Championship side Bristol City are in talks with Queens Park Rangers over the availability of former Lincoln City defender Rob Dickie, according to Football Insider.
Dickie, who previously made 23 appearances for the Imps back in the 2017/18 season whilst on loan from Reading, is of interest to the Ashton Gate outfit, with Bristol City in the market for a new central defender this summer.
QPR, who finished last season 20th in the Championship, may be willing to cash in on the centre-back in the upcoming transfer window, with the 27-year-old’s contract set to enter the final year at Loftus Road with a risk he could leave for free next summer.
🚨 EXCLUSIVE! 🚨 – Bristol City open talks to sign QPR defender Rob Dickie. 💬
✍: @SportsPeteO#BristolCity
Full story 👇— Football Insider (@footyinsider247) June 2, 2023
Who is Rob Dickie?
On the books of Reading since he was eight years old, Rob Dickie progressed through the youth ranks at the club before signing his first professional contract with the Royals in July 2014.
Dickie would only make one appearance in total for Reading in which during his time at the club, the defender went out on loan at the likes of Basingstoke Town and Cheltenham Town in a search for regular playing time.
His third and final loan spell whilst contracted with Reading would see the defender sign for Lincoln City for the first half of the 2017/18 season, in which he made a total of 23 appearances at Sincil Bank before he returned to the Royals in early January.
His return to Reading wasn’t a long one as in early January 2018, the 27-year-old would leave the club on a permanent basis to sign for Oxford United, penning a two-and-a-half-year deal. During his time at the Kassam Stadium, Dickie played 113 times for the club in total over a two-and-a-half-year spell, before being snapped up by Championship outfit Queens Park Rangers in early September 2020.
To date, the defender has appeared 129 times for the R’s during his spell at the club, scoring a total of eight goals as he has gone on to be a regular in the QPR defence ever since making the move to Loftus Road.
Writer’s View
Despite being a part of a QPR side which were recently on the verge of dropping out of the Championship and has struggled for some time now, Rob Dickie has been one of the most important players at the club with continuous excellent performances that have rarely gone unnoticed.
Bristol City are in the market for a central defender this summer and if they were to acquire the services of the 27-year-old, I think it would be a very good signing as on his day, he is one of the best defenders in the whole division.
Dickie is one of those signings as well which I also feel suits the direction of what Bristol City and Nigel Pearson want to try and do and how they want to play football. With Dickie a defender that’s good in the air, good into tackles and good with playing the ball out, if Bristol City were to complete the signing, I think it would be a very shrewd piece of business.
