QPR crashed out of the League Cup at the second round stage in typical fashion on Wednesday night — beaten 1-0 by League Two outfit Burton Albion.
QPR’s annual League Cup humiliation at the hands of a lower division team is becoming as much a staple of the football season in W12 as the Boxing Day game or Easter weekend double header. End of August means League Cup embarrassment.
Northampton Town (twice), Leyton Orient (twice), Swindon Town, Rochdale, Port Vale (twice) and Colchester United have all had their pound of hooped flesh in the early stages of this competition since the turn of the millennium and you can now add the name of Burton Albion to that inglorious list.
These defeats are rarely an indication of how the season will pan out, or how the manager in charge at the time will do. Neil Warnock lost at home to Rochdale and Port Vale during a two year stint in which he promoted QPR to the Premier League for the first time in 15 years. Jim Magilton comfortably beat Exeter City and Accrington before he started headbutting the players. Iain Dowie’s brief 15-game run in charge included cup wins against Swindon, Carlisle, and Aston Villa when QPR got a taste of killing the ‘giant’ for themselves.
Nor is this sort of thing restricted purely to QPR. MK Dons’ 4-0 victory against Manchester United was the headline grabber of the week’s second round ties but Aston Villa (at home to Orient), but Burnley (Sheff Wed H), Leicester (Shrewsbury H) and West Ham (Sheff Utd H) were all beaten too and West Brom were taken all the way to penalties by League Two Oxford.
You may think it odd that Premier League football teams are gladly tossing away their places in one of only two trophies they ever have a hope of winning to concentrate their efforts fully on a competition they have no hope of winning in the next 150 years. You may think football should be about trophies and medals and trips to Wembley — a feeling only exacerbated by that glorious day in May and Bobby Zamora’s finest hour — but then that would make you the common or garden traditional football fan, who supports a middle of the road team and actually pays through the nose every week to attend their games. Let me tell you, football stopped being about you and what you like and what you want a long time ago. Now it’s about people with Sky subscriptions, fantasy teams and David Beckham replica tops, fascinated with the transfer of players more than the games themselves. There was only one story in the football world on Tuesday night, and it took place in Milton Keynes. Sky Sports News HQ (they’ve rebadged it you fool) lead that night instead with United signing Angel Di Maria — a purchase everybody knew was happening. A story reported by putting his generic press release quotes about how delighted and excited he is, in flawless English naturally, up on screen and very slowly reading them out. To these people, the Premier League is the best, most important thing in the world — better than food, better than oxygen, better than Kelly Brook oiled up and jumping steadily up and down in front of you for your own private amusement — and the League Cup is a total irrelevance.
But, rather inconveniently, they still make everybody enter it. So the question, on dull, dark, overcast Wednesday nights at Burton Albion’s Pirelli Stadium, is what can we get out of it? If not the result, what can we actually achieve here? What are we looking to accomplish?
Some teams, Arsenal notably, have turned this into a sort of youth-team tournament, where the most promising players from the club’s junior ranks are given a chance to get off their perfectly manicured academy pitches and semi competitive fixtures and actually play in front of a crowd against somebody who’s been around the block a few times and is going to kick them a bit and show them what it’s like in the real world. Cesc Fabregas and others came to attention in this country this way.
On Wednesday night QPR’s youngest starter was 23-year-old, £4m winger Matt Phillips. Five of the starting 11 and one of the three used substitutes were well into their 30s.
Some teams use it as an extra pre-season friendly, particularly if they’ve recently switched to a new system and/or signed a lot of new players — a free hit, if you like, where they can learn the shape and about each other’s game to better prepare them for the league matches ahead.
On Wednesday night Harry Redknapp, who has bemoaned the lack of quality opposition and competitive action during the club’s pre-season campaign, completely abandoned the 3-5-2 system he’s spent the entire summer talking about, and used in the first two league games, and is likely to use again on Saturday against Sunderland, and switched to a basic 4-4-2.
Some teams just throw their hands up, play a load of stiffs, and openly admit that they just want to avoid injuries to key players.
On Wednesday night Harry Redknapp selected Ale Faurlin from the start, fresh back from his second ruptured cruciate knee ligament injury in as many seasons, and then watched as the Argentinean pulled up holding his knee in the corner after chasing back a tired ball he’d given away. Even then, with Faurlin in discomfort, they seemed initially to be wondering if he could "run it off”. Rangers were painfully slow to get him off the field and Leroy Fer on — Kevin Bond and Joe Jordan down on the touchline, turning to Redknapp at the back of the main stand and shrugging. Redknapp, forced to stand up and do something, shrugging back at them. Fucking amateur hour.
Ultimately it was difficult to see what Redknapp, and QPR, were trying to achieve at all here other than pissing people off.
Two decisions in particular mystified more than others.
Firstly, what exactly did we gain or achieve by selecting Richard Dunne from the start of this fixture? Now I don’t want to slate Richard Dunne too much, because he’s been a fantastic professional through his career, and was a terrific free transfer signing for QPR last season on a one year deal. You could argue that only QPR would have put a clause in his contract forcing the club to extend it by a further 12 months if he played more than 30 times in last season’s Championship but that’s debatable. What is certain, is QPR are the only club in the entire world, in the entire history of the game, that would still be playing him as a starting centre back in the Premier League against the likes of Erik Lamela, Emmanuel Adebayor and God only knows who is still to come.
Dunne is all but finished now. He is 34, physically struggling, chronically short of pace and mobility, and flailing badly. He wasn’t capable of playing as part of a three centre half formation a decade ago, and he’s certainly not now. Given the appalling start he’s made to the season one would think, hope, pray and beg that he’s surely to good God in Heaven not going to be anywhere near the starting eleven for Sunderland on Saturday. So why pick him here? He doesn’t need game time, he’s had that. He’s not one for the future. He’s not playing well. There isn’t one single reason why he should be selected ahead of, say, Max Ehmer, a powerful young centre back from QPR’s youth team who has more than 150 appearances to his name at League One level who should be an absolute shoo in for fixtures like this.
Ehmer watched from the bench as Dunne, 15 minutes from time, was tempted out of his centre back position, into the no-man’s land near the halfway line, and promptly turned into trouble by Burton’s Marcus Harness. It was a miracle Dunne caught up with him at all, and certainly no surprise to see him execute a deliberate, cynical foul on his man right on the edge of the area.
Adam McGurk, who has a League Two haircut but Championship ability and troubled QPR all night, whipped the resulting free kick over the QPR wall and into the top corner of reserve keeper Brian Murphy’s net. The only goal of the game, League Two Burton march on into the third round of this competition for only the second time in their history. No more than they deserved.
The second of Redknapp’s decisions that puzzled me, is the selection of Shaun Wright-Phillips on the right wing. Now, we’ll come to Wright-Phillips shortly, but QPR have a young winger, a product of their youth team, with League One experience, called Michael Petrasso. He impressed in the third tier last season and Rangers would like to get him a Championship loan this. Why not play him here? Why not give him experience of playing for QPR, let him show what he can do, and showcase him to some Championship scouts who might take him on loan? To not even have him on the bench?
I’m watching the wrong sport clearly.
That would be bad enough if a proper footballer was picked ahead of him. Picking Wright-Phillips there… if you were Steve Gallen going into work today with QPR’s junior teams, would you bother? Would you be tempted to just send them all off home? Just close the youth set up altogether. Shut it. What’s the point?
I’m not sure, short of taking a very large pot of red paint, and daubing 20 foot high letters across the side of the Harlington training ground spelling out "I STOPPED GIVING A TOSS A LONG TIME AGO” what more Shaun Wright-Phillips has to do to make it abundantly clear that he should never, ever, ever, ever again be even allowed close enough to a QPR kit to wash it for somebody else.
His presence at the club is entirely QPR’s fault. They gave him the four year contract, they offered him the money, and no doubt fully aware that nobody anywhere else in the world would be stupid enough to pay him the same why — other than, perhaps, the shame of it — would Shaun Wright-Phillips agree to step away from that deal early at financial penalty to himself, as he is implored to do daily on his Twitter feed?
But that doesn’t stop him being a parasite — which is exactly what he is. Leaching money from the club on a weekly basis, getting filthy stinking rich, and offering absolutely nothing in return. Here, playing against giant Burton Albion defender George Taft, who was their best player on the night but is still merely a League Two centre half playing out of position at left back, he was a complete embarrassment. Totally dominated by his opponent, totally ineffective, utterly useless. Pathetic.
So why pick him? The only possible reason would be to try and get him in the shop window in case anybody as equally stupid and rich as QPR happens to be passing by on day release and fancies their chances with him. But you’d have to be completely bloody backwards to take him as anything other than somebody to clean the boots on the evidence of this, and every other one of his QPR performances over the last three years. Stop. Picking. Him. You’re achieving nothing here other than fucking everybody off.
The nadir of one of the worst performances, pound for pound, you’ll ever see from a QPR player came midway through the second half. Once again, for the umpteenth time on the night, Wright-Phillips squared up his man in a one on one situation. Now, he’s never going to beat the biggest man on the field in a physical competition, but one would think that a once speedy winger, with 34 England caps to his name, might manage to go past a converted League Two centre back at least once on the night, even if it’s by accident. Now on this occasion Wright-Phillips nudged the ball past Taft, took the inevitable physical contact, and promptly gave up. Not only gave up, but actually turned 180 degrees and started running back the other way down the field. At first it seemed inexplicable. What was he doing? But the answer came soon enough, when he stopped midway between the goal line and the halfway line and turned to face the opposition. He thought it was a goal kick. So used to being out-thought, out-fought and out-played by Taft, Wright-Phillips had actually given up a ball as lost to a goal kick, when in actual fact he hadn’t even got enough on his touch to achieve that. The ball rolled gently to the byline and stopped on the whitewash. Taft seemed confused as well. Why had his opponent just run off like that? In the end Burton were lucky they didn’t make an absolute pig’s ear of the situation because the giant left back assumed it must be a goal kick, an offside or a free kick, and lazily toed it inside to his keeper for him to pick up and place. Only McLaughlan’s quick thinking and clearance averted a disaster.
Wright-Phillips was hooked immediately after the Burton goal and replaced by Bobby Zamora to wild cheers from the long suffering idiots behind the goal.
But he certainly wasn’t the only one to play abysmally here by a long chalk. QPR were lazy with their possession from the first minute. Always languid, lethargic and passing almost exclusively sideways or backwards. The only person looking to go forward with any purpose, threat and effort was Adel Taarabt — a shock recall up front alongside Matt Phillips and QPR’s best player by some distance despite appearing to be six months pregnant.
Burton lined up in two solid banks of four with two strikers and focused on resolutely staying in shape. When QPR did turn past a man and go forwards — not often — they committed a deliberate foul and got back into their shape again. Referee Paul Tierney was incredibly lenient with them over that — particularly in the first half when Taarabt was booted from pillar to post, and at the start of the second half when three quick fire fouls should have drawn at least one card.
When QPR played mishit, lazy or ill thought-through sideways passes into dangerous areas the home team pounced. Murphy had to hold a dipping volley from McGurk after a minute then after six a wild ball across the face of his own box from Clint Hill, recalled at left back, gave Alex MacDonald a chance to round Danny Simpson and dribble a shot a foot wide of the far post with the keeper beaten. A simple long ball after a quarter of an hour was won without challenge in the area by McGurk and Knowles should have done much better than strike a tame shot straight at the QPR keeper.
Ale Faurlin was determined to show for the ball at every opportunity to try and get his team moving, but he was unusually wasteful in possession. MacDonald dragged wide of the target again after the Argentine had passed him the ball in a dangerous area and then when he did the same thing again midway through the half the Scottish winger forced a proper save from Murphy and McGurk bobbled the rebound wide when he should have scored.
Still, we should have been grateful or small mercies, once Faurlin was forced off what little central midfield presence QPR had before melted away completely. Not since Bob Malcolm has a player endured a start to his career at Loftus Road quite as alarmingly turgid as Leroy Fer.
What few good things Rangers did produce tended to come from or through Adel Taarabt. The first spell of really good, creative, positive, crisp, clean passing from the visitors came after 22 minutes with the Moroccan right at the heart of it and eventually space opened up for Hoilett to strike the ball flush onto the cross bar. Later an exquisite ball with the outside of the boot across 30 yards of pitch from Taarabt had Hoilett free in the area but his ambitious attempt to lob McLaughlin from close range planted the ball firmly in the front row of the stand behind the goal.
A minute of injury time at the end of the first half saw McGurk instinctively flick a header at a powerful shot from long range after QPR had — miraculously — managed to clear a corner but he couldn’t direct the ball on target.
QPR had reasonable cause to be aggrieved with referee Tierney at the start of the second half when first Ian Sharps, then half time substitute Robbie Weir, and then defender Phil Edwards all committed deliberate fouls to interrupt Rangers attacks without a card being shown. In Burton’s first attack, five minutes into the half, Danny Simpson did likewise and was immediately booked. The resulting free kick provoked a goal mouth scramble the London side were lucky to survive.
The Faurlin injury put a further dampener on things and with Fer and Henry forming a completely anonymous central pairing Burton started to sense this might be their night. MacDonald struck wide when, just as they had been on Sunday at Spurs, QPR’s feckless defence was caught out by a simple long throw.
By the time the goal was scored there was a sense of the inevitable about it. This is a QPR website, and we’re focusing on our club’s failings on the night, but that does a disservice to the home team, some 54 places and three divisions lower than QPR, who were tactically sound and not lacking for effort or ability. McGurk looked a real prospect in attack and they thoroughly deserved their win. This is a club building very steadily, with no debt, progressing nicely up from non-league into League Two and now looking a very good bet to go another level further still on an average home attendance barely touching 2,000 people. Burton, and their chairman Ben Robinson, are good guys in an increasingly dispiriting footballing world, and the very best of luck to them in round three at home to Brighton.
Redknapp slung on Zamora to chase an equaliser and QPR pumped long ball forward for the remaining ten minutes, while moaning about the time wasting of goalkeeper Jon McLaughlin. It seemed a bit rich, considering the Hoops had done so little with the previous 80 minutes, to be demanding more time. I sense if we were still playing at first light QPR wouldn’t have scored — any time wasting Burton did made not a blind bit of difference to the outcome.
Redknapp spoke afterwards about giving players a chance to prove themselves, and failing to take it. "We lacked quality tonight,” he said.
Perhaps there was, therefore, a purpose to all of this after all. Maybe it was a good old fashioned Redknapp plea for the cheque book to come out again. Is that Peter Crouch I can see peeping out over the top of those trees?
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Burton: McLaughlan 6; Edwards 7, Sharps 7, Cansdell-Sherriff 7, Taft 8; MacDonald 7, Mousinho 6 (Weir 46, 6), Palmer 7, Harness 7; McGurk 8 (McFadzean 85, -), Knowles 7 (Blyth 78, 6)
Subs not used: Bell, Beavon, Lyness, Slade
Goals: McGurk 76 (Free kick, won Harness)
Bookings: MacDonald 26 (foul), Mousinho 34 (foul)
QPR: Murphy 6; Simpson 5, Onuoha 6, Dunne 4, Hill 6; Wright-Phillips 1 (Zamora 78, 6), Henry 4 (Mutch 81, -), Faurlin 5 (Fer 59, 3), Hoilett 4; Phillips 4, Taarabt 6
Subs not used: Green, Ehmer, Doughty, Harriman
Booked: Simpson 53 (foul), Dunne 75 (foul)
QPR Star Man — Adel Taarabt 6 More than a stone overweight, and somewhat greedy at times — although I wouldn’t pass the ball to Shaun Wright-Phillips if I was him either — but still QPR’s best player on the ball by some distance and the only one who looked to be carrying a genuine threat and effort level.
Referee — Paul Tierney (Lancashire) 6 One of Burton Albion’s tactics — ad I certainly have no problem with this as a lower league team playing a Premier League one — was to commit a deliberate foul allowing the rest of the team to get back in defensive shape one the very rare occasions QPR had actually shown some attacking invention and got past a man. Now that’s fine, but when it’s happened four times in very quick succession — as it did at the start of the second half — an official has little choice but to start showing yellow cards. To keep awarding free kicks with no further recourse encouraged further cynical fouls and, again, that’s fine if you’re consistent with it. To then book Danny Simpson for his first foul of the game, no more serious than any of half a dozen Burton ones that had gone before, was piss poor refereeing from an official we know from experience to be a piss poor referee. Other than that, for the second game in a row, QPR didn’t compete, so he didn’t have a lot to keep control of.
Attendance 3,999 (1,000 QPR approximately) A fair few from London just ticking a ground off I suspect, given QPR’s wretched record in this competition. The atmosphere in the away end was non-existent - apart from one boisterous Norwegian whose elephant impressions and "Shaun Wright-Phillips you are a pineapple — soft and squidgy and pointless” outbursts livened up the evening - even before it became apparent which way the game was heading. The Burton staff, surrounding pubs, stewards, and whole town were incredibly welcoming and friendly and deserve every success.
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