When Queens Park Rangers stumbled upon a huge Danish striker with international experience in 2005, they thought they had found the summer’s best deal. However, despite a promising beginning, things did not go as planned.
Queens Park Rangers were back in the Championship in the summer of 2005, after being demoted in 2001 and requiring three years to recover. Ian Holloway guided them back as third-tier runners-up to Plymouth Argyle in 2004 and consolidated their position in the table to 11th.
Marc Nygaard looked like a good bet. He was experienced, having previously played in Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy, and he was an international who had scored the winning goal for his country against Denmark on his debut against Germany five years ago.
Nygaard starts strongly as Queens Park Rangers struggle.
Nygaard’s first season with his new team was a disaster, but it was a rather successful one for him personally. Rangers struggled throughout the season, finally finishing 21st in the Championship, but Nygaard performed admirably, finishing as the club’s joint top scorer with midfielder Gareth Ainsworth with nine goals in all competitions, although playing 13 less League games than Ainsworth.
He stood 6’5″ tall and had a commanding presence up front. He appeared to be comfortable in the air as well as with the ball at his feet. But Holloway had suffered for Leicester’s continued interest in him by being placed on gardening leave in February 2006 and replaced by Garry Waddock, who was handed the post on a permanent basis in June, when Holloway was finally fired.
It all begins to go awry for Nygaard at Loftus Road.
Nygaard would quickly fall out of favour at Loftus Road. A bad start to the 2006/07 season led to Waddock’s dismissal and replacement by John Gregory, while Nygaard’s run of good form came to an abrupt halt. Throughout the season, he made only 17 appearances and scored three goals.
Furthermore, by this point, he was becoming somewhat of a laughing stock among the club’s long-suffering fans. Nygaard was notably characterised by fan blog Loft For Words as having “broke character and turned into a world-beating centre forward for the afternoon” after putting in a fantastic performance for Rangers and scoring twice in a 3-1 win at Leicester in March 2007. Rangers ended the season in 18th place in the Championship.
Things did not improve the following season. Gregory was fired after failing to win any of their first seven league games of the season, and he was replaced four weeks later by Luigo di Canio, the club’s first overseas manager.
During that three-week vacation, Nygaard scored what would be his final goal for the club. With Patrick Agyemang, Rowan Vine, and Dexter Blackstock all preferred, and injuries impeding his growth, Nygaard began to slide down the bench. He made 17 appearances for them throughout the season before being released in January 2008.
Nygaard returned to Denmark and played with Randers FC until he retired in 2014 at the age of 37. Throughout his three seasons at Loftus Road, injuries hampered him. Perhaps if he’d had greater luck with those, things could have turned out better for both him and the club. But he didn’t, and while QPR has played three seasons of Premier League football since his departure, they’ve been in the Championship for a decade and show little promise of returning.
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