Despite dominating the game and creating enough clear cut chances to last most competent sides for a good six weeks worth of matches, QPR contrived to crash out of the FA Cup with a late red card and comedy own goal.
There are so many different ways to lose a football match, and this season QPR seem keen for their long suffering supporters to enjoy the experience of as many of them as possible. Three of the most irritating and distressing methods of blowing matches have come in the last fortnight with the tried and tested last minute collapse costing us at Hull, a deserved point being whisked away by a useless incompetent match official on Saturday and then there was last night at Kenilworth Road. Rangers dominated their FA Cup third round replay against Luton from start to almost finish. They missed a variety of chances, each easier than the last, and never looked in danger of doing anything other than making their way into the next round. You'd struggle to find a more one sided game. It would seem though that the players were keen to add another method of losing games to their résumé rather than playing Blackburn on Saturday morning. With ten minutes to go they imploded, crashed down to ten men and then contrived to hit Luton's only shot on target of the entire match into the bottom corner for them. You can't beat a comedy own goal - except when it's your team knocking it in. A quarter of a million pounds down the toilet thanks to profligate finishing, the red mist descending on Stefan Bailey and Zesh Rehman undermining another improved performance with a moment of incompetence you'd struggle to find at anything higher than park level. No wonder John Gregory sounded uptight on the 11.30pm Five Live news. He's not sure if he can strengthen the squad now the prize money is going elsewhere - as if we needed cheering up on the journey home. Gregory made changes to his starting eleven after the unfortunate defeat against Southampton on Saturday. Ray Jones, leggy and off the pace for so much of the game at the weekend, was left out and replaced by Marc Nygaard alongside Dexter Blackstock. In midfield Lee Cook returned from his ban on the left but was treading on thin ice, another yellow card will see him sitting out a further game. Jimmy Smith moved over to the right with Shabazz Baidoo left out of the squad altogether. Bailey replaced Marc Bircham in the middle of midfield alongside Steve Lomas. With Sam Timoska ineligible Mauro Milanese was recalled at full back with Stewart and Mancienne at centre half and Zesh Rehman at right back. Simon Royce was the goalkeeper. Luton were without four players who'd featured in their 2-0 home defeat by Barnsley at the weekend. Warren Feeney and Leon Barnett left that match early with injuries and they were replaced in the starting eleven by Russell Perrett and Adam Boyd. The terms of Dean Kiely's loan deal meant he was unavailable and replaced in goal by Dean Brill with second choice Marlon Beresford ruled out with a late back injury. New signing Matthew Spring, an unused sub at the weekend, was unavailable for this match and Brkovic came into the starting line up instead of Keane. Richard Langley took up his place in the Luton midfield again and was booed by the travelling Rangers fans which I felt was a shame at the time but by the end of the game I found myself joining in, more on that later. The first ten minutes went pretty much to the script of two poor Championship sides scrapping for much needed funds on a pudding of a pitch. Neither of the sides could string more than two passes together and the opening period was made up entirely of limited footballing talent kicking lumps out of the ball, each other and the playing surface. When the chaos finally resulted in a chance it fell Luton's way with David Bell collecting the ball from slack defending on the edge of the QPR penalty area and scuffing a low shot a couple of yards past the post. Within five minutes Bell had created a chance for himself but he chose to send a wild effort over the bar and into a sizeable following from Loftus Road rather than crossing to one of the numerous Luton players who'd got up in support. From that point on the traffic was only flowing one way. Lee Cook fired an early warning with a well flighted free kick from the right which Marc Nygaard headed over the bar under pressure from the Luton defenders. There was no such opposition five minutes later when Cook and Milanese combined to send Blackstock racing in down the left flank. After reaching the byline Rangers' top scorer sent a low cross through the six yard box but Nygaard, totally unmarked at the back post, just couldn't get the required contact on the ball to steer it into the corner. Half an hour in Nygaard was again at the centre of the action, collecting a ball from Cook on the edge of the area, holding off his man and teeing up Smith for a low drive on goal. It seemed that the loaned Chelsea man's recent goal drought would come to an end as his drive flew towards the bottom corner but keeper Brill dived full length to keep the shot out and then leapt to his feet quick enough to block the rebound at Blackstock's feet. In a rare visit to the Oak Road end of the ground Bell had the ball in the net after beating Royce at his near post but the linesman's flag had long since been raised. You could forgive Bell for sticking the ball away anyway, both linesmen had seemed almost comatose when it came to making quick decisions and when they did finally stick the flag in the air the referee often saw fit to ignore them or in some cases award the decision the opposite way even when more than twice the distance away from the incident. An early offside decision against Cook when he'd appeared to run from inside his own half emptied the QPR bench onto the pitch and just about summed up the overall performance from the men with the flags on the night. After Bell's brief trip to the penalty area QPR restored normal service and created the best chance of the game so far. Cook, Blackstock and Milanese were performing particularly well down the left hand side, ripping into the home side at every opportunity. After one such link up Milanese carried the ball down to the byline and then produced the perfect cross to Nygaard who, despite being just yards from the goal, totally unmarked and meeting the ideal ball in, contrived to head a yard wide of the post with the goal at his mercy. If Milanese had sat down with Nygaard before the game and spoken about, drawn out, planned, practised and rehearsed the most perfect cross possible for him then this would have been it - plum onto his forehead and yet he planted it wide. Cook and Blackstock both got in down the left on separate occasions before the break but could only force corners. Both deliveries from Smith dropped loose in the six yard box but were scrambled behind and away from the danger. Despite the deadlock, spirits were high in the away end, surely another half of football like that would yield a positive result. The second half began in much the same way as the first with two mis-kicks and a terrible header sending the ball spiralling off into the dug outs right from the kick off. The period of abysmal football didn't last quite so long as it had done at the start of the match though and Rangers were soon on the offensive again. Nygaard was the key man right from the off and he got in behind Perrett and into the area within the first few minutes. It looked at one stage like Nygaard would hit the deck but he stayed on his feet and worked his way into the ideal position for a cross only to hack it up and over the bar into the away end. This did not go down well with the numerous team mates in the six yard box. The QPR attacks flowed in waves towards their expectant supporters. Just before the hour Smith flighted a terrific corner into the near post, Stewart met it well but the ball flashed a foot wide of the post. It was at this point that I started to worry it wasn't going to be our night. Blackstock laid a ball in for Nygaard which he didn't chase with quite the enthusiasm one might have hoped for and Luton cleared, minutes later an identical pass from Cook after he'd cut in from the left found Nygaard again, this time he was in round the back of Davis and seemed certain to score but he shanked the into the side netting from six yards out. Cook then tried a cross shot of his own after a similar run but the ball rolled out of Blackstock's reach and wide of the far post. Luton had barely made it out of their half for the best part of an hour. People who don't read my reports often will think this is the usual biased rubbish from a bitter fan of the losing team - those that read these regularly will know that's not the case. I've genuinely never seen such a one sided 1-0 defeat in my life. Their only attempt of the second half came from Emanuel who sent a fizzing drive from a free kick comfortably wide of the top corner, although at one stage I felt this was the moment that our poor finishing would cost us as it looked destined for the very top corner of the net. Other than that the only feature of Luton's play was Richard Langley who hacked down Lee Cook with a crude challenge that didn't even earn a talking to from the referee in the first half. In the second period he stood over Stefan Bailey and accused him of faking injury as Prav Mathema ran onto the pitch to administer treatment. Quite frankly for somebody that spends as much time rolling around on the floor picking up injuries and free kicks Mr Langley would do well not to engage in such antics. His actions disappointed me because like I say I felt the booing before both cup games was uncalled for and I've stuck up for him on numerous occasions. Nygaard's single handed miss of the season competition was brought to a close with twenty minutes left for play and Ray Jones was introduced to the game but two minutes later the game turned with an ugly incident just inside the QPR half. Stefan Bailey flung himself into a two footed tackle on Brkovic and a ruck ensued. As Brkovic lay receiving treatment Coyne and the other Luton players steamed in and confronted Bailey which resulted in a mass session of handbag swinging. The referee, who'd completely ignored his assistants to this point, suddenly decided he fancied a word with them and after a brief consultation he produced a red card for Bailey. I thought at the time that it was deserved and, with the new rules as they are, there's nothing on the replay to suggest otherwise. Bailey refused to go quietly, confronting the referee and apparently catching the him with his forehead. He then stormed off down the pitch waving his arms around wildly at both sets of fans and players. Ultimately Lee Cook was forced to coordinate a makeshift stewarding effort around the tunnel and Richard Hill ran across from the bench to get Bailey away down the tunnel. Coyne was booked for his part in the altercation. When play resumed Ray Jones was forced into the middle of the midfield when Luton had the ball. That area of the QPR team had been very poor to this point with Bailey on the pitch, without him it was wide open. Gregory started to prepare Ainsworth for a return from injury but they couldn't get him on in time and Luton took the lead. Newell had responded to the sending off by introducing Dean Morgan to his attack and it was the former Reading man's cross shot that brought about the opening goal. Quite what Zesh Rehman had in mind I'm not sure I'll ever know but under absolutely no pressure, facing a shot flying towards the corner flag, eight yards from his own goal he contrived to swing at the ball, miscue it altogether and send the ball spinning towards the corner and past Royce. It was a shame because Rehman had turned in another improved display at right back to this point but the goal was bad beyond belief. How a professional footballer can do that under no pressure is beyond me. How? Why? An incredible piece of play, the stuff of park football. The final ten minutes were played out with Luton understandably running the clock down and the referee constantly awarding perplexing decisions against QPR. Whether Bailey meant to catch him in the face on the way off or not it seemed to set Mr Jones against Rangers for the rest of the game. The worst of the incidents came when Luton were protecting the ball down in the corner, QPR won the ball back and the linesman signalled for a free kick to Rangers. The referee, more than twenty yards away from the incident, overruled his assistant who was feet away from it and awarded the free kick to Luton. The confusion caused by this lunacy ran another couple of minutes off the clock. Gareth Ainsworth was introduced down the right for the closing stages and the width improved matters but despite the efforts of him, Cook and Lomas the game, and the money had gone. In my opinion only QPR could have lost this match. Luton failed to register a shot on target in the entire game so QPR did it for them - Rehman undermining an improved showing with a catastrophically bad own goal. I just don't know how he did it. Shambolic. Of course had Nygaard converted a couple of his guilt edge chances it wouldn't have mattered. A game there for the taking, and Rangers let it slip away. I only hope that after three different kinds of heartbreaking defeats confidence isn't too damaged to affect the performance in the crucial match at Barnsley next Tuesday. Last night was frustrating, annoying and ultimately gutting - but that's nothing compared to what next Tuesday will be if the same thing happens at Oakwell. Luton: Brill 8, Foley 6, Davis 6, Coyne 6, Perrett 5, Bell 7, Robinson 6, Langley 7, Emanuel 6, Boyd 5, Brkovic 6 (Morgan 76, 7). QPR: Royce 5, Rehman 6, Mancienne 8, Stewart 7, Milanese 7, Smith 6 (Ainsworth 84, -), Bailey 5, Lomas 6, Cook 7, Blackstock 7,Nygaard 5 (Ray Jones 72, 5). Attendance: 7,494 QPR Star Man - Michael Mancienne 8 - Oozes class in everything he does, made one mistake in the entire match when he miscued clearance straight to Bell on the edge of the box, within three seconds he'd won the ball back and was passing to a team mate. Quality, quality player. Ref: M Jones (Cheshire) 5 - A quite bizarre official at times, giving perplexing decisions often flying in the face of facts and advice from his assistants. The final ten minutes of the game were refereed unprofessionally in my opinion - clearly lost the plot after the Bailey incident. Not good at all.
Subs Not Used: Barrett, O'Leary, Keane, Stevens.
Booked: Coyne, Morgan.
Goals: Rehman 80 og.
Subs Not Used: Cole, Kanyuka, Furlong.
Sent Off: Bailey (74).