Meet Taylor Richards
Meet Taylor Richards
How can we get the best out of our new midfielder's potential?
It’s not every day Cambridge United go signing ex-Manchester City players who have been the subject of multi-million pound moves before the age of 19. Granted, a player who never went beyond the youth team, but the point stands.
Taylor Richards has been on quite the journey in his footballing career so far. He arrives as Garry Monk’s fifth summer signing, but when he was the subject of that multi-million pound move and the darling of endless YouTube videos showcasing his precocious talent and exciting skills, he probably wouldn’t have thought his career would have taken this trajectory.
Richards is a 5 foot 11, 23-year-old attacking midfielder who joins the U’s on a season-long loan from QPR, looking to add an extra dimension to our creative midfield department which was desperately lacking last season.
Having written four of these pieces trying to give a bit of an insight into our new arrivals, with views from fans of their former clubs, this one is the toughest yet. There is clear, indisputable quality, made self-evident by his glittering youth career at the highest level, and a highly successful loan move to this very level. But there is also a very chequered recent history, questions of attitude problems, and the check box for any new United signing: injuries.
So, let’s weigh up both sides of his career. On the one hand… Doncaster Rovers.
Richards’ youth career is one that hints towards a player of elite potential. Having joined Manchester City’s academy when he was 14 from Fulham, he then signed for Brighton’s academy for £2.5 million. At 18 years of age.
To go from City, one of the richest clubs in the world with facilities, coaches, and a philosophy that is scientifically engineered to produce world-class footballers, to Brighton, a Category One academy also with state of the art facilities and an ethos of developing and producing home-grown footballers, indicates that there is indisputable raw talent in Richards. It is no accident when those two scouting teams spot you and sign you to their Elite Development Squads.
Once on the fringes of Brighton’s first team, Richards was sent on loan to League One Doncaster Rovers. His time here looks highly successful: 11 goals in 48 games, with 5 assists to boot, for a Donny team that finished a comfortable 14th in League One under Darren Moore.
Daniel Pearson, a Rovers content creator, told us:
Taylor was only 20 years old when he came to Doncaster, but he seemed to instantly thrive in the attacking midfield role under Darren Moore, scoring 11 goals in 48 appearances.
He was surrounded by good quality players and added strength, a bit of flair and power to a team that missed out on the playoffs during that Covid season. However, Darren left part way through the season and it seemed to have a negative impact on Taylor who couldn’t quite get going under Andy Butler in the same way.
He’s a player I’d gladly take back at Doncaster. He’s got a wicked left foot and he can score from range. He’s not all that clever on his right but he’s got the ability to send a defender one way to create a bit of space for himself. I think League One suits him and game time is needed for him to reach his full potential.
You can see the best of him on display here, scoring the third in Doncaster’s 3-1 win.
At that point in his career you’d think, here’s a kid who at 20 years old has been coached by the cream of the crop of youth development coaches that this country has to offer, then he’s gone out on loan and in his first season of men’s professional football he’s scored a double digit haul from midfield… he’s instantly living up to his enormous potential.
But then, on the other hand… QPR.
Even before joining QPR, there’s something that I wish we could brush over. Richards went on a brief loan at Birmingham, especially brief because he quite astonishingly managed to get injured during his medical. He managed to injure his calf during a jumping test, with manager at the time Lee Bowyer saying:
"I have never heard anything like this. The players have done it a thousand times – it's just this season, he did it ten times and then he does it. It's crazy. I have never heard of a player getting injured in the medical."
He did go on to make a handful of appearances for a Birmingham side that also featured Gary Gardner. Eventually, Richards did then go on loan to Queens Park Rangers later that season, a club he described as “home”. Hailing from Shepherd’s Bush himself, he started going to games at Loftus Road at the age of 7. Looking back, it looks like a perfect move - a step up in quality from Doncaster, and the ability to prove himself in the Championship at a club that he feels a genuine affinity to.
But, so far, it hasn’t worked out that way.
I’ll let the W12 Podcast pick up the story from here:
Firstly, I’ll try and be as positive as possible but I apologise now as that is going to be extremely difficult.
He came with a great pedigree and background. Coming through the Man City and Brighton academies is as good as you could hope for in a young signing. Add to that a good loan in League One with Doncaster. Optimism was high, however it just hasn’t worked out for him here so far.
It quickly became apparent he wasn’t up to scratch; lazy, poor attitude and tactically unaware. Which you can stomach if when he got the ball he does something of some significance… which unfortunately has never happened. He hasn’t been helped by all the manager changes but none have taken to him at all. He went missing for months on end, not seen or heard of. Disappeared.
We had to sign him last summer as it was part of the loan deal. Gareth Ainsworth wrote him off after he chickened out of a tackle right in front of him in a pre-season game we lost 5-0. He later said “he was a lost soul”. Marti gave him 20 mins in February in a home game against Plymouth, didn’t like what he saw and he wasn’t seen for the rest of the season. Something has happened behind the scenes or in his personal life but we haven’t had much/any detail. Sorry, I’m doing a terrible job in being positive.
The good news, there is a player in there… somewhere. We have seen small glimpses of him gliding past players. He is a big strong lad with the ability when the ball is at his feet. He has an Ebere Eze look and domineer about him. But it’s whether he can get his head down, concentrate on football and get some minutes in him. Being out of London might help, albeit not far away. His best position is on the left cutting in but a number 10 role would suit him too.
It’s a low risk, high reward loan for you guys. From what we hear it’s a small contribution to his wage and there is a January send back, if required. Hope it works out and he can come back and start again with us.
Loft For Words, a QPR fanzine, add their thoughts:
It’s a really difficult one to write. Like your mum always said, if you can’t say anything nice…
The positives are somebody who came through Man City’s academy, got bought for big money by Brighton, two of the smartest clubs in the world, must have plenty of ability in there somewhere. At League One level, surely he’ll be able to shine. He did well previously on loan at Doncaster. If you can find a clip of his 20 minute cameo against Huddersfield the season before last he looked the part there.
The mitigation is the manager who brought him to QPR, Mick Beale, walked out on us almost immediately and we’ve since rattled through three more bosses of wildly differing styles and philosophies – Taylor Richards fits a Mick Beale philosophy and team, he doesn’t Neil Critchley and he certainly doesn’t Gareth Ainsworth. This is a frequent problem at QPR that has ensnared not only Richards. His best friend was killed shortly after he arrived here as well. Probably the most neutral way I can put it is he’s had a lot going on, and a lot to deal with behind the scenes.
The negatives are too plentiful to list in their entirety. If Brighton, one of the smartest clubs in the world, are willing to loan you a player with a fixed fee at the end of it that should tell you they don’t expect him to do very well. He looks overweight to me. Constantly ‘injured’ – this a guy who injured himself during his Birmingham City medical. His arsedness on a scale of one to ten fails to trouble the scorers. We had an incident at Rotherham the season before last where they were attacking 2v2 down his side and in the middle of the passage of play he stopped, bent over and started doing his shoes up while the full back ran past him into a 2v1 with Aaron Drewe. Ainsworth actually brought him back into the fold last summer for pre-season and by the manager’s own admission he “tossed off” the game we played in Austria, and then his display in a 5-0 loss at Oxford was so horrendous he was removed from the squad once more. Cifuentes didn’t even include him in his 25-man squad for the second half of the season.
His attitude, in general, across his time here, has been appalling. We’re constantly torn at QPR between trying to sympathise with somebody who may be wracked by grief for his friend – people stuck the boot into Dele Alli, then you find out what was going on in his life - and getting a bit pissed off that somebody who will be a high earner, who we spent what little money we have getting here, seems content to spend his Saturdays living the Instagram footballer lifestyle with all his hanger on mates instead of playing for us. Three different QPR managers have now quickly decided they want nothing at all to do with him.
Good luck. He was linked with Morecambe last week and I was quite keen on that idea – get him as far away from London as possible. This feels a little bit too close to me but, hey, could be mutually beneficial in that you get a player who should never be at League One level in the first place and we finally kick start what so far has been a disastrous investment.
The attitude problem is the first thing that stands out from both reviews. As mentioned a couple of times, from what we’ve read Richards lost his best friend at some point in the last two years, and it hugely affected him - understandably. Couple that with managers who he doesn’t want to play for and who aren’t interested in a player of his profile, a total lack of form, injury setbacks, and you can see how quickly that might spiral.
So, it’s very hard to figure out what sort of Taylor Richards we’re going to get. If we get the City academy graduate, teenage starlet who was mentored by Paul Pogba then we will have ourselves a highly impactful and exciting player. If we get the sulky, negative, uncommitted player that Rangers fans have clearly seen, he’ll be heading back to W12 before he’s finished eating his pigs in blankets at Christmas.
Its good that due to his recent performances, or lack of them, we would have probably got a very low risk deal over the line. QPR will just want to try and recoup some investment, whether in game time for themselves or in an eventual sale, but both are dependent on him rediscovering himself as a footballer.
The crux is whether he can rediscover his mojo and his love of playing the game. It would be interesting to see him given a free role in attacking areas - playing ahead of a more solid midfield duo like Smith and Gardner, and behind a number 9 and either Lavery or Kachunga next to him, it feels like we’ll get the best out of him if we allow him the luxury of being undisciplined defensively and task him solely with making something happen with the ball.
The comparison to Eze above is certainly exciting, but now it comes down to Monk and his team to get the best out of a guy whose ceiling could potentially make a mockery of League One defenders.