QPR showed in the final ten minutes on Tuesday what a good side they can still be when they relax a little and will hope to take that mentality into this weekend's game at Middlesbrough.
Npower Championship >>> Saturday, February 26 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough
An underachieving team with a failed transfer policy nervously looking over its shoulder after a mid season change of manager – and it’s not us!
This Saturday the QPR band wagon rolls into Middlesbrough, the most northerly point of the Championship geographically and the scene of the final act of the disaster that went before the QPR success story of 2010/11. This fixture was the last of Mick Harford’s second reign as QPR boss last season, even Gordon Strachan’s Middlesbrough side packed full of players from the worst domestic league in Europe was good enough to win 2-0 although Rangers did have to give them a helping hand in the form of two first half penalties.
Neil Warnock took over a week later and has since completed a dramatic overhaul of the team while at the same time fostering a tremendous spirit, commitment and will to win that was sadly absent when we were last on this ground and can’t have been easy to create with such a high turnover of players. I’m about to run through the 14 QPR players involved in this fixture last season. Of them only six remain at the club today and only one is likely to start this match – the beautifully poised and balanced Alejandro Faurlin who had every right to be embarrassed when he was surrounded by the drek he called team mates last season.
In goal that day we had Carl Ikeme. Flavio Briatore’s masterstroke in alienating Lee Camp and then selling him to Nottingham Forest for a knock down fee was shown up as the madness most realised it was at the time by Camp going on to win the division’s keeper of the year prize at Nottingham Forest while Radek Cerny’s form dipped so badly in W12 that Wolves’ fourth choice keeper had to be drafted in. Ikeme looks a bit like David James, and is pretty secure under a high cross, but his shot stopping and decision making left a lot to be desired and few tears were shed when he returned to Wolves after a three month spell that he ended with a bad error in a 4-0 defeat at Leicester. Warnock brought in Paddy Kenny in the summer and he has 17 clean sheets to his name so far.
Peter Ramage played at right full back, and conceded one of the penalties in this game. Although he remains at QPR, and has an attitude that cannot be faulted, his contract ends this summer and he has missed almost the entire season with a cruciate knee ligament injury suffered in the first meeting between these teams in September. He’d been replaced by Bradley Orr before that happened anyway while Damion Stewart, who played centre back that day, went the other way to smooth the Orr deal through and has struggled to impress at Ashton Gate. Kaspars Gorkss has been a regular this season but his form has dipped recently and he was replaced by Danny Shittu for Tuesday night’s game with Ipswich. Left back Matt Hill is now with Barnsley after being released by Wolves, Harford said he would bring organisation and leadership but in reality he was just another liability for a rank side. Gary Borrowdale came off the bench to replace Hill – he is now on loan with Carlisle and has been used in cup competitions only this season by Warnock. One of the worst signings of an era when we bought players based on who their agent was rather than whether they were any good or whether we needed them.
The midfield four that day remain at the club, but not in the team. Lee Cook has made one fleeting substitute appearance so far – new physio Nigel Cox decreed in the summer that Cook’s knee was not safe to play professional football with and set about a six month restructuring programme with it. Cook was one of the better players at the Riverside last season playing on one good knee which says a lot for the quality of the rest of the players. Mikele Leigertwood is impressing on loan at Reading but couldn’t get to grips with the holding midfield role now played at Rangers by Shaun Derry along with Faurlin who played that day, will play tomorrow and was possibly heaven sent. Adel Taarabt was a sub for the final 20 minutes, now the team is built around him.
Akos Buzsaky has been a bit part player this season and has again been beset by injuries – Taarabt, Tommy Smiith and Wayne Routledge have shared the attacking midfield positions around in his absence but his trim figure and sharp touch on his return on Tuesday show the Hungarian means business and could be a real asset in the closing weeks. Up front last season Harford fielded a conventional two striker system where now we play a lone link man. Jay Simpson started well at Rangers but his form was poor under Warnock and he has struggled to make an impact at Hull this season with only four goals to his name so far. Antonio German partnered him that day, a youngster with some raw ability but a lousy first touch that has shown little sign of improvement in loan spells with Southend and now Yeovil this season. Marcus Bent came off the bench, the worst kind of mercenary footballer existing solely to keep the likes of Gemma Atkinson in fake tits. He could be relegated twice this season after similarly ineffective loans at Wolves and currently Sheffield United – Rangers meanwhile choose from Helguson, Hulse and Miller to lead their attack.
Neil Warnock, we salute you.
The Story So Far: It’s an infuriating country we live in sometimes. Under the current examinations system run in our schools we test our children remorselessly, and then every year we move a percentage point closer to every single one of them passing. An exam that 100 per cent of the participants pass is a pointless exercise, as it offers no distinction between the candidates for employers or universities to judge. Likewise the insistence by the previous Labour government that everybody should go to university, even if it’s to study the life and times of Graeme Souness at what used to be Luton and Dunstable Polytechnic, means degrees are devalued – because everybody has one. Under this wishy washy everybody gets a prize culture you get points in your maths paper for “showing your working” even if the answer you give is a load of bollocks. And that, in case you were starting to wonder, is where LoftforWords and Middlesbrough comes in.
You see when I put together the season preview for this site back in the summer the working out was absolutely perfect. “Seven players have now arrived from north of the border where the league is that in name only, pathetically short of quality and laughably lacking in competitive matches it’s not the place you want to be shopping for players,” I correctly surmised. And yet the end result was a prediction of second in the league, and automatic promotion. I had QPR down for tenth. LoftforWords has always been a place for workings, rather than correct answers.
Easy to say with hindsight but the policy of shopping in Scotland was doomed to failure from the very start. The Scottish Premier League is only sport on paper, in practice it’s a complete farce. Obviously the clear problem with it is it has been dominated by two teams for the best part of 25 years now since Alex Ferguson left Aberdeen, and fans of Celtic and Rangers are often more bothered with posting bullets to each other in the prolonged argument over whose story about their imaginary friend is better than they are with the football. Still, when your fixture list for the month reads Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Kilmarnock again, St Mirren, Kilmarnock again, Inverness and Kilmarnock again who can blame them for looking for entertainment away from the football?
And who can blame the television companies for largely ignoring this ludicrous blot on the footballing landscape where only the four meetings between Rangers and Celtic matter and the rest of the time is spent with meaningless matches played by poor players in shit stadiums in front of League Two sized crowds? God knows I watch a lot of football, but I do other things when Scottish football is on. Apart from watching Rugby Union or contracting cancer I can’t think of anything I’d like to do less than sit down and watch game six of seven this season between St Johnstone and Hamilton.
So a poor television contract leaves clubs short of cash which results in them only being able to afford players like Bob Malcolm and Michael Duberry and so the quality declines further and so does the interest in it. Occasionally you’ll get a player, I like to call them “fucking idiots”, who talk about a chance to play European football in front of 60,000 people at Park Head as they head north of the border – Joe Ledley, Gary Hooper and Kris Commons the latest to be suckered in. They quickly realise that European football lasts for two qualifying matches in July where the third best team in Armenia tends to beat their Scottish counterparts by three clear goals and then it’s another nine months of league and cup action where you will play Dundee United at least four times, and as many as seven.
And yet it is from this sparse table that Gordon Strachan felt he could find the key ingredients for a Championship feast. Kevin Thomson, Kris Boyd (both Rangers), Willo Flood, Barry Robson, Scott McDonald, Stephen McManus (Celtic) Lee Miller (Aberdeen) and Andrew Halliday (Livingstone) all arrived at considerable expense. And with the possible exception of McDonald they’ve all been absolute crap.
Middlesbrough, League Cup winners in 2004 and UEFA Cup finalists in 2006, started the season as one of the promotion favourites but will be fortunate to escape the season with their Championship status intact. An early draw at Leicester and televised home win against Sheff Utd when Kris Boyd actually managed to score hinted at a project kicking into gear, but they had already been beaten 3-1 at home by Ipswich on day one and by the time they lost 3-0 a Loftus Road Barnsley and Millwall had also beaten them.
Strachan fell on his sword in October after another home defeat, this time against Leeds, left them twentieth in the league. Boro are going to have to work hard to avoid a Coventry style situation. Their shiny new ground is now often less than half full for home games and can be a haunting place, with vast swathes of empty seats demoralising the home team and giving encouragement to visitors. Boro’s finances, under chairman Steve Gibson, would appear to be a lot sounder than Cov’s. The media has Gibson down as some sort of ideal chairman case study, mainly because he doesn’t sack many managers, but he has made some poor decisions in recent times. Leaving Gareth Southgate in charge for so long, then replacing him with Strachan, has seen them drop from the middle of the Premiership to the bottom of the Championship. He also oversaw a transfer policy that lost them Woodgate, Viduka, Hasselbaink, Yakubu, Schwarzer and others without ever adequately replacing them.
He may though, finally, have made a decent appointment for his top job in the shape of former Boro playing legend Tony Mowbray.
Manager: As a player Mowbray made more than 350 appearances for Boro through the 1980s at a time when the club was liquidated and faced extinction. He captained his home town team at the age of 22 and as both players came through at the same time, had similar impacts on their teams and played in the same position in the same style it’s easy to draw comparisons with our own Alan McDonald. He then played for Celtic between 1991 and 1995 and Ipswich until 2000 when he scored in the play off final against Barnsley to help the Tractor Boys on their way to promotion in what would turn out to be his last ever game as a professional footballer.
As a manager he cut his teeth with Hibernian. They finished in the top four of the SPL in both his full seasons there and he was awarded the Scottish Manager of the Year award. This attracted the attention of West Brom who brought him in to clear up the mess left by Bryan Robson in October 2006. Just 18 months later he had West Brom back in the Premiership as champions of this division. It was the style of football that won West Brom many friends that year – their slick passing and expansive attacking game was in stark contrast to that of their nearest rivals and the team that was eventually promoted in second place Stoke City. And yet when it came to the top flight West Brom were horrendously naïve in thinking they could compete with the best teams in the country by passing the ball around them and were relegated with something to spare. Stoke meanwhile continue to bully their way to top flight survival year on year.
Despite the relegation Celtic came calling for him that summer, thrashing out a massive £2m compensation package for a manager they would go on to sack after just nine months in charge. Mowbray had followed Gordon Strachan into Park Head and while Strachan had certainly won plenty during his time there, three league titles in four years, he was never that popular with the Celtic fans who revered his predecessor Martin O’Neill and felt Strachan’s success was largely on the back of the work done by the previous gaffer. Some blamed Strachan for the mess Mowbray inherited, others blamed Mowbray for creating it, but a 4-0 defeat to St Mirren in March was humiliation enough and Mowbray was dismissed.
So for the second time in his career he finds himself clearing up a mess left by Gordon Strachan. Not only that, but having offloaded four players onto Middlesbrough during his time in Scotland he also finds himself confronted by lads who know their manager doesn’t rate them. So far Mowbray has only brought in former Boro trainee, and QPR loanee, Andrew Davies on loan from Stoke, and added Max Haas from Bayern Munich and Merouane Zemmama from Hibs to his line up and he has lost Gary O’Neil and David Wheater to West Ham and Bolton respectively.
Results remain massively inconsistent. Since the turn of the year Boro have drawn with promotion chasing Leeds and Norwich (and the former needed a stoppage time goal to get even a point), lost at League Two side Burton in the cup only to then go to Bristol City and win 4-0, drawn at home with the bottom club Preston and then comfortably beat the second bottom club Scunthorpe 2-0, lost 1-0 at the fourth bottom club Crystal Palace, blown a three one lead to lose 4-3 at home to Swansea and then won at in form Millwall at the weekend.
You would expect the true effects of Mowbray’s appointment to become apparent from August and in the meantime his task is to ensure they’re still playing at this level by then, not the one below.
Three to Watch Had circumstances been different and, dare I say, the player been a little less greedy then there is a chance Andrew Davies could have been lining up on opposite sides for this fixture.
Davies, whose distinctive bleach blonde mop always made him stand out, was a product of Middlesbrough’s excellent youth set up products from which once made up an entire starting 11 for an end of season game at Fulham during Steve McLaren’s reign. He came to QPR on loan in the second half of the 2004/05 season where QPR had just been promoted and were successfully consolidating their spot in the Championship. Rangers were keen to buy him after an initial loan spell, and Boro were willing to sell, but the player asked for too much money and was sent back to the north east only to then return a couple of weeks later on another loan deal. This time he was hampered by an injury caused by him being run over by a car and perhaps rather harshly the QPR fans viewed his refusal to sign as a near miss rather than a lost opportunity.
Since then he has yo-yoed somewhat – a bit too good for this level, never quite good enough for the league above. He played on loan for Derby after us before Southampton spent £1m on him. Stoke signed him in 2008 for the Premiership but barely used him and he has since played his football exclusively on loan at Preston, Sheff Utd, Walsall and now Middlesbrough again. A good defender, nothing more than that, who can also play at full back but is a little accident prone.
Apart from the obsession with buying bloody Scottish players the other thing that mystified me about Gordon Strachan’s reign at the Riverside was his persistent refusal to start with Julio Arca. When I saw them against Sheff Utd in August Arca was only introduced from the bench at half time and the difference between Boro in the first half without him and Boro in the second half with him in the team was like chalk and cheese. He’s a classy performer Arca, who is unfortunate not to be playing Premiership football at a Fulham/Wolves/West Brom type club in my opinion. He can play left back or left wing and poses a genuine threat from corners and free kicks around the penalty area. Bradley Orr is not in the best form at the moment and that is a weakness Boro could easily expose with Arca – although it’s often pace Orr struggles with the most and Arca doesn’t have a lot of that.
Somebody who does, and that could spell bad news for our ailing centre backs, is Leroy Lita who has been a target for the QPR boo boys in recent years. He scored twice in a 5-1 rout at Loftus Road last season and then won a penalty in the 2-0 defeat we suffered here in the return fixture. He’s a loathsome individual truth be told – a diving, cheating, whinging, mouthy git more likely to be found filming sex videos on his mobile phone the fulfilling the potential that had him in the England Under 21 squad and playing regular Premiership football during his time with Reading. Lita is quick, and physical, and should be a better player than he is. Perhaps Mowbray has pointed that out to him because since the end of November he has scored seven goals in 13 games including two in his last two. With the form of our centre backs at the moment he’s not really the ideal person for us to face this weekend – particularly as the away following is liable to wind him up.
Links >>> Boro Official website >>> Message Board >>> Travel Guide
Recent Meetings: QPR ripped Middlesbrough apart in the second half of the fixture between the two at Loftus Road back in September. Kept scoreless at the break, and almost falling behind when Kris Boyd missed a gilt edged chance from the middle of the six yard box, Rangers were not in the mood for compromise in the second half. Heidar Helguson rolled in a penalty, Hogan Ephraim stabbed home another after a fine pass from Taarabt and Jamie Mackie added a third from an Ephraim assist all within the first 14 minutes of the second stanza. Later in the game Bradley Orr left the field injured, and then his replacement Peter Ramage ruptured cruciate knee ligaments necessitating the loan signing of Kyle Walker which turned out to be one of the best made by QPR in recent times.
QPR: Kenny 7, Orr 7 (Ramage 69, 6), Connolly 7, Gorkss 7, Hill 7, Derry 8, Faurlin 8, Mackie 8 (Smith 80, 6), Taarabt 8 (Buzsaky 70, 7), Ephraim 8, Helguson 8
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Leigertwood, Agyemang, Parker
Goals: Helguson 49 (penalty), Ephraim 53 (assisted Taarabt), Mackie 59 (assisted Ephraim)
Middlesbrough: Steele 7, Bates 5, McManus 5, Wheater 5, Robson 4, Tavares 6, O'Neil 5, Bailey 4 (Halliday 79, 6), Kink 6 (Hoyte 55, 6), Boyd 6 (Lita 65, 7), McDonald 6
Subs Not Used: Coyne, Miller, Arca, Smallwood
Booked: Robson (foul)
Rangers paid a heavy penalty at the Riverside Stadium in February last year in what would turn out to be Mick Harford’s last game in charge. A dull and lifeless encounter devoid of any quality whatsoever was settled by two penalties to the home side just before half time. A rash tackle by Peter Ramage on Jeremie Alliadiere set the ball rolling five minutes before the break and that was quickly followed by an equally stupid lunge, this time from Gorkss on Lita. Barry Robson comfortably outwitted Carl Ikeme in the QPR goal with both spot kicks. We had an excellent turkey and stuffing roll from a van behind the away end. They also did roast beef.
Middlesbrough: Coyne 7, Naughton 6, Wheater 7, McManus 6, Pogatetz 6 (Taylor 78, 6), Flood 6, O'Neil 6, Robson 8, Aliadiere 5 (Franks 66, 6), Lita 6 (Arca 83, -), Killen 6
Subs Not Used: Jones, Hoyte, Miller, Grounds
Booked: Killen (foul)
Goals: Robson 39 (penalty), 45 (penalty)
QPR: Ikeme 6, Ramage 4, Stewart 5, Gorkss 4, Hill 4 (Borrowdale 53, 4),Cook 6, Leigertwood 7, Faurlin 6 (Taarabt 69, 6), Buzsaky 7, Simpson 6, German 5 (Bent 54, 6)
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Vine, Balanta, Ephraim
Booked: Gorkss (foul)
Head to Head >>> Middlesbrough wins 13 >>> Draws 15 >>> QPR wins 14
Previous Results:
2010/11 QPR 3 Middlesbrough 0 (Helguson pen, Ephraim, Mackie)
2009/10 Middlesbrough 2 QPR 0
2009/10 QPR 1 Middlesbrough 5 (Agyemang)
1997/98 QPR 5 Middlesbrough 0 (Sheron 2, Gallen, Bruce, Vickers og)
1997/98 Middlesbrough 2 QPR 0 (FA Cup replay)
1997/98 QPR 2 Middlesbrough 2 (FA Cup - Gallen, Spencer)
1997/98 Middlesbrough 3 QPR 0
1995/96 QPR 1 Middlesbrough 1 (McDonald)
1995/96 Middlesbrough 1 QPR 0
1992/93 Middlesbrough 0 QPR 1 (Ferdinand)
1992/93 QPR 3 Middlesbrough 3 (Ferdinand, Penrice, Sinton)
1988/89 QPR 0 Middlesbrough 0
1988/89 Middlesbrough 1 QPR 0
Links >>> QPR 3 Middlesbrough 0 Match Report >>> Middlesbrough 2 QPR 0 Match Report >>> QPR 1 Middlesbrough 5 Match Report
Team News: Neil Warnock is likely to stick with his new look central defensive pair of Fitz Hall and Danny Shittu after they impressed together against Ipswich on Tuesday. Akos Buzsaky will also push for a bigger role this week afte the impact he made from the bench against the Tractor Boys while Ishmael Miller must rated as doubtful after appearing to pull up with a hamstring issue in that game. Tommy Smith is still a week away from a return but Hogan Ephraim has now completed his three match ban, although there was some talk on Tuesday night that he is now injured as well. Peter Ramage is out for the whole season with an injury picked up against Boro at Loftus Road, Patrick Agyemang and Jamie Mackie are the other long term absentees.
Middlesbrough will welcome back Barry Robson who missed the win at Millwall with a thigh strain, and Marvin Emnes who was on compassionate leave last week, but Matthew Bates is still six weeks away from a return from his hamstring issues. Willo Flood has a thigh strain and Justin Hoyte a hamstring problem so they are doubtful. Kevin Thomson, Rhys Williams, Stephen McManus and goalkeeper Danny Coyne, who QPR fans may recall once having an extraordinary game against us at Loftus Road in his Grimsby days, are their long term absentees.
Elsewhere: After a midweek round of fixtures where several of the top sides slipped up in what looked like relatively easy fixtures, we’re back on the hard track this Saturday with some intriguing games for the promotion chasers. Second placed Swansea host sixth placed Leeds at lunch time on Saturday in the televised match while Cardiff and Forest face awkward away matches at Hull and Millwall respectively. Norwich go to Barnsley. Elsewhere there’s an M69 derby between Leicester and Coventry and another clash of local rivals as Preston meet Burnley. At the bottom there’s a must win game at the bottom for Sheffield United who are now five points adrift of safety but can haul their weekend opponents Derby into trouble with them with a win. Three teams play games in hand on Tuesday night, most importantly from our point of view Forest travel to Middlesbrough.
Referee: Keith Stroud is the man in the middle for this game – an official with a reputation for dishing plenty of cards out but one with whom QPR are yet to lose in eight encounters. Stroud refereed our 3-0 away win at Ipswich back in September so QPR will obviously be hoping for more of the same on Saturday. Click here for a full run down on his history with Rangers.
QPR: Rangers extended their unbeaten run to nine league matches with a 2-0 victory against Ipswich on Tuesday, which isn’t half bad for a team not playing anywhere near its best at the moment. Too many draws have held the R’s back from completely cutting loose at the top – four of the last eight have finished level, three of the last four away games have been tied. The clean sheet kept on Tuesday was the 17th of the season so far, a division best, and the 20 goals conceded so far is also the Championship’s outstanding record. Rangers have found scoring goals a little harder, managing more than one on just three occasions since Christmas and not managing more than two since Boxing Day. Away from home this season Rangers have won six, drawn eight and lost only two – the most recent wins coming at Coventry and Reading.
Prediction: I quite fancy us here to be honest if Shittu and Hall keep up their form of Tuesday night – although that’s a big ask as they were playing against meagre opposition in the shape of Jason Scotland and on Saturday they face a Boro side that has suddenly found its scoring boots. Middlesbrough’s defensive record tells me they will probably concede, and if that’s the case Boro would need two to win at least which I wouldn’t necessarily fancy them for the way we defended during the week. That said I’ve promised not to back us to win for fear of cursing it and so…
23/10 the draw with Blue Square, Coral and others