QPR’s annual shambolic early exit from the League Cup occurred on Tuesday night when League One Swindon Town came to Loftus Road and won 2-0.
How do you like your eggs? Sunny side up? Don’t worry about it, QPR lose in the League Cup every year.
As defeats at home to lower league opposition go, this is about as easy to write off as any. When Rangers were last promoted out of the Championship in 2010/11 Neil Warnock’s all-conquering side were soundly beaten at home by Port Vale in this competition. In the league that season they didn’t lose any of their first 19 matches and were only beaten five times all year, claiming the title with an embarrassing ease masked by the controversy over the Alejandro Faurlin signing. They stopped only briefly on their relentless procession to that title to lose 1-0 at Blackburn in the FA Cup. Cups weren’t the priority.
And it’s easily argued that they’re not the priority this season either. QPR need to get back into the Premier League quickly, for when their lucrative parachute payments run out they’ll be just like every other mediocre team in this bang average division trying to make ends meet while scoring the same number of goals and winning the same number of games as everybody else. To do that they need to keep three or four key members of a paper thin squad fit — Junior Hoilett, Nedum Onuoha, Joey Barton, Andy Johnson — and extra games through a League Cup run puts that at risk. Cups, we’re told, distract from the important business of league.
But perhaps you’re the easily scrambled type. In which case you could look at Tuesday night’s performance against Swindon at Loftus Road and draw parallels between that and QPR’s Championship showing so far. Nonsense, you may cry, for QPR are unbeaten in the league and boast an impressive defensive record while on Tuesday they conceded two soft goals, and could easily have shipped more, while at the other end appeared insipid and lacking in imagination.
But this was no makeshift, scratchy QPR side playing in an unfamiliar system. This was the team, and the shape, QPR would be left with if Johnson, Hoilett and Barton were all unavailable at the same time. And it wasn’t pretty.
Swindon turned up playing in a carefully crafted, imaginative system. They had Yaser Kasim at the base of the midfield dissecting and directing play, and up front Nile Ranger gave Onuoha and Clint Hill their stiffest examination of the season. They were far more progressive, attractive and dangerous than any of the four Championship teams QPR have played so far this season and Rangers were caught cold by it. Write this off as a typical QPR League Cup performance at your peril, this is two injuries away from what it would be like in the league pending further additions to the QPR side.
The only mystery on the evening was why Swindon decided to shut up the shop and try to hold onto what they had as early as they did. Prior to that moment, when Ranger was withdrawn before the hour, they’d been the better team in every department.
A pattern was set early. Central midfielder Samba Diakite, with just ten minutes of football to his name in the last eight months, was asked to play out of position on the right wing with predictable results. He gave the ball away in the second minute and when Faurlin fouled Alex Pritchard on the edge of the QPR area during the clean-up operation the Swindon 11 took it upon himself to smack the resulting free kick over the bar himself.
The majority of QPR fans dearly wish Faurlin could rediscover the form he showed prior to the cruciate knee ligament injury he suffered at MK Dons in the FA Cup in January 2012. Intelligent, hard working, committed, likeable — the Argentinean midfielder is a world away from some of the scum that has turned out for this famous old club over the past few seasons. But the fact is he’s struggling and has been for some time. Had he remained fit throughout 2011/12, and played as he had done for the first six months of the campaign, he’d almost certainly have been swept up in the sort of spending spree Liverpool, Tottenham and others engage in as they attempt to keep pace with the Champions League regulars. Instead he spent months in a Spanish medical clinic and has never been quite the same since. Here, in a 442 set up that never suited his game even when he was physically fantastic, playing alongside an unfit and out of position Diakite and an extraordinarily dreadful Jermaine Jenas his new-found shortcomings were badly exposed. He gave the ball away in the fifth minute and only a crowd of defenders stopped Ranger taking full advantage.
And so it continued: Jenas conceded possession and had to file back and see off a prolonged spell of Swindon pressure round the box; Ranger beat Onuoha in the air and in the ensuing panic a free kick was conceded that Harley struck into the top of the wall; then Ranger won the first ball again and received a pass back deep inside the penalty area only to be crowded out by Onuoha and Hill.
QPR were laboured in return. The poor performances of central midfield pairing Jenas and Faurlin against a five man opposition set up hamstrung them badly and with the forward line was ostensibly led by Bobby Zamora hope was in short supply. The former Fulham man has gone beyond looking like a disinterested footballer in need of a hip operation into the realms of probable retirement. QPR say the surgery he needs would rule him out for the remainder of his contract, meaning he would be of no use to the club that’s paying him nor of any interest to a potential recruiter come next summer. In his current state, it’s impossible to see how continuing to play changes either of those situations for the positive.
It took 20 minutes for the team to put a move of note together, and when it came Jenas and the equally hapless Shaun Wright-Phillips rather bumbled and blustered their way to a shot off target. Ten minutes later questions about how much Wright-Phillips had had to drink before the kick off started to do the rounds in the South Africa Road stand as the unbalanced winger widened an already difficult angle still further and then sent a very direct, straight, purposeful shot some 15 yards wide of the target. Contestants in QPR’s half time round the pole competition have gone closer.
But that was all against the run of play and Swindon deserved to take the lead ten minutes before the break. There had been a let off moments before, when Ranger seized on a loose touch from Simpson in the area but was denied by Onuoha scrambling back, but there was no second reprieve. Pritchard took a poor corner after a shot deflected out off Wright-Phillips, then made no mistake with a second cross from wide, low and dangerous into the corridor between defence and goalkeeper with left bck Yun Suk-Young appealing for a nonsense offside decision. Ranger was in no mood to be denied for a third time and stole in at the back post to slam in the first goal.
QPR had been laboured and ponderous before this, not really fussed about proceedings but always giving off the air of a team that thought they’d find a way to win somehow. Having secured victories from three of four low quality, evenly contested Championship matches already this season they could be forgiven for that. But now behind, and playing poorly, they started to come apart at the poorly stitched seams.
Suk-Young picked up a thoroughly deserved yellow card for a pathetic dive in the Swindon penalty area attempting to win a spot kick while trying to retrieve a poorly executed pass from Jenas. It was every bit as bad as Ashley Cole’s embarrassment against Man Utd the night before and rightly penalised by referee Phil Gibbs, replacing listed official David Phillips for this game.
The official was kinder to QPR when Faurlin appeared to smack Kasim with a late tackle — play on was waved and QPR broke with Zamora striking over the bar. But Swindon needn’t have worried — in two minutes of added time at the end of the half Hill ducked under an easy clearance believing it would bounce away for a goal kick only to find Swindon stealing in behind him and posing a threat. Hill blamed Suk-Young for a poor call, but that looked like buck passing. At the other end Jenas’ only decent pass of the night was flicked goalwards and straight at keeper ‘League One’ Wes Foderingham by Wright-Phillips. When headers from Shaun Wright-Phillips are your best hope of a goal problems await.
And so it proved. Charlie Austin, almost trying too hard against his former club, ran along the edge of the area and shot straight at Foderingham to start the second half but Kasim, Pritchard, Ranger and Harley were all in fine form for the vistors. When Faurlin gave the ball away and Austin conceded a free kick, former QPR loanee Darren Ward headed straight at Brian Murphy having met the set piece in the air. Louis Thompson later shot over the bar when Onuoha’s poor defensive header fell his way.
It all made you wonder why Swindon manger Mark Cooper went quite so negative quite so quickly. A team clearly bolstered by a number of loans and signings from Tottenham’s academy had much the better of things for the first hour, but then deliberately shrunk back into their shell for the final 30 minutes and invited pressure while engaging in flagrant time wasting tactics.
QPR were obviously boosted by the removal of Bobby Zamora — ironic cheer — for a proper striker, and the introduction of youngster Mo Shariff who was, as usual, more bothered about performing a back flick trick to get his face on Soccer Am than playing the actual game but was, nevertheless, a better bet on the right than Diakite. Swindon for their part removed the talismanic Ranger, knackered through a lack of action, and sent on Miles Storey who was neither as talented nor as effective at holding the ball up and should have been booked by Gibbs for a nasty, late foul on Onuoha. A shame really that Ranger has decided to make a life for himself trying to achieve the coveted title of world's biggest scumbag - otherwise he'd be playing in the Premier League somewhere.
The change of personnel and mentality played into QPR’s hands. Charlie Austin should have buried a firm header after Danny Simpson had delivered splendidly from a quickly taken wide free kick, and then when the striker did bundle the ball into the net he was denied by an incorrectly raised linesman’s flag. Austin’s lack of goal touch is a concern, but with his work rate high and other options numbering only Bobby Zamora he’s almost certain to be given time to find form. One had to wonder whether Tom Hitchcock deserved more minutes given his Ipswich match winner last time out on this ground.
Pressure ensued: Jenas and Johnson kept the ball alive around the edge of the box and Shariff drilled a low shot at the keeper; Shariff then scissor kicked a deep Suk-Young cross back to Jenas whose volley was blocked away; and when the Korean crossed again Johnson went with a raised boot when a diving header would have surely brought an equaliser. Three times QPR placed delicate passes dying to be gobbled up through the goal mouth but nobody was ever remotely close to getting a touch on the ball. Matters were improved by the introduction of Johnson, who in turn enlivens Austin as he knows his flick ons and hold up play wont’ go to waste as they do when Zamora is on, but not enough.
A frustrated home crowd appealed long and loud for a penalty eight minutes from time when Wright-Phillips finally managed to wriggle free of a League One defender but the tackle on him in the area was sound and Swindon were rightly allowed to play on. The Loft seemed certain a spot kick should have been awarded but it was the tackle of the night and, even had it not been, an equaliser would have been very harsh on Swindon.
Despite sitting far deeper than they needed to and blatantly wasting time QPR would have done nothing with — something Gibbs only cracked down on in injury time by which point a yellow card for Grant Hall had negligible deterrent value — Swindon remained good value for the win. They could have put the game to bed 20 minutes from time when Murphy messed around with a poor back pass and kicked the ball straight to Thompson who shot wide with half the population of Swindon queuing up, unmarked, to his left waiting for a square ball.
It looked like it would finish 1-0 until QPR played right into the visitors’ hands for a final time during five minutes of added on time at the end of the game. All evening Rangers had been stuck with the ball at the feet of a centre back and few unmarked options available for a pass. With a minute to go Redknapp removed Ale Faurlin and sent on Tom Hitchcock which not only opened the door still further for Swindon, but also gave easy ammunition to the manager’s critics.
Faurlin had been as poor as any QPR fan has ever seen him but, having taken him off and elected instead to line a clutch of strikers up on the edge of the Swindon box, Redknapp created a situation where two tired central defenders, already weary of looking up and seeing barley half an option to pass, were now finding nothing within 60 yards of them. Onuoha, struggling, tried to find Jenas who turned his back on the ball and abdicated responsibility. Pritchard swooped in and then spent some considerable time running and jinking his way towards the QPR goal, with the ball never quite under full control, before bundling a shot that Murphy should have saved into the corner of the net.
A shambolic end to an amateurish display from QPR. Redknapp may see it as an ideal advertisement for his campaign to bring new players into the club. If he’s not successful, don’t expect this to be the mere standard QPR League Cup fair — this could easily happen again.
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QPR: Murphy 5, Simpson 6, Hill 5, Onuoha 5, Suk-Young 5, Wright-Phillips 4, Jenas 3, Faurlin 4 (Hitchcock 89, -), Diakite 3 (Johnson 56, 6), Austin 5, Zamora 3 (Shariff 56, 5)
Subs not used: Green, Young, Ehmer, Henry
Bookings: Suk-Young 39 (diving)
Swindon: Foderingham 6, Thompson 7, Hall 6, Ward 7, Byrne 7, Kasim 8, Luongo 7, Harley 7 (Thompson 60, 7), Pritchard 8, Smith 6 (Mason 39, 7), Ranger 8 (Storey 65, 5)
Subs not used: Belford, McEveley, Barthram, Archibald-Henville
Goals: Ranger 38 (assisted Pritchard), Pritchard 90 (unassisted)
Bookings: Mason 51 (foul), Byrne 77 (foul), Hall 90 (time wasting)
QPR Star Man — N/A
Referee — Phil Gibbs (West Midlands) 6 Despite refereeing the ‘fat man’s square’ around the centre circle, as opposed to the conventional corner flag to corner flag line, I actually quite liked a lot of Gibbs’ performance. He was spot on to book Suk-Young for his dreadful dive in the penalty area, and to wave away the later Wright-Phillips claim which came after a fine tackle. But there was a lot not to like as well. He’d let much worse than Ryan Mason’s fifty first minute tackle go without a booking but then yellow carded the Swindon man, and he did very little to arrest the obvious time wasting until right at the very end of the game when a yellow card served no deterrent.
Attendance 9,715 (1,500 Swindon approx) A terrific following from Swindon and their team did them proud. Not a bad attendance from the QPR fans either given their recent record in this competition. They were badly let down.
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Pictures — Action Images