Former Fleetwood Town loanee Jimmy Dunne was stretchered off the field this afternoon for Queens Park Rangers with what has been reported as a ‘serious’ injury, according to West London Sport.
The Championship outfit are facing Oxford United in a pre-season friendly and are currently losing 1-0 thanks to a goal from ex-Liverpool academy graduate Cameron Brannagan.
The Irish central defender Dunne was involved in a collision early into proceedings and seemed to be in quite a lot of distress with his shoulder, although no official statement from the club has been made about the precise nature of his injury.
Nevertheless, Dunne was stretchered off and was replaced by Trent Rendall, adding to Gareth Ainsworth’s personnel problems at the back, with Jake Clarke-Salter still sidelined and both Leon Balogun and Rob Dickie having left the club this summer.
Season kicking off in a week
The damage of Dunne’s injury is still unknown but being stretchered off is never a good sign. The ex-Premier League defender could miss the first few weeks and potentially months of the season, particularly if the defender dislocated his shoulder.
Rangers have made five signings this summer but not a single centre-back has been added to the squad, with Dickie, Balogun and Conor Masterson heading in the opposite direction.
With the Championship campaign kicking off in just seven days, QPR may be forced to scramble to sign a last-minute stop-gap while Clarke-Salter recovers.
Writer’s View
It’s the worst possible news for QPR fans. The former Premier League side have earned a reputation since last season of having quite an injury-riddled squad and now news of Dunne being stretchered off adds insult to injury – no pun intended!
QPR’s hierarchy will need to get their fingers out and begin working on signing a centre-back to try and avoid starting the season without a central defender.
