QPR’s run of impressive form and 13 home matches unbeaten ground to a shuddering halt on Friday night in front of the Sky cameras as an impressive Leicester side won 2-1 in W12.

Such has been the quality of the QPR displays recently that I went against so many of my better judgements on Friday night. I predicted a QPR win in the match preview, always a recipe for disaster, and rather than locking myself away in a dark room with the television by myself as is the usual drill for televised games that I don’t attend I decided to try and be social. I let myself get carried away with the plaudits of friends and work colleagues and arranged to meet en masse in The Place in Sheffield to sit and watch the game together.

I’ve never done this before. At QPR I like to be among kindred spirits or nobody at all - people that understand, or alone with my own misery. Friday night was everything I always imagined watching QPR in a crowded pub with lots of people that didn’t really care one way or the other would be. My worst nightmare. As we watched from a pub that refused to put the sound on leaving us watching the game without commentary set to music and surrounded by pissed up students in Hallowe’en costumes QPR choked. Taarabt apart they put together none of the impressive moves of recent games, and were comprehensively beaten by a Leicester City side that is easily the best we have played this season.

I always think QPR are never more dangerous to themselves than when they think they are brilliant. Against a strong, organised and committed opponent there were too many QPR players who seemed to think it was all just going to happen for them again without making the effort. In my opinion Cerny, Ramage, Stewart, Leigertwood and Faurlin all had their worst games of the season. Allied to that Leicester did a better job than anybody else has managed in containing Routledge, Buzsaky, Simpson and Taarabt. With that in mind a defeat was always likely and with Fryatt back on form after six games without a goal in the Leicester attack and Martyn Waghorn the outstanding player on the pitch the Foxes were thoroughly good value for the three points.

Prior to kick off Jim Magilton was forced into a change following last weekend’s thumping win at Derby. Gavin Mahon was taken ill during the week and replaced in the centre of midfield by Mikele Leigertwood with Faurlin alongside him. The exciting front four of Taarabt, Simpson, Routledge and Buzsaky remained in tact while Peter Ramage continued at right back. Stewart and Gorkss were preferred to Fitz Hall at centre half again with Borrowdale at left back and Cerny in goal.

Leicester won away at Reading live on Sky on Monday night but made changes to their line up. The Foxes seemed to target Reading’s Jay Tabb at full back by putting striker Paul Gallagher against him at the Madejski, that decision was reversed on Friday with the pace of Danny N’Guessan preferred wide left to go at Ramage. Ryan McGivern was replaced by Bruno Berner.

Rangers were first to threaten as Jay Simpson showed all the confidence of a man with six goals in eight appearances by peeling off his marker onto a through ball from Akos Buzsaky and driving towards goal from a narrow angle. Chris Weale in the Leicester goal saved sharply down to his left, but the angle was always against the QPR man and replays showed his shot would have flown well wide. Then after seven minutes Routledge managed to turn onto a good pass from Buzsaky and run at the Leicester defence but his low drive from the edge of the area was deflected wide.

One fear expressed by some QPR fans is that our recent goal glut will encourage teams to come to Loftus Road with everybody behind the ball and play for a point. You certainly couldn’t level that criticism at Leicester who managed four or five very decent efforts on goal in reasonably quick succession midway through the first half. In the fifth minute Martyn Waghorn was very unfortunate not to convert at the back post as he slid in on a Matty Fryatt shot that was almost deflected into his path by Kaspars Gorkss. Waghorn went close again with the time barely in double figures as Damion Stewart sloppily allowed a through ball to run under his foot giving the loaned Sunderland striker a clear run on goal but Cerny saved well. When Waghorn did find the net on the quarter hour from a cross by N’Guessan, who had outpaced Ramage down the Leicester left, his header to be correctly ruled out for offside. King tried his luck from 25 yards, and Oakley from further out still, but Cerny showed good safe hands with both shots down in the bottom corner.

QPR, second best for long periods, looked at their most threatening when Adel Taarabt had the ball at his feet. He shot wide with an ambitious shot from 25 yards and then rode three fouls on a determined run that carried him right to the heart of the Leicester penalty area before Wayne Brown finally executed a fair tackle on him and conceded a corner kick. Weale was called into action in the 25th minute when a free kick from Faurlin on the right corner of the penalty box, conceded by Wellens on Taarabt, threatened to dip under the cross bar and in until the Leicester keep flung up an arm to divert it over. A rare example of QPR getting in behind Leicester came when Ramage ran onto Routledge’s through ball and cut it back from the byline but City were able to clear.

Rangers took the lead on the half hour thanks to Taarabt’s fourth goal of the season. Leigertwood laid a ball into the Moroccan’s path 40 yards from goal and for once Leicester were stretched and space was available on the edge of their area Taarabt fed the ball into the area to Simpson who showed tremendous strength to hold off Brown and lay the ball back into Taarabt’s path and he finished crisply into the bottom corner of the net. He wasn’t bar wide with his next effort, almost straight from the kick off, that he dragged wide from the edge of the penalty area though.

The goal was exactly what QPR needed after a below par start in which they had shown only flashes of the football they are capable of. The hope now was that a deficit would force Leicester’s deep lying midfielders to push forward more leaving space in behind. It was such a terrible shame from a QPR point of view therefore that the Foxes were allowed back into the game with an equaliser within four minutes. Ramage simply did not do enough to prevent a cross from the left by N’Guessan that carried pace and accuracy, Stewart meanwhile had allowed Fryatt to wonder into space behind him unchecked and last season’s 32 goal top scorer was hardly going to miss from six yards out. The cross was perfect, the header was wonderfully placed – but QPR missed several opportunities to prevent it all from happening in the build up.

At this stage I was just hoping to get to half time, let Magilton and Gorman get amongst the players and sort one or two things out, and hopefully improve in the second half. When the first action of the second period saw Robbie Nielson blast wide after a mix up in the QPR penalty box after a tackle on Oakley it was clear that those hopes were going to be futile. N’Guessan sent a low cross flying through the six yard box without a touch and then just failed to convert a similar effort from Wellens on the other side himself as the former Lincoln man continued to cause Ramage serious problems.

Magilton had seen enough and replaced Damion Stewart, possibly carrying an injury and certainly massively off his best on the night, with Fitz Hall ten minutes into the half. Hall played reasonably well thereafter, although he was very fortunate not to give away a penalty when he appeared to wrestle Fryatt to the ball in the box – referee Jon Moss waved the appeals away in what was just about the only possible mistake he made in an evening of near perfect officiating.

A rare threat from Rangers came on the hour when Leigertwood fed a ball into Simpson on the edge of the box and his lay off gave Buzsaky a chance to strike first time from 25 yards but the ball bounced an inch or two wide of the post with Weale frantically scrambling across his goal to try and cover it. If the bumper home crowd had hoped that would be the start of QPR moving up through the gears they were sadly mistaken as Leicester were gifted the lead for the first time in the game within four minutes.

QPR have clearly been instructed to play all goal, kicks short to centre halves and full backs and have enjoyed great success from doing so in recent weeks with goals at Derby and against Reading starting in this way. However in the sixty third minute on Friday the plan backfired horribly when Cerny failed to give one such set piece his full attention, inadvertently played it straight into the path of Fryatt and was then beaten with ease by the Leicester forward in a one on one situation.

Vine was sent on for Ramage and Buzsaky dragged another shot wide of the post from distance a short time later but in truth QPR were second best and looked unlikely to score by this point. Their best chance came with a quarter of an hour to go when Routledge tricked his way out of a tight spot by the touchline, then moved into the area to receive an intelligent through ball from Buzsaky. His touch was a little heavy allowing Weale to save at his feet and then Simpson could only drill the loose ball straight at the keeper at his near post from a tight angle. The keeper sustained a cut to his eye brow in amongst all of that and he required lengthy treatment and a bandage to the head for the rest of the game.

A feature of Leicester’s win at Reading on Monday, and the source of their only goal at the Madejski Stadium, was corners whipped into the near post. The best of those on Friday came eight minutes from time when centre half Wayne Brown met a delivery from Paul Gallagher only to see the ball cleared from under the cross bar by a combination of defender and goalkeeper. At the other end minutes later Buzsaky fired over when the ball dropped to him in the box but Leicester looked a confident outfit by this point and were able to see the remaining time out with few further worries. Akos Buzsaky found the wall with a 30 yard free kick which turned out to be the last kick of the game.

In the end there were just too many poor performances in the QPR team for us to ever have a hope of winning this game. The big problem for me was the centre of midfield. I had feared that Martin Rowlands’ injury could almost end our season but Gavin Mahon stepped up and played well. Without Rowlands, or Mahon, or Ben Watson it was left to Leigertwood to fill in and I’m afraid he was sadly lacking. He’s a right back or not in the team at all for me at the moment. Faurlin also had his worst game for the club mislaying far too many passes. How much that was down to poor performances and how much down to Leicester’s very hard working and well set up five man midfield I don’t know.

Taarabt was the pick of the QPR players for me but Leicester shut him right out of the game after half time and managed to keep Buzsaky and Routledge quiet as well which must have taken some doing. Again, whether that was QPR being below par or Leicester playing very well I don’t know – probably a mixture of both, The Foxes looked chronically short of pace at the back against Reading on Monday but QPR rarely exposed that with their bank of four and five close together and deep. Obviously the defence was poor, Damion Stewart had his worst game for many months and was completely outplayed by Waghorn. Ramage was torn apart by N’Guessan and Cerny who was obviously at fault for the second.

Personally I thought Jim Magilton called it right at the end of the game – we weren’t the best team in the world last week after the Derby game and we’re certainly not the worst now just because we have lost this game. The big concern I have from this match is that Leicester, who certainly played very well, have shown live on national television exactly how to set up and play against us. Reading gave it a go last week and did reasonably well for half an hour before falling apart and hopefully in most cases teams in this league simply will not be good enough to execute a game plan that relies on concentration and organisation as much as ability. Leicester were, and certainly I would expect the better teams in the division to come and give us a similar challenge.

I used the word ‘solid’ seven times in the match preview on Friday to describe Leicester and they were certainly that. Solid, organised, committed, talented and well managed. They were, for me, the best side we have played so far this season with the outstanding player on the pitch in Martyn Waghorn and in many ways were unlucky not to win more comfortably. It is certainly not a complete disaster to lose to the Foxes, but it will be if we allow it to affect us in two very winnable games next week. We can banish the memory of this lacklustre performance with a victory against Palace on Tuesday night.

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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

QPR Star Man – Adel Taarabt 7 A lovely goal and the pick of the QPR players by some distance. Leicester really struggled to cope with him in the first half but got well to grips with him in the second and shut him out of the game.

Referee: Jon Moss (W Yorkshire) 9 Leicester probably should have had a penalty in the second half when Hall pulled Fryatt to the floor but Moss was otherwise almost completely faultless and this was just about as good a refereeing performance as you are ever likely to see at this level.

Attendance: 17,082 (1500 Leicester approx) The biggest crowd of the season at Loftus Road thanks to improved form and various ticket offers – therefore so typical of Rangers to crack under pressure. Leicester’s numbers were impressive for a Friday night game on the television so soon after a similar trip to Reading.

Photo: Action Images

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