With nerves apparently setting in around the QPR camp they welcome in form Ipswich to Loftus Road while three of the other teams at the top enjoy relatively easy home matches.
Npower Championship >>> Tuesday, February 21 >>> Kick Off 8pm >>> Loftus Road, London, W12
The thing with following QPR is that the really great moments come around only every once in a while. I’ve been doing this for 20 years now and for that I have one promotion (in second place) and a play off semi final to look back on. No cups, only one real cup run, no league titles, no trips abroad for Europa League group games that others see as a chore but I see as some sort of Holy Grail.
There have been great results – wins at Old Trafford, Anfield, and St James’ Park (both). I’ve seen us put four through Man City and Man Utd, five through Middlesbrough and six through Crystal Palace. But these moments stand out in the memory like clear shining beacons in a sea of mediocrity. A week after the 4-1 win at Old Trafford we lost 2-0 in the FA Cup at Southampton, three days after the Middlesbrough romp we lost 1-0 at Birmingham and were then beaten 2-1 by Swindon in the next home match, and the famous day against Palace was necessary to avoid relegation.
The bad days, results and seasons merely blend into one because there have been so many. In looking up what we did after beating Middlesbrough 5-0 in 1998 I notice that three weeks before that game we’d been beaten 1-0 at home by Port Vale. A game that felt like the worst ever played at the time, involving a QPR team seemingly nailed on for relegation, but one that has since been forgotten and buried under a mountain of other dire days just like it.
There have been so many awful days to be a QPR supporter in the recent history that it’s impossible to select only one, or even compile a top five. Most people would doubtless point to the FA Cup exit at the hands of Vauxhall Motors as a true low point, but did we feel any worse after that then we did when relegated at Huddersfield Town 18 months beforehand? Did we feel worse in that week when Notts County did us 3-0, Vauxhall beat us on penalties and then Cardiff won 4-0 at Loftus Road than we had done a decade earlier when Darren Peacock was sold against Gerry Francis’ wishes and we had lost 4-0 at home to Leeds, 4-1 at Oldham and 3-1 at Sheff Wed?
Since our promotion back to this league in 2004 two games stand out as real low points. The first was in January 2006 when Ian Holloway’s side lost 3-2 at home to a poor Leicester team to all but bring Holloway’s reign at Loftus Road to an end. QPR were so insipid that night it was embarrassing to be there – the scoreline flattered our performance greatly despite a missed penalty in the first half and after the match Holloway had the temerity to blame the supporters for saying on message boards that we would probably lose the game. He was a man losing the plot by that stage and he was out of a job within five days.
The second was this fixture last season. With just one away win to their name all season and sitting twentieth in the table at the time Ipswich absolutely ripped QPR apart in the first 45 minutes here. I’d taken a friend that night who had laughed at me in the pub when I’d tried to explain just how awful QPR were at that point – he turned to me after half an hour and apologised for not believing me. Ipswich led 2-0 at the break, it could have been five, and eventually won the game 2-1 although how it wasn’t much worse than that God only knows. This was a QPR team managed by Mick Harford, the third man to try his hand at picking the side last season, that included Matt Hill, Nigel Quashie and, for the first two minutes at least, Marcus Bent. It was a QPR team and performance to be ashamed of.
Just over a year on and QPR may be on the cusp of enjoying a rare brilliant moment again, reaping the rewards of appointing a good experienced manager shortly after the Ipswich debacle and leaving him to get on with it. Ipswich have struggled somewhat again this season after a bright start but are now discovering themselves the importance of having the right manager in place.
The Story So Far: It took appointments at four different clubs, three of which he relegated, to realise that captain marvel Bryan Robson should be left to prop up the bar and talk about what a brilliant player he was rather than put in charge of a football team as manager. He continues to live off his reputation as a player, and the misguided belief that anybody who played for Alex Ferguson must therefore be a good manager in their own right, in so much as he is still a manager – but it’s only of the Thailand national team and recent poor results against Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia hardly hint at any great improvement in his managerial skills.
Will Roy Keane be afforded the same luxury? Like Robson he succeeded initially in the north east, promoting Sunderland in his first season in charge just as Robson had done with Middlesbrough. From then on though, like Robson, Keane has been something of a disaster as a boss. He spent the thick end of £70m on his Sunderland team and only kept them in the Premiership by a gnat’s cock hair. Then the following season he descended into one of his dark moods where the players said he would barely even speak to them, even at half time, and he was relieved of his duties midway through the campaign.
Keane the player is the man who painted his digs at Nottingham Forest black from floor to ceiling to the consternation of Brian Clough. He was also a world class performer on the field, and a loud mouth off it. He returned from the World Cup in Japan and Korea without playing for Ireland after a public row with manager Mick McCarthy over the training facilities and regularly criticised his team mates at Old Trafford who he didn’t feel were reaching his own high standards. He also coined the phrase “the prawn sandwich brigade” when referring to Man Utd’s notoriously quiet home support.
Nevertheless some, myself included, feared Ipswich when he was made their manager in 2009 and won the final two games of the 2008/09 season at Cardiff and at home to Coventry. Would he repeat the initial success he had enjoyed at Sunderland? In a word, no. Despite being backed by the riches of local businessman Marcus Evans Ipswich have continued to underachieve in the past two seasons. Keane’s transfer policy seemed to revolve firstly around signing as many Irish players as he could – they paid silly money to us for Damien Delaney, completed a mystifying move from an ageing Colin Healy, and then did likewise this summer with Mark Kennedy. Secondly Keane was very keen on players he’d had with him at Sunderland – Carlos Edwards, Grant Leadbitter and Jack Colback all arrived. And thirdly he seemed determined to smash all records for loan players – Town have had six this season, including Rory Fallon who has never been good enough at this level and was picked in attack by Keane towards the end of his reign while Connor Wickham continued to languish out on the wing.
And while he was failing to do anything at all with one of the division’s better playing budgets, stadium, average gate and training set up Keane was spending a large amount of his time in press conferences telling other people how they should be doing their job. Journalists who left mobile phones on, the Irish FA, and his former Man Utd team mates that also became managers were all on the end of verbal volleys from Keane who never once seemed to stop and think that a man making such a pig’s ear of one of the Championship’s easier jobs should probably get his own house in order first.
The difference in Town since Keane left has been there for all to see with the results. New manager Paul Jewell has been a bit hit and miss during his career but Ipswich will have some money to spend in the summer and whenever that has been the case before Jewell has excelled. Ten defeats in 15 matches towards the end of Keane’s reign will restrict any impact they can make this season, although the recent upturn in form has been impressive and a 6-0 win at Doncaster last week hints at a positive end to this season ready to gear up for a big push next term. They’re sure to be among the front runners next season in my opinion and that’s another reason why we could do with getting out of here now.
Manager: Looking back through Paul Jewell’s career he has either been a big hit, or a massive miss, and rarely anything in between – although in his defence there have been extensive mitigating circumstances surrounding the misses.
As a player he started life as a trainee at his home city club Liverpool but never played a professional game for them right at the height of their powers in the 1980s. He went on to enjoy a career in the lower divisions with two unfashionable sides – Wigan Athletic, with whom he made 137 appearances and scored 35 goals, and Bradford City where he played for ten years and clocked up more than 270 appearances and 58 goals between 1988 and 1998. A five game loan spell with Grimsby in 1995 apart that was it, and he stayed on at Bradford as a coach under Chris Kamara when he retired from playing.
In 1995/96 Bradford won promotion into this division with Kamara as manager and Jewell winding down his playing career while coaching. The following year I’m sure QPR fans will remember the final game of the season at Valley Parade where the home side needed a win to stay up and Rangers gladly obliged by rolling over and handing out a three nil success. The post match argument between Bruce Rioch and John Spencer would initiate the premature end to Spencer’s hugely promising QPR career.
The following year Bradford sacked Kamara in January after a poor run of results and turned to Jewell as a steadying influence. Promotion from within is often a tricky thing to pull off, with the assistant manager having to go from being a friend of the players’ and a good cop in the time honoured routine to being their boss and ultimate authority figure. Jewell got around this by maintaining his demeanour with his squad – essentially staying as the friendly assistant, but picking the team as well. Bradford players at the time, most recently Peter Beagrie on Sky, have spoken of how he would continue to join in with the card schools on the coach.
That camaraderie with his players, allied to substantial transfer funds provided to him by chairman Jeffrey Richmond in the summer of 1998, laid the platform for an unlikely promotion to the Premiership. Jewell splashed cash on Lee Mills (Port Vale, £1m), Isaiah Rankine (Arsenal, £1.3m), Dean Windass (Oxford, £1m) and Lee Sharpe (Leeds, loan) among others to build a promotion winning side. He kept them in the top flight too, against all the odds, with a 1-0 final day victory against Liverpool sealed by a header from David Weatherall.
Two themes you may pick up on in Jewell’s career are firstly having money to spend and secondly walking away from a club just before the shit hits the fan. He’s only ever really achieved success when he’s had transfer funds to spend, as opposed to somebody like Ian Holloway who has often succeeded on shoe string budgets, and he left both Bradford and Wigan before big problems emerged. The Bantams appointed his assistant Chris Hutchings as manager and set out on a spending spree that included huge signing on fees and wages for the likes of Benito Carbone and Dan Petrescu – a transfer policy that brought the club to the brink of extinction and saw them quickly drop from the Premiership to League Two where they remain today.
Jewell meanwhile turned up at Sheffield Wednesday who had just been relegated from the Premiership and were awash with big earners like Gilles De Bilde and Gerald Sibon who were giving very little return for their money and were slowly crippling the club. Jewell became the latest in a long, long line of Wednesday managers to be sacked within a year of taking over – Alan Irvine the latest victim just last month.
He returned to his former club Wigan as manager in 2001 where, again with plenty of cash to spend thanks to Dave Whelen, he built a side feared in the Football League with striking talent like Jason Roberts and an in form Nathan Ellington to the fore. He carried them from League One, through the Championship and into the Premiership where they finished midtable in his first season, and then escaped relegation on the final day of the second term with a victory at Bramall Lane against Sheffield United who were managed by Neil Warnock and went down instead as a result of the 2-1 defeat. As he had done at Bradford Jewell responded to the near miss by resigning, as Bradford had done Wigan appointed Chris Hutchings and it was only because they replaced him halfway through the following season with Steve Bruce that they avoided going the way of Bradford.
Jewell was hot property at this stage, linked with every job going, so it was something of a surprise that he chose struggling Derby for his next step in November 2007. Billy Davies had promoted Derby the season before, just one year into a three year plan. As discussed in the Forest preview last week this was far, far too early for an under prepared Rams side who went up through the play offs further restricting their preparation time and struggled from the get go in the top flight. Their September win against Newcastle would remain their only success of the entire season as they set a record for the lowest number of points, goals and wins in Premiership season. Jewell, it was said, had been reluctant to take over at Pride Park midway through a season clearly destined for disaster but agreed to help his friend Adam Pearson out. After lecturing the Derby players on their responsibilities as footballers and role models he opened the door for the News of the World to publish sordid pictures of his night with a lady of ill repute which badly damaged his credibility.
Jewell brought in ten new players after relegation, but by now the Derby squad was just a horrendously bloated mass of signings made by George Burley, Phil Brown, Billy Davies and Jewell in two and a half years all layered on top of each other and although he got a win after ten months of trying against Sheff Utd he resigned at the turn of the year with Derby languishing in eighteenth place.
It’s been television work since then, until he accepted the challenge of following Roy Keane into Ipswich last month.
Three to Watch On Friday you’ll be able to read a preview of our trip to Middlesbrough on this website, reflecting on just how wrong our prediction that Boro would take one of the automatic promotion spots this season really was in hindsight. Mind you, such is the easily panicked state of the LFW message board at times if Boro happen to string a few results together don’t put it past some QPR fans to get a scientific calculator out and work out a complex series of results that would see Tony Mowbray’s men climb above us on the final day of the season.
LFW can always be relied upon for in depth analysis, and bloody awful predictions, and the latest case in point is Ipswich striker Connor Wickham. A month ago there was a thread on our message board following one of Town’s televised fixtures asking just what all the fuss is about with this kid. When used as a substitute against QPR on our last two trips to Portman Road he was dominant to such an extent that it embarrassed our defenders who were being comprehensively battered by a 16 year old. But whenever I’ve seen him this season he has been largely anonymous, often stuck out wide on the left and running into blind alleys trying to do it all himself but being let down by a poor touch and naivety. But still the stories linking him with Spurs, Liverpool and others kept coming.
It’s an issue that has been confronted by this website before but youth football in Britain remains focussed on physical strength rather than skill or ability. How many times do you hear from a player that they were actually rejected by Luton or QPR or Scunthorpe as a junior because they were considered too small and slight to compete? Roy Keane is a famous example. And how many times do you see a junior football match won 12-0 with nine goals coming from the 13 year old who has developed faster than the other boys and simply powers his way through the smaller lads leaving them trailing in the wake only to go on to fail when the other lads catch him up physically in later years? We look at upper body strength before we look at whether a player can actually control the ball, it’s why players like Mikele Leigertwood make a living in this country, and I was starting to wonder with Wickham whether the sheer size of the boy was the key factor in is success in junior football and he would start to struggle now he’s actually playing men’s football.
Not so it seems. Since that discussion Wickham has scored five goals in seven games including his first senior hat trick in a surprise 6-0 win at Doncaster last Tuesday night. Having not scored in 21 appearances before that this season that’s quite a turn around and he seems to be benefitting from the arrival of Paul Jewell more than most. He represents a big threat to QPR’s ailing centre halves on Tuesday night.
Ipswich are also likely to be able to call on the services of Jimmy Bullard again this Tuesday after he missed the game at the weekend against his parent club. Bullard has come to symbolise the financial mismanagement under Paul Duffen and Phil Brown at the KC Stadium – signing for Hull on a four year, £45k a week wage from Fulham and then smashing a knee to pieces in his second match for them. It transpired that Hull hadn’t been able to get insurance on him because of problems with that knee in his Fulham days. He’s enthusiastic, and a real character, as well as being a good player and on his day Bullard is far too good for this level. However a series of injuries have restricted his impact in recent times. Ipswich have got a decent deal as they are only paying a quarter of his wage while he is on loan with them and he is a danger to QPR, particularly from set pieces.
Finally Tuesday sees former QPR man Damien Delaney return to Loftus Road for his second match this week against an old employer. Delaney is out of contract at the end of this season and is yet to be told where his future lies. If you’d seen him against Arsenal at Portman Road in a 1-0 League Cup semi final success a couple of weeks ago you’d have thought he was destined for the very top, two weeks before that at Norwich against Grant Holt he was made to look Conference standard. Delaney was used as a left back by QPR mostly, and although he provided an unlikely attacking outlet under Luigi De Canio he turned into a bit of a liability thereafter. He was a centre back at the start of his career and that’s where he has been used by Ipswich since he moved – good in the air and honest as the day is long but a limited player and one we should be looking to get at on a night when he’s sure to want to impress.
Links >>> Ipswich Official Website >>> Message Board
Recent Meetings: This was a battle between first and third when the teams met at Portman Road back in September – a battle QPR came out firmly on top in. In the teaming Suffolk rain Rangers went in at half time two to the good thanks to a brace from the in form Jamie Mackie. Forst he showed great persistence in the penalty area to score at the second attempt after being set up by Heidar Helguson, then ten minutes later he accelerated past the Ipswich defence in a swift counter attack and buried a low shot into the far corner from the edge of the box. Ipswich had been set up to contain QPR rather than hurt them and having seen that plan destroyed Roy Keane was unable to kick start a plan B for the second half. QPR extended their lead from the penalty spot through Heidar Helguson although had the referee Keith Stroud waited a split second before blowing his whistle Akos Buzsaky had already ripped a 30 yarder into the top corner anyway.
Ipswich: Fulop 6, Peters 6, McAuley 4, Smith 5, Kennedy 5, Edwards 5 (Brown 72, 5), Norris 5, Hyam 4 (Priskin 46, 4), Leadbitter 5, Townsend 5 (Wickham 46, 7), Scotland 5
Subs Not Used: Murphy, Eastman, Healy, Hourihane
Booked: Scotland (foul), Smith (foul), Leadbitter (foul)
QPR: Kenny 7, Walker 8, Gorkss 8, Connolly 8, Hill 7, Derry 8, Faurlin 6 (Buzsaky 36, 7), Ephraim 7, Taarabt 7 (Leigertwood 60, 7), Mackie 9 (Smith 80, 6), Helguson 8
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Agyemang, German, Parker
Goals: Mackie 31 (assisted Helguson), 42 (assisted Taarabt), Helguson 68 (penalty, won by Mackie)
QPR turned in one of their worst performances in living memory in the first half of the Loftus Road meeting between these sides last season. First half goals from David Norris and Daryl Murphy put the visitors well in control but Rangers were so abjectly awful that it could have been two or three times as bad. Mick Harford was still in charge at this day and gave starts to Nigel Quashie and Marcus Bent – the latter went off injured after two minutes in typical style, the former probably should have done likewise. A second half rally brought about by the introduction of Taarabt and Buzsaky yielded a goal for Jay Simpson but this was probably the lowest moment of last season overall.
QPR: Ikeme 6, Connolly 4, Stewart 3, Gorkss 4, Hill 2, Ephraim 4 (Buzsaky 46, 6), Quashie 2 (Taarabt 46, 6), Faurlin 4, Cook 6, Bent - (Vine 10, 4), Simpson 6
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Balanta, Borrowdale, German
Booked: Connolly (foul)
Goals: Simpson 66 (assisted Cook)
Ipswich: Lee-Barrett 6, Peters 7, Delaney 7, McAuley 7, Colback 7, Walters 6, Leadbitter 8, Norris 8, Garvan 7 (Rosenior 65, 6), Counago 6 (Healy 65, 6), Daryl Murphy 7 (Stead 85, -)
Subs Not Used: Brian Murphy, Balkestein, Edwards, Quinn
Booked: Norris (foul), Walters (foul)
Goals: Norris 8 (assisted Walters), Daryl Murphy 38 (assisted Colback)
Head to Head >>> QPR wins 22 >>> Draws 18 >>> Ipswich wins 28
Previous Results:
2010/11 Ipswich 0 QPR 3 (Mackie 2, Helguson pen)
2009/10 QPR 1 Ipswich 2 (Simpson)
2009/10 Ipswich 3 QPR 0
2008/09 QPR 1 Ipswich 3 (Di Carmine)
2008/09 Ipswich 2 QPR 0
2007/08 Ipswich 0 QPR 0
2007/08 QPR 1 Ipswich 1 (Nygaard)
2006/07 Ipswich 2 QPR 1 (Furlong)
2006/07 QPR 1 Ipswich 3 (Gallen)
2005/06 QPR 2 Ipswich 1 (Rowlands, Gallen)
2004/05 Ipswich 0 QPR 2 (Furlong, Shittu)
2004/05 QPR 2 Ipswich 4 (Furlong 2)
1999/00 QPR 3 Ipswich 1 (Peacock, Koejoe, Kiwomya)
1999/00 Ipswich 1 QPR 4 (Steiner 2, Peacock, Wardley)
1998/99 Ipswich 3 QPR 1 (Kiwomya)
1998/99 QPR 1 Ipswich 1 (Gallen)
1997/98 QPR 0 Ipswich 0
1997/98 Ipswich 0 QPR 0
1996/97 Ipswich 2 QPR 0
1996/97 QPR 0 Ipswich 1
1994/95 Ipswich 0 QPR 1 (Ferdinand)
1994/95 QPR 1 Ipswich 2 (Ferdinand)
1993/94 Ipswich 1 QPR 3 (Impey 2, Ferdinand)
1993/94 QPR 3 Ipswich 0 (White 2, Barker)
1992/93 Ipswich 1 QPR 1 (White)
1992/93 QPR 0 Ipswich 0
Played for both clubs – Georges Santos
Ipswich 2003 – 2004 >>> QPR 2004 – 2006
Few players have divided opinion at Loftus Road as much as giant French utility man Georges Santos. A complete donkey, or a vital part of Ian Holloway’s side as it looked to consolidate its position in the Championship? Few can agree even now, although I always leaned towards the latter assessment.
Santos first came to the attention of football fans in this country when he signed for Tranmere Rovers in 1997 after starting his career with Toulan. I remember it being remarked in the away end one afternoon at Prenton Park that Santos seemed to “play to his own set of rules” and it was his tendency to commit acts of extreme violence that many will remember him for on these isles – strange, as off the field he was a fiercely intelligent and thoroughly likeable guy.
He made 53 appearances for Rovers across two seasons that included a run to the League Cup final in 2000 although Santos was not part of the Tranmere squad that lost to Leicester at Wembley. He was yellow carded 14 times in his first season in English football, 1998/99, including a run of seven cards in 11 matches through December and January. That made him ideal for West Brom’s loathsome boss Gary Megson when he took over at the Hawthorns late in the 1999/00 season with the task of saving the Baggies from relegation to the third tier. He brought Santos in on a short term deal for the last eight games of the season and secured survival at Walsall’s expense but did not retain Georges at the end of the season and he left to join our current boss Neil Warnock at Bramall Lane.
It was while at Sheffield United, late on in the 2000/01 season, that he scored two goals at Loftus Road when pressed into action as an auxiliary striker. Ian Holloway was the QPR manager by this stage and the sight of Santos battering an admittedly piss weak Rangers defence stuck with Holloway for years to come and would eventually lead to an misguided belief on his part that Santos could be used anywhere from centre half to centre forward. It was this ridiculous use of Santos as an attacking central midfielder, or even striker, that did the player no favours with the Loftus Road crowd as he was a centre back by trade and looked completely out of his depth whenever Holloway engaged in one of his mad experiments with him.
Santos’ time at Bramall Lane came to an abrupt end in March 2002 in what has become known as the Battle of Bramall Lane. Sheffield United against West Brom, with Warnock in one dugout and Megson in the other, was never likely to be a quiet affair and United were up against it early on when goalkeeper Simon Tracey was sent off in the eighth minute for deliberate handball outside his penalty area. West Brom, on their way to promotion, cruised into a two goal lead at which point Neil Warnock sent Santos on as his final substitute. Santos had spent some time out of action the previous season with a fractured eye socket after being elbowed by Andy Johnson who was then playing for Nottingham Forest. With the game lost and Johnson now wearing West Brom colours Santos could barely conceal his delight at an opportunity for revenge. He ran onto the pitch, waited for the play to restart, and then dived in over the top of the ball on Johnson, catching him high up his shin with both feet in a sickening challenge. Santos was red carded, his fellow substitute Patrick Suffo headbutted Derek McInnes in the aftermath and was also sent off and with Michael Brown and Keith Curle both lucky to stay on the field two Blades players, Brown and Rob Ullathorne, then said they were injured and couldn’t continue. That left United with six and the game was abandoned with West Brom awarded a 3-0 win. Santos was immediately transfer listed and never played for the club again.
He rebuilt his career and reputation at Grimsby, winning their Player of the Year award in 2002/03 for a series of classy displays at centre half. Sadly the Mariners were relegated from the First Division at the end of the season but Santos had done enough to earn a move and Joe Royle took him to Ipswich Town on a free transfer. Ipswich have, since the days of Bobby Robson, been considered to be a “proper” footballing side, playing the game in the right manner. Santos was capable of this, but was a somewhat unorthodox footballer the likes of which there hasn’t been before or since. Some poor performances early attracted the ire of the Town fans and his career at Portman Road was destined to fail. Those same Ipswich fans took great delight in telling QPR they’d signed a complete cart horse when he moved to Loftus Road in 2004 following our promotion from the Second Division.
Clarke Carlisle had left on a free transfer and with only Arthur Gnohere around to partner Danny Shittu Santos was a good signing. He provided experience and quality to a third tier side that initially struggled to make an impact in this division and played a pivotal role in a seven match winning run that cemented our Championship status – scoring his first QPR goal in a 2-0 win at Crewe.
Santos though should only ever have been a short term option for QPR. He should never have been used as much as he was in 2005/06 but when summer signing Ian Evatt struggled to cope with the step up to the Championship Santos was pressed into service once more and started to struggle, attracting the attention of the Loftus Road boo boys in the process. He finally left QPR at the end of the 2005/06 season rejecting a return to Grimsby to sign for Brighton, something he later admitted was a mistake, and then going on to play for Chesterfield and Conference North side Alfreton Town. He was at Farsley Celtic when they went bust and then finished his career at Fleetwood.
A good, important signing for QPR after promotion who is looked upon rather harshly by the Loftus Road faithful in my opinion.
Links >>> Ipswich 0 QPR 3 Match Report >>> QPR 1 Ipswich 2 Match Report >>> Ipswich 3 QPR 0 Match Report >>> Connections and Memories
Team News: West Brom have, at the time of writing, resisted the urge to recall Ishmael Miller from his loan spell so he remains available for selection and it’s likely to be two from him, Helguson and Hulse again in attack. Peter Ramage, Patrick Agyemang and Jamie Mackie are the long term absentees but Akos Buzsaky returned from his three month lay off with a substitute appearance at Preston on Saturday and may feature again. Another second half of shaky defending at Deepdale again raises the question of whether Neil Warnock will stick with his current back four or start to introduce the likes of Pascal Chimbonda, Danny Shittu or Fitz Hall who wait in reserve. The manager may be forced into a change at the back if Matt Connolly fails a late fitness test on a knock picked up at Preston. Rangers will also take a late check on Wayne Routledge. Tommy Smith has a hamstring injury and Hogan Ephraim is suspended restricting Warnock’s options if Routledge cannot take part.
Jimmy Bullard is likely to return to the Ipswich team after missing the weekend action against Hull under the terms of his loan agreement from the Tigers. However fellow central midfielder David Norris is likely to miss out with an ankle injury. Connor Wickham also went over on his ankle at the weekend but should be fit to take part. Goalkeeper Brian Murphy and midfielder Alan Quinn at Town’s long term absentees.
Elsewhere: It’s a full programme of Championship action this Tuesday, and an important one from a QPR point of view with three of our near rivals enjoying what I would term “banker” home fixtures. Norwich host Doncaster who are crashing through the league and have shipped nine goals in their last two games without reply, Leeds have a mediocre Barnsley side at home and Nottingham Forest have Preston at the City Ground. Swansea have a slightly more difficult (only slightly) task at Coventry City while Cardiff host free scoring and in form Leicester City in South Wales. I wouldn’t be surprised to see four wins and a draw, or even five wins, from those matches for the team just behind us which could really put the pressure on our side ahead of a long away trip to Middlesbrough at the weekend. Down at the bottom Scunthorpe v Sheffield United has the look of a real cliff hanger with the Blades now five points adrift of safety and without a win in eight matches since Mickey Adams took over as manager.
Referee: Kevin Wright is the listed referee for this fixture, although three times in the past few seasons he has been down to referee a QPR game only to be replaced late on by somebody else so it remains to be seen whether he actually shows up for this one. His most recent QPR fixture was a 1-1 draw with Swansea at the back end of last season and his performances with Rangers down the years have been very hit and miss. Click here for more.
Ipswich: Town have a fine recent record on this ground with four wins, a draw and just one defeat from their last six visits to Loftus Road. They are unbeaten in six league matches coming into this one and won 6-0 at Doncaster in their last away game a week ago – their fifth away win of the season and second already under Jewell who also enjoyed a 2-1 success at his former club Derby. Town also won at Middlesbrough and Palace back in August, and Sheffield United in November. They may wish to change their pre-match routine for this game – two visits to London in January yielded a 7-0 cup defeat by Chelsea and 2-1 league set back at Millwall. A run of ten defeats from 15 matches through October, November and December which eventually cost Roy Keane his job has undermined their season so far.
Prediction: We’re clearly getting to that time of the season where teams at the top start to panic, and teams at the bottom really start to scrap for every last point. Scunthorpe beat Forest last week, Preston took points from Watford and us, Millwall lost at home to Middlesbrough. On the face of it QPR would probably be promoted with seven wins and three draws – not a big ask from 14 games when you look at our fixtures. But football games were never won on paper. On paper this should be one of those wins, but we said that about Saturday’s game at Preston. Ipswich are in good form, freed from the shackles of the Roy Keane era, and they will play with confidence and a freedom that comes with knowing they’re neither competing at the top nor struggling at the bottom. I expect a very, very nervous night at Loftus Road and I wonder whether a second debut for Danny Shittu might be in order just to give everybody a little lift. Either way I think we’ll be frustrated by another draw.
1-1, 13/2 with William Hill and Coral.