QPR’s worst performance of the season saw them crash to an abject 3-1 home defeat against fellow strugglers Southampton at Loftus Road on Saturday leaving manager Mark Hughes staring down the barrel.
The media dubbed it ‘El Sackico’ – a match where defeat would cost the losing manager his job. With that in mind, the playing squads of Southampton and Queens Park Rangers delivered convincing verdicts on their respective bosses: the former delivering a committed and lively performance while 3,000 travelling supporters chanted Nigel Adkins’ name, the latter turning in a display that could scarcely have been worse if they’d tried to a cacophony of boos and calls for Mark Hughes to leave. The writing is now very firmly on the wall for the beleaguered QPR boss.
The day began with a line in The Times, missed by most, saying Bobby Zamora now refuses to eat lunch with the rest of the team because he is disillusioned with life at the club, and Anton Ferdinand is sulking because he asked to be made captain during the summer only to be told he was being replaced. It ended with Shaun Wright-Phillips telling supporters on South Africa Road they are at fault for the poor results because they create a negative atmosphere, while Djibril Cisse took to Twitter to offer fans criticising him what former Leyton Orient boss John Sitton might have called “a proper sort out.”
In between was a 90 minute performance that highlighted just how flawed the strategy of Hughes and the board of directors at Loftus Road has been over the past year. A team full of international players, Champions League winners and multi-million pound signings was completely outclassed by the side that sat just one place higher in the table, with five defeats from five away games, and the league’s worst defensive record at the start of play. Not only that, but QPR were carried through the match by 35 year old Ryan Nelsen, and three players who were here before Hughes even arrived and who he has tried to replace at every turn – Shaun Derry, Jamie Mackie and Adel Taarabt. Without them this could have gone into double figures – Southampton registered 15 shots on target as it was.
The defence was a particular embarrassment. Jose Bosingwa and Armand Traore were an embarrassment to themselves in the full back positions and Anton Ferdinand proved once more that he’s nowhere near good enough to approach Premier League football in a half hearted manner. Quite frankly Anton I wouldn’t let you captain a Lego pirate ship so if that’s what you’re sulking about kindly piss off.
Those three played at about 30% of what they’re capable of and then marched down the tunnel immediately at full time leaving Nelsen to carry the entire defence during the game, and then stand in the centre circle afterwards shaking his head and acknowledging the fans as they sang “Ryan Nelsen, he plays on his own.” He does.
Further forward the midfield was completely overrun. Samba Diakite was totally anonymous, Esteban Granero – admittedly played out of position wide on the right – disinterested and Junior Hoilett hardly in the game at all. After a truly, truly horrific first half Mark Hughes looked at this situation and decided Alejandro Faurlin was the problem and substituted him. Words fail me. Up front Adel Taarabt did everything he could, Djibril Cisse did not.
QPR were in trouble from minute one. Southampton did nothing more than keep the ball in an attractive short passing game and commit men forward to attacks but it was more than enough to totally outclass their hosts. With the time in single figures the Saints’ two outstanding attackers Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana combined with an eye catching one-two on the edge of the box and the latter volleyed over the bar from 20 yards. Two minutes later Lallana stretched every sinew to reach a cross from Gaston Ramirez and got the faintest of touches to guide it onto Julio Cesar’s post with the keeper beaten. Then he got in round the back of Bosingwa and sent a devilish cross right through the six yard box with nobody on hand to apply a killer touch. Rangers cleared that behind, then left Lambert unmarked from the corner and he forced Cesar into a save. From the next set piece no fewer than three Southampton players were left unattended and able to win headers and when Jose Bosingwa cleared from the goal line Rickie Lambert could hardly miss from less than a yard out and the visitors led 1-0.
Mark Hughes says he prepares his team meticulously for every match. Less than a fortnight ago I saw Southampton play at West Brom and they approached this game in almost exactly the same way. I saw nothing from the Saints here that I hadn’t seen from them in games earlier this season, and yet QPR looked stunned by it. It was as if they’d never seen Southampton before. If this is a meticulously prepared team, I’d hate to see one that isn’t.
QPR’s meticulously prepared attacking plan basically consisted of giving the ball to Adel Taarabt and hoping he could produce some individual brilliance. After a quarter of an hour he dropped his shoulder and dummied through two would-be-tacklers on the edge of the penalty area but young Southampton keeper Paulo Gazzaniga – sporting an outrageously awful haircut that featured two small platted rat’s tails emerging from the back of an otherwise shaved scalp – raced from his line and made a save. Taarabt subsequently drilled a free kick into the wall on the half hour.
But this was one way traffic. QPR were making Southampton look like the greatest team to ever walk the earth, and Jason Puncheon like some sort of God. The former QPR loanee – fat, disinterested, ineffective during his time at Loftus Road – smacked one low shot at Cesar, as did Jack Cork, and then turned past Ale Faurlin and buried a second goal into the bottom corner with a venomous strike just before half time. It was nothing more than he, Southampton or QPR deserved and it ensured a hostile reaction from the home crowd when referee Mike Dean called proceedings to a halt moments later.
Whatever Mark Hughes said at half time was short and sweet – Rangers were back on the field of play within 12 minutes of leaving it. There they stood, separately, mooching around, mostly with hands on hips, nobody apart from Adel Taarabt talking to anybody at all. The Moroccan made his way round four team mates and each appeared more disinterested in what he was saying than the last.
The conclusion QPR’s embattled manager drew from the first 45 minutes was that Alejandro Faurlin needed to go off. Now, I’m sorry, but if ever confirmation was needed that Hughes has lost the plot then this was it. When is he going to realise that the main problem here is the amount of players he has brought into the club, and the attitude of them to their work? It’s the players that were here when he arrived – with the exception of Nelsen – who are actually doing the business for him, and yet it’s them that he is so keen to turn away from. Rangers lose heavily to Swansea, out goes Adel Taarabt; Rangers lose heavily to West Ham, out goes Ale Faurlin. Shaun Derry, Clint Hill, Heidar Helguson, Jamie Mackie, Paddy Kenny, Luke Young, DJ Campbell – Hughes has been absolutely determined from the minute he walked into the place to get rid of the players who were here before and who had enjoyed 18 months of success in this league and the one below. More to the point they feel something for the club, and try hard to do their best for it. What had Granero done in the first half to deserve a chance after half time? Or Diakite? Or Hoilett? Or Cisse? What was it particularly about Faurlin’s admittedly mediocre first half display that made Hughes decide he was the scapegoat? Why is Hughes so blind to the fact that it’s his 16 signings that are hanging him here?
Luckily he did recognise that the game needed Mackie’s drive and energy and so it was him – rather than some money-grabbing toad like Shaun Wright-Phillips – who came on. And wow, wasn’t the difference there for all to see? Mackie is a basic player with many flaws whose modus operandi is to pick the ball up and run in a straight line towards the goal until he either loses it, scores, or misses with a shot. But he’s a willing runner and worker and the difference having somebody in the team happy to do that made was actually embarrassing.
Straight away he won possession back for the team and put in a decent cross only to find the penalty box completely devoid of any QPR attackers. A minute later Taarabt demanded the ball wide on the left and sent in an excellent cross which Cisse volleyed straight at the goalkeeper. A further 60 seconds passed before Taarabt tempted Gazzaniga – dodgy all afternoon it should be said – from his line to claim a cross that was never his and Junior Hoilett was able to nod into the empty net. The effect of Mackie was instantaneous, it lifted the crowd and the team and within three minutes of kicking off the deficit was halved.
No doubt Hughes will start with Mackie next week and then, after an inevitable defeat at Man Utd, hold him responsible and drop him again.
This should have been a catalyst. Southampton, for all their attractive first half play and two goal lead, are not a team brimming over with confidence or ability. Conceding so early in the first half, with a goalkeeper in questionable form, could easily have been the beginning of their complete collapse. Not so, QPR proceeded to drain all the gathered momentum out of their performance and allow the Saints to resume control of the game.
Puncheon, Lallana and Lambert were at the heart of everything. Lallana, man of the match for me, responded to Hoilett’s goal by making space for himself in the QPR penalty area and hitting a shot that was blocked away. Puncheon then drew an awkward save from Cesar and in the next attack crossed low for Lambert but he took a fresh air shot when unmarked in the box. There was a weak penalty appeal as Gaston Ramirez collapsed under a cross at the back post – never a spot kick in a month of Sundays but considering the one this referee awarded to Chelsea here in the FA Cup last season in almost identical circumstances you couldn’t blame the expensively acquired Uruguayan for trying his luck.
When Mackie accelerated in round the back of the Southampton defence and almost set up Cisse for an equaliser on the hour, Nigel Adkins decided to remove Ramirez and shore up his midfield with the introduction of Steven Davis. It was a nervy, unnecessary move. Southampton were streets ahead of QPR in every single department and put a ten pass move together at the midway point of the second half that concluded with Lambert nodding the ball down at the back post and Puncheon volleying wide. A minute later the stocky winger tried his luck from considerably further out, and sent a 25 yard barnburner an inch wide of the post with Cesar well beaten once again.
Jose Bosingwa’s attitude to proceedings could be summed up neatly by his sixty eighth minute booking for a deliberate handball made necessary because he’d allowed his man to run past him and he would have been free to run clear into the penalty area had the Portuguese full back not batted the ball down with his hand. Pathetic.
Hughes then took off Samba Diakite for Shaun Derry. Again, like the earlier substitution, I was glad to see the man coming on because it’s people like Mackie and Derry who are going to fight for this club now and Diakite had looked disinterested throughout. However, trailing 2-1 at home in a must win game against the team lying immediately above us at the bottom of the table, is bringing on another defensive central midfielder any kind of answer? I was glad to wave Bosingwa goodbye three minutes later when he went off as well – but again Hughes made a like for like change and sent on another full back in Fabio Da Silva.
If you’d just walked into Loftus Road at this point you’d have thought it was QPR protecting a lead: Southampton left two strikers forward when defending corners, QPR brought all 11 players back into their own box; when Adel Taarabt played a decent pass into the left channel shortly after the substitution Djibril Cisse had no choice but to cut in and shoot from a difficult angle because he was the only home player within 40 yards of the Southampton goal and yet when the visitors, who were already leading, attacked they had three or four options for every pass. This was staggeringly bad now, really amazing.
Within 180 seconds Puncheon sent a cross shot right through the goal mouth with a little touch from Cesar on the way, then drilled wide from range, then shot straight at the goalkeeper. We were making him look like Ronaldinho in his prime.
Despite bringing the entire team back into the penalty box to defend Southampton set pieces, Rangers still contrived to leave several visiting players unmarked at every delivery. Ten minutes from time Lambert had a free header brilliantly saved by Cesar and although Nelsen returned fire with a similar chance at the other end that fell nicely for Gazzaniga play was soon back at the School End and Davis drilled over after being set up by Lambert who had ghosted in behind a stationary QPR defence that had apparently forgotten you cannot be offside from a throw in.
The mood inside Loftus Road was ugly now, and the game was killed as a contest by a shambolic third that eventually went in off the boot of Anton Ferdinand. Few people deserved an own goal more.
At full time the QPR team left the field immediately except for Nelsen, Derry and Mackie. That said a lot for me. It’s a stock reaction for supporters to question effort, attitude and commitment of players in a struggling team and it’s usually an over-reaction and a load of nonsense. It’s not on this occasion though, the difference in attitude from those three and Taarabt compared to the rest is there for all to see.
Mark Hughes said on Friday he was still confident of a top half finish this season but by Saturday evening, with his team bottom of the league and five points adrift of safety, he looked shell shocked and broken. He told both Sky and the BBC afterwards that his coaching staff would sit down with the players to try and “get to the bottom of why this has happened” and that they “didn’t see this coming.” It’s the latest in a long line of quotes from Hughes, Mark Bowen and Eddie Niedzwiecki that makes it all to plain that the QPR coaching staff don’t know why their team is playing this badly, or what they can do to stop it happening.
His persistent assertion that his coaching staff prepare the team meticulously for each game was renewed this week, and not for the first time this season was then completely blown out of the water across 90 diabolical minutes of football. Southampton played in the same manner, style and shape as they did ten days ago against West Brom and QPR looked absolutely amazed by it – as if Southampton had bought 11 new players during the week and played in a completely new and previously unseen way. The players letting Hughes down are not the ones he is blaming, or the ones he inherited, it’s the ones he brought here.
Hughes must carry the can for signing these players – several of whom he’d worked with before and should therefore have known about their temperament. He too must accept responsibility for the mistakes he has made that have resulted in confidence draining defeats, rather than constantly trotting out this bullshit about meticulous preparations. And he must also be held to account for ostracising so many players who do want to play for QPR and will make an effort for the team – Helguson, Kenny, Campbell, Young, Mackie, Derry, Hill – in favour of those who don’t and won’t. It has made his position untenable in my opinion.
But managers don’t lose football games, football players do. It’s the players at QPR who are the problem – watch how they all suddenly up their game when a new manager arrives – and in the modern game they hold all the power. The players are untouchable, and they know it. Short term whoever is in charge must find a way to motivate them, medium to long term an entire change of mentality about the sort of players we need, and how we go about acquiring them, is required. Big ageing names from favoured agents is not working. Hughes and a board lacking football experience have worked the club into a dire position that will take many years to correct and I’ll say now that I don’t believe appointing Harry Redknapp and indulging him in the inevitable seven or eight January signings he’ll demand will be anything other than a very short term fix, if it even proves that successful. At the moment Kia Joorabchian seems to hold too much power – bring in Redknapp and that problem will still exist, with Willie McKay in the puppeteer role.
Tony Fernandes must now decide whether to make a stand against this player power, keep Hughes regardless and show football players that at QPR if you simply stop trying it is you that will be shipped out rather than the manager; or hold Hughes to account for his catalogue of errors and fire him. The former will almost certainly now result in relegation, and while it would be a worthy stand he’d be doing it behind the wrong manager. Hughes says QPR are working towards this and that and improving but he’s wrong and he knows it – QPR are getting worse. The latter will no doubt bring short term gains and possibly survival, but only until this group of mercenaries decide they don’t much fancy whoever replaces Hughes and stop playing for him as well.
Bad management has caused the problems here, but they’re so deep rooted now that it will take more than simply removing Hughes to cure them. That would be a start though.
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QPR: Cesar 6, Bosingwa 2 (Fabio 73, 5), Ferdinand 2, Nelsen 8, Traore 2, Granero 4, Faurlin 5 (Mackie 45, 7), Diakite 4 (Derry 71, 6), Hoilett 5, Taarabt 7, Cisse 4
Subs not used: Green, Wright-Phillips, Dyer, Ehmer
Goals: Hoilett 48 (assisted Taarabt)
Bookings: Bosingwa 68 (handball)
Southampton: Gazzaniga 4, Clyne 8, Yoshida 6, Fonte 6, Shaw 7 (Fox 74, 6), Schneiderlin 6, Ramirez 7 (Davis 61, 6), Cork 6, Lallana 8, Puncheon 8, Lambert 8 (Rodriguez 90, -)
Subs not used: K Davis, Hooiveld, Ward-Prowse, Mayuka
Goals: Lambert 22 (assisted Ramirez), Puncheon 45 (unassisted), Ferdinand og 82 (assisted Schneiderlin)
QPR Star Man – Ryan Nelsen 8 Everything you want in a footballer, surrounded by the sort of players you pray never end up at your club. I’ve never seen a one man back four before, but here he is.
Referee – Mike Dean 9 Very little to referee given how uncompetitive the game was but I felt he got just about everything right and controlled the contest in an unfussy way. I hardly even noticed he was there, which is always a good sign.
Attendance 18,174 (3,100 Southampton) After being remarkably patient with the team over the last four months, the QPR fans have finally snapped, and rightly so. They’ve put up with a lot, and enough is enough, I think the R’s support has been magnificent this season and everybody was fully justified in having their say on Saturday – the players and the club deserves it. The Southampton fans were as noisy as any travelling following has been at Loftus Road for years – even before they took the lead. Their vocal support for Nigel Adkins from the first whistle, compared to the QPR attitude to Hughes, should be another telling factor for the QPR board. Supporters of clubs like these two don’t necessarily mind defeats, if they can see effort and application and progress being made. Southampton can see it and support their boss as a result, the Rangers faithful clearly cannot and therefore don’t.
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