Following the memorable victory at Chelsea, QPR are back at Loftus Road on Saturday to face West Brom in the FA Cup. An uninspiring tie, with sky high ticket prices putting supporters off, isn’t really what the R’s need right now.
FA Cup >>> Saturday January 5, 2013 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Loftus Road, London, W12
QPR’s replay victory against MK Dons in the third round last season brought to an end a run of 11 years without a single FA Cup win. Rangers played everybody from Chelsea to Vauxhall Motors in that time with plenty of mediocre tat in between – Grimsby, Luton, Blackburn twice – and in truth rarely got close to actually winning a tie. Even the MK Dons progression was a touch fortunate having trailed until late in the first match while playing with ten men.
To go that long without a win in a competition is really quite difficult to do, presuming you’re not doing it on purpose. I add that qualifier because, sadly, losing cup matches is actually seen as a positive thing by many teams these days.
In the second Blackburn tie, in 2010/11, QPR manager Neil Warnock joked afterwards that he’d have fined defender Kaspars Gorkss had he equalised with a late header instead of hitting the bar. QPR had taken the thick end of 3,000 fans to Ewood Park in 2005/06 hoping for an upset only to be thumped 3-0, for the second trip barely 700 made the journey and they, as well as the team, looked as if they just wanted it over and done with.
Warnock was wholly focused on achieving promotion and saw the cup as an unwanted distraction. His team had crashed out of the League Cup at the first given opportunity that season as well meaning that while promotion rivals were playing Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday for weeks at a time Rangers often had midweeks spare to rest the weary legs of Shaun Derry, Clint Hill and other key players. They didn’t lose any of their first 19 matches that season, then suddenly lost three times over Christmas when the fixtures stacked up, only to then only suffer two more defeats in the rest of the campaign – and one of those in a midweek match. Given that, and the fact that a year later Warnock lost his star midfielder to a cruciate ligament injury in the first game at Milton Keynes, and was then fired straight afterwards, perhaps you could see his point about Gorkss’ header.
But football is about medals and trophies. Sitting your grandson down to tell him about the time an early exit from the FA Cup paved the way for a trouble-free fourteenth place finish in the Premier League doesn’t seem right to me. Sure, occasionally, as in 2010/11 and arguably this season as well, there are more pressing concerns than the cup and star players should be left out for fear of suffering the same fate as Ale Faurlin 12 months ago. But when you see teams safe in midtable, fielding weakened teams and crashing out to lower league opponents when they actually have the potential to really go far in the knock out competitions – Fulham, Bolton and Sunderland have been particularly prolific offenders in this regard over the last decade – do you not start to wonder exactly what they’re playing the sport for?
Is the cup such a threat to league form anyway? I’m aware of the Birmingham City example but I’m not sure their League Cup win had much to do with their later relegation. Are we to believe they’d have stayed up that season had they lost their third round tie at Millwall? Given that the 4-1 win at The Den seemed to spur them on – they won six and drew two of the next 11 matches – I’m not convinced.
For QPR and injury to certain players – Adel Taarabt, Ryan Nelsen, arguably Stephane Mbia – would be an absolute disaster and for that reason, on this occasion, you simply have to leave them out. Similarly there are players within the QPR squad like DJ Campbell, Tal Ben Haim now, and others who may be of some use to Harry Redknapp in the league who need game time in their legs and practice playing with this QPR team first. Much as it pains me to say it, Rangers should be making wholesale changes and getting the hell out of the competition this season.
On the other hand our opponents West Brom, with Premier League status assured next season and a dangerous set of players at their disposal, should be seeing the FA Cup as a real opportunity. Play their first team throughout, get a favourable draw or two, and they could be a good outside bet this season. With seven wins at home already on the board nobody would want an away draw at The Hawthorns in the later rounds. Sadly, if they do take it seriously, they’ll be in the minority. The League Cup has actually gone full circle now to the point where teams care for it so little the games are entertaining again in a farcical way, and the FA Cup isn’t far behind.
There is no answer to it. The FA could introduce rules about a certain number of first team players being selected, but when they did that for the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy I saw a match at Bradford where Sheffield Wednesday took off three of their best players in the first 15 minutes of the game – including their goalkeeper. That was the work of odious toad Gary Megson mind.
One thing that would improve the situation, in my opinion, is the ticketing arrangements. There’s a chicken and egg situation here – did the crowds lose interest because the clubs did or the other way around – but the apathy of the supporters is certainly feeding through to the clubs now. FA Cup ties used to be the biggest attendances of the season, and now they’re the lowest. QPR have charged their supporters £25 to come to this match today (plus a £3.50 booking fee) and I think that’s a sorry misjudgement that will be reflected in the attendance. Fans have been bombarded with text messages and Tweets from the club all week begging for people to buy tickets but you can go and watch West Ham v Man Utd for £8.50 less if you’re really desperate for a match. Given the season the club is having, the supporters who are sticking with the team deserve some sort of thanks and reward and this could have been an ideal chance to do that.
If we are looking at a rule change, how about early round cup games made free to season ticket holders again to boost attendances in the competition and give something back to supporters who are increasingly finding football difficult to afford? You may find if the grounds fill up and the fans start caring about the cup more, the players and the clubs would as well.
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Team News: Harry Redknapp has handed squad numbers to three strikers returning from loan deals in the Championship – Rob Hulse is back from Charlton, Jay Bothroyd from Sheff Wed and DJ Campbell from Ipswich. Campbell will definitely feature at some point having notched ten goals in 17 appearances for the Tractor Boys but all three could make an appearance. Luke Young is also back training with the first team although not fit enough to play just yet. Tal Ben Haim could make his debut after signing a short term contract on Friday but David Hoilett is ruled out with the hamstring injury he suffered in the win at Stamford Bridge. Ji Sung Park came back from a knee injury there as a late sub and may play but Bobby Zamora and Andy Johnson remain long term absentees. Samba Diakite is away at the African Cup of Nations.
Secure in the league with half a season to go West Brom may resist the urge to make wholesale changes and actually have a crack at the cup this year. That said, they’re facing a selection headache regardless of their intentions with giant centre half Jonas Olsson out with a groin injury and similarly defensively minded players Steven Reid, Goran Popov and Claudio Yacob all out as well.
Elsewhere: Big old chunk of FA Cup Third Round ties on Saturday, starting with Brighton v Newcastle at 12.30 and finishing with West Ham v Man Utd at 5.15. In between, one or two matches of note. Will Reading fancy a trip to Crawley to play a very decent League One side on what is, by all accounts, a ploughed field that the home team are well used to playing on but a poor Reading side won’t have seen the likes of all season? Perhaps not. Wolves, terminally out of form and with manager Stale Solbakken clinging to his job, go to Conference side Luton which they could well do without. Cardiff have said they will change all 11 of their players for a trip to another non-league side Macclesfield. Ipswich, revived under Mick McCarthy, go to a Villa side with their mind on other things while Palace welcome Stoke in another tie with upset potential.
On Sunday Swansea host Arsenal in the early game while Liverpool head to another team playing on a patch of farmland, Mansfield. Everton are at Cheltenham in the Monday Night Football.
Referee: Well it’s been 20 minutes or so since he was last here so it’s about time we had Mark Clattenburg I guess. As a Newcastle fan he’s not allowed to referee the Magpies, or Sunderland, and having made a mess of a Merseyside derby a few years back they no longer give him Everton matches, or Liverpool games until very recently. Following Chelsea’s disgraceful behaviour towards him he can’t very well go back there, and so that only really leaves us which is why he’s been to more QPR games this year than some of our season ticket holders. Just the 11 yellows and a red last time he was at Loftus Road. A full case file available here.
QPR: It took QPR 11 years to win an FA Cup game of any sort from 2001 to 2012 but they finally broke the duck last year with a third round replay win against MK Dons at Loftus Road. They haven’t beaten a Premier League team in this competition since 1995 when they knocked out West Ham on the way to a quarter final defeat at Manchester United. The win at Chelsea in the week ended a run of 23 away matches without a win stretching back to November 2011, and moved QPR onto 13 points in the Premier League which means Derby County remain the worst Premiership team in history for one more year at least having finished on 11.
West Brom: The Baggies have decent pedigree, with ten final appearances and five wins – although nothing since 1968 – while manager Steve Clarke has won the competition as a player and coach with Chelsea. Their best recent performance was a semi-final appearance in 2008 when they lost 1-0 to Portsmouth who were of course managed at the time by Harry Redknapp and went on to win the final 1-0 against Cardiff. West Brom are currently seventh in the Premier League but have got there largely because of their home form – the defeat to Fulham earlier this week was only a third at home this season and they’ve won seven at the Hawthorns which is two more than the three teams above them and one more than third placed Spurs. On the road they’ve won three and lost five of ten but did triumph 2-1 on this ground just a week and a half ago.
Prediction: You’re stuck with me for the prediction this week, and I’m going for a draw. Why? Well I expect QPR learnt a bit from playing West Brom the first time around and won’t make the same mistakes again, they’ll also field a few players with points to prove and places to win in the team. West Brom meanwhile don’t go out and attack teams, they stay in shape and sit tight making sure things are sound at the defensive end while waiting for things to transpire in the attacking third. I foresee a stalemate for these reasons, and also because it’s the worst possible outcome for both teams and therefore is probably what we’re going to end up with.
QPR 1 West Brom 1
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