QPR could have gone six points clear of Leicester with a victory over the Foxes in December, now they travel to Ipswich on Saturday playing catch up after a typically lousy set of Christmas results.
Old First Division, Old Old Second Division >>> Saturday January 11, 2014 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Portman Road, Ipswich, Suffolk
Christmas in London can leave you starting to wonder where all the Londoners have gone.
For days before the big day the city’s rail termini fill to bursting point with people who don’t usually use rail termini, all of them clutching unfeasibly large wheeled suitcases, confused expressions and advance purchase tickets that are not valid for the train they're stampeding to board with all the other open-mouthed cretins. "You’re in my seat,” she’ll say, having bashed you over the head with a long bag containing her lacrosse gear to start with, and then present you with a reservation that’s not for this seat at all, or this train, or actually even this day. And if you don’t get up and let Tabitha sit down, leaving her to sit on the matting by the toilet with her penalty fare notice and eight absolutely necessary pieces of luggage for her four day trip back to the north, you’re the one who looks a knob.
As Christmas, rather inconsiderately (pesky Jesus), falls during the winter the weather often deviates away from the 12-14 degrees Celsius, dull and overcast, parameters required to operate a railway and so under the weight of a stiff breeze, and a bit of rain, and seemingly the entire population of the rest of England suddenly trying to escape London as if some crazed lunatic has threatened to play Stoke City: The Tony Pulis Years on all the capital’s television channels for the entire duration of the festive period, the service grinds to a complete halt. And then we get Tabitha on the six o’clock news talking about how frightful it all is.
By the time they’ve all gone it’s nearly time for them to come back again but in the meantime parts of the city look like the set of 28 Days Later. Of course 28 days ago QPR were going great guns and had a home match with Leicester on the horizon where a victory would have put the R’s six points clear at the top of the Championship — the Foxes’ emphatic 4-1 win against Derby this evening instead moves them into an eight point advantage over Harry Redknapp’s side.
QPR are never much cop over Christmas and perhaps this mass exodus of London is why. I look down the Rangers squad list and I see players born in Waterford, Rio, Manchester, Paris, Dublin, Liverpool, Arras, Nottingham, Zagreb, Wolverhampton, Ontario and elsewhere. They want to be in that stampede at Kings Cross clutching eight carry-on bags as well, rushing home to ask friends and well wishers whether they’ve seen the John Lewis advert. And instead we make them stay here in a deserted city, and run around a field next to the runway at Heathrow on Christmas Day, and play five football matches in a fortnight. No wonder it never goes well is there? No wonder they’ve effectively downed tools — failing to score in four of the five games, or even register a shot on target in two of them.
Hopefully (assuming you haven’t yet joined up with the quiet grumblers who don’t actually want to go back to the Premier League) the annual Christmas blip is just that. QPR are always crap at Christmas just the same as your mum always leaves the roast potatoes in too long, and Manchester United’s withdrawal from the 2000 FA Cup seems to have sparked a "well if it’s good enough for them…” attitude in W12 because the R’s have withdrawn from every year’s competition since. Even in the promotion season in 2010/11 three of the five defeats for the entire season came in a fortnight over the Christmas break. Tis just the way of the Rangers.
But there is a peculiar lethargy about this QPR team, even allowing for the usual trough in form at this time of year. Staid performances resulting in narrow victories have given way to staid performances resulting in dull draws and dismal defeats — just five wins from the last 15 matches now. And you can’t say QPR are playing a good deal better or worse than they were earlier in the season — it’s just the rest of the division has realised there’s not much to be afraid of here. Gone are the likes of Barnsley, Middlesbrough and Charlton turning up hoping to hang on for a 0-0, then shrugging their shoulders and saying "well QPR are going to win the league anyway” when they don’t get it, replaced by Leicester and Doncaster and Forest having a proper go at the R’s and giving them plenty to think about.
I feel as though I should copy and paste the usual qualifying paragraph here…. Yes Harry Redknapp has done well to totally rebuild the team after last season’s shambles…. Yes if you’d offered me the current situation at the start of the season I’d have snapped your hand off…. Yes it’s a lot better than last season…. Yes QPR are right in the hunt for promotion still…. Yes I did say we could potentially be the next Wolves-style free fall victims at the start of the season….
But there’s something not quite right here.
Because I’m a sad person with no life I happened across/deliberately sought out this video while I was wolfing down my breakfast cereal earlier and it still brings tears to my eyes. Look at the faces of the players and the staff and the supporters in those clips. Look at the goal celebrations, even in the early season games — I was coming home every week with bruised shins. Look at the Loft End when Taarabt steps over the ball and them slams it into the top corner against Cardiff and compare it to the almost total silence and wall of lugubrious faces that sat behind the goal for a similar top of the table clash, at a similar time of the year, with Leicester recently.
It could be that we were about to go into the Premier League for the first time in 15 years back then, and we still remembered it as a land of Les Ferdinand and 5-3 wins at Goodison Park and QPR potentially finishing fifth — whereas now we know it’s a corporate fuckpig where you pay £52 to stand in the rain at West Ham and try to scrape together ten wins a season and finish seventeenth while diving out of the cup competitions early. It could be that we’ve simply been there, seen it and done it now and both winning promotion and playing in the Premier League is not quite as exciting second time around — remember the first time you slept with your wife/husband, then compare it to the last time. And it could be that Neil Warnock’s team, with Faurlin at one end of the midfield and Taarabt at the other, was a good deal more exciting and wonderful to watch than Harry Redknapp’s altogether more basic and functional outfit.
There’s something though. A thread on the message board today asking for more vocal support from the travelling QPR fans tomorrow — perhaps not an unfair request given that over the past few months we’ve only provided good, strong, constant, noisy backing to the team at Yeovil and Blackpool — met with a strong response...
”Because of the boredom. There is literally fuckall to shout about. Everton, didn't even get a shot away, Forest, a complete shambles and pathetic display, Watford a coma fest. Tomorrow I expect 0-0 too or a 1- 0 defeat. When you have a team of mostly crocked or bloated over the hill tossers on bigger wages than any other squad in the entire history of the club, not putting much of a fucking effort in, it’s hard to stand up and roar the wankers on. Enough said.”
Print that off, show it around anonymously, ask people to guess the league position. QPR can go second, five points off first, with a win at Ipswich on Saturday. It’s strange isn’t it? Perhaps we’ve simply become spoilt.
But never mind… as the sun rises (or the outside at least changes from black to grey) to herald the start of a new day on planet earth so hope will spring eternal again. Who knows what each glorious new Saturday will bring us? New opportunities, new possibilities, new thoughts and feelings and opinions and experiences. Nobody can ever be sure, when they open their eyes in the morning, what the new day will bring. So who knows? Maybe, just maybe, QPR might manage a shot on target this week.
Links >>> Opposition Focus >>> History >>> Podcast >>> Referee >>> Travel Guide >>> http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/33769/draw-the-safe
Jamie Mackie celebrates with Shaun Derry as he makes it 2-0 with his second of the night on QPR’s last visit to Portman Rod in 2010. A second half penalty from Heidar Helguson sealed a deserved 3-0 win.
Team News: Harry Redknapp must decide whether to recall Richard Dunne Pub Landlord to his defence, and if he does whether Nedum Onuoha or last week's Man of the Match at Everton Clint Hill drops out. We're still waiting to hear whether Little Tom Carroll's real dad wants him back to live with him, at the moment though he's available for selection after being cup tied last week which should at least mean that Karl Henry is returned to the glue factory. Robert Green returns in goal after Julio Cesar's bizarre recall a week ago. Bobby Zamora is still absolutely useless.
Ipswich added former Wolves forward Sylvain Ebanks-Blake to their squad on a short term deal as he continues to recover from a broken leg but he's not fit for this weekend after leaving last week's FA Cup action after just half an hour with a hamstring injury which means veteran striker Alan Lee will be on the bench with Daryl Murphy also out injured. Lee rejoined Town in the summer as an academy coach but may be pressed into service if they lose anymore forwards. Centre-half Tommy Smith and goalkeeper Dean Gerken do return having missed that draw against Preston with back and groin injuries respectively. Midfielder Anthony Wordsworth is poorly, the poor love.
Elsewhere: Urgh, well that’s very inconsiderate of Leicester City isn’t it? Beating the Derby Rams 4-1 like that live on the television. Reams and reams of newspaper copy, miles and miles of column inches, days of man hours spent fellating Steve ‘Schteve’ McClaren and proclaiming Derby as the five star, silver bullet, lock of the season blown away. Fear not though embittered national newspaper employee who drew the short straw and had to spend an evening writing about a division other than the FA Barclays Uber League, Microsoft Word’s handy Find and Replace feature can be your friend — simply substituting the word ‘Leicester’ for ‘Derby’ can save you a night of work and research and nobody gives a pound of monkey shit about this nonsense anyway in the grand scheme of things. Job’s a good ‘un, all hail our new champions Leicester.
Truth is, we’ve had somewhere in the region of 1,500 rounds of Championship bumbling now, and there’s still another 1,500 rounds to go, so anybody waving anybody else goodbye just at the moment is…. oooh, hang on, bandwagon rolling by, always did like Nigel Pearson, behold the mighty Foxes and their unstoppable megatron footballing machine of destruction and doom. Cower before thy hench winger Lloyd Dyer and resident scally Scouser David Nugent.
Just give em that funny jug with the fancy lid now and be done with it, save the rest of us a lot of bother.
The bother this weekend comes in the form of eleven other now apparently totally pointless fixtures between the other unfortunate inmates of what we’re told we must refer to as the Sky Bet Championship — but deliberately don’t, except when being sarcastic or attempting to be funny. It starts with Sheffield Wednesday and Champions of their own Lunch Hour Leeds in the early Saturday game — both have promised solemnly not to molest each others’ goalkeepers this season. Champions Elect Bolton host last week’s wank rag Nottingham Trees while Burnley can secure their second place with a win at lowly Yeovil.
Teams who might fancy their chances of breaking into the top six include the Gibetrotters (eleventh) who are at home to Bournemouth, The Mad Indian Chicken Farmers (tenth) who host Doncaster, Reading (ninth) who go to Udinese, and Brighton (seventh) whose fixture with Birmingham fills this week’s quota for a game between two teams beginning with B.
Blackpool v Middlesbrough is almost totally irrelevant. Charlton v Barnsley is a relegation six pointer.
Ending on a rare serious note for this part of the preview — very best of luck to Ian Holloway as he starts life as Millwall boss at Huddersfield, who have incidentally signed Bradford’s free scoring forward Nahki Wells today. It was heartbreaking to see Olly, usually so full of life an enthusiasm, get into such a state at Crystal Palace and to be honest I worry if he’s come back in too soon. But it looks a good fit for him at The Den and he should have plenty at his disposal there to fight his way out of trouble this season. The sport is poorer without him so it’s great to have him back and I hope he gets a thunderous reception at Loftus Road at the end of the season.
Referee: Big Fat Phil Dowd drops down from the Premier League to take charge of this one, his first Ipswich appointment since 2007 and his first with QPR since he (rightly) sent off Bobby Zamora in the 1-1 draw with Wigan that effectively confirmed Rangers' relegation from the Premier League last season. Dowd also (rightly) sent off Samba Diakite for his one man wrecking ball mission on Fulham the season before and doesn't have a particularly generous history when it comes to refereeing QPR matches. His full case file is available here.
Ipswich : Town have lost only two of the last 17 games, drawing nine of them including five of the last six. Their last three matches have finished 1-1 and it’s now nine matches since they conceded more than once in a game during which time they haven't lost. At Portman Road Ipswich have won six, drawn three and lost three overall and are unbeaten in five, although three of them have been drawn. Leicester (2-1), Burnley (1-0) and Leeds (2-1) are the three teams to have won on this ground so far this season.
QPR: No great statistical analysis required to suss out QPR's main strengths and weaknesses — nobody has kept as many clean sheets as the R's this season (14) or conceded fewer than the 14 shipped by Harry Redknapp's team, but the R's have failed to score in five of their last seven games. Every team in the top ten has scored more than the 26 goals QPR have managed so far this season. The R's have scored more than twice in a match on only one occasions this season (at home to Bournemouth ) . Rangers have won just five of their last 15 and one of the last five. On the road it's one win (at Blackpool ) in nine outings since a 1-0 success at Yeovil made it four wins and a draw from the first five away fixtures this season.
Betting: Professional odds compiler Owen Goulding says…
"From an odds compiler's point of view, January is a minefield. Injuries, postponements, suspensions and transfers are all rife during this period. Reacting quickly to team news/transfer news is the key to a profit but it's also very important not to overreact. My previews for the next few weeks will be short and sweet as its hard to asses a game days in advance when so much can change in the hours leading up to kick off.
"Ipswich v QPR is a prime example and I will suggest a bet based on the information I have now (Thursday evening), which by the time you read this, may have changed considerably. As it stands, both teams have relatively 'fully fit' (I use that term loosely where QPR are concerned) squads to choose from. Ipswich have been going about their business quietly and are a strong hard-working side. They possess little flair but a great work ethic and as such are extremely hard to beat. That said they are finding it hard to win of late and in fact have drawn five of their last six games. QPR are still looking very unconvincing but have drawn 41.6% of all their away games this season. With Ipswich 's overall draw percentage for the season sitting at 37.5%, I'm looking at the draw price here. Corals are 23/10 which represents a 30.3% chance. They seem to have underestimated its chances. My bet for this match is therefore…"
Recommended Bet: Ipswich v QPR - Draw - 23/10 (Coral)
Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion Mase says…
"Now that the transfer window is open clubs have started showing their hand. Burnley have today announced the signing of Ashley Barnes from Brighton and he should provide some degree of cover for Danny Ings and Sam Vokes. Meanwhile at Rangers the talk seems to be of departures (particularly managerial) more than additions. While I hope this doesn't prove unsettling it is symptomatic of our club recently - we seem to be casting around rather, neither convincing in victory nor performance.
"That changed last week in the FA Cup where our display was much worse than I had thought it would be even though we were outgunned heavily in terms of quality. Anyway, as predicted last week, we are left to concentrate on the league and nothing else. Our quest to ensure ritual beatings next season brings us to Portman Road , which has been a source of drama and goals in recent years. I can remember as a boy listening to our match there in "the Stewart Wardley season", in gleeful disbelief that we had run four goals past them. Oh for a repeat this weekend.
"When we played Ipswich at home in August I thought they looked like a well drilled side who, had they had better finishing on the day, could have come away with a result. David McGoldrick caused us problems and, until he went off, Cole Skuse was doing a good job nullifying us in midfield. Those two will feature tomorrow and I think Ipswich can be reasonably confident of continuing their run of good form in the face of an uncertain opposition. If alarm bells are starting to ring among you then you're not alone.
"If we have learnt our lessons from Doncaster and Everton we can get a result here, but I don't think we will have. Austin will again be isolated and fed on scraps, and we will do more to score than the one goal I am forecasting. Let's hope the managerial situation at Upton Park is resolved and for us to construct another good run of form. Predicting this game is difficult and I do so without much conviction."
Mase' Prediction: Ipswich 1-1 QPR. Scorer: Austin
LFW's Prediction: Ipswich 0-0 QPR. No scorer.
Tweet @loftforwords
Pictures — Action Images