A blip in form has seen QPR spend much of their cushion, and game in hand, on the teams around them and with difficult away games coming up tonight’s home match with Blackpool feels, if not pivotal, then certainly important.
Mercantile Credit Trophy >>> Wednesday February 23, 2022 >>> Kick Off 19.45 >>> Weather — Sunny, windy >>> Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium, Loftus Road, London, W12
Blackpool used to be useful cannon fodder for nights like this. QPR won five and drew one of their Second Division meetings during Ian Holloway’s first spell in charge, in large part because they had a player in Richard Langley who turned into some sort of horny, hungry, rampaging bull at a mere flash of tangerine.
Sure, we all had a good laugh at Chris Clarke’s Loft End own goal, and who didn’t love a bit of Leroy Griffith’s karate chop action up at the old Bloomfield Road, but Langley scored six times across those fixtures by himself. That run included a hat trick at theirs in the play-off season, a goal in the 5-0 opening day victory at the sweatbox just before he was sold the season after, and before all of that a full, thick volley from the far side of the penalty box after his own corner had been cleared out to him which is as good a goal as has ever been scored at Rangers and doesn’t get spoken about enough when we sit down to muse over our best ever.
How QPR could do with one of those tonight. I know for the xG evangelists QPR’s season to date has been one of weird over performance, and the last couple of weeks have simply been a long overdue regression to the mean, but if you’d told me after Reading at home that we wouldn’t win any of the next five, even against Barnsley and Hull, I’d have just laughed at you. One of those weird doom mongers who seems to get off on predicting a catastrophe for Rangers every time they play, no doubt. That Reading game, albeit against lousy opposition, was the cliched ‘we’re going to give somebody a hiding soon’ come to life. It could have been any score we’d liked, it left us with five wins and a draw from six league games through an unbeaten January, and everybody seemed so bubbly and confident afterwards. How we’ve gone from that to this, Ilias Chair looking and sounding like a boy who’d just taken his dog in to be put down in Saturday’s post match interviews, in the space of just three weeks is mesmerising.
What we usually do here is roll our eyes and give it the "typical QPR” bit. Only Rangers, we tell ourselves, would fall off a cliff quite like this, with that set of fixtures. It’s not true. While the panic now is about Middlesbrough, who’ve won nine and lost only two of 13, and Sheff Utd, 30 of the last 36 points available to them, the panic was previously about Forest, who’ve slipped off to ninth, and West Brom, at one point considered completely out of sight and now miles adrift of us after one win in 12. Teams go through blips: Bournemouth won two of ten over Christmas; Blackburn have won two of nine and head to Bramall Lane tonight sans-Brereton. The trick is the old John Gregory line, ‘tough times don’t last, tough people do’. Keep the faith, keep plugging away, this doesn’t have to manifest if you don’t let it.
One of QPR’s problems is too many players losing form at the same time, and in the same position. None of the three strikers are fit and/or firing. Charlie Austin, Lyndon Dykes and Andre Gray have been so woeful in recent weeks it’s now at the stage where even our message board, usually a staunch safe seat for ‘two up front’ , is starting to wonder whether it might be worth trying a system without any of them at all. Throw in Stefan Johansen, Moses Odubajo, Rob Dickie, even Albert Adomah was pretty dire at Millwall, and that’s a lot of players to be trying to drag along with you below their best. The second half against Hull was better, a bit more like our old selves, and one highly debatable offside decision against Adomah in a prolonged period of stoppage time is all that stood between us and a valuable win.
Another is we’ve burned several, quote, ‘winnable fixtures’. Loads of the teams around us are playing each other at the moment, and we’ve got much of that to come with trips to Huddersfield, Forest, Luton, Sheff Utd and Blackburn still on the calendar. We surely could and should have been looking to build a nice cushion while they’re all taking lumps out of each other, by knocking off routine wins against the worst sides in the division — ‘no easy games in the Championship’ stock phrase not withstanding. I wonder if that’s why little Illy seemed so unusually deflated despite his goal and the vague belated improvements on Saturday. But then, I remember sitting here writing preview after preview in 2011/12 saying that having taken a January and February Premier League fixture list that included games with Norwich, Wigan, Blackburn, Bolton, Fulham, Wolves, Everton and Villa and won only one of them, QPR were almost certain to be relegated simply by the difficult of their fixtures if nothing else. They stayed up by beating Liverpool, Tottenham, Arsenal, Swansea and Stoke at home. Now that’s typical bloody QPR.
It's been a horribly clichéd-riddled preview so here’s another one — we just need something to go in off somebody’s arse. A win, any kind of win, any kind of goal, just to calm everybody down, get some confidence back into the players, get some breathing space back on the league ladder. How we’ve got to that point in three weeks I don’t know, but here we are. Remember, we still potentially go third if we get it.
Links >>> Sweltering opener — History >>> Successful return — Interview >>> Gavin Ward — Referee >>> Blackpool Official Website >>> Bloomfield Road Ground Guide >>> Blackpool Gazette — Local Press >>> A View From The Tower — Message Board >>> Seasiders — Podcast >>> The Mighty Pool — Blog >>> Blackpool supporters trust >>> Mitch Cook’s Left Foot — Contributor’s Blog >>> Measured Progress — Contributor’s Blog
Team News: Sam McCallum got the 90 minutes of U23-action that Warbs Warburton said he needed before first team consideration at Oxford on Tuesday. That means he won’t be available for Blackpool but may well be an option for the difficult trip up to Blackburn at the weekend. Moses Odubajo’s out-of-the-blue return to form as a substitute at the weekend probably gets him a start at LWB with Lee Wallace still struggling and Chris Willock ideally used further forwards against a team he scored spectacularly against in November. Lyndon Dykes missed out altogether at the weekend and will be checked. Rob Dickie serves game two of two on the naughty step.
There will sadly be no return to Loftus Road for QPR cult hero Richard Keogh who’s out with a sore brain. Fellow defender James Husband hasn’t featured since blowing his hamstring out in the season low-point in the FA Cup at Hartlepool, but is back in training — this game comes too soon naturally. Keshi Anderson, so impressive in the first meeting, thankfully isn’t ready for his return here yet which will exacerbate Pool’s problems in central midfield where bodies and drive have been thin on the ground since Cardiff recalled Ryan Wintle in January. Kenny Dougall was left out at the weekend but will return, Kevin Stewart has done two sets of 90 after returning from his own injury lay off so that feels like an easy swap. Luke Garbutt, Matthew Virtue, Chris Maxwell and Grant Ward are all medium term absentees.
Elsewhere: The Middlesbrough juggernaut continues to roll up the league — Chris Wilder’s second half tactical switch turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 win at home to West Brom in the big game last night. That was the Baggies’ first goal in six matches, but they’ve only won one of 12 now and have fallen right away from the play-off picture. Flavour of last month Nottingham Forest are also having a bit of a moment, one win in four in the league, and held 0-0 at Preston Knob End on Tuesday. Coventry, meanwhile, are emerging back into the picture, with a last minute win at Bristol City (the eighth time that’s happened to the Robins this season) lifting them to within three points of us.
At the other end there was a second win in three games for Barnsley at Hull, which doesn’t exactly paint our weekend point at home to the Tigers in a positive light. Reading also seem to be in their "doing just enough to stay up” portion of the season (never a good time of the year) with Paul Ince’s surprise appointment as manager there inspiring a 2-1 win against Birmingham to follow the weekend 3-2 up at PNE.
Six games tonight including our own. With Reading sadly picking up, the miracle recovery of Wayne Rooney’s Derby County is going to have to pick up the pace even further and almost certainly needs a win at home to the in form Marxist Hunters. Peterborough have bid another farewell to Darren Ferguson (isn’t it about time Martin Allen had another crack at Barnet?) and they’re on a hiding to nothing at Fulham this evening. Tarquin and Rupert were beaten at home at the weekend mind, by an impressive looking Sporting Huddersfield who now face Cardiff at home. Stoke face Lutown but it’s really all eyes on Sheffield where the local Red Stripes are playing Blackburn in a clash of two of the top six.
Referee: Gavin Ward was a real problem child for QPR early in his career when he’d arguably been promoted too high, too soon. In recent years though he’s improved immeasurably and had been a fairly safe pair of hands, prior to this season when form has tailed off again and his handling of our August home game with Barnsley was fairly shambolic. Details.
QPR: After an unbeaten run of seven that included five wins, Rangers are now winless in five with three of them defeats and one goal in their last three matches. QPR are still the third top scorers in the league, with only the top two managing more than our 47. The goals conceded running total of 37 is the worst record in the top 11, however. The R’s are unbeaten in six at home, and have only lost three times at Loftus Road all season, but four of the last five here have been drawn. Rangers have won 14 and lost only four of their 29 league and cup meetings with Blackpool. Pool have only won once at Loftus Road in 14 visits to W12, that back in 1971/72, a run that includes a 6-1 loss here in 1969/70 and a 5-0 on the opening day of the 2003/04 promotion campaign. The last three games between the sides on this ground have all finished 1-1.
Blackpool: Whether Blackpool is the opponent you’d pick for QPR to try and get back on the horse is doubtful. They were exceptional against us in the first meeting this season, which finished 1-1 more through luck than QPR judgement, and at that point were on a run of seven wins from ten fixtures. Theirs has been a season of pronounced peaks and troughs — it took them six games and into September to get a win on the board at all and they followed our visit there without a win in seven and only one win in ten. Now, once again, they approach a game with Mark Warburton’s team in decent touch. One defeat in six, and that coming with two last minute goals at home to high flying Bournemouth, they’re on a league run of 4-3-3. Away from home they’re without a win in eight, but they’ve drawn the last three including a 1-1 at champions-elect Fulham. Overall this season they’re 3-7-5 away from home — no team in the league has drawn as many games on the road. Shayne Lavery and Jerry Yates top score here with seven each.
Prediction: We’re indebted to The Art of Football for once again 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. Last year’s champion Mick_S says…
"This prediction thingy was a lot easier last season. I really hope this is the match where we show a little bit more adventure and have a proper, but sensible, go. It’s there, we know it is and a win could go a long way to settling a few in game nerves. I’ll have a go at 2-1 with Willock to score if he’s not defending too much (I get why he was asked to last match). Come on Rangers.”
Mick’s Prediction: QPR 2-1 Blackpool. Scorer — Chris Willock
LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 Blackpool. Scorer — Chris Willock
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