Week nine of Married at First Sight Shepherd’s Bush and it turns out Big Mick doesn’t like cup defeats to League One teams and having lots of players injured — not sure that bodes well for the relationship’s chances as the depleted R’s head up to Sunderland.

Sunderland (1-1-0 DWL 2nd) v QPR (1-0-1 LWD 8th)

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“We’re finding out about each other,” says Mick Beale of the fledgling relationship with his players. Things they found out this week — Big Mick doesn’t care for cup defeats to League One teams any more than the rest of us. After six in six seasons, can’t wait to see who’s going to have to get used to who on that one. “It’s just a thing we do here mate. That and the conceding off corners.”

The supporters, too, are discovering things about our new manager all the time. Most of us had long since stopped listening and paying much attention to manager interviews around games: pre-match, an interview about something that hasn’t happened yet; post-match, obfuscation, deflection, protection of players, blaming of referees. That was before Warbs Warburton moved into the hot seat with his unashamedly straight and repetitive approach to these things. You’d come out of a game elated, or despondent, or furious, or enraptured, and Nick London would pull the string on Warbs’ back, release it and wait to see whether we’d “taken care of the football” today, or “got our rewards”, or won “first contact and second ball”. Captain of Glasgow Rangers, a magnificent football club. Fine margins. I'm like Pavlov's dog - every time I hear somebody say "all credit must go to the players" I start writing a match report.

Now we’ve got a new manager, and he’s saying stuff. Interesting stuff, angry stuff, provocative stuff. “I’m old fashioned. I spoke to the boys before the game and said it was a mentality game, the opportunities are given and have to be taken. We brought 3,000 tonight to a London derby and it means a lot to them. I didn’t see that first half… It wasn’t good enough tonight. If I ask the players ‘who brought the best version of themselves tonight?’, they never. With the injuries we’ve got tonight that is the exact squad that will travel to Sunderland and they need to be 100% better or that will be a long journey back. They’ve got issues from the weekend, it seems to be something that is ongoing within the club from Christmas on, we’re working hard at it but every time we play we seem to lose players. I’m bitterly disappointed with that and we’re trying to put our finger on it. Those 18 boys tonight need to go to Sunderland on Saturday and play like men.”

Of course when you do that, and this is why many managers don’t, people start to read into it, and twats like me with match previews to write start to draw inferences and look for hidden meaning. Beale’s comments, particularly on the injuries, perhaps suggest he thinks there are players who could put their hand up to play who aren’t, or that the problem lies on the sport science side of the business which was so shit hot in 2020/21 that it seemed we were deliberately signing injury prone players because we could get them cheap and our medical team would get them right. The latter is given added weight by him going onto say we’ve had bleak prognosis on Jake Clarke-Salter and Luke Amos that we “didn’t like” so we’re seeking second opinions. It’s all quite combative stuff, and as supporters after a night like Tuesday we kind of revel in that a bit and like to hear a manager expressing our frustrations and hurting as much as we do. But most bosses don’t do that, and there’s probably a reason for it.

Last Saturday, basking in the glow of the Boro win, Beale said he’d been told Chris Willock could do an hour but he left him on for longer because of the influence he was having on the game. All well and good, but it doesn’t look great now Willock is apparently not fit to travel to Sunderland tomorrow. Nor Luke Amos, who after no pre-season was asked to do a full 90 against Boro, and is now I hear unlikely to see action for the next month at least. It is, again, the opposite of the Warbs approach, which was to bow down to the sport science on every decision and every substitution, often riling the fans up in the process when he made mid-game changes in difficult situations (often against Peterborough) that ostensibly didn’t seem to make any sense. The more old school, frustrated QPR fan probably thinks “yeh, too fucking right, 24 year old boy of course he can do more than 60 minutes” and find the new approach refreshing. But there’s nothing refreshing about getting to Sunderland in the midst of a rail strike and heatwave to see Travelman play left back and Andre Dozzell allow another game to pass him by in midfield.

Again, trying to read between the lines and second guess things (these previews don’t write themselves), judging by his calmer comments ahead of the trip north I think he recognised the mood around the place, the confidence of the squad, the edgy and tetchy noises coming from the support base, and decided the place needed a win almost at all costs against Boro last week. Even if that meant basically sacrificing the game this weekend, with the idea that we’ll then steam into two very winnable (I know, I know) home games against Blackpool and Rotherham next week with the Lower Loft terracing in use for the first time. Last season we peaked in August and troughed in March, he wants it the other way around, things won't hinge on the result tomorrow and if it does get us three wins from the first three home games then that's a very nice start to the campaign indeed.

There is another option of course which we’ll call The Jonathan Woodgate Routine, for which we’ll be requiring musical accompaniment.

In November 2019, under pressure and fearing for his job ahead of a trip to Loftus Road, then Middlesbrough manager Jonathan Woodgate sat behind his desk at the Riverside Stadium and trotted out the wettest, snotiest sob story it had ever been anybody’s misfortune to sit through. Basically the whole world, and some of the stuff outside of the world too, Gods and that, were against him, and his team, and his club, and the town. Everybody was injured. Everybody. He’d brought a list written out on a piece of paper, because there were just soooooo many of them, it was beyond the brain of somebody who used to boot Asian lads up and down Leeds High Street for sport to possibly remember them all. Assombalonga hamstring, Fletcher torn calf, Tavernier brain explosion, Dijksteel fell down a well, Howson bereaved, Ayala afraid of the dark, Fry gigantism. George Friend had strained a peck admiring his nipples in a mirror (they're great nipples to be fair). Paddy McNair had become lost in the woods and moved in with a pack of wolves to live as one of them. Everybody, everybody, who’d ever played in goal for Middlesbrough this side of the first Gulf War had randomly died in the night. They were going to see if Steve Pears was up for a game, but they’d lost his phone number. Woe is Jonathan. Life so unfair. Come 3pm on Saturday afternoon, not entirely unsurprisingly, every last one of the cunts was playing.

Perhaps, perhaps, we’ll get to Sunderland tomorrow and they’ll all be there. Paal, Willock, Amos, that one who plays violin. Maybe it’s all a big ruse. Hello. Hello? Is this thing on?

Far simpler explanation still, maybe he was just pissed off. He’s described himself as a “bear with a sore head” even when things don’t go to plan in training. Mick, let me tell you, that’s going to make for some sleepless nights managing Queens Park Rangers. The club badge could be somebody failing to locate their own arse with both hands. There’s an element of demanding better, and insisting that standards must be raised, which I absolutely love. Cynically, there’s also a selfish element to this — Beale is clearly a very ambitious and driven guy, you don’t go from running Futsal camps for seven kids in a church hall in Bromley to being a professional football manager by 40 if you’re not. He’s already achieved so much, and I think he sees himself achieving more, at the very top end of this game. That steady upward trajectory, so far almost completely uninterrupted in his career, will not be done any favours at all by the sort of failure and early sack at a middle of the road club like ours that can easily result from too many first halves like that slop we phoned in at The Valley on Tuesday. He needs this to go well, almost immediately, and I wonder if we’ve seen a little betrayal of that this week, both in the team selection and substitutions against Boro, and the comments on Tuesday night.

No manager has ever succeeded by not taking the players with him though, so it’ll be fascinating (to me, anyway) to see how this develops and plays out. A good deal more fascinating than tomorrow’s going to be if he is telling the truth about the players we’ve got available.

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Below the fold

Team News: So, taking the comments about the injured players at face value, there will definitely be no Jake Clarke-Salter against his former club, nor Luke Amos. Rob Dickie and Jimmy Dunne (also ex-Sunderland) to continue at centre back; Sam Field, Stefan Johansen and Andre Dozzell the likely midfield. George Thomas we said didn’t seize his chance to press a claim on Tuesday, but it turns out he picked up a bad foot injury after a minute and tried to play through it so fair fucks to him — not travelling this weekend though, as a result. Kenneth Paal is training, but apparently not enough to play here, leaving the really rather terrifying prospect of Travelman doing 90 minutes in this cauldron. Chris Willock is in the same boat, so you’d think after Tuesday’s impressive cameo it’ll by Tyler Roberts with Ilias Chair off Lyndon Dykes and Sinclair Armstrong to come from the bench.

Sunderland have played with a back three under Alex Neil for the most part, but the former Preston manager does like to match up his opposition so watch out for that. They made 11 changes for the midweek cup defeat at Sheff Wed but are likely to revert back to the team that won impressively 3-2 at Bristol City last week with no new injury concerns or signings and two-goal hero from that game Ellis Simms set for a home debut. Watch out for Luke O’Nien, who still feels like a QPR player in waiting to me, playing the Ben Pearson role that all of Neil’s teams have.

Elsewhere: I’ve seen Watford more than many close family members since the season began and that won’t be changing this week as the Sky love-in continues with their Friday night visit of fellow relegatees Burnley. So far the Hornets have looked like a team with a half decent defence, a stodgy and uninspiring midfield, and one of the best attacks the Championship has ever seen, and Ismaila Sarr’s 60-yarder was enough to get them out of a poor performance at West Brom with a point last week. As predicted in our season preview, however, as we get to the business end of the transfer window Sarr looks set to leave for Leeds, and Emmanuel Dennis is about to become summer signing 78 for Nottingham Florist. They have, however, added Leicester hairball Hamza Choudhury to liven up the middle part of their team. It was always going to be difficult to call teams’ prospects for the season prior to the kick off with the ridiculous situation of the transfer window stretching five weeks and seven fixtures into it.

Curious lunchtime game to start Saturday off with. Cardiff’s summer of 14 signings has seen them beat one of the title favourites Norwich in round one, then lose to man people’s tip for the bottom spot Reading in round two. This weekend it’s Birmingham in South Wales, another side tipped for a season of struggle but so far posting four points from their first two games against two of last year’s play-off qualifiers Lutown and Huddersfield. Things are already looking grim for the Terriers in West Yorkshire. With manager Corberan and star men Toffolo and O’Brien leaving after being cheated out of the Wembley final in May, their games have so far followed a second half rallies unable to claw back the damage done in dire first halves. Do we have another Barnsley on our hands here, play-offs one year and relegated the next? We’ll know a little more after their desperately uninspiring home tie with Stoke. Lutown, meanwhile, have drawn both league games so far and go for a first win against Preston Knob End who are doing their best to undermine record ticket sales for their new campaign by starting with a pair of goalless draws.

Among the 15.00s, Hull v Norwich stands out. A scandalous penalty and deflected goal didn’t offer many more clues about what to expect of the overhauled Tigers on the opening day, and they escaped an absolute battering at Deepdale last week (37% possession, 20 shots faced, six on target, just one in return) with a nil nil. Norwich were fancied, but at this point it looks like it might be one yo too far — distinctly unimpressive in drawing at home to newly promoted Wigan after losing at Cardiff. Wigan, themselves, have two points from two games ahead of a home game with pointless Bristol City. So impressed were they by Ched Evans’ brutal tackle and red card at the DW Stadium on day one that they’re now trying to sign him from their near neighbours. Performances through the window of the Wigan Travelodge at 20.00 and 22.00 with a matinee on Sundays.

Of the remaining three games Millwall v Coventry is a clash of two of our outside bets for the play-offs, Rotherham v Reading already has the look of a proverbial six-pointer, and that leaves Blackpool v Swanselona. Russell Martin’s method of winning matches by trying to successfully execute one-twos between his defender and goalkeeper yielded a big 3-0 loss against Blackburn last week which apparently was the fault of Blackburn putting “loads of men behind the ball” (bastards) and “making derogatory comments from the bench” (call the police). “The way we play isn't always going to please everyone. I think pretty much everyone out of Swansea hates it because they're desperate to stop it and beat it. Even a few comments from their bench towards it tells me the mentality towards it because we dare to try and control things and pass the ball. That's their prerogative. Ours is to try and control and improve people, bring the best version of ourselves,” he said, after losing 3-0.

Blackburn, meanwhile, take their six points and nasty hurtful words into a Sunday home tie with West Brom. The Chris Wilder Derby between Boro and Sheffield Red Stripe is also that afternoon.

Referee: Jeremy Simpson is the referee for this one, which is never great news, but a bigger eyebrow raiser is the PGMOL’s decision to return Mark Dwyer to the line in a QPR game for the first time since his botching of our League Cup quarter final prospects last season against the same opponent we face on Saturday. Once more, not the first time we’ve said this, that feels like issues and added pressure and scrutiny on an official that could, and should, be so easily avoidable. It also makes the apology letter we received for that incident ring even more hollow than it already did. Details.

Form

Sunderland: The Mackems were beaten 2-0 in the League Cup by Sheff Wed during the week, one of 12 Championship sides beaten by lower division teams in the competition’s first round. They did, however, make 11 changes to their first team for that game. In the league they’ve started with a 1-1 draw at home to Coventry in which they led from twelfth minute to six from time, and a 3-2 at Bristol City recovered from 2-1 down midway through the second half. That extends their unbeaten run in league games to 18 matches dating back to a 2-1 loss to MK Dons here on February 19. QPR have lost ten games since Sunderland were beaten last. The Black Cats were promoted from fifth in League One last season based mainly on a fearsome home record. Only fourth placed Sheff Wed (two) lost fewer games at home than their four and nobody won more than their 16. No team scored more than their 49 at home, and only Wednesday again (18) conceded fewer than their 19. Ross Stewart, who one would presume has designs on Lyndon Dykes’ Scotland spot, top scored with 24 goals in the league and 26 in total last season and is already off the mark this with one at Bristol City. New Everton loanee Ellis Simms bagged two at Ashton Gate alongside him having scored seven in 15 starts and five sub apps for Hearts last year, and ten in 19 (5) for Blackpool the year prior. Jack Clarke scored their first goal of the season against Coventry — he started one game and made six sub appearances for QPR in a poor loan spell during the 2019/20 season. QPR are unbeaten in their last six league meetings with Sunderland, winning one and drawing two of their last three visits to this ground. There have been two League Cup ties at Loftus Road in that time with Sunderland triumphing on both occasions — 2-1 as a Premier League team against Jimmy Floyd-Hasselbaink’s Rangers in September 2016, and then on penalties as a League One outfit in highly controversial circumstances last October after a 0-0 draw in regulation time. Since the move to the Stadium of Light QPR’s record on this ground is W1 D4 L3.

QPR: Rangers have started the season with a defeat at Blackburn, home win against Boro, and draw at Charlton in the cup. It’s now just two wins in 13 away games for the R’s stretching back to January at which point they were on a run of five wins and a draw from six road trips having just won 2-1 at Coventry. The victory over Middlesbrough was the first time Rangers have scored more than two goals in a game since the 4-0 home thrashing of Reading in January — 22 games. It was only the second time they’d scored three goals in a first half in 88 games — also Reading H. Eleven of our last 12 wins have been by a single goal. The spectacular opener was Chrissy Willock’s eleventh goal in 54 league starts and 20 sub appearances for Rangers since signing here in 2020 and the R’s are unbeaten whenever he has found the net — W9 D2. He has scored in his last three appearances against Boro. Lyndon Dykes’ headed goal that made it 3-0 was his first in 16 games for club and country — Sunderland’s Ross Stewart has scored nine times in that period. Having conceded 12 goals from set pieces in the final 20 matches of last season, the worst record in the league bar Peterborough over that period, QPR have started the new year with three goals conceded from corners in as many games. The draw at Charlton in the week made it six successive seasons Rangers have been booted out of a cup competition by a League One outfit, with Sunderland filling that role in 2021/22. In between those two draws and penalty shoot out defeats Rangers have only drawn seven of 36 games and it snapped a run of one draw in 16 games. Only Cardiff and Reading (eight) drew fewer league games than our nine in 2021/22.

Prediction: We’re once again indebted to The Art of Football for 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. LFW is 2/3 having, sadly, called the Blackburn and Charlton games correctly. Let’s see what last year’s champion Cheesy thinks this week…

“Even more disappointing than the result on Tuesday was the news of the injury status for the Sunderland game. If what Beale said in his post-match interview is true regarding the squad travelling to Sunderland, then we are in trouble. Shodipo made his debut 6 years ago, as did Hämäläinen. God knows how many managers they have got through, but not one of them selected them for a run in the first team. Surely that tells us that this level is too high for them. Likewise Bonne, struggling to stay onside all night at Charlton. Armstrong in my view, for his and the clubs future needs to be given priority over Bonne.”

Cheesy’s Prediction: Sunderland 1 QPR 0. No scorer.

LFW’s Prediction: Sunderland 2-0 QPR. No scorer.

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ParkRoyalR added 16:17 - Aug 12 Great preview and interesting stat on Willock's ball carrying, testament to Warbs work on his strength & conditioning (boxing I recall) and his ability to run with and protect the ball while playing with his head up!
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Wegerles_Stairs added 16:49 - Aug 12 "Come 3pm on Saturday afternoon, not entirely unsurprisingly, every last one of the c*nts was playing." lol
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thehat added 16:52 - Aug 12 Thanks Clive - I'm liking Beale the more I hear from him. I hope the players respond and don't start sulking. A few (we know who they are) do need to get thier fingers out of thier arses and join the party. Safe travels to the 1,000 hardy souls making the bloody long journey North - See what you can bring back......
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extratimeR added 21:57 - Aug 12 " Alex Neil former Preston Manager" "Mark Dwyer returns to the line" Reaches for bottle and pours large one, oh god!
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ozexile added 23:15 - Aug 12 I do wonder if anyone has done a study on injuries through the years. I don't buy the excuse about boots etc, personally. Are kids bought up through academies and told only to play if they feel 100%. In 40 years how can we go from Liverpool competing in four competitions with basically 13 players and yet here we are unable to get some players able to do 2 X games in a row. And as much as this seems harsh but how long can we keep giving contracts to these type of players.

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TacticalR added 14:05 - Aug 13 Thanks for your preview. It will be interesting to see whether Beale's bluntness about performances and questioning of the sport science improves things or backfires. The team selection sounds more like bare bones than Woodgate-style Machiavellianism. Given that, anything we can get at Sunderland will be a bonus. P.S. I think your admiration for George Friend might be going a bit too far.

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