QPR, in poor form and dropping down the table, host fellow newly promoted side Norwich City today at Loftus Road desperate for a maximum point haul.
Barclays Premier League >>> Monday January 2, 2012 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Loftus Road, London, W12
A New Year’s Eve party that ends with you dressed in your grandfather’s clothes and flat hat, swigging champagne straight from the bottle and signing Girls Just Want To Have Fun along with a similarly wasted Cyndi Lauper cannot be considered a bad evening. LoftforWords Towers is definitely the place to be for your festive knees up.
As the conversation drunkenly spread around the room in the early hours of Sunday morning people queued up to state what a God awful year they’d had. Except, of course, for the two QPR fans present who both had 2011 down as one of the best they’d ever known.
For once last year our club really delivered some good times. That roast dinner in a bap from the van outside Middlesbrough’s ground tasted all the better for a thumping 3-0 win inspired by Heidar Helguson. Never before has Watford seemed like such a wonderful place as it did after our promotion sealing 2-0 win that ended with the LFW crew rescuing the omnipresent paddling pool from its sad grave in the midst of a pub riot. Curry and drinks with friends until the early hours of the morning after a 1-0 win at Barnsley on a Tuesday night, piling into Mabel’s Tavern at closing time and demanding they remain open and keep Match of the Day on after a trip up to Everton for a first Premiership win, and going to Stoke and winning yet again. Magical, magical stuff.
For me, 2011 centred around a strange eight days at the end of April and the beginning of May when everything threatened to completely fall apart but then came together so beautifully. That win at Watford, followed by an incredibly messy Player of the Year dinner a day later, started things off but the joy was shortlived as we then sat through an agonising week of Alejandro Faurlin transfer hearing at Wembley.
Due to the unique way the FA disciplinary committee works we could not be privy to the timetable, the evidence, the people sitting in judgement or any detail of the hearing whatsoever. Our daily updates consisted of Gianni Paladini mumbling on about the sky being blue on the way back to his car and the FA issuing pathetic one line statements about things taking a bit longer than they thought and having no idea when they’d be announcing a verdict. It was a farce that they left it all to the final week of the season, and a disgrace the way it was conducted. Ultimately the timing of the hearing played into QPR’s hands, having found that Rangers did indeed gain a sporting advantage on the field through illegal transfer activity you didn’t have to read between the lines too much to find that the only reason points weren’t deducted was because it would have plunged the entire Football League and play offs into absolute chaos.
For me that week was ostensibly spent at work, but for five days I can’t actually recall writing a single word of the copy I’m paid for. It was a week of refreshing news feeds and message boards, desperate for any scrap of information. If legal trials were conducted like this in middle eastern countries the United Nations would step in. LoftforWords did 130,000 page impressions that Friday, a record in the site’s history, hinting that pretty much everybody else in the city was doing the same as me. Where were you when you found out, that Saturday morning, that there would be no points deduction? I was in the Green Room, crying. Only QPR would win a promotion that way.
In 2012 the challenges are different ones. QPR must fight hard to make sure 2011 wasn’t in vain. At the halfway point of the season the R’s are outside the relegation zone which, given the summer we endured in the transfer market, is no mean feat and would have been gladly accepted by most QPR fans when we kicked off with a 4-0 home defeat in August. Neil Warnock must now find quality reinforcements from the sea of dross that is the January transfer window, and introduce a new ruthless streak to his team ahead of winnable games in January and February. They have won four games so far and blown opportunities to win at least that many again. They probably need to find six more plus draws in the second half of the season – it would take the pressure off everybody if the first of those could come today at home to Norwich City.
Links >>> History >>> Opposition Focus >>> Referee
Team News: Neil Warnock made five changes for the trip to Arsenal, some enforced and others not, and the question now will be how many are reversed for this more important, and more winnable, home fixture. Fitz Hall injured his groin before the Arsenal game and is likely to sit out again along with longer term absentee Anton Ferdinand. That would leave Warnock to pick two centre backs from Matt Connolly, Clint Hill and Danny Gabbidon under normal circumstances but the 25 man squad rule is suspended during January which does open up the possibility of a recall for Danny Shittu. In goal Radek Cerny deputised for Paddy Kenny at the Emirates but will make way here if the Irishman’s muscle injury has calmed down. In attack expect the rested Heidar Helguson to replace Jay Bothroyd.
Norwich are still without long term absentees James Vaughan and Elliott Ward and have two more defenders added to their injury list for this game. Ritchie De Laet, who was awful when he played at Loftus Road last season for Portsmouth, and former Colchester man Marc Tierney are both out.
A reminder that once the halfway point of the season has been reached you can no longer be suspended for accumulating five yellow cards. Ten is the next milestone after that, resulting in a two match ban, and Joey Barton has seven already.
Elsewhere: Rangers are one of five Premiership fixtures being played today with another five to follow over the course of the next few days. Fulham v Arsenal is the evening televised fixture with Man City v Liverpool on the box tomorrow and Newcastle v Man Utd the day after. That leaves three other 3pm kick offs today with Swansea travelling to Villa, Blackburn hosting Stoke after their miraculous win at the weekend and Chelsea travelling to Wolves looking to bounce back from their home defeat against Alex Mcleish’s side.
Two other games tomorrow night with resurgent Wigan hosting even more resurgent Sunderland and Spurs aiming to cement their top four place with a home victory against West Brom. On Wednesday Everton host lowly Bolton.
Referee: Two newly promoted teams have a newly promoted referee in charge today as Neil Swarbrick referees QPR v Norwich. It’s Swarbrick’s sixth Premiership appointment of his fledgling season on the elite list and his first QPR fixture in the top flight. He has refereed Norwich already once this season, a 1-1 home draw with Stoke back in August. Click here for his full QPR case file.
QPR: It’s now seven without a win for Rangers, a run started by a defeat against Norwich at Carrow Road. QPR have failed to score in three of those seven games and taken just two points from them to sink down to fourth from bottom of the league. They have won only one home match all season, against Chelsea, and have failed to score in three of their last five matches.
Norwich: The Canaries have only won once away in the Premiership, at Bolton, in nine attempts which us bad news for Paul Lambert as three of his next four games are on the road. Last time they were relegated from the top flight it was their away record that cost them when they failed to win any of their 19 away matches.. QPR have won only once in nine home fixtures. Will something give today? You can almost certainly guarantee goals – Norwich have scored in all but three of their league games this year and are yet to keep a clean sheet while Rangers are without a shut out in ten games since their solitary home win of the season against Chelsea. Norwich have drawn their last two away games, at Everton and Wolves, having scored first.
Prediction: Norwich always score, and always concede. Much as I do actually quite fancy us to get a scrappy 1-0 win I just don’t think we have the centre backs available, or perhaps even at the club at all, who can cope with the physical challenge of marking Morrison and Holt. Therefore I’m going for a 2-2 draw which, if it comes to pass, will no doubt lead to more hysterical message board bleating about certain relegation and the need to replace Neil Warnock coupled with a dire atmosphere at the game. Literally can’t wait for that.
2-2 draw 15/1 with Bet188
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