Wednesday’s late defeat against Sunderland at Loftus Road leaves the R’s without a win in five matches as they prepare for a post-Christmas trip to fellow newly promoted side Swansea.
Barclays Premier League >>> Tuesday December 27, 2011 >>> Kick Off 5pm >>> Liberty Stadium, Swansea >>> Live on Sky Sports 1
It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid. We have, after all, come to know what to expect at this time of year.
Firstly, today, everybody in the entire country is going to be struck down by a nagging doubt that when the supermarkets close for Christmas Day there is a small chance they may never open again. Taking a safety first approach to avoiding death by starvation at least one person from every household in the country shall go to their local supermarket today, queue for an hour to get into the car park, fight their way through a litter of bodies and clear the shelves of everything. Everything. Even things they don’t need. Even things they don’t like. Because what if you get to this time tomorrow and realise you’ve run out of Dettol Mould and Mildrew Remover, or butternut squash, or Findus Crispy Pancakes? Eh? Then what? I advise you get down there right now, there’s 60 million lunatics doing the same and they can’t all be wrong.
Secondly the entire public transport system will close down. Some of it deliberately, because apparently nobody wants to travel at Christmas, and some of it because greedy bastard tube drivers (2012 pay rise taking them to £50k p/a basic remember, to make a train stop and go) want some extra cash to work on Boxing Day.
Thirdly, football fans will be shit on from a great height at every possible opportunity. QPR fans are well versed in this having been repeatedly, remorselessly and infuriatingly sent to Plymouth on Boxing Day on three separate occasions in recent years. This year’s fixture away at Swansea wasn’t a great improvement on that, and then just for good measure it was moved back a day and given a 5pm kick off (just late enough to make the last train back to London uncatchable) so it could be shown on Sky. Is there really a television audience for Swansea v QPR on December 27 at 5pm? Really?
Spurs have a similar issue, a perfectly doable Boxing Day trip to Norwich put back to 7.30pm on December 27. So you have to drive on the two lane road to Norwich in the dark or not go at all. And bless the Wolves fans who bought tickets and made arrangements for a Boxing Day game at Arsenal only for it to be moved back 24 hours at one week’s notice. Arsenal say this is because of the aforementioned tube strike, and yet every other London game goes ahead as planned including Chelsea v Fulham which also has the closure of the Hammersmith Flyover thrown into the mix for good measure. Unless you’re planning to hand glide to Stamford Bridge for that one you’re going to struggle.
Fourthly, those who think ‘bugger this’ and stay at home to watch Christmas television will be treated to some sort of death/fire/disaster/punch up in Eastenders – probably caused by Phil. This will then be followed by that episode of Only Fools and Horses where Del falls through the bar.
I was reminded of that scene on Wednesday night as QPR undid all of the good post-half time work against Sunderland and tossed a hard won point away in the final minute. Neil Warnock effectively did a Del Boy in that match, responding to an injury to Armand Traore not with an attacking substitution but by introducing a third centre half to his beleaguered defence. There had been only one winner of the game before that decision, and there was only going to be one winner after it too – sadly for us that mantle changed hands the moment Fitz Hall came onto the pitch. That’s not a criticism of Hall, who made a crucial challenge on Bendtner in the six yard box to prevent him heading in Sunderland’s third eight minutes before Wes Brown did the honours, but by putting him on we were sending a message out that we were happy with what we had and would try to hold onto it. Sunderland had been on the rack before that, we should have been pushing on for a winner. By making a conservative change Warnock was making the same mistake Derek Trotter did – leaning back on something that simply wasn’t there. We currently don’t have a defence we can rely on, even for the final ten minutes of a game.
Warnock made much at the start of the season of his intention to attack the Premiership having been inspired by Blackpool’s gung ho attitude last season. Initially we reaped rewards from that, taking six points from great displays at Wolves and Stoke and frightening Manchester City half to death at Loftus Road. Sadly he seems to have gone away from that of late.
I don’t see really what he’s got to lose. I hear the arguments about us being vulnerable if Taarabt gives the ball away or shorthanded if we commit too many men forward, but we’re conceding lots and lots of goals as it is and not scoring many. With quick fire fixtures against Swansea and Norwich, both of whom finished below us last season, it would be nice to see us return to that happy-go-lucky attacking attitude that had us sitting ninth just a few short weeks ago. A settled starting 11 and system would also help.
All of which leaves me only the annual task of wishing both our regular readers a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. A massive thank you to Chris King, Owen Goulding, Andy Hillman, Brian Power, Colin and Nik Speller, Neil Dejyothin, Gavin Wilding, Lewis Jones, Rob Gilbert, Jasmine Sandalli, Tracey Cann, Owain Harvey, Paul Whittingham and everybody else who contributes in their various ways to keeping the site going and prospering. Thank you to Lindsey Bowers for putting up with me, and this site. It’s not some weird personality defect that keeps me saying ‘we’ rather than ‘I’ when I’m writing for this site, it really is a team effort. If you want to write for LoftforWords, about anything, regularly or occasionally or just as a one off, then we’d love to hear from you – e-mail loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk.
Thank you to everybody who reads this nonsense and contributes comments - I always think when you compare the in depth, well thought through and brilliantly argued comments LFW attracts to articles like this with the snidey, poorly spelt one liners you see at the bottom of pieces on just about every other website with a commenting facility it’s testament to the QPR fans and LFW community. Thank you to everybody who has taken time to register and post on the message board as well. Even the nutters.
We’ve doubled our traffic in just over 12 months thanks to everybody’s hard graft and it would be nice to think we can do the same in 2012, although that is a bit of a tall order. I’d like to say that we’ll be bigger, better, stronger, faster, longer and more uncut in 2012 but chances are nothing much will change and we’ll keep battling on against the evil forces of day jobs and transport chaos to bring you more long rambling nonsense in the same format over the next 12 months.
The support we receive - through user figures, through e-mail and social networks, from people coming up to us at matches and in pubs, and while I’m trying to sick up 14 bottles of Asahi lager on Shepherds Bush Green - tells us we’re doing something right.
You R’s, and all that.
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Team News: QPR already seem keen to rule out Anton Ferdinand with his hamstring injury, strange given they thought he might actually be fit enough to play against Man Utd last week. Armand Traore was forced off through injury against Sunderland but isn’t rated doubtful. All in all it looks like we’ll be subjected to the same back four for this match. Shaun Wright-Phillips’ early departure on Wednesday night has been put down to a knee injury but he is tipped to be fit for this game.
For Swansea Welsh international full back Neil Taylor was forced off against Everton with a knee injury sustained in a clash with team mate with Ashley Williams but a scan has revealed no ligament damage so he will play if the bruising dies down. Nathan Dyer missed the trip to Goodison Park with a foot injury but is tipped to return to the lineup. Elsewhere: A full Premiership programme spread across two days post Christmas. Arsenal v Wolves has been put back 24 hours to avoid a clash with the tube strike, and to hell with the Wolves fans with long made arrangements to come down on the 26th, but Chelsea v Fulham does go ahead on Boxing Day despite the Hammersmith Flyover also being closed. Football gets stupider every single day.
Elsewhere on Boxing Day Liverpool and Man Utd have simple home wins against Blackburn and Wigan respectively while Man City will be highly fancied away at West Brom. Sunderland look good to continue their revival with a home match against Everton and Bolton host Newcastle. Astonishingly Sky have chosen Stoke v Aston Villa to televise in the evening from that list, a fixture that is to football what Fatima Whitbread is to womanhood.
The action concludes with a televised evening game straight after ours between Norwich and Tottenham.
Referee: Lee Probert is the man in the middle for this one, his first QPR appointment for more than a year since our 0-0 home draw against Millwall at Loftus Road in the Championship. Probert was once an absolute menace to QPR, and was described as “a village idiot” by Ian Holloway after a defeat at Sheffield United where he awarded them a mysterious injury time penalty and sent off Andrew Davies. In recent times though he’s become a Premiership mainstay and has been appointed to European fixtures as well. A full case file is available here.
Swansea: The Swans have only won one of their last seven games but all four of their victories this season have come at the Liberty Stadium. Swansea have scored the joint fewest goals in the league (16, equal with Wigan) but share the clean sheet record to date with Man Utd. They have conceded just twice at home all season, the league’s best record, but they have the division’s worst away record with just three points and no wins so far. They have drawn more games 0-0 (five) in their first 17 matches than any other team in Premiership history apart from Everton in 1997/98 who managed six. Defender Ashley Williams is set to play his 155th consecutive match for the Swans while former R Wayne Routledge is still without a Premiership goal in his career after 112 top flight games for eight different clubs.
QPR: Rangers have lost their last three matches and have now won one of the last eight. Three of their four wins so far have come in away matches. This is QPR’s third visit to the Liberty Stadium and so far, in two draws and a defeat, they’re yet to score a goal. QPR have now conceded 31 goals in 17 matches and scored just 17, although ten of the goals against came in just two games with Bolton and Fulham. They are yet to draw a game away from home.
Prediction
I don’t fancy Rangers much truth be told, but overall I think this has the look of a low scoring draw. Swansea are good defensively and poor in attack, QPR are pretty poor at both at the moment. My goalless draw prediction for the Sunderland game was about as good as all my other predictions this season and although I do fancy that outcome again here, I just have that nagging feeling that we’re going to treat Routledge to his long awaited Premiership goal.
Swansea 1-0, 8/1 with Ladbrokes, Wayne Routledge first goal best priced 16/1 with Ladbrokes
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