reported to have submitted a £4 million bid to the Loftus Road outfit – which is set to be rejected.
Who Is Jonathan Varane?
For readers who are not necessarily big fans of the Championship or of Queens Park Rangers specifically, you may not have heard of Jonathan Varane before which probes the question, who is he?
Well, the Martinique midfielder is one of QPR’s starting players and primarily plays in a defensive midfielder role although can also play in a more central midfield role if needed.
The 23 year old joined QPR last summer following a spell with LaLiga2 side Sporting Gijon in which he played 43 games. The side went onto to finish midtable in the Spanish second division this season although finished 5th during the season in which Varane was at the club.
Varane’s Career Path –
- Queens Park Rangers – August 2024 – Present
-
Sporting Gijon – January 2023 – August 2024
-
Sporting Gijon B – July 2022 – January 2023
- Rodez (Loan Spell) – January 2022 – June 2022
- Rodez Aveyron Football II (Loan Spell) – January 2022 – June 2022
- Lens – April 2021 – January 2022
- Lens B – July 2020 – January 2022
What Does The QPR Man Offer?
Varane’s performances this season can help to give us an insight into his key strengths and weaknesses.
From these statistics, we can see that defending is one of the 23 year old’s key strengths with the midfielder winning 41 tackles across the course of his Championship campaign.
Furthermore, with the former Lens man winning 62% of his duels and 64.9% of his aerial duels, we can see that the midfielder is good with one on one situations. As well as this, with the QPR man making 46 interceptions, it can be said that he is good at reading the play and benefits from this greatly.
However, there are areas where Varane is not so strong. One of these falls in his discipline with the midfielder picking up 8 yellow cards and 1 red card during the course of the season. This can cause him to be unavailable during times of a campaign.
As well as this, his shooting statistics are another one of his weaknesses with the 23 year old scoring 0 goals during the course of the campaign whilst also attempting just 20 goals. However, due to his defensive nature as a midfielder, this weakness arguably is understandable as he is more focused on defending instead of attacking.
How Would QPR Replace Him?
If Varane was to leave the club, he would leave a hole in the heart of the Loftus Road outfit’s line-up. However, to replace him, the Championship side would have to look for someone with potential who is good at defending but who also has the ability to offer more than the 23 year old going forward.
Will Varane Leave?
With this move swirling in the transfer rumour world, it probes a really important question. Will this move happen and if it does, for how much? Only time will tell in that matter.