Premier League outfit Newcastle United reportedly want to sign Queens Park Rangers’ Championship starlet Ryan Manning in a bargain £3m deal.
While all eyes are firmly fixed on the elusive brilliance of Eberechi Eze, Ryan Manning has flown under the radar somewhat during an impressive start to the season for Queens Park Rangers.
But anyone who has watched the Galway-born 23-year-old rise through the ranks at Loftus Road will tell you that Manning was always destined to establish himself as a key player in the blue and white hoops.
Manning has been a revelation since being transformed from a tenacious midfielder into a barnstorming left-back by QPR coach Mark Warburton while the Northern Echo claim that Newcastle United are eyeing a £3 million January deal for one of the second-tier’s most underrated performers.
So it remains a mystery why Steve McClaren barely gave Manning the time of day during his ill-fated 11 month spell at West London last season.
The former Newcastle coach loaned the Republic of Ireland U21 star to Championship rivals Rotherham United during the first half of 2018/19 and, even after Manning returned to Loftus Road in January, he played just 47 minutes of football in three months before McClaren was sacked.
“Ryan is a player that I really like,” McClaren had claimed to Football London. “In the first two weeks of pre-season I said to Les (Ferdinand) ‘wow, he’s a good player’.”
If that’s how McClaren treats people he likes, we dread to think how he deals with his enemies.
And with McClaren’s nightmare stint as Newcastle manager still fresh in the memory of every traumatised soul on Tyneside, it will come as no surprise to Magpies fans everywhere that Manning’s potential went right over the 58-year-old’s head.
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