After months suffering at the hands of their team, the fantastic following QPR took to West Brom on Monday were finally rewarded with a positive comeback and performance to breathe fresh demon hope into the team’s survival chances. Now what?
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At ten past three on Monday afternoon Queens Park Rangers, top of the league at the start of November, dipped into the Championship’s bottom three for the first time.
Two defensively shambolic West Brom goals to start the game at The Hawthorns had the travelling 1,200 fearing another Blackpool was on the cards, and already vocally none too happy about that prospect. Meanwhile Cardiff and Reading were both level in their games against Sunderland and Preston. That is just how close we are now, kept from the relegation zone courtesy of the odd last-minute Preston or Swansea winner here, the odd draw rather than a win at home to Birmingham or Wigan there. Two points from the drop zone with 15 left on the board to play for (18 in Cardiff’s case), it is fanciful to think QPR will escape this without at least one more victory, more likely two. Rangers have won just two of their last 26 fixtures.
The temporary dip below the dotted line, though, seemed to spark something in this previously lifeless and listless team. They stemmed the bleeding at the back, albeit with a couple of very lucky escapes along the way. They got hold of the ball and started to knock it about in the West Brom half rather than simply lumping it, giving it away and kicking for touch. There was, suddenly, a degree of composure and calmness about Rangers not seen for several months now — even the win against Watford was like flying around a wooden roller coaster by the skin of your testicles.
The first was a proper goal, the likes of which actual serious football teams score - the sort of service Lyndon gets from Scotland, but not from us. While the second was a bit of a nonsense it spoke to the newfound energy and press we displayed on the day, particularly star man Lyndon Dykes who forced the ropey pass back to the goalkeeper in the first place. When you look at his efforts, after spending a week on a ventilator just a couple of months back, relative to some of his teammates, I think he may end up being one of the few exempt from much criticism in this summer’s inquest. What it did show is just how little it really does take to be genuinely competitive at this level, and how much you can get out of committing to relatively modest basics of the game. That was a goal scored by two centre forwards not giving the centre back and the goalkeeper time on the ball — that’s it. And West Brom are a top half team in this division. Luke Amos gave the ball away every time he had it, but my God his legs made a difference in the centre of midfield relative to the Preston game on Good Friday.
By the end, QPR really should have won the game. Chris Martin, Taylor Richards and Andre Dozzell all could/should have scored in the last ten minutes. Our weirdly poor opposition had gone completely and were there for the taking. It transformed the mood in the away end from one that was definitely right on the cusp of turning very nasty with a big following in town, to one of celebration and congratulation. What a difference in full time scenes here as opposed to the pathetic loss at Wigan the fortnight before. There Leon Balogun had to be wrestled away from a baying mob by teammates, here the team were basically given a standing ovation.
It was, however, just one point. Barring some weird outcome where one of either Cardiff or Reading literally loses every game they’ve got left — a possibility reduced significantly by the Royals belatedly, finally abandoning the notion that Paul Ince Is A Wanker is fit for anything these days other than being parked somewhere far away from any other human and left to mumble his nonsensical arrogant bullshit into the ether by himself while staring into two corners of an empty room at once — it’s not going to be anywhere near enough. What it needs to be is a catalyst. It needs to form a platform from which this beleaguered team of ours finds enough confidence and belief in themselves to go on and complete the seemingly herculean task of winning two more Championship games.
A team with no loans in it, a weird set up with Jimmy Dunne at right back, some notable benchings, was this Ainsworth "rooting out” the problem children as he promised to do when he arrived? Was his four minutes spent in this week’s pre-match talking about our attacking options, name-checking every forward player in the squad, while never mentioning Willock once an oversight, or deliberate? Was Monday the result of finally fielding a team of players that do want to be here, with some legs in midfield, whether it’s our best team on paper or not? Does this team kick on now after a big 11-hour Saturday session and football’s favourite "clear the air talks”? Are we "getting there” at last? At the moment a "freak set of results” would be us managing not to be complete shite for two games in a row. But there was so much to go on in that 70 minutes at West Brom and if it can just be recreated and cultivated over the coming month it should surely be enough to knock over one of Coventry, Norwich, Stoke or Bristol City at least.
It won’t surprise either regular reader that I remain very sceptical. After we use a draw to break a run of nine defeats in ten games I’m reading Twitter threads about how Tyler Roberts would be a good signing next season "if we can get him going” and that Leon Balogun "is our best defender and definitely worth another year” and once again getting the strong feeling I actually go somewhere else on a Saturday afternoon and watch a different club entirely. West Brom were poor, were there for the taking, and we only got a draw. Yes, we were two nil down so it was good to see some character to launch a comeback given that we’ve lost 13 of the last 14 games in which we’ve conceded the first goal, but we were only two nil down because of shamefully poor defending, and there was another calamity at 2-1 which could easily have put us back behind the eight ball with better finishing from Marc Albrighton. You defend like that against Viktor Gyokeres and Teemu Pukki (no goal in 13 by the way, gulp) this week and you’ll be more than two nil down.
I know what Gareth is trying to do, with his comments, interviews, and coming over to the away end at full time gesturing to the players, and I was very encouraged by that team selection last week, the message it sent out and the response it got. We can only cling to this as some sort of sea change. He said he’d sort this out, he said he’d root out the problem children, he said he’d build something special — maybe in years to come I’ll be using that 2-2 at West Brom as the featured game in the History column as the moment it all started to come together for Garth Ainsworth’s QPR revolution. But, I have to say, I was rather more Marge Simpson grumbly noise than I was standing ovation at five to five, and used it as an opportunity to make the early tram rather than "thank” anybody for finally pulling their finger out of their arse after two wins in 25 games. I hold my hands up and admit I have become jaded, weary, wary, cynical and really quite angry following this group of players around for the last 14 months and trying to commit it to page. I’m probably no longer the ideal person to be writing these previews and reports because I’m absolutely raging. I’m trying to force my brain to hope that Monday was a turning point, but it just keeps printing the match report out for the "oh, so they can do it after all?” evidence pile.
There have been several instances on this latest horrendous run they’ve put us through where I thought we/they were getting somewhere, only for them to let us down all over again the match after. The 1-0 win at Preston in Neil Critchley’s first game, built on an excellent first half performance with three central midfielders pressed up high behind Lyndon Dykes and all posing a goal threat, with Tim Iroegbunam the best player on the pitch, felt like genuine progress. We followed it up with a dismal, unwatchable display away to a terrible Cardiff side which left two points for the taking on the side, and a 3-0 humiliation at home to Luton that I was told "wasn’t a 3-0 game” which I called as bullshit at the time and, given the respective direction of both clubs’ seasons, I was right about.
We then took the lead, and played well, in a particularly difficult game against soon-to-be-promoted Sheff Utd at home, and were desperately unlucky to concede with the last kick of the game that Seny Dieng had well covered until it took a cruel deflection. Again, great, fine, you think we’re getting somewhere, effort and application there, that’ll be plenty against the less talented teams in the league. A week later — lost to Fleetwood Town. Again, I was told this wasn’t the big deal I was making it out to be, because we always lose in the FA Cup. Again, given what’s happened since, bullshit.
Good news kids, it’s that bit of the season we crowbar in a John Sitton video: "Sits you’re too intense, no one can talk to you. I never followed two good games with a game like that. The reason I was intense is because I wanted to play well again. Good players want to be good players all the time, do you not know how profound that is, have you not examined the fucking words…”
The 1-1 at home to Swansea, with another late equaliser, perhaps unfortunate. It preceded a 3-0 at Hull which was anything but. Lucky to get the nil. Unbelievably, worse was still to come. When Gareth finally got the battling, committed, ugly 1-0 win against Watford at Loftus Road that he so craved and wanted from his players, I foolishly thought we’d then go and dig in for the minimum of a point up at the division’s whipping boys Blackpool just to start easing us away from the relegation whirlpool and start planning for next season. I predicted a draw in the preview. We lost 6-1. Mick McCarthy won two games in charge of Blackpool and got the sack after three months — he pumped us 6-1. Six one. They’ve since lost all four games they’ve played, conceding 13 (at least three in each game played), including a 4-1 loss at home to the Coventry team we’re about to face. And we went into that game buoyed by a win.
If we do that again, then we’ll go down. There is no recovery time left now. One of our five remaining games is away at Burnley, two of our remaining three home games are against teams that need wins to make the play-offs. If we dip below that dotted line again, it might be for a lot longer than the 40 minutes it was on Monday. This is how you drown: you go under once, briefly, and bob back up; you go under a second time, for longer, and fight back; if you go under a third time, you don’t come back at all. It’s the law of the sea, which is where I’d still put most of these players point at West Brom or not.
Monday was great. Now, can we do that again? I have my suspicions what this group of players will do with this supposed platform, cleared air, fresh start provided to them by one whole point at West Brom. That’s partly self preservation, because a pessimist is either right or delighted, I’ve had enough disappointment from this team and I can’t do it to myself any more. But it’s also based on what I’ve seen from them on multiple occasions already. All we can do is go, do our bit yet again, support, make it hostile for the opponent rather than our own players, and hope. This would be a terrific time for them to prove their point, and stick it back to the cynical doom mongers and naysayers like myself. In fact, it’s the only time they’ve got left to do that. This really is it now.
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Team News: As the season draws to a close, contracts for next season are up for grabs and career loanees will be eyeing options for 23/24. Entirely coincidentally and completely unrelated, all of QPR’s medium and long term absentees are apparently now back and available again. Ethan Laird, Leon Balogun, Kenneth Paal, Chris Willock and Ilias Chair all returned for the Wigan game, and now apparently Jake Clarke-Salter (last seen February 4) and Tyler Roberts (January 28) are back in some form of training, with the latter potentially back in the squad as soon as this weekend. A real treat. Taylor Richards made his only start of the season in the 2-0 loss at Coventry in November, and should have scored with his first touch off the bench at West Brom on Monday. Tim Iroegbunam and Sinclair Armstrong have disappeared, but you and I are not allowed to know where they’ve gone or why that is. Monday’s starting 11 at West Brom contained no loan players, with Jimmy Dunne an unorthodox right back and Ethan Laird benched. It’s only the fourth time this season Rangers have named a team without a starting loan player, with the others being the first three league games of the campaign against Blackburn, Boro and Sunderland.
If Coventry are to make the top six this season it’s very much going to be the eleven that started against Watford on Easter Monday which takes them there - Mark Robins made no substitutions in that 2-2 draw against the Hornets. Central midfielder Jamie Allen might make it back before the end of the season having left the Good Friday draw at Swansea at half time, but certainly not for this weekend. Star boy Callum O’Hare, brilliant against QPR in the corresponding fixture, has long since been ruled out for the season. Only at wing back where former R Jake Bidwell and former Chelsea man Fankaty Dabo are currently benched behind Premier League loan stars Josh Wilson-Esbrand (Man City) and Brook Norton-Cuffy (Arsenal) is there any sort of selection dilemma. Todd Kane is long gone, joining Sheff Utd for £13m/League One Charlton on loan in January. Watch out for the spine of centre back Luke McNally (on loan from Burnley), central midfielder Gustavo Hamer and striker Viktor Gyokeres who is the second top scorer in the league with 18 including two against QPR already — the trio cost Cov all of £2m and are exactly what players in those positions are supposed to look like at this level.
Elsewhere: The news that Paul Ince Is A Wanker had been dismissed as Reading manager was as much of a blow to QPR’s survival chances as Reading’s three-point deduction the week before had been a boost. Ince’s attempts to nil nil his way to salvation ending in another last minute defeat at Preston Knob End on Easter Monday made it eight without victory for the Royals. They start a run in under caretaker boss Noel Hunt with a home game against champions Burnley before hosting Luton (3rd), heading to Coventry (ninth) and finishing up with six pointers against Wigan (24th) and at Huddersfield (19th). They currently sit third bottom on 41 points and -19 goal difference.
Cardiff are one place and one point above them with a game in hand, which is away at Rotherham (18th) on Thursday April 27 — a game they were leading 1-0 at half time when it was rained off recently. They kick Saturday off with a televised lunchtime game at second placed Sheffield Red Stripe before another awayer at Watford (12th) on Wednesday. They have Stoke and Huddersfield to finish with at home and Burnley away on the last day.
The bottom two, mercifully, look done now. Wigan are eight points shy of safety and nine points away from us with 15 left to play for having lost their last two. Blackpool are seven short of the dotted line and eight back from us. Those two meet each other at Bloomfield Road this weekend before Wigan finish up with Stoke A (15th), Millwall H (5th), Reading A (22nd) and Rotherham H (18th). Blackpool, without a manager, end with West Brom H (11th), Birmingham A (17th), Millwall H (5th) and Norwich A (8th).
Huddersfield, from nowhere really, have posted 11 points from 15 available to climb out of the bottom three, and above QPR courtesy of a better goal difference (-18 v -24 — only Blackpool with -28 have a worse goal difference than us). However they blew a 2-0 lead at home to Blackburn last weekend ahead of this week’s clash of cultures and styles at Swanselona (14th) who’ve gone from one win in 11 games to three wins and a draw from four. After that it’s Sunderland (10th) and Cardiff (21st) away, Sheff Utd (2nd) and Reading (22nd) at home on the Fifteenth Annual Neil Warnock Farewell Tour.
Rotherham are best positioned at the top of the bottom seven, with 45 points (four north of the drop) and a game in hand at home to fellow strugglers Cardiff. They start at home to third placed Lutown tomorrow with champions Burnley to come in the week and fourth placed Boro among their remaining home games. Other than that it’s Bristol City (13th) and Wigan (24th) on the road to conclude.
Worth noting that Blackpool, Wigan, Rotherham and Huddersfield all play before us in the midweek round, with Tuesday games prior to our Wednesday at home to Norwich.
With Burnley (Reading A) and Sheff Utd (Cardiff H) now all but sealed in the top two, and Lutown (Rotherham A) and Boro (at home to Norwich in tonight’s TV game) secure in the play-off places but surely too far adrift to challenge for the automatics, the interest at the top end of the table now surrounds the final two play-off places. Millwall are in possession of fifth but haven’t won for four games, and this weekend host Preston who’ve come roaring through with five wins from six to draw level with the Marxist hunters on 62 points. Sandwiched in between on the same 62 are Blackburn, who recovered just a second point from a losing position all season at Huddersfield last weekend and host Hull on Saturday in a, frankly ridiculous, 19.45 Saturday night kick off thanks to our Sky overlords. Borussia Norwich are a point back from those three ahead of tonight’s difficult trip to Boro.
Last orders at the Last Chance Saloon for Sunderland (10th, 58 points) at home to Birmingham, and West Brom (11th, 57 points) away to Stoke.
Watford, unsurprisingly already lining up a replacement for Chris Wilder, host Bristol City in this weekend’s Mykonos special.
Referee: Rather than standing down Michael Salisbury and Darren Cann for their parts in last week’s VAR farce at Tottenham Hotspur, for which Brighton have received a third written apology of the season from the PGMOL, or perhaps giving them one of the three Championship fixtures this weekend with little riding on them, the powers that be have decided to send him here to this fixture crucial to both clubs’ chances this season. A decision compounded by Salisbury’s weird record with Coventry, who are yet to lose any of their 13 games with this official (7-6-0) with 12 yellow cards coming their way and 28 for the opposition. Don’t worry though, we’re back with Keith Stroud on Wednesday. Details.
QPR: Monday’s comeback draw at The Hawthorns was only the fourth point QPR have won in eight games under Gareth Ainsworth (W1 D1 L6). It halted a run of four consecutive defeats, and nine losses in the last ten games. It was their first point in five away games and Rangers have now taken eight of the last 42 points available to them on the road, a run that includes a 2-0 defeat at Coventry in November. It is, however, now just two wins from 26 games. During that run QPR have scored one goal or fewer in all but two of the games — Reading and West Brom away, where they came back from two goals down to draw 2-2 on both occasions. They haven’t scored more than two in a game in 27 attempts. It was the first time the R’s have had two different scorers in a game since the home win against Wigan in October, 26 games ago, when they were top of the table. The draw represented a seventh point recovered from a losing position this season, having retrieved 21, 13 and 20 during Mark Warburton’s three campaigns as gaffer. It was only the second time in 14 attempts that Rangers haven’t lost the game having conceded the first goal. Brandon Thomas-Asante’s opener was the 19th goal conceded from set pieces, the worst total in the league. The two-goals conceded keeps up the recent average of letting in two goals a game — 12 in the last six — and Rangers have now conceded 30 goals in their last 13 games. Lyndon Dykes’ flying opener was his ninth of the season, but first for club and country since the 2-1 home loss to Huddersfield on November 8 — 18 appearances ago. It was his first goal away from home in 32 appearances going all the way back to the 4-1 defeat at Fulham in October 2021. At Loftus Road QPR have won one of their last 12 games, losing five of the last six.
Coventry: Amidst more problems with their stadium and injuries to key players, Coventry began the season without a win in eight games, losing five and conceding 17 goals in the process. Since then they’ve lost only eight of their 34 Championship games and kept 18 clean sheets across those including the 2-0 win against QPR in the corresponding fixture. The two goals Viktor Gyokeres scored in that game are part of his total of 18, second only to Boro’s Chuba Akpom, and he was recently named FourFourTwo’s best player in the EFL. Five wins, four draws and no defeats through March had carried the Sky Blues to the cusp of the play-off picture, with Mark Robins and Gyokeres both on the three-man shortlists for manager and player of the year at this level, but they stalled over Easter with a 4-0 home loss to Stoke, 0-0 at Swansea and 2-2 at home to Watford. They arrive at Loftus Road having won only one of six, albeit with four of those drawn. Away from home they are 6-7-7 overall and are unbeaten in six, winning three of those including a 4-0 at Huddersfield and 4-1 at Blackpool. Coventry had a terrific record against Gareth Ainsworth’s Wycombe — winning nine, drawing one and losing none of ten meetings after the fixture was rekindled from a ten-year absence in the 2013/14 campaign. Six of those wins and the draw were under Mark Robins. City won three consecutive visits to Loftus Road between 2005 and 2008 but haven’t won here in five and have lost the last three.
Prediction: We’re once again indebted to The Art of Football for agreeing to sponsor our Prediction League and provide prizes. You can get involved by lodging your prediction here or sample the merch from our sponsor’s QPR collection here. Here’s what reigning champion Cheesy has for us this time …
"Wasn't expecting that at West Brom on Saturday. Of course fairly typical of QPR and Twitter, the meltdown after the team was announced to the Tweets after 90 minutes of GA is taking us to the Premier League next year and give Amos a new three-year contract. We've seen this before verses Watford only to then go to Blackpool and get thrashed. So which QPR will turn up this Saturday? Who knows? We will do well to get a point with Coventry, but that's what I'm going for.
Cheesy’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 Coventry. Scorer — Ilias Chair.
LFW’s Prediction: QPR 0-2 Coventry. No scorer.
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