QPR v Leicester City in the Championship this weekend takes place on Saturday. At 3pm. Wonders never cease.
Npower Championship >>> Saturday March 5 >>> Kick off 3pm >>> Loftus Road, London, W12
There’s something very reassuring about being known in a restaurant, café or pub. Walking in, knowing the staff on a first name basis, having a usual table and a menu favourite. Maybe it’s just me and my love of routines but I do like to walk into Scott’s in Covent Garden on a Saturday morning, sit at the back table in the window and have my breakfast brought to me without anybody even asking me what I want. Number four, scrambled egg, white toast, it’s in the dumb waiter before I’m even fully settled in my seat – the perfect start to a Saturday.
When I was a young kid living out Hampton way my dad and I would get the train into Waterloo on a Saturday morning and walk across the river bridge into Charing Cross, then up through the windy back streets past Charing Cross nick to New Row and Farmer Brown’s where we would meet the contingent from up north who had come down on the train on the morning of the game. Back then QPR were a Premiership side and there would be five or six old police officers and insurance workers coming down from Grimsby and Scunthorpe to see them play and we would all meet up and have breakfast before heading out for pre-match drinks in the Goldhawk. I’d sit in the corner and read 90 Minutes and feel terribly grown up to be a part of it all.
Farmer Brown’s had, for as long as I could remember, been run (but not owned) by an old Austrian man known only as Oz. He was a shortish fat man, his black apron clinging onto his overhanging gut for dear life as he stood over the griddle like a cooking colossus, churning out the finest cooked breakfast it’s ever been my fortune to sample. He has a huge grey, bushy beard which included a handlebar moustache with curls at the end. If you had to draw an Austrian man your picture would look very similar to the figure that greeted us jovially every Saturday morning – if you had done it right. Oz would arrive at the café just before 5am to set up - freshly preparing the breakfasts, the sandwich fillings, the salads and everything else himself - before opening up just before 8am. The man was an absolute master of his craft and by the time we arrived at 10.30am he’d already be on his third large bottle of Becks, “brewed under the German purity law which means no nasty chemicals and no nasty hangover” he would tell us. He’d regale us with tales of his fishing expeditions and we were always glad to see him.
When Farmer Brown’s was sold to a foreign couple (I say that for colour, rather than in some vindictive Daily Mail diatribe against anybody born outside the Home Counties) Oz was quickly moved off into early retirement and standards slipped. Food was brought in pre-prepared in plastic tubs, the meat came from a wholesalers rather than a local butcher, the sauce came in sachets rather than bottles and the whole place, that had once looked resplendent with its 1950s London décor and huge murals on the wall, started to go downhill faster than a bath tub on wheels in an episode of Last of the Summer Wine. So we (and by ‘we’ I mean myself and Northern the Elder as everybody else had either died or lost interest) decamped three doors down to Scott’s where I reside myself on Saturday mornings - and by ‘myself’ I mean myself, because 18 months ago Stuart decided he’d had enough and died himself. Which was terribly inconsiderate of him, causing terrible loneliness to those he left behind.
And now they know me in Scotts, and know where I like to sit and what I want to eat and they say hello when I come in the door and I pass the time looking across the road into the Bedfordbury barbers where various customers sit in ‘One Cut George’s’ chair and get the one hair cut that George knows how to do – a military style number one all over and cut throat razor shave.
At least they did know me, and I did do that, back in November. For you see (cheers from the back spread across the audience as Clive reached the QPR related point to all of this in paragraph six) this Saturday is the first Saturday I shall be going to see QPR at Loftus Road since a month before Christmas. Work commitments? Spending cuts? Losing interest? No, simply the price of success. Since beating Cardiff 2-1 at Loftus Road on Saturday, November 27, Rangers have played on Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays on their home patch, with kick offs ranging from just after midday right through to 8pm in the evening.
QPR sent a survey out this week about next year’s season ticket prices which basically asked, in several different round about ways: “How much would we be able to rip you off before you actually considered not buying one?” And what can you say to that? If we had 19 Saturday 3pm kick offs at Loftus Road and four Tuesday night games I’d be happy to shell out more than I do now, but we don’t.
While we’re on the subject, keep your eyes on the Watford away game in the penultimate weekend of the season. Sky this week snuck two Championship games into their schedules for the day before, Royal Wedding day, at 5pm and 7.30pm and you would think we’re almost certain to be one of those given Sky’s fondness for us this season and liking for that particular fixture even when we’ve been bloody terrible in the past. Royal Wedding Day may be an official Bank Holiday, but my boss laughed so hard when asked if we would get that day off a little bit of wee came out so a 5pm kick off in Watford will be a disaster for people like me (and I bet more than most will work that day) who probably won’t even get to see the game on the television should it be shifted to that slot.
Next Saturday against Crystal Palace will be the last of our Saturday 3pm kick offs at home this season leaving the remaining four home matches to be played on Monday night, Monday night, Monday afternoon and Saturday lunchtime and if we are to be promoted expect more of the same next season. It’s been the one drawback of a tremendous season so far.
Automatic promotion is about consistency. It’s why we have so far stayed steadfastly in the top two since day one while teams like Leeds, Norwich, Forest, Derby, Coventry and Ipswich have all come flying up the table towards us at one point or another only to then fall away. Play off promotion is about hitting form at the right time – usually just about now – and Leicester won their last five matches of last season to crash into the top six. They lost the first leg of the play off to Cardiff, but won 3-2 in South Wales to set up a penalty shoot out and were so much better than City on the night it was something of a travesty that Dave Jones’ notorious chokers even got that out of the game. Leicester might have beaten them anyway had French midfielder Yann Kermorgant not had some sort of stroke on his way to the penalty spot for his kick (It’s like a fire in the brain you know) and decided to delicately chip his kick straight into the keeper’s arms.
Still, not bad for a first attempt back at this level and Leicester were quickly installed as one of the favourites for promotion this season. Then Pearson walked out, not giving any reasons publicly but privately stating that chairman Milan Mandaric’s pressure to achieve results on a budget Pearson didn’t feel was able to support success at this level had become intolerable. That he then moved to cash strapped Hull City seemed to be cutting off his nose to spite his face but never mind.
That left Mandaric looking for another new manager having worked his way through Rob Kelly, Martin Allen, Gary Megson, Ian Holloway and now Pearson in less than four years. He turned to our former charge Paulo Sousa who was knifed firmly in the back at QPR before carrying Swansea to the brink of play offs last season. Sousa has become known in his brief managerial career for creating teams as tight as a mouse’s ear at the defensive end of the field, but deathly dull at the other. In a season and a half of managing in English football he’d already presided over 17 0-0 draws but Leicester nevertheless went out of their way to prize him away from South Wales in what turned out to be pretty messy circumstances.
In the end it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to Swansea who have married their mean defence to an attractive attack that, while perhaps still short of a main striker, looks a good bet for an automatic promotion spot this season under Brendan Rodgers. At Leicester Sousa’s team remained a pretty miserable attacking force, but defensively they became a shambles as well with Pearson’s previously well drilled troops slumping into the relegation zone under Sousa at the start of this season. A 6-1 defeat at cash strapped Portsmouth signalled the beginning of the end for Sousa who was sacked a game later after a 4-3 defeat at Norwich. For all the effort it had taken to get him there, Sousa’s appointment had turned out to be a disaster and lasted barely three months.
Leicester by this stage were in the throes of a takeover by a Thai consortium – and wherever there’s some mystery foreign money involved (slightly more Daily Mail that reference but still not too far from the truth) you can be sure to find Sven Goran Eriksson sniffing around somewhere. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that Sven is seen as something of a joke figure in this country for a variety of reasons, and I’ll pick up the managerial part of this preview on that point shortly, but for Leicester it’s hard to argue with his results.
Adopting a policy of ‘if I’ve heard of it before, sign it on loan’ that Stoke City used to win promotion from this league Leicester have put together a run of form not a million miles from that which has seen us maintain a top of the table place. Leicester won just one of their first nine league matches and were rock bottom when Sousa left. They have since won 14 and drawn five of 26 games played to climb to the cusp of the play offs in seventh.
Sven has had his contacts book out – bringing in high profile Premiership loans like Yakubu, Kyle Naughton, Patrick van Aarnholt, Roman Bednar, Chris Kirkland and Curtis Davies, and paying handsomely for them if Neil Warnock’s comments on our own pursuit of Kyle Naughton are anything to go by. This has seen previous mainstays of the Nigel Pearson era like Matty Fryatt, Chris Weale and Martyn Waghorn, who they fought hard to buy in the summer but now struggle to find room for, on the sidelines.
We have seen for ourselves the peril of having too many loan players in a team at any one time, all slightly less committed (or in Scott Sinclair’s case a lot less committed) than they should be and often with more than half an eye on their fitness ahead of a return to their parent club. But the sheer quality of the players Leicester have brought in this season couldn’t help but have a positive impact on their team and they will be a seriously dangerous opponent for anybody should they make the play offs.
The Manager: So yeh, Sven’s a bit of a joke in his country. Firstly that’s because he has a bit of a problem keeping his trousers on, and keeping it out of the papers when they come off. One of my favourite Sven stories is from Karen Brady who was in a sponsor’s lounge with him after a Premiership match when he was the England manager. He was mingling with the guests and happened upon an attractive young lady who ran her own curtain and blinds company, attending the match as part of her company’s sponsorship of the match ball. Upon finding out what line of business she was in Eriksson was in, quick as a flash, with: “I need some new blinds for my apartment…” and so another conquest began.
Secondly it’s because Sven is clearly a bit of a mercenary, always keen to find out about new opportunities that will make him lots of money. The News of the World, presumably bored one day, took him away on a yacht once and offered him a suitcase full of money to lead their ficticious takeover of Aston Villa which he gleefully accepted while still England manager, then he turned up at Man City just as Thaksin Shinawatra arrived and managed a collection of players originating mainly from the contacts book of a single agent – Jerome Anderson, of recent Blackburn Rovers farce infamy. Then there was Notts County, who had some mystery foreign owners promising the Premiership in double quick time. There were no doubt lucrative spells with Mexico and the Ivory Coast and now we have Leicester, wouldn’t you just know it under the ownership of a new Thai consortium. Music to the Swede’s ears.
Thirdly it’s because English football fans still like angry shouty football managers – particularly in charge of the national side. If Fabio Capello sits to observe a match for ten minutes from the confines of the dugout then he is failing to lead. We want our England manager to be like Mike Bassett – English, old school, team written on the back of a fag packet, tea cups flying through the air if things don’t go well. We want Peter Reid basically, though we’d never admit it. “At least Reidy would show some passion” a brain dead moron might say.
In the 2002 World Cup England, managed by Sven, led 1-0 at half time against Brazil who were down to ten men. Gareth Southgate, hardly in the running for any personality prizes himself, said of his half time team talk: “We needed Winston Churchill in there but we got Iain Duncan Smith.” I sense the debate about why exactly vastly overpaid English footballers in the biggest game of their careers needed an old man to stride up and down and talk about bull dogs and beech fighting for 15 minutes to play well in a second half is for another time, with this preview starting to drag on a little bit, but it’s that apparent lack of passion that has always hamstrung Eriksson in English eyes.
England not only qualified for every tournament under his charge, they reached the quarter finals of all three too. Some will tell you, acting under the misguided belief that this was some sort of golden generation of English players rather than a collection of very good league players propped up playing for their clubs by talented foreigners which is what I would suggest England were and are, and we should have done better. Our record since then under McLaren and Capello says differently.
Eriksson won a treble in Sweden with Goteburg that included the UEFA Cup, he won the Portguese league three times with Benfica and finished runners up in both the European and UEFA Cups, he won the Italian cup with Roma, Sampdoria and Lazio (twice) and won Serie A with the latter in 2000, picking up the UEFA Cup once again during his time at the Stadio Olympico.
It’s an honours role that speaks for itself, and yet such are his mannerisms it’s impossible not to wonder just how much of it is down to him. Is this like a grander version of the situation at Histon where it said ‘assistant’ on John Beck’s tracksuit but everybody knew he was the manager really? Is Sven just some figurehead to attract sponsors and big name players while a team of hard working coaches does the messy work underneath him? Do Leicester care at this moment in time? Probably not.
Three to Watch: Such is the state Sheffield United have worked themselves into this season I suspect Kyle Naughton is reasonably glad to be well away from Bramall Lane, but was his move to Tottenham getting on for two years ago really such a good idea? Regular readers can skip on because you’ll have seen a rant on this theme many times before. Naughton is one of many players who shows initial promise at a smaller club, is immediately hovered up by a big name and then bunged in the reserve and academy set up often to be never seen or heard of again.
Tottenham are particularly bad for this – snaffling the likes of Naughton, Kyle Walker, John Bostock, Dean Parrett and others from clubs where they were, or would shortly have been, enjoying first team football at a high level and learning their trade, and then stuffing them into a vast squad where they will likely never see the green of the White Hart Lane pitch again. Walker may be lucky, such is his outstanding talent I’d expect to see him usurping the distinctly average Alan Hutton from next season, but for Naughton and Bostock their only action since leaving the Blades and Palace has come on loan, back in this division. Would they not have been better staying put, playing some first team games in front of big crowds and learning their trade here? It’s a reprehensible tactic of the big clubs to just hoover up any kid that looks vaguely promising between the age of eight and 18 for fear that somebody else might get the next big thing ahead of you, rather than because you actually think you might have a use for him, and it continues apace.
Naughton was an England Under 21 international at Sheffield United and seen as the bigger part of the £8m deal that took him and Walker to Spurs. Undoubtedly Walker, now in the England full squad and playing Premiership football for Aston Villa, has moved ahead of him now but Naughton is still a good attacking full back at this level. QPR can leave their full backs exposed in the formation they use, and if one of the attacking three cannot pen Naughton back in his own half with some defensive hard work to do then expect him to rampage down the line, overloading either Clint Hill or Bradley Orr who are both susceptible to pace.
David Moyes is enduring a tough season with Everton, regularly bemoaning the paucity of his first team squad, and so it seems odd that he would choose to loan out Yakubu to Leicester. The Nigerian has struggled with his fitness, and embarrassingly at the start of this season with his ballooning weight, but he is an established goal scorer in this country now having regularly found the net for Pompey, Middlesbrough and Everton and I’m surprised Everton feel they have enough about them to have him out on loan. Expect laziness and goal threat in equal measure – he has four goals from eight starts so far.
And it’s worth mentioning, because as a good import from the Scottish Premier League he’s the footballing equivalent of rocking horse shit, that centre half Sol Bamba is sure to catch the eye this Saturday. When I saw him recently at Derby, a game where Leicester were absolutely superb but one from which Bamba was withdrawn early with a lump the size of an egg on his forehead, he reminded me of Danny Shittu in may ways. Strong, quick, dominant, enthusiastic and a threat at both ends. Bamba is an Ivory Coast international who Eriksson will know through his brief spell with that country – he arrived from Hibs for an undisclosed fee in January and is good value, in every sense of the term.
Links >>> Leicester Official Website >>> Leicester Message Board >>> Weekend tube closures
Recent Meetings: When these teams last met in September QPR were still unbeaten seven matches into the league season and Leicester were struggling under the management of Paulo Sousa. The game finished 2-0, although that wasn’t really a fair reflection of a match that Rangers laboured through at times and were fortunate to win so comfortably. Jamie Mackie opened the scoring early doors with a flying header after arriving late in the penalty area and sealed the victory with a fine individual goal eight minutes from time but there was a good deal of hanging on in the meantime.
Leicester: Ikeme 5, Neilson 6, Morrison 5, Hobbs 7, Berner 6, Oakley 6 (Howard 63, 7), King 7, Wellens 7, Dyer 7 (Gallagher 58, 7), Fryatt 7, Waghorn 7
Subs Not Used: Logan, Miguel Vitor, Moreno, Abe, Moussa
Booked: Berner (foul), Waghorn (foul)
QPR: Kenny 8, Walker 7, Connolly 9, Gorkss 8, Hill 7, Derry 8, Buzsaky 5, Taarabt 6 (Leigertwood 78, 7), Ephraim 6, Mackie 8 (Smith 89, -), Helguson 6 (Agyemang 73, 6)
Subs Not Used: Cerny, German, Parker, Rowlands
Booked: Walker (time wasting), Buzsaky (foul)
Goals: Mackie 12 (assisted Taarabt), 86 (assisted Leigertwood)
Rangers were on a roll when Leicester came to Loftus Road at the end of October last season for a match in front of a live television audience and capacity Loftus Road crowd. Everything seemed to be going according to plan when Adel Taarabt opened the scoring midway through the first half but Leicester had already had a Martyn Waghorn goal disallowed for offside by that point and were the better side. Matty Fryatt got the equaliser before the break and then profited from a terrible goal kick from Radek Cerny to race through and win the game in the second. Cerny’s career at QPR has never really recovered from that howler.
QPR: Cerny 5, Ramage 5 (Vine 67, 6), Stewart 4 (Hall 54, 6), Gorkss 6, Borrowdale 6, Routledge 6, Buzsaky 6, Leigertwood 5, Faurlin 5,Taarabt 7 (Agyemang 86, -), Simpson 6
Subs Not Used: Heaton, Alberti, Ainsworth, Parker
Goals: Taarabt 33 (assisted Simpson)
Leicester: Weale 7, Neilson 7, Brown 7, Hobbs 6, Berner 6, King 6, Oakley 7, Wellens 7, N'Guessan 8, Waghorn 9 (McGivern 90, -),Fryatt 8 (Gallagher 75, 6)
Subs Not Used: Logan, Morrison, Howard, Dyer, Kermorgant
Booked: Neilson, N'Guessan, Oakley
Goals: Fryatt 37, 64
Head to Head >>> QPR wins 24 >>> Draws 10 >>> Leicester wins 20
Previous Results:
2010/11 Leicester 0 QPR 2 (Mackie 2)
2009/10 Leicester 4 QPR 0
2009/10 QPR 1 Leicester 2 (Taarabt)
2007/08 QPR 3 Leicester 1 (Stewart, Bolder, Blackstock)
2007/08 Leicester 1 QPR 1 (Leigertwood)
2006/07 Leicester 1 QPR 3 (Nygaard 2, Idiakez)
2006/07 QPR 1 Leicester 1 (Rowlands)
2005/06 QPR 2 Leicester 3 (Ainsworth, Shittu)
2005/06 Leicester 1 QPR 2 (Nygaard, Furlong)
2004/05 Leicester 1 QPR 0
2004/05 QPR 3 Leicester 2 (Furlong 2, Cook)
1994/95 QPR 2 Leicester 0 (Wilson, McDonald)
1994/95 Leicester 1 QPR 1 (Willis og)
Links >>> Leicester 0 QPR 2 Match Report >>> QPR 1 Leicester 2 Match Report
Leicester must shuffle their defence with Chelsea loanee, and one time QPR transfer target, Patrick Van Aarnholt ruled out for a few weeks with a torn thigh muscle. Sven Goran Ericsson has options, with Swiss full back Bruno Berner probably the most likely to come in although the Swedish manager says he is considering Ben Mee or Kyle Neughton for the vacant role. Perennial scourge of QPR Steve Howard is out for two weeks with an ankle injury.
Elsewhere: Unfortunately it’s probably another one of those weekends where we have the hardest game. Swansea are away from home, but Glanford Park has given up more points to visiting teams than any other ground in the league this season, while Cardiff will fancy their chances against Ipswich in the Saturday evening television game as Paul Jewell’s bright start to life at Portman Road has now given way to two 2-0 defeats. Norwich have a home banker with Preston while Forest, I would suggest, are likely to continue their unbeaten home run when they welcome Hull. Leeds are a little far back now but they have a Yorkshire derby with Doncaster at Elland Road. At the bottom Sheff Utd are at risk of being cut adrift as they go to Portsmouth who have five wins from their last five matches, they’re unlikely to lose too much ground on Palace and Middlesbrough this weekend though as neither are likely to get much from respective trips to Burnley and Reading. Coventry v Bristol City can neatly be filed under “is there really any point in this at all?”
Referee: For the second time this season Wiltshire official Roger East is the man in the middle at Loftus Road. His last QPR game ended in a 3-0 victory for the Super Hoops against Doncaster Rovers, the third goal coming from the penalty spot, but he has previous with Neil Warnock against Leicester – allowing Paul Gallagher to net a rebound from a penalty when he had clearly encroached into the area, brushing past the referee as he went, against Warnock’s Crystal Palace side. For more, click here.
Leicester The Foxes have won seven of their last ten, losing only one, but before you panic too much bear in mind that the defeat did come in their last away match at our promotion rivals Cardiff in a very similar game to the one facing them this Saturday. Their form has dipped a little recently with a draw against one of the worst Coventry City sides in living memory last time out, and a fortunate last minute win against lowly Bristol City just before that. All that said their form since Eriksson took over has been title winning standard and it’s only their lousy start to the season (one win from first nine league games) that is holding them back. The play offs look likely, with Leeds and their leaky defence vulnerable to being overtaken in sixth. They lost on their last visit to London, 2-0 at Millwall on December 28. Leicester have won three of their last five on the road, but only the 1-0 victory at Hull verged on anything like a surprise with the other two coming against rank Derby and Sheff Utd sides. They have lost ten games on the road this season, more than anybody else in the top half of the table – only Palace have lost more with 13.
Prediction: In recent weeks when I’ve backed us to win we’ve drawn, when I’ve backed us to draw we’ve won, so I think you can see where this is going. Leicester are a good team on paper, and if they were coming at us with Naughton going down one wing against Hill and Van Aarnholt doing the other way against Orr I’d think they were ideally set up to exploit our weaknesses – the injury to Van Aarnholt is something of a result for us. I’ll back a draw and hope for better.
1-1, 6/1 with Blue Square