| Burton Albion 2 v 3 Lincoln City EFL League One Saturday, 10th August 2024 Kick-off 17:30 |  |
Boinging Baggies deliver Rangers reality check – Report Sunday, 11th Aug 2024 23:07 by Clive Whittingham Josh Maja scored a hat trick and QPR lost on the opening day for the third season in a row, as Marti Cifuentes’ side were dealt a harsh reality check by West Brom on Saturday morning. ‘Passive’ was the word of the day, and passive was certainly the play, as Queens Park Rangers lost their opening game of the season for the third year in a row. In interview both manager Marti Cifuentes and playmaker Lucas Andersen referenced the team’s weirdly lacklustre, limp-dicked approach to aspects of Sky’s Super Saturday Brunch Spectacular. They needn’t have bothered. This was what Mark Kermode describes as ‘show don’t tell’. The three goals scored by West Bromwich Albion said more than words ever could. The first, after 21 minutes, was embarrassingly simple. No pressure on a ball played out from the back to begin with. Giant debutant left back Torbjorn Heggem allowed to stroll onto the picked pass and march off into enemy territory. Opposite number Paul Smyth came across to address the situation, but it was a jog rather than a sprint, and his attempt to tackle the Norwegian and stop the cross was little more than a pathetically dangled leg. Get out there quick and get into him hard or don't bother. Josh Maja headed the unchallenged cross in at the near post. The second, five after half time, followed along similar themes on the opposite side of the field. Kenneth Paal, miles off it all afternoon, came out to meet the visitors’ local hero Tom Fellows. Paal stood two yards off him for a bit and then dived in just as Fellows widened his stance meaning the QPR full back was out of the game and the avenue for a cross was clear. Josh Maja piled in over the top of the static Jimmy Dunne to head home at the far post. Helloooo? Itchy and Scratchy Land open for business. Three generations have gone blind here, staring up at the sun and telling themselves it’ll be different this time. You can perhaps forgive Alfie Lloyd on Championship debut - he’d been screaming and gesticulating at Paal to come and help with an overload long before disaster struck – but to leave Fellows unmarked, goal side, from something as simple as a throw in, and allow a third unchallenged cross into the box, was pretty criminal at this stage. The fact it took a deflection off Field to get it where it wanted to go was besides the point. Josh Maja slid in unmarked from five yards out for the easiest hat trick he’ll ever score. Fuck me dead. Maybe stop letting your opponent walk around you and put uncontested crosses into your box? Might be worth a go.
I don’t want to go all Neil Warnock on us here, because I think those “you’ve got to die to get three points” cliches, clips and memes have been well overdone. But Smyth for the first, Paal for the second, and Lloyd for the third all trotted out to their man like it didn’t really matter, like they just had to go through the motions, like somebody else would mop up the mess potentially left behind. You’ve got to get out there, you’ve got to get in there, and you’ve got to put a challenge in. Snap him? Give a free kick away? Get a yellow card? Not ideal, but fine. You can’t just let crosses come into your box like this. It’s football 1:1. My U12 coach would have beaten me like Chipperfield monkey for full back play like this. Ian Woosnam’s caddie, one job to do and you can’t do it. This was certainly not the opponent against whom you’d ideally want to come over all conscientious objector. West Brom are desperately trying to emerge from the near cataclysmic ownership of village idiot Guochuan Lai. Shilen Patel, who’s been involved in Bologna’s ascent to Champions League qualification as a minority stakeholder, would presumably like to start spending some of his wealth on footballers for his new football club. The FFP sums left behind by his dicksplat predecessor means they’re currently having to sell top scorer Brandon Thomas-Asante to rival Coventry for £3m and replace him with lower league journeyman Devante Cole from Barnsley. What they do have, though, is an exceptional manager. Almost certainly the best in the league. Carlos Corberan got this team to fifth and a play-off semi-final last season despite all of the above. We’ve got them sixth again in our Championship previews purely because of him. This is somebody who trades in the cards he’s been dealt, not excuses. QPR had to turn in arguably their best performance of last season just to get a point off these. You do not want to be playing a Corberan team while undercooked. The team he put on the field on Saturday was formidable in lots of ways that get you results in this division. Alex Mowatt and welterweight champion of Spain Jayson Molumby, for example, were three cuts above Jack Colback and Sam Field in their opposite central midfield positions. You don’t win many games losing midfield. Most of all though… man they were physical. This Baggies outfit is a big, athletic, uncompromising team. You’re wrestling with them right away, for everything, in every circumstance. I thought the summer departure of rush goalkeeper Cedric Kipre might have levelled the playing field in that regard, but they’ve replaced him with Torbjorn Heggem. Every year Norway has sent the UK a Christmas tree to show their gratitude for support in the Second World War. And here it was, four months early. Massive bastard playing left back would you believe. Absolute liberty. Paul Smyth gave it his best swing, but it was pretty laughable at times, Heggem was twice the footballer physically and metaphorically. Smyth snu’d snu’d by the large fullback. Against a back four made up of this weird Peter Crouch character on one side, Semi Ajayi standing tall next to Kyle Bartley in the middle, and the immaculate physical specimen that always has been Darnell Furlong on the right, QPR physically wilted. Zan Celar was concerningly anonymous. Smyth looked like a game League One winger having a dig in a cup tie, which is effectively what he is. Rayan Kolli repeatedly gave the ball away in dangerous areas to set away counter attacks at the other end. West Brom much closer to the finished product than their hosts, and it showed. That was with the exception of a splendid opening goal. Kolli, for all his obvious inexperience and naivety, showed the quality of final ball he possesses, just as he had done against Cardiff on this ground last winter. Afforded the time to shift it out of his feet on the quarter hour he whipped over a sumptuous delivery that Lucas Andersen was able to walk onto and guide expertly into the top corner of the net. Hair FC combine; Tina Turner assists Iggy Pop. The Dane was the only one of QPR’s four starting forward players who looked like he belonged in this company and there was a fine goal to prove it.
In a way that only made what followed weirder. Prior to this QPR had only lost once under Cifuentes having taken a lead – Sheff Wed away last December – and the ease at which they gave up the advantage was most unlike them. What few other chances the home team created were spurned. Andersen would drag a shot wide in the second half after breaking clear into the box on a win for the high press. Paul Smyth dribbled a weak effort too close to Alex Palmer from a decent position in the first half. Jimmy Dunne chose a high shot to the near post, saved by Palmer, when a low coss through the goalmouth might have achieved greater reward. Sub Alfie Lloyd dragged wide from the edge of the box. The one we’ll all remember was Michy Frey’s embarrassing fresh air shot from five yards out at the Loft End shortly after he’d replaced Celar in attack. I’m not saying I’d have scored, but I fancy I’d have at least made some contact with the football. I always wanted to see my dad play for QPR, but not 25 years after he died. To be fair one thing Frey did straight after coming on, which Celar neglected, was stick one on Ajayi. Needless, gratuitous, violent, smack under his chin. Good. West Brom, and the back four in particular, had harsh beasted QPR right up the coal hole all afternoon. It was nice to see somebody turn around and stick up for themselves a bit – albeit too late in the day and on the scoreboard. There’s that word passive again. So, what, despair? Loot shops, set fire to parked cars? Daddy Elon told me to do it Your Honour. Well, no. QPR haven’t lost three opening days in a row since the mid-90s when they were beaten away at Villa, Man Utd and Blackburn in consecutive Premier League seasons. This set back, however comprehensive, was a world away from the outright embarrassment at Vicarage Road a year ago. And not only because we were playing a palpably better team, who will surely be in the top six if this manager sticks around. Defend a couple of situations better, take another chance or two, different game. The only way Watford could have been different last August is if they’d kept playing second half and run up double figures. QPR’s main problem was at left back, where Kenneth Paal continued a ropey pre-season with a dreadful performance that looked every inch that of a player checked out and about to move. Next after that was central midfield, where Jack Colback and Sam Field held hands in a ridiculously tight space, both trying to do the same job and failing, while the Baggies had Mowatt and Molumby showing how it’s done. And, finally, chance creation and threat from the four forward players, where only Andersen really looked the part at all bar Kolli’s beautiful set up for the goal. That’s fine. There’s a month of transfer window left and Jonathan Varane’s late cameo – a mixture of Hail Mary sliding tackles and proper balls out of midfield into advance areas – suggests he’s already a potential solution to that midfield stodge. Gianluca Frabotta, who QPR had apparently lined up as Paal’s replacement, came on for a debut for the opposition here having been picked up from Juve. Three times soapbox derby champion Owen Beck is linked. It’s clear, from Paal’s performance here if nothing else, that change is imminent at left back. Behind Celar we have Ilias Chair to return and now potentially Japanese winger Koki Saito and the extremely exciting Karamoko Dembele. So, that’s arguably your four or five biggest problems in this game all about to be replaced in the next fortnight or so. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that half this team will be different by the time we get to Sheff Wed in the first week of September. As after the pre-season defeat at Reading, Cifuentes’ comment seven minutes into his post-match press conference, screened by West London Sport, again suggest things may not be as rosy in the garden as we thought/hoped after the way last season ended. Asked about whether the result had changed his opinion on what needed to be brought in he said: “I’m pretty stubborn, my idea has not changed over the last two months, the club know that pretty well.” Asked if he thought he would get what was needed he continued: “It’s a good question for Christian and the club.” Awks. Varane offered enough in his cameo to suggest if we can get another few Saito/Dembele types out of our recruitment model we’ll be fine. I was really impressed with him, we haven’t had a midfielder who does those sorts of things for ages, and certainly not Field or Colback on this evidence. If we get to September and we’re still passive and insipid in the tackle, still getting stripped at full back, still struggling to create and Celar is still as anonymous as this, then you have a problem. For now, losing 3-1 off three defensive mistakes to a really good team when significantly under strength isn’t a big issue. “Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to the light.” Links >>> Photo Gallery >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread QPR: Nardi 5; Dunne 4, Cook 5, Clarke-Salter 6, Paal 3; Colback 5 (Varane 71, 6), Field 4; Smyth 4 (Bennie 85, -), Andersen 6, Kolli 5 (Lloyd 57, 6); Celar 4 (Frey 71, 5) Subs not used: Santos, Dixon-Bonner, Dykes, Walsh, Morrison Goals: Andersen 16 (assisted Kolli) Yellow Cards: Cook 90+1 (foul) West Brom: Palmer 6; Furlong 7, Ajayi 7, Bartley 7, Heggem 8 (Frabotta 85, -); Mowatt 8, Molumby 7 (Diakite 76, 6); Grant 7, Swift 7, Fellows 7 (Dobbin 81, -); Maja 9 (Cole 76, 6) Subs not used; Faal, Hall, Heard, Taylor, Wildsmith Goals: Maja 21 (assisted Heggem), 51 (assisted Fellows), 65 QPR Star Man – Lucas Andersen 6 Far from perfect, but scored a goal and was the only one of QPR’s starting front four who really looked like they belonged at this level. Referee – David Webb (Durham) 6 Cares very, very deeply about where you’re taking your throw in. Attendance – Undeclared Well, certainly not that I’ve been able to find anyway. Maybe this is another one of the things the plebs like you and I are not allowed to know about any more. If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via our PayPal account loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk. The Twitter/Threads @loftforwords Pictures - Ian Randall Photography Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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