 Friday, 9th Dec 2011 11:40 by Clive Whittingham QPR face Liverpool at Anfield, a ground where they have only ever won once, on Saturday before returning home to play Manchester United next weekend. Liverpool (7th) v QPR (12th)Barclays Premier League >>> Saturday December 10, 2011 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Anfield, Liverpool You still can’t beat the magic of the FA Cup apparently – drama, excitement, upsets, weakened teams, managers professing to be happy about their early knockout so they can concentrate on the league. Breath that magic in guys, try to contain yourselves. I must admit that despite the competition’s seemingly terminal decline the drawing of the third round last Sunday still had me shuffling in my seat like a pensioner with a bladder problem and desperately imploring my better half to show interest in what Jim Rosenthal quickly reminded us was one of the most eagerly anticipated moments of the football season. “Listen to Jim, he knows,” I bellowed across the room to little response. What is the world coming to when even the voice of Jim Rosenthal carries no authority any more? There’s no wonder people are rioting on the streets. And then the magic began. All 64 balls tipped into the washing up bowl, Gianfranco Zola and that Chinese guy who used to play for Everton both encouraged to give their ball bag a squeeze just to make sure, and away we went. It might have been an idea to check with Li Tie that he had indeed learned to count in English during his time in this country – as it turned out he was ok up to 50 but a bit nervous thereafter and the horror was clearly audible in Rosenthal’s voice as Tie tried to convince him that Portsmouth had come out of the hat for a second time. In actual fact it was Charlton Athletic. QPR pulled MK Dons away. A first ever trip to a club created artificially by picking up a struggling club in London, ripping it away from its supporters and transporting it 60 miles north to a soulless new town where it now plays in a vast, three quarters empty stadium next to a supermarket. Once more, for QPR the FA Cup proves to be about as magical as a paedophile dressing up as Harry Potter to help him snatch five-year-olds from the municipal playground on the estate. Rangers, I’m sure you need no reminding, have the worst FA Cup record of any team at any level of football in the country. Everybody from Manchester United down to Heanor Town has won an FA Cup game of some sorts since 2001 except Queens Park Rangers. The record was previously held by Sheffield Wednesday but since their 5-2 win at Southport in 2010 it’s belonged to QPR who have lost their last ten FA Cup ties without a single victory in return. Vauxhall Motors are the most famous disaster story in that ttime but defeats at Luton Town, Grimsby Town and Burnley didn’t exactly smother our club in glory either. Neil Warnock has openly admitted he cares little for the cup competitions since arriving at QPR - perhaps haunted by the 2002/03 season when Sheffield United made the semi finals of both domestic cup competitions but subsequently ran out of steam and crashed 3-0 in the more important promotion play-off final. Last season, with the team so heavily reliant on Shaun Derry, Clint Hill and Heidar Helguson, early exits from the League and FA Cups with the subsequent midweek rests they provided probably made sense. Likewise this season when we calmly allowed Rochdale to beat us 2-0 with the focus entirely on staying in the Premiership. It would be nice though, with the squad stronger now and about to be strengthened further, to think that we could at least win a game or two in the FA Cup this time around. Some QPR supporters were unaware the competition even has a fourth round – labouring under the misapprehension that we’d just be given the trophy if we ever won a single game in the tournament. Warnock has used his three cup ties as QPR manager (defeats to Port Vale, Rochdale and Blackburn) to give some of our youth team players a run out, and perhaps he’ll do the same at Milton Keynes. After all the juniors don’t seem to be afflicted by cup sickness in quite the same way as the firsts, they knocked out Huddersfield Town in the FA Youth Cup on Wednesday night at Loftus Road – no small achievement given Huddersfield’s academy status as opposed to QPR’s far inferior centre of excellence. Bruno Andrade, one of those players given a chance against Rochdale and Blackburn, scored the crucial goal. New QPR owner Tony Fernandes has made improving the facilities and restarting a youth academy set up at Rangers one of his top priorities since taking over – a set up that should already be in place given the money that has been washing around our club for the last four years. It’s a disgrace that it’s not and a clear sign of the short sighted attitude of the previous owners. Currently, despite the victory in the week, the QPR youth set up is useful for little more than keeping 20 lads off the streets of West London and giving them something to do a couple of nights a week and one weekend morning. We cannot attract the best talent ahead of the likes of Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, Palace, Charlton, West Ham and Reading who all have academies within our catchment area. The talent we do attract plays against the other non-academy sides like Barnet, Colchester and Brighton on park pitches and, with no reserve team to speak of, is expected to step straight from that into the Premiership. On the rare occasions a diamond does end up among the QPR rough it is quickly snatched away by one of the aforementioned academy clubs that can offer facilities, training and fixtures far superior to anything they’ll ever get at Loftus Road. The money we received for Dean Parrett when he went to Spurs was vital to the club at the time, but thanks to the new EPPP regulations (backed by Richard Scudamore and therefore automatically a bad thing) that have been approved big clubs poaching talent in that way will soon see those fees vastly reduced to a pittance. Spurs were quite happy to pay reasonably big money for Parrett, even though they’ve never actually found a use for him in the five years he’s been there since, because they didn’t want anybody else to have him. How making it easier for big clubs to rack and stack any half decent young player so nobody else can have them without ever actually using them in the first team is good for the game is beyond me. John Bostock was a first team regular at Crystal Palace at 16. Spurs paid a fraction of his true worth through the tribunal system and have done little other than loan him back to lower division clubs ever since – again, they just feared him going to Chelsea and tearing the place apart. In future they’ll be able to do that further afield with rules on distance from home abolished, and much cheaper as well. Which brings me, belatedly, to this Saturday’s game at Liverpool who also plundered Loftus Road recently for a teenage boy. Raheem Sterling, despite reports about him having worse knees than Ledley King, was courted by all the big clubs in this country and, despite his parents repeatedly saying he was happy to stay at QPR and develop into a first team player, he eventually signed for Liverpool. The youth coaches at QPR have repeatedly expressed displeasure at the way agents behave with the club’s young players who are often little more than children when they’re being hawked around like a piece of meat for their own self profit and gain. The indications are that Sterling may actually make the grade – his performances for Liverpool’s fabled academy side have drawn national headlines since he moved there. Kenny Dalglish, with Jay Spearing and John Flanagan, has shown more willingness than his predecessors to give youth a chance at Anfield so perhaps Sterling is in the right place at the right time. Or perhaps not – an extortionate £20m purchase of Jordan Henderson moved him another notch down the pecking order in the summer. In youth football, like the modern day FA Cup, magic is thin on the ground. This SaturdayTeam News: DJ Campbell and Kieron Dyer have both resumed training after their long term lay offs and should be fit and ready for the Christmas period, but not this match. Expect Dyer to be out again before the decorations come down. Matthew Connolly is also back in training and working his way back into contention for Christmas. The main problem for Neil Warnock remains in goal where first choice Paddy Kenny remains sidelined by a side injury, and second choice Barry Murphy has a torn calf. Radek Cerny has done little wrong in his two games so far, and made a fine save to preserve a point in the last minute of the West Brom game last weekend, but he too is nursing a back complaint and Rangers have only Elvijs Putnins on the bench who has no first team experience at all. Liverpool have lost their two holding midfield players in the space of a week ahead of this game. Lucas Leiva, once a figure of fun and ridicule but now the new flavour of the month for supporters and pundits, is out for the season with a cruciate injury. His replacement at Fulham on Monday night Jay Spearing promptly got himself sent off and is now suspended for this fixture and two more besides. With Steven Gerrard still struggling with an ankle knock, having hardly played at all for the last six months, Dalglish’s much ridiculed pursuit of every midfielder going during the summer doesn’t look quite so foolhardy any more.
Elsewhere: The game of the weekend this week is actually the Monday Night Football with title chasing Manchester City heading to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea. Andre Villas Boas was rather too pleased with himself after the Blues’ Champions League win against Valencia last week as if it, and the fortunate win at Newcastle a couple of days before, represented some sort of corner being turned. This game will provide a big indication – Chelsea would be 13 points behind City if they lost and, to all intents and purposes, out of the race. Man Utd and Arsenal look like the big winners this weekend on paper with home matches against Wolves and Everton respectively. Both look like home bankers but third placed Spurs and sixth placed Newcastle have awkward away trips to deal with – Alan Pardew takes his men to Norwich on Saturday, Spurs go to Stoke for the Super Sunday 4pm game. The other big match of the weekend takes place at the opposite end of the table in the early Sunday kick off. Martin O’Neill takes charge of Sunderland (17th) for the first time against Blackburn who are a place below them in the relegation mire. Most experts seem to expect the Black Cats to pull away now O’Neill is in place and I agree with them. There are other six pointers of sorts for Wigan who go to West Brom, Swansea who host Fulham and Bolton who play Aston Villa at home. That bottom three could be cut adrift this weekend if they don’t pick up a win or two. Referee: Lee Mason is the referee for our match this weekend for the first time this season. Mason awarded Liverpool a highly debatable penalty in a win at West Brom back in October but hasn’t taken charge of a Rangers match since our 2-2 draw at Cardiff City in the promotion race last season. Click here for the full case file. FormLiverpool: Monday night’s defeat at Fulham brought to an end an impressive run of results for Kenny Dalglish’s men. Prior to that they had won six successive away games (the club record is seven), had one eight matches without defeat in the league and 11 in all competitions. A major part of the success has been the defensive record which is the joint best in the league – seven conceded. They’ve only conceded two goals this season from set pieces, one each against both Manchester clubs. Despite the Fulham result Pool have still taken more points away from home (12) than the 11 they have at Anfield this season – five teams have come here and taken draws including Swansea, Norwich and Sunderland. Both Craig Bellamy and Dirk Kuyt are one goal away from 50 in the Premiership, the Dutchman hasn’t scored since May so I think we can all see where this is probably going. Jamie Carragher has four goals in 690 matches, none since December 2006 – he’s scored more own goals in the meantime. QPR: Rangers, like Liverpool, have won more points on the road than they have at home. The R’s have won three times away from home already this season, at Stoke, Everton and Wolves, while only Chelsea have lost at Loftus Road. QPR have the worst goal difference outside the bottom three, skewed somewhat by the freakish 6-0 defeat at Fulham, and have conceded more goals than anybody outside the bottom three except Norwich. Their nine away goals scored is a better record than anybody outside the top six apart from, bizarrely, Blackburn and Bolton who have scored 11 and ten respectively despite sitting in the bottom three. Betting: Professional odds compiler Owen Goulding was on form last week – getting his money back on his Palace v Derby bet and correctly backing the draw between QPR and West Brom at 5/2. Let’s see what he has for us this week… QPR should be going to Anfield with three points won last week but a combination of poor finishing and the tightest of tight offside decisions means they enter the Scouse fortress a little deflated. I have studied this match quite a lot, and no matter how hard I look at it, Liverpool are much too short a price to win this game. The simple fact is I wouldn't want to trade our midfield for the one the reds will have on display on Saturday. Lucas is a big loss, despite people’s apathy towards him - he is a decent midfielder. Barton and Faurlin much better proposition than Henderson and Adam. However, our defence still looks suspect every time it is attacked and although Suarez spends more time on the floor than Audley Harrison, he is due a field day sooner rather than later. I am not sure it will be here though. The key is how Warnock sends his players out. I hark back to the Spurs game - we went to a 'superior' team away from home, sat back and let them dictate entirely for 45 minutes. I still believe if the attitude shown in that second half at White Hart Lane had been evident in the first, we may have got something out of the game. If we can set up the same way as we did for that second 45, it could be a good day out in the North West. We may spring a surprise with a win or a draw but I am recommending a bet on QPR @ 10/11 (generally) on the Asian Handicap at +1.5. For all those who don't understand Asian Handicap betting, a QPR win, a draw or even if Liverpool win by a one goal margin, your bet is a winner. Liverpool win by two or more, it’s a loser! Good Luck! Prediction: Norwich and Swansea have already been to Anfield this season and shown that Liverpool can be contained and frustrated a lot easier than some of the other top sides in this league – we explain why in the Scout Report section of our oopposition focus article this week. However it should be said that on both occasions the visiting goalkeepers were in inspired form, and goalkeeper isn’t a position QPR are particularly strong in at the moment. Neither is centre half with Anton Ferdinand and Danny Gabbidon in iffy form and that’s not promising with the irrepressible Luis Suarez buzzing around. It’s a big decision for Neil Warnock whether to try and do what Norwich and Swansea did despite our problems at the heart of the defence, or go for the win in the usual way. Given what happened in the two halves at Spurs I’d strongly hope we do the latter. I think it could be another one of those days where we win plenty of plaudits but no points. Liverpool win 3-1, 11/1 with William Hill Tweet @loftforwords Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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