QPR put a traumatic week behind them with a good performance and win against Crystal Palace at Loftus Road on Saturday. Heidar Helguson scored both goals in a 2-1 win.
It was Flavio Briatore who breezed into Loftus Road with a cheery policy of “who cares what people who turn up once a week and pay £20 think?” Never has that sentiment been more appropriate than this week.
On Wednesday the Football Association posted seven charges on their website in relation to QPR’s purchase of Alejandro Faurlin laced with legal jargon, with no indication as to whether these are flagrant breaches or technicalities, likely to attract a points deduction or a slap on the wrist. And that was that. “We will make no further comment” said the association whose running of English football over the last 20 years is a national shame and embarrassment. Not even a date for a hearing.
QPR, for their part, stuck out a couple of lines saying they didn’t think they’d done much wrong, and they too will be making no further comment. Thus leaving the national press to pretty much write whatever they like.
In the meantime; roll up, roll up, hand over your £20 (ho, ho I wish) sit down and say nothing. More than 18,000 of us did on Saturday – packing Loftus Road to the rafters to watch the best QPR side in a generation play as if nothing had happened and secure a win that, in theory, brings them within 20 points of an unassailable lead at the top of the table. Except not a single one of us knows whether we’ll be able to keep the points we won here with a scoreline that flattered the visitors. And not a single one of us knows when we will know.
It’s all so typical of QPR, and the way the game operates in this country these days. Whatever happens, it’s the supporters who suffer the most.
The man at the centre of attention this week has been Alejandro Faurlin. Man of the match at Millwall on Tuesday, thrust into the latest in a long line of farces to befall QPR in recent times on Wednesday. I’m starting to wonder whether Faurlin is actually an emotionless robot – nothing seems to faze him and distract him from his game. I see him as one of those baseball pitching machines – whatever the circumstances you just stick a quarter in (or in Faurlin’s case hand the quarter to a dodgy South American businessman and maybe keep a bit for yourself) and whatever the weather or circumstances he’ll happily stand there and spray those beautiful passes of his left and right.
Here he was given a bigger than usual cheer before the game, and then set about picking Palace apart with his usual fine array of sweeping passes allied with a tough, nuggety defensive display. Moving across the world doesn’t bother him, not speaking the language doesn’t bother him, seeing the club he’s entrusted his career to lurch between managers and disasters doesn’t bother him, and now being on the front of all the sports supplements all week doesn’t seem to bother him. He keeps coming, he keeps playing, he keeps impressing. It’s freakish in a way.
That said he wasn’t the outstanding QPR player on show at Loftus Road this weekend. Neither was Adel Taarabt, despite an overdue return to form from the Moroccan who played more advanced as almost a second striker to Heidar Helguson with Tommy Smith and Wayne Routledge in wider roles than usual. No, top man on the day for me was Shaun Derry, Faurlin’s experienced partner at the heart of the QPR midfield who absolutely dominated this game from start to finish. The Palace fans told us Derry’s legs would go at some point this season, and I doubt the 3,100 of them in the School End recognised this all action midfielder who plays like a man ten years his junior and is a totally different player from the sluggish old man QPR so comprehensively destroyed at Selhurst Park at the end of last season when he was on the other side.
Danny Shittu’s suspension necessitated more changes at the back where Fitz Hall was recalled alongside Kaspars Gorkss with Bradley Orr at right back, Paddy Kenny in goal and another former Palace man Clint Hill on the left side.
The Eagles, haunted be relegation for the second spring in a row, arrived in the Bush with the division’s worst away record – 14 defeats and counting prior to this match. They’d have been forgiven for lacking belief coming into this fixture with QPR at a ground where only Watford have won this season, and regardless of their mindset Palace haven’t been the most adventurous side on their travels for the majority of the season anyway. But to their credit they came with a two man strike force of Everton loanee James Vaughan and former Spurs veteran Steffen Iverson, with Neil Danns acting as an impressive support act and Darren Ambrose supplying the service. They lost again, which tells you all you need to know, but the manner of the performance and the way they went about the task didn’t befit a team sitting fourth bottom of the league and I expect them to survive again on this evidence.
This game was a slow burner initially. Basking in the early spring sunshine a capacity crowd at Loftus Road was stirred from a malaise brought on by the most horrendous of weeks by a late tackle on Kaspars Gorkss by James Vaughan as the Latvian cleared a ball away down field. A Championship referee may have settled for a free kick and a word on the run, but the Premiership’s top man Martin Atkinson was in town and wasted no time in flashing the yellow card for the first time.
Rangers pumped the free kick long and when Palace allowed it to drop at the edge of their penalty area a prolonged period of pressure ensued. First Taarabt tried to delicately chip a ball in behind the defence for Smith to run onto but McCarthy read his intentions and cleared, then Taarabt received the ball again within range and tried his own luck with a shot that he dragged wide of Julian Speroni’s post.
Taarabt was at the heart of the action again just before the quarter hour when he delivered a wonderful cross to the back post where Heidar Helguson had peeled away and seemed destined to score with a diving header but missed the ball altogether. The reaction of the players, and the fact that the ball was so far away from Helguson’s dive, suggests strongly that McCarthy had succeeded in flicking the cross away for a corner with his head but Atkinson awarded a goal kick.
It took Palace 17 minutes to pose a real threat of their own. Steffen Iverson used all his years of experience (a generous way of saying “cheated a bit”) to win a free kick from Gorkss which was delivered right through the penalty area by Ambrose who had every right to question why nobody had gambled and been able to get on the end of such a fine piece of service from a wide area. Perhaps if anybody had shown an interest they’d have been flagged offside, as Gardner and others appeared to be a yard or two the wrong side of the last man, but there was no flag from the linesman on the Ellerslie Road side of the ground. That wasn’t unusual in a first half where only his movement up and down the line confirmed that the assistant referee hadn’t passed away or suffered a stroke without anybody noticing – I lost count of the amount of routine offside decisions he missed while thinking about other things in the first only to then, inevitably, burst into life after half time when he ran the QPR attack and couldn’t get his flag up quickly or often enough.
Two minutes later QPR took the lead. Adel Taarabt started the move, outrageously nutmegging Gardner who looked like the confused victim of a street magician as the Moroccan accelerated away from him. That led to a throw in which Smith fed into Taarabt for a second time and his low cross shot was tapped in at the far post by Heidar Helguson for a fifth goal in six games and eleventh strike of the season.
Rangers couldn’t have asked for a better start to the game. They’d settled into an attractive passing style which showed no hint of any hangover from the past three or four days and taken an early lead to prevent Palace from killing the game and causing frustration in the home ranks. When Julian Speroni is in goal any damage you can inflict on the scoreboard is always welcome because some of his performances at Loftus Road in recent years have been absolutely outstanding.
Taarabt in particular seemed to benefit from the bright start. Barely a minute after the goal a rare poor pass from Tommy Smith was deflected into the mercurial Moroccan’s path in a deep lying attacking position and he skipped enthusiastically to the edge of the area before drilling wide from 25 yards. Then after Derry and Faurlin had hassled Palace into a mistake in possession on halfway Taarabt again took an opportunity to shoot from long range and although he found the target this time Speroni was able to make a comfortable save. The man who is surely QPR’s Player of the Year in waiting then delivered an outlandish crossfield pass in behind Clyne to Smith on the left flank and his cross was headed over by Helguson at full stretch.
QPR were playing well and looking good for more goals, but the quality of Danns in midfield and the keenness of Vaughan in attack meant Palace always posed a threat of their own when they had the ball in the QPR half. Danns had only a yellow card to show for his first half efforts, the referee taking exception to his late hit on Hill as he cleared the ball in a similar incident to the one Vaughan had been booked for earlier, but looked tidy and threatening whenever he had the ball. Likewise Vaughan, who could perhaps count himself unlucky to be penalised for a sly push in the back of Hall that allowed him to race in behind the QPR defence for what would have been a one on one chance with Paddy Kenny had it not been brought back by Atkinson.
This didn’t seem to worry QPR unduly who mounted another spell of sustained pressure with a series of dangerous crosses into the box seven minutes before half time. But the warning signs were there and Vaughan buried a half chance in the back of the net off the inside of the post only to turn and find himself long since flagged offside. The referee gave him the benefit of the doubt that he hadn’t heard the whistle before shooting – such luxury was not afforded to Robin Van Persie in the Champions League last week, or Adel Taarabt later in this game, but another yellow would have seen Vaughan dismissed and that would have been the harshest red card on this ground since Andy Hall last graced us with his substantial presence.
There was no time to reflect on the merits of that decision though because 30 seconds later Vaughan did have the ball in the net and this time it counted. The loaned Everton man seized on a through ball played in behind a crooked QPR defensive line by Darren Ambrose and beat Paddy Kenny with consummate ease before celebrating down by the corner flag.
The sides exchanged half chances as the half came to a close. Faurlin and Orr got in each other’s way on the edge of the box and Wright fired over the bar for Palace before Taarabt showed tremendous skill on the edge of the penalty area and then fed Routledge who fired over as well. QPR had good reason to feel that they’d done enough to be leading at the break, and another test of character awaited them in the second half.
At Millwall on Tuesday it would not be unfair to say that our start to the second half was shambolic, and set the tone for arguably the worst second half performance of the season. QPR were clearly keen to avoid a repeat of that here and flew out of the traps after half time like a well bred greyhound. First Taarabt collected a long Paddy Kenny ball down by the corner flag and teed up Faurlin who delivered a wicked, undefendable ball into the corridor of uncertainty between defenders and goalkeeper. Like Ambrose in the first half the Argentinean had good reason to feel aggrieved that no team mate had made an effort to get on the end of that ball but Rangers were undeterred as they approached the resulting corner.
Helguson headed a Routledge cross straight at Speroni and Taarabt saw a fearsome shot blocked on the edge of the box after a fine through ball from Derry as the pressure built on the visiting team.
Palace’s first attack of the half saw Vaughan hit the deck in the penalty area under challenge from Fitz Hall but although the defender certainly took a big risk, he did seem to get a toe to the ball. Ironically the key moment in the game came a minute later from the penalty spot at the other end. Having seen our winning goal against Leicester last week again since writing the match report that described it as “a goal a Conference North side could have created” I accept that I was perhaps a little harsh on former Palace man Wayne Routledge whose pass for Ishmael Miller on that occasion was so much more than just a hopeful ball over the top as it had appeared to me at the time. No matter, I get a chance to heap praise on him here, because as he had done against the Foxes Routledge carved his former employers open with an outstanding through ball played with the outside of his right foot that had Taarabt racing away on goal.
Last week Miller was unsurprisingly strong enough to shrug off all undue attention before sliding the ball into the net. Taarabt is a different physical specimen altogether but he showed tremendous upper body strength to hold off the considerable attentions of McCarthy until the Irish centre back completely lost the plot and hacked his opponent down in the penalty area. This was as clear a penalty as you’re ever likely to see – Rangers have had 12 spot kicks this season, and Palace have conceded a league leading 13. That’s no surprise on either count really because people like Taarabt, Helguson, Routledge, Mackie and Smith are hard working, skilful players who unsettle defenders and force fouls and on the other side of the coin Palace are unfortunately lumbered with a collection of centre backs who are a dire combination of stupid, clumsy and at times, in Claude Davis’ case, violent.
Patrick McCarthy was, is and always will be a dog of a centre back – persistently caught the wrong side of his man despite his years in the game and with a chip on his shoulder a mile wide when it comes to referees. He is the worst, most accident prone defender in this league except for Alex Bruce at Leeds. Week after week you’ll find him trying to retrieve a situation his own goldfish like concentration levels have caused by fouling the player and then screaming at the match officials to try and intimidate them into lenient action. He can perhaps have a case for not being sent off here, as Taarabt was fast running out of pitch and would have done well to score, but how McCarthy, Speroni, Gardner and others thought they had any kind of case to surround referee Martin Atkinson with on the spot kick is beyond me.
Anyway protests lodged and ignored, McCarthy dispatched to the baths, Davis readied to replace Iverson and the whole situation brought under control it was time for the penalty. The unfathomable formula that helps Heidar Helguson and Adel Taarabt work out whose turn it is to do the honours this week came out on the side of the Icelandic striker and he made light work of rolling the ball past a goalkeeper who has caused us untold problems in the past to give Rangers a deserved lead.
The Palace fans at the other end of the ground responded to this by throwing bottles onto the pitch in the general direction of Paddy Kenny as an expression of their own frustration and frankly who can blame them? Three weeks ago similarly aggrieved Millwall fans decided to pelt Middlesbrough goalkeeper Jason Steele and one of the assistant referees with beer bottles during a match at the New Den. So many of them did it in fact that referee Chris Sarginson called a halt to the game and told both managers he was minded to abandon it altogether fearing for his own safety and that of the other officials and Middlesbrough players. The FA, when they weren’t busy terrorising the QPR support last week, ruled that Millwall had no case to answer for this and will face no charges. So there it is lads, precedent set. If you don’t like what’s going on down there on the field then start throwing things at the people doing it – don’t worry about your club getting fined or losing points or playing games behind closed doors because no action will be taken.
It’s the most perverse ruling the fucking idiots running out game have come up with since QPR were fined for having their goalkeeper attacked on the pitch by a Stoke fan at the end of a game at the Britannia Stadium. It will no doubt be reversed at some point in the near future, probably when one of the high profile Premiership players gets smacked in the face by a bottle provoking some mass hysteria in the papers and opinion columns about the lawless society we live in which will then force the FA to come down like a tonne of bricks on whichever club was unfortunate enough to be the home team that day, but in the meantime the potentially lethal precedent stands – you throw what you like lads, there’ll be no punishment coming your way.
Paddy Kenny cleared the penalty area himself, looking for all the world like he was preparing for one of his much sung about parties, while Shaun Derry attempted to calm the supporters of his former club. The stewards, as usual when anything actually needs doing at Loftus Road, did nothing at all.
Perhaps feeling that he’d been a little unkind to the visitors Martin Atkinson offered an olive branch by way of a weak free kick on the edge of the area for a perceived foul on James Vaughan. The free kick was perfectly placed for Darren Ambrose to hit – he may have been in the defensive wall had circumstances worked out differently in the summer – but he couldn’t find the target with a shot from 25 yards.
QPR got to grips with the two basics of playing against ten men very well indeed – keep possession of the ball, and move it width ways to stretch the game and tire overworked opponents. The home team was a joy to watch at times in the second half as the ball was moved effortlessly from side to side in huge spells of possession football that probed Palace for openings and created numerous chances. Taarabt turned on the tricks around the area and then fired wide, then Routledge accelerated to the byline and cut the ball back to Helguson who was just beaten to it by Clyne desperately covering back. From the resulting short corner Helguson ran in unchecked at the back post but seemed to be caught in two minds between nodding the ball back across the face of goal or trying to score himself and ultimately planted a poorly directed header safely onto the roof of the net.
The Icelandic striker was a lot closer with his next chance though, 17 minutes from time, when some great running from the impressive Tommy Smith carried him to the byline from where he cut back a devilish ball into the near post and Helguson must have thought he’d scored with an instinctive first time shot on the turn – Speroni kept his team in the game with an improbable one handed save right down by the post. Quite how Speroni found the time to react and thrust an arm out to make the save only he will know.
Sensing the game may be slipping away from his team slightly Dougie Freedman sent on pacy wideman Wilfried Zaha, a star performer for Palace in the first meeting between these sides this season, instead of full back David Wright. QPR had Ishmael Miller ready to make an impact from the bench and I would like to have seen him used at this point, particularly with Palace’s new look centre half partnership of Claude Davis and Anthony Gardner not taking any prisoners. But with Helguson, Smith, Taarabt and Routledge all playing well it was hard to know who to replace and perhaps Neil Warnock was having similar thoughts down on the touchline because Rangers remained the same.
The killer third goal remained elusive as Derry saw a shot from the edge of the area after a partially cleared corner blocked accidently by Gorkss, then Faurlin curled a shot straight at Speroni after Hall had played a fine ball across field to Taarabt and he in turn had found his controversial team mate on the edge of the area. Gorkss came up for the next set piece too, heading wide at full stretch after Taarabt found him at the back post following a foul by Davis on Helguson, but QPR started to commit less and less men forward for such situations and adopted a ‘hold what we have’ policy for the remaining ten minutes. This was understandable, but a shame at the same time because we should have been out of sight by this stage. Still, if this week has reaffirmed anything, it’s that QPR never do things the easy way.
Palace’s frustration with the situation manifested itself in a yellow card for Dikgacoi who clattered Hill late and then refused to return to the referee to receive his card until persuaded to do so by team mates worried for his future in the game if he didn’t. QPR got their only yellow card of the game a moment later though as Taarabt thrashed the ball into the Upper Loft with the whistle long since blown – thoughts turned to Vaughan in the first half although to be fair he genuinely didn’t appear to hear the whistle while Taarabt was just being silly.
When Warnock did eventually call on a substitute, two minutes from time, he chose Hogan Ephraim to replace Smith with an eye on Ephraim’s supposed high work rate in defence. Sadly the former West Ham man’s only contribution of note saw him concede possession sloppily on the edge of the Palace penalty area setting the visitor up for a swift counter attack. Fitz Hall appeared to have snuffed that out 80 yards further downfield only to then fall on his backside while trying to clear and before we knew it the Eagles had a corner kick – to be fair to Hall he’d produced a goal saving interception moments before, stretching out a leg to hook clear a bal that seemed certain to send Palace sub Jermaine Easter through on goal. Horrible thoughts about Bristol City’s last, gasp equaliser on this ground in January came flooding back but Rangers dealt with the delivery successfully, and did likewise with a further corner in four minutes of time added on at the end of the game.
Taarabt was replaced by Buzsaky, to waste time more than anything else, and it was gratifying to see Rangers running the clock down by moving the ball between their ball players in the Palace half rather than indulging in the ball aching and ineffective practise of holding the ball by the corner flag as seen so often in these situations.
This was an excellent performance by Rangers given the background to the match. I’ve felt thoroughly depressed and totally sick since the FA announced what we were being charged with on Wednesday and the players did well not to feel the same, or at least not to let it show. We passed the ball really nicely, especially when Palace were down to ten men, and the only disappointment really is that we couldn’t put the game to bed with a killer third goal leaving us to sweat a little through the closing stages.
Helguson deserved his two goals for another fantastic display of lone striker play (he’s in superb form at the moment) and Faurlin and Derry were excellent at the base of the midfield. Smith impressed me on his return from injury and Taarabt was back to something like his swaggering best as well.
The full time whistle offered, for the first and only time all afternoon really, the first clue that all is not as it should be at a club moving ten points clear at the top of the table. The scores from elsewhere were almost as favourable as they had been a week ago when defeats for Forest, Swansea and a draw at Norwich were cheered by the QPR almost as loudly as Ishmael Miller’s winning goal. Swansea contrived to lose again on Saturday, and Forest dropped a couple of points as well for good measure, but the response to the news was much more restrained. Still cheering, still happy, but delivered in a tone that acknowledges the biggest challenge now facing QPR team is no longer the beleaguered teams chasing us in the table, but the three man FA committee that will meet and decide our fate.
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QPR: Kenny 7, Orr 7, Hall 7, Gorkss 7, Hill 7, Faurlin 8, Derry 8, Smith 7 (Ephraim 86, -), Taarabt 8 (Buzsaky 89, -), Routledge 7, Helguson 8
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Connolly, Hulse, Miller, Chimbonda
Booked: Taarabt (kicking ball away)
Goals: Helguson 20 (assisted Taarabt), 54 (penalty won Taarabt)
Crystal Palace: Speroni 7, Clyne 6, McCarthy 5, Gardner 7, Moxey 6, Ambrose 7, Wright 6 (Zaha 75, 6), Dikgacoi 6, Danns 7, Iversen 6 (Davis 55, 6), Vaughan 7 (Easter 62, 6)
Subs Not Used: Price, Scannell, Counago, Agustien
Sent Off: McCarthy 53 (denying obvious goal scoring opportunity)
Booked: Vaughan (foul), Danns (foul), Dikgacoi (foul)
Goals: Vaughan 40 (assisted Ambrose)
QPR Star Man – Shaun Derry 8 A superb example of how to anchor a midfield, Derry was in superb form against his former employers on Saturday. He just had one of those afternoons where he seemed to be everywhere, swooping in with a crunching tackle just when a problem seemed to be looming large. This time last year we went and played Palace with Derry on their side instead of ours and he looked embarrassingly past his best and over the hill. What a difference a year has made to so many of these QPR players.
Referee: Martin Atkinson (W Yorkshire) 7 The big decision in the game was right – Patrick McCarthy fouled Adel Taarabt in the area and had to go by the letter of the law. However the red card, along with a couple off the bookings, could easily have been dealt with less severely and probably would have been by a referee who does this level on a more regular basis.
Attendance: 18,116 (3,100 Palace approx) I was really interested to see what the atmosphere would be like for this game with the FA charges hanging over us and on that front it as a bit of an anticlimax really – there was very little discernable difference between the crowd in this game when compared to the Leicester match. The two noticeable differences were the extra support and chanting directed at Ale Faurlin (what a shame it’s taken these events to win him some more vocal recognition) and the rather more reserved response to the scores from elsewhere which were all very favourable again. Palace travelled in bigger numbers than they have done for a number of years, and made decent noise for most of the game, but let themselves down with the bottle throwing incident.