More late heartbreak for QPR against Nottingham Forest this season, as Steve Cooper's men followed up an injury time equaliser at Loftus Road with two goals in the last ten minutes at The City Ground to secure a deserved 3-1 win.
Queens Park Rangers finished the game three one down, down to ten men, with Lee Wallace in goal. Things had not gone quite to plan.
How they got there from a 1-0 half time lead, which should really have been double that and was born of a dominant first half display, was a disaster of many fathers.
There was no little misfortune about it: speedier and more athletic full-back Sam McCallum would surely have started here to combat the eventual match-winning talents of Djed Spence but had to withdraw; Chris Willock was having his best game for several weeks before he took a kick to the back of his thigh and had to go off; David Marshall, himself a hastily scrambled together cover signing, pulled his hamstring after all the substitutions had been made and is the fourth senior goalkeeper QPR have lost to injury in a couple of months. That’s a lot to cope with in one evening.
Mistakes were made. Luke Amos and Lee Wallace simply had to score the early first half chance they butchered between them, theoretically making it 2-0 at half time and a very different ball game. Ryan Yates’ game-breaking second goal was the very definition of soft — the Forest midfielder lost Dion Sanderson, who continues to mar decent performances with moments of total brain freeze, at James Garner’s low corner and able to slide home without a QPR player near him. Whether Warbs Warburton looks back with hindsight and thinks he might make different changes given his time over again only he will know but, having made four alterations to the team to begin with to introduce legs and energy in the middle of the park and been rewarded for that with a fine first half and a lead, it did seem odd to the uninitiated behind the goal to reunite the stodgy Johansen-Hendrick-Field triumvirate and surrender any hope of us ever crossing the halfway line again just when the going was getting really tough. In a similar away game at Luton on Sunday Rangers had started poorly but improved with each substitution and fought back to win — here everything was the opposite way around as a bright beginning faded to disappointing defeat, and the team got worse with each change made to it during the game.
But, sometimes, you just have to hand it to the opposition. Because we’re obviously always coming at this from a QPR point of view I think we’re sometimes guilty of falling into the trap that everything that’s gone well has to be because of something good Rangers have done, and everything that’s gone badly has to be because of something stupid Rangers have done. I struggled to understand the substitutions here personally, and that was the main subject of chat on the trudge back scross The Trent to Lenny Henry’s gaff, but Forest played very well in the second half and deserved to win. They’ve been in a rich vein of form for months now, only held back from an assault on the top two by failing to win any of their first seven games under a different manager. Arsenal and Leicester have both been wiped out on this ground. In the first half, like Luton before them, they weren’t all that at all. But as the game built to its crescendo Forest showed themselves as a fast, skilful, confident, well-coached, well-set up and very attacking side. They’d have won by more with a striker with better finishing instincts than Keinan Davis and you’ll have to go a long way to find two players in this division turning in higher standard performances than Brennan Johnson and Djed Spence at the moment. It’s ok to just hand it to an opponent sometimes, and this might be one of those occasions. Bar one miss you’d have fancied yourself to score in the first half, and a piss-poor piece of marking from a late set piece under heavy pressure, I’m not sure QPR did a lot wrong. They just weren’t quite as a good as one of the division’s form sides.
Initially, at least, QPR did a lot right. Warbs was always going to make changes having bemoaned his own decision not to do so for the recent defeat at another promotion contender, Blackburn, after a hard fought 2-1 win in the game before. No surprise at all to see the legs and press of Luke Amos added back into the midfield, and Chrissy Willock to the attack, after their impressive cameos from the bench helped turn the weekend tide at Kenilworth Road. Andre Dozzell’s first start since January 22 at Coventry was less expected but most welcome — I was feeling gippy about young players we own and are meant to be developing kicking their heels in the U23s while Jeff Hendrick walks into the starting eleven even before it turned out that Jeff Hendrick doesn’t really fit into the team. Youth, legs, energy, press, attacking intent — all sadly lacking of late, all crucial to getting anything from a team that had lost one of 14 and won 13 of its last 19 fixtures. Had Sam McCallum, as expected, been able to take his place at left wing back, with Moses Oduabjo continuing to return to form on the opposite side, QPR might have had enough to win this. They sprung a surprise at the back too — Yoann Barbet’s run of consecutive league starts comes to an end at 97, Dion Sanderson came straight back in from suspension on the left, Rob Dickie was moved into the middle of the three and looked far more comfortable than he has of late on the right, dealing with Davis well, and Jimmy Dunne played right side.
On a sodden pitch, surely only another hour or so of the torrential rain that blanketed the city all afternoon away from being unplayable, Rangers started much the better of the two teams. They won the game’s first corner on two minutes and Odubajo skilfully rescued a potential Forest counterattack off that. Chris Willock was getting in on the last man and the goalkeeper in the right channel with ease and could have set the opening goal up after seven minutes but for an offside flag. Then the moment where Luke Amos from six yards, and Lee Wallace from six inches, somehow contrived to miss a chance you feel you’d have scored yourself with Horvath out of the picture entirely after excellent Andre Gray approach work. From personal season low points at Barnsley, Gray and Odubajo have been two of our best since then.
It took Forest 20 minutes to threaten, although when they did it took a brilliant save from David Marshall to deny Ryan Yates when a cleared corner was returned to the box, and then Brennan Johnson somehow contrived to miss at the far post immediately after that. That, and Chris Willock’s withdrawal after a kick to the back of his thigh just when he was starting to motor, could have derailed Rangers entirely, but Willock’s replacement Ilias Chair was soon slipping a delicious little ball into the right channel for Andre Gray to stride onto and dispatch his third in three appearances into the far corner. One win in 37 visits to The City Ground, the thousand-odd QPR fans at the far end of the ground were daring to believe again. Next question — does Yoann Barbet know what to do in a halftime warm up session?
The first ten minutes of a second half is always crucial in this situation. The element of surprise from QPR’s team selection — absolutely no way would Forest have been expecting Dozzell, and that back three — was lost and Cooper’s fix-ups were in place. Crowd back into it, a blitz was inevitable, but for the most part QPR dealt with it well. Sam Field booked by referee Jon Moss (first Hooters round on me if he ever gets more than ten yards outside the centre circle) for one of a number of cynical, sensible, game-disrupting tactical fouls. Having done that well it was bitterly disappointing to then concede the equaliser out of the blue on exactly the 55-minute mark. Talk about the closing down all you like, it was some strike from Djed Spence that cracked it — 25 yards into the roof of the net with Marshall given no hope. I’m personally not sure how you prevent that really.
If I am to level a criticism at the R’s however, it was this period around the hour. Ground now alive, Forest back in it, Spence bubbling over with confidence, Lee Wallace was immediately carded for chopping the Boro loanee down and became a walking red card as a result. He was not removed as one of the two subs made on the hour. Instead, off went the legs and youth from the midfield, and on came the stodge with Stefan Johansen and Jeff Hendrick slotting in alongside Field. This brought all the problems it’s brought before — too deep down the field, unable to get out, forwards isolated, too many cooks, I doubt your commitment to cakes etc. I watched Warburton’s excellent Masterclass on YouTube on the train up in the morning which is well worth quarter of an hour of your time, but one of the key statements he made was that we never, ever want the two deep-lying central midfield players to be deep and square of each other, one always needs to be ahead of the other and pressing to get us on the front foot. That was in analysing the Blackburn home game pre-Christmas, and I do wonder how and why we’ve gone from that to now having three defensive central midfielders on top of each other, incapable or unwilling to go over the halfway line.
Still, time ticked away without too many scares, bar a collection of glaring Keinan Davis misses, and with ten minutes to go a point looked a very realistic prospect. Here, though, Rangers started to look a little ragged, as Forest piled over the top of them. Nine injury time goals this season have brought eight extra points for Steve Cooper’s team, and they really turned up the heat in these closing stages. Wallace, on a booking, credit spent with the referee and now deep into his overdraft, fouled on halfway and tempted fate with a referee who’d already shown seven yellow cards on the night. Marshall’s save to deny Zinckernagel on 82 minutes was brilliant, and this was an impressive return to form for the Scottish keeper after costing us three goals in the last three games. Alarmingly though, he stayed down with a hamstring injury, which perhaps led to a lapse in concentration from the defence who then undid all his hard work by allowing Yates a free shot on goal for the crucial second from the resulting corner. Marshall was furious and had every right to be so.
Now behind, with all the subs made, time at a premium, and the halfway line akin to the moon for this midfield, Rangers were done. Worse still, so was Marshall. Again his save in the build up to the third goal was brilliant, and he was then let down by those in front of him allowing Johnson to fire in some cake icing. Marshall now unable to continue, it was left to Lee Wallace to pick up the gloves and keep goal for the stoppage time. Forest, sportingly, didn’t really try to make too much hay under that particularly fortuitous sun. Rangers, so good in the first half, within sight of a point just ten minutes prior, now reduced to a ten-man rabble drawing straws to see who was next in goal. It had all unravelled alarmingly quickly.
I actually came away feeling pretty sanguine from this one. I expected us to lose both away games this week, and we’ve stuck three points on the board. If we beat Peterborough at home on Sunday (a big if, of course, having shit the bed against them twice already this season) then that will take us into a much-needed international break for our battered and bruised team in the top six. That would represent a successful week, in my opinion. Take a fortnight off, and then go hell for leather into a final eight games. Maybe we’ll be good enough, maybe we won’t, but it’s a position every single one of us would have taken at the start of the season.
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Forest: Horvath 6; Spence 8, Worrall 7, Figueiredo 6, McKenna 6 (Lolley 79, 7), Colback 7; Yates 7, Garner 7, Zinckernagel 6 (Dias 84, -); Johnson 8, Davis 5 (Surridge 79, 7)
Subs not used: Laryea, Mighten, Silva, Samba
Goals: Spence 55 (unassisted), Yates 83 (assisted Garner), Johnson 87 (assisted Dias)
Bookings: Yates 62 (foul), Davis 77 (foul)
QPR: Marshall 7; Odubajo 6, Dunne 6, Dickie 7, Sanderson 5, Wallace 5; Amos 6 (Johansen 61, 5), Field 6, Dozzell 6 (Hendrick 61, 5); Willock 7 (Chair 31, 6), Gray 7
Subs not used: Barbet, Austin, Adomah, Mahoney
Goals: Gray 40 (assisted Chair)
Bookings: Dozzell 36 (foul), Dunne 43 (foul), Field 54 (foul), Wallace 60 (foul), Odubajo 80 (foul)
QPR Star Man — David Marshall 7 Showed terrific character to return from recent bad mistakes with a good performance here — three or four really excellent saves, sadly let down in two instances immediately afterwards by the defenders in front of him, and then rather tragically with future games in mind at the expense of his own health. I thought Andre Gray was good as well.
Referee — Jon Moss (West Yorkshire) 6 QPR will get a league fine for five bookings in the game, and you couldn’t really argue with any of them. At one point the whole ground was apoplectic with rage about his performance, abuse raining down from all sides, but I couldn’t really work out what all that fuss was about — a few minor 50/50 decisions in neutral areas of the pitch called wrong, but not enough for that level of outrage and Steve Cooper ended up being spoken to during that period as well. My main problem with Moss, and it’s a problem in general with referees at the top end of the game where employment law forbids them from forcing retirement and you end up with 50+-year-old blokes refereeing high speed games played by 20-year-olds. When I did my referee training one of the first things I was taught was running corner flag to corner flag diagonally, looking through play towards your assistant wherever possible. What you notice when you’ve done that training, usually in Sunday park refereeing but actually the case with a few of the older referees including Moss, is when older, less fit referees instead run the "fat man’s square” around the centre circle. The problem it gives you is for incidents in all four corners of the field you’re often too far away to make a proper judgement on what’s happened, and that was a particular issue in this game where the corners of the pitch were basically waterlogged and there were some tricky incidents there to judge, too many of which he got wrong from a long distance away. Refereeing in this country is beset by problems at the moment, and a log-jam of 50+ officials at the top of the game is high among them.
Attendance — 27,872 (1,031 QPR) I feel like I’ve spent my whole bastard life watching QPR get their arse handed to them with Mull of Kintyre as the backing track.
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