A first league goal for QPR from maverick German Seb Polter wasn’t enough to earn QPR three points against lowly Huddersfield on Monday, nor hide the shortcomings in the Rangers’ side.
Make that four draws and one defeat from Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s first five matches in charge of Queens Park Rangers — new manager syndrome once again proving as bouncy as your average house brick for the West London club.
One can only hope the Dutchman is a fast learner, and took plenty of lessons from this Bank Holiday game with Huddersfield, otherwise positives from a dire encounter were scarce.
Hasselbaink’s assertion afterwards that his side had been "a bit unlucky” not to win the game was troubling. Huddersfield were a limited side last season and have sold four of their best players without adequate replacement in the meantime. A more limited side, assembled at a lower cost, you’d struggle to find at this level and yet a draw flattered the hosts and Huddersfield could easily have won at the death. The only unlucky ones here were the 16,662 poor souls who had to sit through it 90 minutes of this footballing atrocity.
In mitigation, the fixture list at this time of year puts great strain on players and squads. QPR played 48 hours before this at Ipswich and play again in four days’ time against Hull. You could therefore understand, and indeed support, the decision to leave Ale Faurlin on the bench despite his recent excellent displays with his well-documented injury history. Sadly, Daniel Tozser’s completely anonymous, totally ineffective, almost entirely invisible display in his stead only highlighted how reliant Rangers still are on their Argentinean playmaker even after his three ACL ruptures in three years.
Other selections were harder to understand. German striker Seb Polter hasn’t exactly been burdened with too much football over the last six months but was dropped to the bench here, despite having a hand in the goals Junior Hoilett scored at Bristol City and Ipswich, in favour of a return to the utterly ball-aching system Neil Warnock introduced during his brief second spell at the club where Rangers play without a striker at all.
Midfielder Leroy Fer started as furthest man forward, but was so poor here Rangers effectively started the game with ten players. Yes he’s out of position, yes he’s obviously low on confidence and increasingly has the fans on his back, but my goodness his was an insipid contribution. Even when things aren’t going for you, you can still run about and cause nuisance value. He looked completely disinterested.
Despite playing very well wide on the right in the last two matches, Matt Phillips was moved infield to support Fer. This didn’t work either, as it never does, and so after 25 minutes QPR switched Karl Henry into the advanced ‘ten’ role. Bad enough Henry, the most defensive of defensive midfielders, was starting wide on the right in the first place, but to move him up to be effectively the second striker was a new low in a forgettable season so far. He wandered around like a child lost in a supermarket, contributing nothing, as you would expect from somebody who has previously only read about crossing the halfway line in books.
Henry, unlike Fer, Tozser and Sandro, can/did at least run about on Monday, but he won’t be a right winger or a number ten as long as he’s got a hole in his arse. That Massimo Luongo can’t even get ten minutes off the bench in this team is now mind boggling. I’m watching the wrong sport, and obviously have been for the last 25 years. I understand nothing about this game. Never mind a transfer request, if I was him and I saw Karl Henry being preferred in my position in these circumstances I’d be considering a change of career. Likewise Ben Gladwin, still stuck out on loan at Swindon. Likewise Michael Harriman, tearing it up for Wycombe. Michael Petrasso has once more sunk without trace. The big names, meanwhile, play every week, turning in the same performances for the same results.
Rangers, who are supposed to be chasing a play-off spot this season, took on one of the division’s strugglers, at home, with a line up and caution more akin to an FA Cup tie away at a good Premier League side. Huddersfield would have been happy with a point before kick off, and in the end the only saving grace was they didn’t realise all three were there for the taking until a good portion of the match had already passed.
The entire first half produced barely half a dozen moments worthy of note. Phillips and Tozser tested Huddersfield with a couple of devilish early corners but it took until the last five minutes of the half for a serious shot to be attempted on visiting keeper Joe Murphy’s goal — Fer scuffed one wide while Junior Hoilett, who can at least hold his head up after another decent performance continued his recent revival, curled one over the bar after executing a one two. Both were met with ironic cheers and applause from a crowd that could scarcely believe how bad their team was playing.
Huddersfield had the best two chances of the half. Nahki Wells, belatedly finding his feet and starting to look a real player at this level, fashioned an unorthodox header on goal midway through the half which forced Rob Green to improvise a similarly weird one-handed save. Later the former Bradford striker ran in behind the defence and cut the ball back from the byline but Green read his intentions well and snuffed out the danger with a swift bit of footwork and safe catch as visiting players rushed in behind him expecting to head into an empty net.
But that really was it. Sandro was very lucky not to be yellow carded by referee Brendan Malone for a stupid lunging tackle on Mustapha Carayol in front of the dug outs after 24 minutes, and that really rather summed up the Brazilian’s day. Before that, with barely a quarter of the game played, the QPR defence tried to clear its area after punting a Huddersfield corner away down the field and there was Sandro, deeper than any of them, struggling to get up to a jogging speed, blowing out of every orifice. Tozser, understandably, attracted much of the ire of the crowd, and in fact the decision to remove Sandro, rather than the Hungarian, for Seb Polter just after the hour brought heckles and booing from the stands, but my God "The Beast” was absolutely dreadful. He looks, and is, physically shot. Another big name QPR are pinning all their hopes on, ahead of younger lesser-known options, despite it yielding the same, negative, performances and results. He was baggage here from scarily early in the game.
Polter, after his introduction, proved once again, as he has done several times in recent weeks, that even playing with a mediocre striker is better than playing without one at all. The free-flowing Fer and Henry attacking dreamteam now mercifully broken up, QPR had a physical presence in attack, willing to work hard to stop Huddersfield playing out from the back, willing to challenge for headers and make a nuisance of himself, and capable of holding the ball in attacking areas. Fer was removed altogether shortly after Polter’s arrival and Tjaronn Chery introduced, to rapturous applause from the home fans, and Rangers were a thousand times better for it. Polter swiftly drew a booking from Mark Hudson for a bad tackle.
The former Wolfsburg trainee scored too. Not a goal that will be winning any prizes for artistic merit, but a goal that never, ever looked likely without him on the pitch. Third sub Jay Emmanuel Thomas looped a long throw into the area, Nedum Onuoha flicked the ball on and Polter controlled the ball with his back to goal before swivelling and smashing home from close range. Play a striker, score a goal, who would have thought it? Earlier, in literally the only attacking move QPR put together in the first hour of the game, Matt Phillips found himself with the ball at his feet, facing the goal, with no defenders around him after Leroy Fer had cleverly stepped over a low Paul Konchesky cross from the left. His finish was abject, easily saved, when it seemed easier to score, betraying Phillips’ lack of self-belief at the moment. Polter, with a much more difficult chance, didn’t mess about.
Defeat would have been harsh on Huddersfield. Jamie Paterson got caught under a cross 20 minutes from time and headed over when left unmarked in the middle of the QPR goal. They took him off and brought on Sean Scannell shortly after that, who on first glance looks to have eaten the original Sean Scannell, along with all the other food in Huddersfield, and assumed his identity. New German coach David Wagner also brought on Joe Lolley, a non-league star with Kidderminster recently revitalised by a loan spell in League One at Scunthorpe, and he quickly tested Green with a low shot from the edge of the area that the keeper was equal to in the bottom corner.
The equaliser they deserved arrived five minutes from time. Lolley was fouled by Tozser, Green challenged Wells to beat a tall wall containing both Polter and Emmanuel-Thomas by leaving the whole of the right side of his goal wide open and the Huddersfield man was more the equal to the task. By the time Green had got all the way back across the goal, the ball was already nestling in the bottom corner. Green has taken the blame on the Twitter, but it was the wall’s side of the goal and you have to ask why two Huddersfield players were allowed to park themselves in that defensive line up and part them so easily.
Now panicking, Rangers could easily have lost. Green flapped at a corner two minutes later and Scannell hit the rebound wide. Then deep into injury time a low cross from the right was allowed to trundle all the way through the goal mouth to the back post where Konchesky was caught completely on his heels, apparently thinking about other things, and only Scannell will know how he failed to convert from four yards out. In the end he bundled it straight into Green’s arms.
Plenty more food for thought here for QPR’s new management. The team selection for the New Year’s Day game on this ground will likely be a good deal more interesting than the match itself.
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QPR: Green 6; Onuoha 6, Hall 6, Hill 6, Konchesky 6; Tozser 4, Sandro 4 (Polter 65, 7); Phillips 5 (Emmanuel Thomas 77, 5), Henry 5, Hoilett 6, Fer 4 (Chery 69, 6)
Subs not used: Faurlin, Luongo, Smithies, Angella
Goals: Polter 80 (assisted Emmanuel Thomas/Onuoha)
Huddersfield: Murphy 6; Smith 6, Hudson 6, Cranie 6, Davidson 6 (Chilwell 60, 6); Hogg 6, Huws 7, Bunn 6, Carayol 5 (Lolley 60, 7); Paterson 5 (Scannell 73, 6), Wells 7
Subs not used: Allinson, Lynch, Billing, Bojaj
Goals: Wells 86 (free kick won Lolley)
Yellow Cards: Hudson 79 (foul), Huws 89 (foul)
QPR Star Man — Seb Polter 7 Could yet turn into a bit of a cult hero down at Loftus Road. Works hard, closes down defenders, competes physically, causes a nuisance in the opposition area, and has now had a hand in QPR’s last three goals. And even if none of that was true, playing with a striker of any sorts is better than starting without one at all. Really chuffed he got on the scoresheet.
Referee — Brendan Malone (Wiltshire) 7 Fairly decent, not a lot to referee, generously let Sandro away without a yellow card in the first half.
Attendance 16,662 (1,000 Huddersfield approx) I actually thought there looked a good few more than that in for this one, with the Lower School End full of QPR as well. Good following from Huddersfield too, given their league position, the distance, the time of year, the amount of games at the moment and the flooding in that part of the world. Very decent crowd, such a shame it was bored into complete silence by a dreadful game of football.
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