Somewhere on the other side of the sliding doors, there’s a QPR left feeling cheated, bereft and hoping for a swift conclusion to negotiations with Neil Critchley - instead Mick Beale’s table topping R’s fly into tomorrow’s game with Wigan on a feel-good wave. Funny old week.
Lancashire and District Senior League >>> Saturday October 22, 2022 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather — Grey and mild >>> Loftus Road, London, W12
It’s been another extraordinary week at Loftus Road. Start with an oxymoron, and take it from there…
I can’t be sure — several drink-to-forget Peronis were taken post Luton followed by a deep bath in some industrial cleaning fluid — but I don’t remember Mick Beale’s impending departure to Wolves being a particular hot topic of conversation to or from Kenilworth Road last week. By the time we reached the next match, four days later at home to Cardiff, it was the only thing on anybody’s mind and the whole evening felt like a leaving do for a popular colleague. From reclining safe in the knowledge Premier League clubs don’t take EFL managers any more, and Wolves don’t take managers unless their live-in agent went to their bastard wedding, to believing the brightest coaching prospect we’ve had at Loftus Road in years was inevitably about to walk out the door. Don't turn around now, you're not welcome any more. Oh no, wait, he's staying. MESSIAH.
As ever, with modern football, with social media, with the anger people retain and feel free to openly express in 2022, the reactions have been fury and elation with absolutely no grey area. Mick Beale is doing a great job at QPR, and the good people of W12 aren’t used to having clubs come after their managers — if we’re not counting Gerry bouncing to Spurs immediately after the total disintegration of his relationship with Richard Thompson, then the last time it happened was Jim Smith heading to Newcastle in 1988. Some of the pissiness and abuse online, and apparently in person too if Beale’s passing remark in his pre-Wigan interviews is to be believed, was swift and pretty brutal. Then, when the surprise news came through on Thursday that actually he’d turned Wolves down, and did his Leonardo DiCaprio bit on the official website talking about honesty, integrity and loyalty, there was a stampede of tongues desperate for a piece of the arse-licking action, and those in the queue for the hole busied themselves making HMS Piss The League memes.
As ever, I reckon truth lies between the extremes. I am beyond delighted Beale has stayed, I was off down to buy rounds in the buffet car on my TGV like a frog up a pump when that broke Thursday pm, and I think this team with him in charge has half a chance of going close now. But, equally, I’m not buying completely into the narrative that’s been spun since Thursday lunchtime, and if we are going to succeed we cannot be having this every time a remotely attractive other job comes up.
When you hire somebody like Mick Beale, you have to go into it with your eyes open. Our ambition is to get back in the Premier League, stay there, and rebuild our club into the one we remember from our childhoods. Occasionally, occasionally, we’d like to get to the fifth round of the FA Cup. Even that, much of the time, feels like something between a stretch and a pipe dream. Beale’s ambition, and he’s made no secret of this, is to go so much further past that line that the line is a dot to him. Beale sees himself not only as a Premier League manager, but a European manager, a Champions League manager, maybe even the England manager, a manager in a big league abroad, leading a brave new era of British coaches playing attractive, attacking and progressive football on the continent. With the best will in the world, he’s only going to be able to achieve so much of that at QPR, even if everything goes perfectly. The world is not like Football Manager, he’s not qualifying for the Champions League here with Richard Pacquette scoring 40 goals. If he does well, at some point he’s going to be off. Now that’s a whole lot better than booting some no-mark like Paul Hart out after six games, and like I say QPR haven’t had a manager nicked off them since I was four years old, so it’s a good thing. But it's still a thing nonetheless. I think we’re probably all aligned on this viewpoint, right?
Where some of you are perhaps going to split and disagree with me, is how this week came about. Call me a miserable bastard, tell me I’m wrong — you may well be right… Nevertheless, I think it's rather naive of anybody to think a Premier League club decided they wanted a Championship manager 14 games into his career entirely of their own volition (i.e. that his name wasn't being touted around), or that nobody with any connection with Wolves spoke to anybody with any connection to Beale about whether it was potentially a goer, potential terms, money to spend etc until after the poxy "official approach" was made on Thursday. If you think nobody from either side speaks a word to each other until an official approach is made, that the manager or player doesn’t know full well what the offer and situation would be, take a friend with you when buying a used car. If you think Wolves are happy to leak that Beale is their number one choice, that they’re confident of getting him, that they expect things to "move quickly”, that they expect he’ll be in charge by the time they play Leicester at the weekend, and a journalist of David Ornstein’s calibre is going to publish that, before they’ve even sounded out him or his reps, I just don’t know what to say to you. Beale himself said on Tuesday there had been "no direct contact", which you can read like a two page novel, and about having a "really honest conversation with Les" - well what's there to have a conversation about if nobody at Wolves has been in touch? Wolves decide all by themselves that Beale, an enormous departure from anything they've appointed before, is their man, and then very politely wait until after we've played Cardiff to make any contact at all, at which point Beale turns it down without even speaking to them, out of loyalty? Again, I’m delighted he’s stayed, and that’s a great story for him to be able to tell the public and his players, but come on chaps, that's just not how this sport, or the world in general, works.
If this season does now go on to be the success it potentially could be, I wonder whether we’ll look back on the manner of the performance and result from the team in that Cardiff game, and the beautifully perfect timing of our ascent to the top of the table for the first time, as an absolutely pivotal moment.
Once their usual collection of candidates had turned them down, and Beale became their best option, Wolves were obviously supremely confident the appointment was a forgone conclusion. I went from publishing a match preview Wednesday lunchtime saying I couldn’t see him going, to within three hours Tweeting I wasn’t sure how he’d even be able to take the team that night — because how do you look Kenneth Paal in the eye and tell him what to do when you’ve brought the kid over here from Holland, leaving his pregnant mrs behind, just to walk out on him after 14 games? Beale is ambitious, as we know, and said to me in interview in the summer he absolutely hadn’t "come to QPR to develop some kids and finish sixteenth in the league”. I know the financial situation here is tighter than he appreciated when he took the job. He repeatedly said publicly during the transfer window, right up to the deadline, he was hoping for more signings imminently that didn’t materialise, that we wouldn’t be doing loans and then we did, that he didn’t need 34-year-old centre backs to hold people’s hands and then Leon Balogun turned up. If things weren’t going as well as they are now, if we were pisballing about as we did when beset by injuries in August, I think he’d have gone. But the team has shown in the last six weeks that it definitely has the potential to take this league by storm, and it played better on Wednesday night than it has for many a long month. Millwall was great, Bristol City was greater still, Sheff Utd was better than that, and Cardiff topped it all. I think playing like that, winning like that, improving as we are, ascending to the top of the table at this moment, has swung him way more than any chat about integrity, honesty or whatever.
Beale knows, if he was to walk out on his first managerial job after 14 games to take the first Premier League job that came along, it would have to go very well at Wolves. As Jordan brilliantly pointed out in his Cardiff match report for us, he is a modern coach in every sense of the term — he knows how modern football, media and PR works. He wasn’t writing books, blogs, doing podcasts, engaging with social media, and putting himself about while just a coach at his previous clubs, for the good of his health. He’s been building a brand for some time. You have to do it, particularly as somebody with no professional playing career to speak of - that’s sport in 2022.
Managers rightly live in fear of passing up opportunities because you don’t know when they’re going to come up again, and you’re only ever five or six bad results away from all the same people who think you’re brilliant now wanting you sacked — watch how QPR Twitter flips if we happen to lose the next three or four matches. In the Championship five or six bad results can be two and a half weeks. But walking out on your first job quite so soon, and then potentially failing to turn around what looks a very tricky job at third-bottom Wolves, who’ve only scored five times all season, damages the brand a great deal. Steve Cotterill was the bright young managerial talent in this country once, then he walked out on Stoke a dozen games in to be Howard Wilkinson’s assistant on another doomed Premier League relegation fight at Sunderland. Now he’s swinging his gold chain around at fourth officials in League One. Why would another smaller club trust Beale again to get him back on that ladder? You already had Simon Jordan ranting away on TalkSport in the week about what a betrayal it would be, how no other club should touch him, before he’d even gone. Now, instead, you’ve got Henry Winter et al lubing up in the queue with the rest of them. Brand wise he’s played an absolute blinder. Sticking with QPR because of "integrity”, apparently turning down a Premier League club, and then achieving something here, with this team, on this budget, will bring better fucking job offers than Wolves by the lorry load. And you better believe that’s how this supremely confident young coach is expecting this to pan out, because he wouldn’t still be here if he didn’t.
It strengthens his position at the club no end. A week of rumour and innuendo finishes with whispers of a new contract, with a much, much chunkier release clause than the current reported £1.2m in place for this season designed to put off potential suitors until beyond May, in return for a higher wage — so he might get a little bit richer out of it. When the January transfer window approaches, you can bet he’ll be pushing for reinforcements with a stronger hand than the summer — demanding the club take the gamble, as he has by staying. When he’s in the dressing room asking his team to "go to the well” as he likes to say, he’ll now have that added kudos of sticking with them and the club when he could have jumped ship — I’ve put my faith and my career in your hands, now what have you got for me? QPR have several testy contract renewal situations pending, headlined by Chris Willock — can he use this to tug on those heart strings a little bit? He talks the talk, we know that now. He’s boosted his chances of walking the walk here no end by sticking around.
That’s good for QPR too. Even if these new contract, bigger release clause, whispers aren’t true, having come out and given the interview he did on Thursday, it would take some real (brand-damaging) brass balls to up and leave for something else now. He is already 2/1 favourite for the vacant Villa job regardless, and we cannot have this every time a job comes up. He admits he didn’t handle some of the questions and interviews early this week well, he’s learning on his first job, that has to be better next time — his post match with Sky in the week, basically kicking it all back upstairs and trying to put the ball in Les’ court was particularly poor I thought. He’s committed publicly now, possibly with another deal to come, but that has to be that. No more eyelash fluttering for this season at least. Like I said Wednesday, I don’t think Wolves are the first of these even in his short time here already.
What he’s said since Thursday is great news for QPR if it holds, because we’ve undoubtedly got a potentially very special managerial talent on our hands here. That’s why everybody wants him — this ain’t Jim Magilton guys, we’re not in Kansas any more. The destruction of Cardiff, even before they were harshly reduced to ten men, like the first half at Bristol City, and the game at Millwall, was total. These are the sort of performances and results we were knocking off against Sheff Utd, Middlesbrough, Ipswich and others when we last won this league. We did Wednesday’s without Chris Willock, too, remember.
It's been another tumultuous week at QPR. It’s Paul Morrissey I feel sorry for, that guy must have a Pavlov’s dog-style reaction to his mobile phone’s ring tone, every time it goes off recoiling in the horror of ‘what the fuck they’ve done now?’ Mrs Morrisssey having to answer it while he rocks back and forth: "No Bart, put it down, put it down Bart, no Bart”. I’m cynical and suspicious about how it came about, and I usually finish here by saying "watch us lose to Wigan now” — last time a popular manager here nearly left for Wolves we lost the next game 6-1 and Brian Deane looked like Helios the Sun God - but this whole scenario couldn’t have had a much better ending for us.
This team, with this manager, Loftus Road packed to the rafters tomorrow, the atmosphere absolutely electric, and all of us still together in that dream.
Links >>> Wigan wobble — Interview >>> Furlong leaves it late — History >>> Whitestone in charge — Referee >>> Official Website >>> Pie at Night - Podcast >>> Cockney Latic - Forum >>> Vital Wigan - blog and forum >>>
Team News: Tyler Roberts, who remember didn’t have any kind of pre-season, sat out the midweek win against Cardiff with an ongoing calf problem they’re keen to manage through the three game weeks, but he’s back and available again for this one. Sinclair Armstrong got his first senior start for the club in the week in Roberts’ place, and lasted an hour or so before the cramp set in. Chris Willock might be back in time for Birmingham at the end of the week, but not this one. Jimmy Dunne was on crutches during the week but the club are still saying that’s only a couple of weeks. Rob Dickie will push Jake Clarke-Salter and Leon Balogun for the centre back starting spots. After such a good performance and result the temptation would be to name an unchanged team again, but having said he regretted doing that in a three game week after the Swansea defeat, Beale has again vowed to rotate the team slightly for this game. Taylor Richards may well be in his thoughts, after another 15 minutes on his comeback from injury against Cardiff.
Wigan boss Leam Richardson said the midweek 4-1 loss against Middlesbrough was "as poor as we’ve been”, and the defeat was compounded by Callum Lang — one of the stars of last season’s promotion — lasting just 18 minutes of his first appearance in a month before limping back off and out of this weekend’s game. Our old boy Jordan Cousins, however, got through a full 90 on his first appearance since April after a bad thigh injury.
Elsewhere: Now, I want you to bear in mind at all times, that the fixtures are done completely at random by a computer. Clubs can have one request each — ours is not playing at home on Notting Hill Carnival day — but other than that it’s purely the chance of the draw and if QPR end up playing Middlesbrough or Blackburn away on a Tuesday night in the depths of winter than you’ve simply been jolly unlucky and there’s nothing anybody could have possibly done about that. This weekend the luck of said draw has put the Blackpool v Preston (Saturday 12.30), Watford v Luton (Sunday 12.00) and Swansea v Cardiff (Sunday 12.00) derbies altogether in the same round. Fancy. Amazing how often little coincidences like that occur.
It's a properly mad league so far this season, and there’s plenty of intrigue among the Saturday afternoon games. Blackburn, second in the table despite already losing seven times, are at home to Birmingham, tipped by many (yes, ok, us) for a relegation struggle but only one defeat in the last eight as John Eustace really starts making significant progress at St Andrew’s. Sheffield Red Stripe, who did set all the early pace, are now winless in five and lost against at bottom-placed Coventry during the week. They’re now at home to Norwich, who’ve lost their last three sending Dean Smith into another one of his Justice League spirals talking about how they coulda, woulda, shoulda won all three matches. That win shows Coventry’ potential if they can get everybody fit and make up their games in hand, and they’re at Stoke City this weekend.
Boro’s 4-1 win at Wigan in the week suggests they might be finally kicking into some sort of gear, and you couldn’t have a much better chance to follow up on that than Huddersfield at home — their switch to Mark Fotheringham as head coach has so far yielded one win from five and three defeats. Likewise Millwall, who suddenly coughed into a bit of life during the week with a 3-0 homer over Watford — Bilic probably got another week or so in him — ahead of this week’s visit from hapless, and managerless West Brom.
The weekend list is made up by a tanking Reading at home to Bristol City, high flying Burnley heading to Sunderland, and Rotherham hosting Hull who still don’t have their new boss.
Referee: Dean Whitestone is the man in the middle for this, his first QPR game since last season’s 2-2 with Boro on this ground. Hasn’t had Wigan since 2019/20. Details.
QPR: Rangers have now won seven of their last ten matches, having won seven of their previous 28. They are top of the nascent Championship table despite already losing four times — when they won this league last, in 2010/11, they only lost six times all season, including none of the first 19, and one of those was a dead rubber on the final day against Leeds. Wednesday night’s 3-0 win against Cardiff was the biggest of the season so far, and QPR’s biggest winning margin against anybody since Reading were beaten 4-0 here in January — 36 games ago. The clean sheet was a fourth shut out in seven matches after two in the prior 28 — Leon Balogun was at centre half for all four of them and QPR have conceded just one goal with him on the pitch across six starts and one sub appearance. Kenneth Paal’s first goal for the club makes him the eleventh different scorer for the R’s so far, including last week’s own goal at Luton — the highest total in the league. Lyndon Dykes has gone from one goal 24 games to four goals in three — in four of his last five scoring appearances for club and country he has bagged two in the same game.
Wigan: The Latics made a tidy start to their Championship return, losing just one of the first seven, winning at Luton and getting a point at Norwich. They won four and drew one of their first five away matches, the best road record of any team in the division. However, the home record has been poor, with one win from the first eight on their own patch culminating in a 4-1 defeat to struggling Boro during the week. The result underlines a significant recent wobble of five losses in seven matches, including four of the last five. They’ve also started losing away from home — 2-1 defeats at Hull and Sunderland on their last two trips. Former QPR loanee Will Keane has scored six goals already, the joint third best record in the league, having bagged 27 in 54 in their League One promotion campaign. The Tics have only ever won once at Loftus Road in ten visits, and QPR are unbeaten in eight winning the last five including the 2013/14 Championship play-off semi-final.
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. Let’s see what last year’s champion Cheesy thinks this week…
"What a week. The team must be buzzing and that's why I am going for another 3-0 win.”
Cheesy’s Prediction: QPR 3-0 Wigan. Scorer — Lyndon Dykes
LFW’s Prediction: QPR 3-0 Wigan. Scorer — Ilias Chair
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