QPR were sharp from the spot on Tuesday night as Luton Town were dumped out of the League Cup in game one of this two-game day-night series.
Item 151 on the list of things that happened at QPR when I first started going and I therefore assumed just happened all the time – penalty shoot outs.
Along with Premier League football, a striker casually bagging 20+ goals a season without taking penalties, wingers who could cross, quick 5-3 wins at Everton or 4-1s at Upton Park, one of my other little life experiences as a child, which I naively thought meant that’s what life is like in general, was Alan McDonald, with his socks rolled down, winning a League Cup shoot out in front of the away end. In front of the away end at Grimsby too, my hometown, which provided much ammunition to bash the other year threes about with I can tell you.
That felt like fun. And then, along with everything else that felt like fun, it went away. During the decade-long carpet-bombing of my self-esteem, belief and worth there was a brief flurry of penalty shoot outs being a thing again. Exactly ten years on from Blundell Park, Rangers got themselves dumped out of whatever we were calling the Freight Rover Trophy at that point by Bristol City on pens after Richard Langley had been sent off (a red card that would cost him, and us, the play-off final), and then infamously got booted out of the FA Cup on spot kicks by Vauxhall Motors. Simpsons Devil in action again: oh you miss penalty shoot outs do you? Well heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s ALL THE PENALTY SHOOT OUTS IN THE WORLD. Dickhead.
For a long time the only penalty shoot I’d been to, and won, was watching Scunthorpe knock Sheff Wed out of the FA Cup at Hillsborough. A victory so seismic The Owls made Brian Laws their manager. Another one from the pantheon of great ideas.
Mark Warburton really liked penalty shoot outs. Not in a disrespectful way, far from it. There’s been one against Swindon under Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s brief and inglorious reign. Bristol City were beaten at Loftus Road after a vintage never mind the pragmatics feel the ideals 3-3 draw. *Late night Radio Two documentary voiceover* Albert Adomah’s Dancing in the Dark was still two years away. But that post-lockdown Brisbane Road party was soon followed by us knocking out Big Premier League Everton and invading the pitch like proper mugs.
The thing was, it seemed QPR were quite good at penalty shoot outs: 5-4, 5-3, 8-7. Line em up, we’ll knock em down. Subsequently blowing the chance of a quarter final at Arsenal by taking three of the worst spot kicks I’ve ever seen in my life, against Sunderland, can conveniently be explained away by the brain fog created by the latest Keith Stroud-led catastrophe that had rendered the shoot out necessary in the first place. For a team rarely awarded penalties in open play, and pretty terrifying with them when they do get the chance (Michy Frey missed the only one Rangers have had in 34 games), they seem weirdly serene and competent when it comes to the controlled environment of a shoot out.
And so when Luton started playing silly buggers about who was to stand where in the centre circle, and Alfie Doughty gave it the big-un to a typically sparse cup crowd at Loftus Road, I did wonder if the Hatters knew quite what they were letting themselves in for. Zan Celar’s narrative puncturing calm take with the first a settling start for him, and for us. Then a parade of left footers: Dembele, Clarke-Salter, Paal. By the time it got to the latter Joe Walsh had saved well low down from Cauley Woodrow, and Tahith Chong had shaken the frame of the goal. It meant Paal’s expert take into the top corner won the game.
How Rangers took it that far in the first place was a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly. Genuine moments of quality intermingled with the usual brain farts. Things might have been a good deal easier had Rob Edwards not missed the memo about leaving one or two players out for this sort of game, but after the visitors turned up with Morris and Adebayo up front, Chong and Doughty among the supporting cast, it says something for Rangers that they were able to win regardless. Win without the likes of Chair, Andersen, Dembele, Clarke-Salter and Field from the start as well.
King of the stand ins was young keeper Joe Walsh. His error had cost the goal that made the first round nervy at Cambridge, but he’d been excellent there apart from that and here he followed up with a near faultless display. The best of the saves came from Adebayo straight from kick off after QPR took a first half lead, and at full stretch from a corner on the hour when Morris surely thought he’d scored. There was plenty more besides, though. As pressure built under a succession of corners and crosses a quarter of an hour in, Walsh spraing from his line, big shape and a high hands, to block from Morris again. Another good block followed on 32 minutes under a similar hail of crosses and corners. Zack Nelson’s gloriously struck equaliser was unsaveable, and we do seem to be going through one of those annoying phases where every time the opposition hit one from 30 yards they hit it better than they’ve ever done so before, but the subsequent save in the shoot out put the gloss on his man of the match award.
On another night, though, we might have gone away talking more about Hevertton Santos. The Brazilian via Portugal started high and wide on the right again, where he’d looked so hopelessly lost and scared at Cambridge I didn’t know whether to cuddle him or drop in in at Battersea Dogs Home, and got things off to a good start with a goal. Celar’s clever pass widthways through a retreating defence gave Elijah Dixon-Bonner the chance to finish a move he’d started with a shot. Thomas Kaminski saved, but didn’t hold when he really should have done, and Santos followed in for 1-0.
Clark was afforded so much time in the Luton midfield during the first half it was like he was diseased and people were afraid to go near him. When he sprung Doughty to cross for Morris on 29 the offside flag rescued Rangers, though Morris rather implausibly missed the chance anyway. He didn’t look in any mood to do the same at the end of another sweeping counter on 41, but Santos held position well at the back post and got a brave challenge in which diverted the ball wide under pressure from the far physically bigger and stronger man. Cifuentes had finally seen enough to trust Santos in his preferred spot at right back and, actually, having done so, with Smyth ahead of him, Rangers found they were able to push Doughty further back and restrict his influence. All in all, much more encouraging than his previous outings, finished with a big covering tackle a minute from time after Luton piled in over the top of the tiring Jonathan Varane.
Both teams could have scored in injury time – Nicolas Madsen for Rangers off their final corner, Nelson for Luton firing right through the goalmouth in their lest attack. Paal’s left footed cross right through the penalty box after typically purposeful approach work by sub Alfie Lloyd was as good a cross as we’ll put in all season. Nobody there to finish. Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit. All the stuff you need and are going to get in a cup tie, but also all the stuff we’re going to get with this group of players.
Varane, so far, a very nice cameo against West Brom. An absolute 64 carat nightmare at Sheff Utd. This performance was a mixture of both, with the better stuff coming to start with before he noticeably faded and tired. Physical demands of the Championship etc etc.
Santos... Looked miles and miles off it in pre-season to me. And scarily bad at Cambridge. Like he didn't even know where to be. Jimmy Dunne driving him round like a toy car. Then, against Luton, pretty decent I thought, in both positions. And scored.
Saito, good at Sheff Utd, poor against Plymouth, little of column A and a little of column B on Tuesday.
Dembele's been brilliant every time but he'll probably have a bad game shortly. Morrison too, who I’ve been impressed with in both cup games and stood up well here against one of the division’s better strike forces.
That's how it is with players anyway, it's how it is with Championship players more, it's how it is with the sort of Championship players we can afford especially, and this season it's going to be an extreme case because of the profile of player we've signed. I'm not sure why you'd rush to judge anyway, but certainly not this season.
Game two in this day-night series takes place tomorrow, play begins at 8pm.
Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread
QPR: Walsh 8; Dunne 6 (Smyth 59, 6), Cook 6 (Clarke-Salter 46, 6), Morrison 7, Paal 6; Varane 5, Colback 6 (Dembele 71, 7); Santos 7, Dixon-Bonner 5 (Madsen 71, 6), Saito 5 (Lloyd 59, 7); Celar 6
Subs not used: Nardi, Field, Frey, Kolli
Goals: Santos 11 (assisted Dixon-Bonner)
Yellow Cards: Santos 33 (foul), Colback 49 (repetitive fouling), Celar 84 (foul)
Luton: Kaminski 4; Walters 6, Burke 6 (Holms 46, 6), Bell 6 (Andersen 46, 6), Doughty 7; Nelson 6, Nakamba 5 (Walsh 46, 5), Clark 7 (Baptiste 63, 5), Chong 6; Abebayo 6, Morris 5 (Woodrow 72, 5)
Subs not used: Johnson, Mpanzu, Shea, Taylor
Goals: Nelson 16 (unassisted)
Yellow Cards: Walters 40 (foul), Morris 72 (foul)
QPR Star Man – Joe Walsh 8 Chuffed for Walsh, who would easily have been our star man in the first game at Cambridge but for the error that cost the goal and here produced another assured performance littered with excellent saves and crowned with a shoot out win.
Referee – Leigh Doughty (Blackpool) 7 Did I agree with every decision here? No. Colback’s yellow looked harsh to me, though he’d committed four fouls by that point and I did close my eyes and pray a bit when he started gobbing off about it that he wasn’t about to talk himself into a second dissent red card of the season already. Celar getting a yellow for a high boot when it was hardly off the floor and the guy was giving in at his feet seemed over the top. But I accept the decisions from this guy, he’s calm and composed in his management of the game, he’s across everything that’s going on without ever being intrusive. There’s no histrionics before every set piece. No moments when you feel the game slipping out of control, both sets of players, both sets of fans, getting irritated. I would of course pitch that this is because he’s got a better "feel for the game” than Gavin Ward, who I criticised for the opposite at the weekend. A beautifully woolly phrase wankers like me can use to mean a bit of everything and nothing – but if you went to both games and watched how they were refereed I genuinely believe you do know what I’m on about. You could come back and say that actually it’s just my bias, in both how I like games to be refereed, and how I like my life to be spent without Gavin Ward in it. There may, of course, be some truth in that.
Attendance 7,132 (650 Luton approx.) "Luton Town, wank, wank, wank”. Repeat.
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