QPR sunk to the bottom of the fledgling Premier League table without playing over the weekend, but can climb at least four places with victory in their first Monday night fixture of the season against West Ham tomorrow.
Premier League >>> Monday October 1, 2012 >>> Kick Off 8pm >>> Loftus Road, London, W12 >>> Live on Sky Sports 1
Well, isn’t it marvellous to see former Sheffield United manager Kevin Blackwell back in the game? Blackwell, known for play off failures and a style of football that only very occasionally requires use of the field of play, was appointed the new manager of League One basement dwellers Bury last week.
“Good to see him back,” universally agreed absolutely everybody on the various football programmes yesterday. All of them, it should be said, no doubt good friends with Blackwell, or sharing the same agent as him, and therefore unlikely to say anything different. What they’re almost certain not to point out is that while it may be good news for the Blackwell family that he’s earning a weekly wage again, for the poor people of Bury who are going to have to pay their hard earned to watch his team play it’s a bit like a syphilis diagnosis – it’ll go away eventually, but for the foreseeable future it is going to be unpleasant and embarrassing.
Blackwell, since being sacked by Sheffield United in 2010 for boring the general public to death, has apparently spent his time travelling all over the world – South America, Nigeria, USA, all over Europe – to observe coaching methods and different approaches in different sports. So perhaps this isn’t a bad appointment for Bury after all, perhaps he’s learnt that there are different approaches to football than simply pumping the ball high into the sky and hoping for the best. He’s been watching Sau Paulo day to day for a month; he’s been with Jose Mourinho at Real Madrid. So what has he learnt?
Well, he told the Manchester Evening News: “I think we’ve got to be pragmatic for a start. We’re bottom of the league so we’ve got to start winning and that means winning football. Sometimes you have to do what you need to do to get results. Sometimes a manager might want to come in and play like Barcelona but find out he’s got Bognor Regis players, so practicality says he’s got to play a style like Bognor Regis till he can change it to Barcelona.”
Great. Terrific. Two years travelling the world and he still believes that “winning football” means pumping the bloody thing in there and seeing what happens. Really restores your faith doesn’t it? Still, good to have Kevin Blackwell back according to the great and the good.
QPR, like Bury, find themselves bottom of their respective division going into Monday night’s game with West Ham, and like the Shakers they’ve been praised for the quality of their football this season if not their results. Mark Hughes’ teams have previously been renowned for a physical approach, and QPR equalled the Premier League record for sendings off last season, but he’s never been a long-ball manager and the midfield pairing of Alejandro Faurlin and Esteban Granero has been dreamy so far.
But, having been physically bullied by a very aggressive Reading team on Wednesday Rangers now go into a Monday night league game against a West Ham team managed by Sam Allardyce – famed for a direct approach, without ever quite getting into the Blackwell or Tony Pulis league of applied maths. Expect pre-match talk of QPR needing to “win ugly” and, if they don’t, post match discussion about whether they need to abandon some of the footballing values they’ve shown so far this season in favour of a more pragmatic, direct approach.
Expect some calls for Mark Hughes to be replaced as well. This time last year Martin O’Neill hung over any Premier League manager on a losing run like a vulture waiting for the beast to become weak and this year Harry Redknapp fulfils that role. The usual suspects on message boards are already suggesting it, and two people coming down the South Africa Road stairs in front of me on Wednesday night were all in favour of it too. I resisted the urge to put a foot in their back and help them on their way. No doubt these were the same people who harangued Flavio Briatore for sacking managers every 20 minutes as well.
The thing I don’t understand is that I can never remember a team succeeding over a prolonged period of time – and I mean success as in the sort of thing QPR are aspiring to; top half of the Premier League with occasional cup runs – by either playing horrible long ball football, or sacking the manager regularly. I just don’t know where this Kevin Blackwell idea that a struggling team should just lump it long, or the modern day football attitude that any manager who loses three matches should fear for his job, has come from. When has it ever worked?
QPR could have done with some physicality in midfield on Wednesday, and may need it again on Monday night – Samba Diakite and Stephane Mbia can provide it – and a plan B where they can mix it up a little bit when the attractive stuff isn’t working would be useful. But the football they’re playing isn’t the problem and neither, in my opinion, is Mark Hughes. But then, I’m not really sure there is a problem at all at the moment. We’ll have a better idea on Monday night at 10pm but win, lose or draw I hope Hughes, the board, and the supporters hold their nerve. Sweeping changes to style, personnel or management will do more harm than good at this stage.
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Team News: QPR are collecting injuries in defence at a rate of knots. Anton Ferdinand, Fabio Da Silva, Jose Bosingwa and Armand Traore are all likely to miss out here again and Kieron Dyer will be required to start again against his former club after already playing 150 minutes in the last seven days – a big ask. Andy Johnson is out for the season and many feared Alejandro Faurlin had gone the same way after Noel Hunt’s hatchet job on Wednesday night – his dead leg was good news but still makes him a doubt for Monday. Adel Taarabt is fit to play however after a hamstring injury.
West Ham are being coy about the potential return of Andy Carroll to action after his hamstring injury picked up against Fulham. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on the bench. Assuming he’s not going to start, expect Carlton Cole or Madibo Maiga to lead the attack. Yossi Benayoun is fit and pushing for a start and Gary O’Neil has shaken off a knee injury.
Elsewhere: QPR go last this weekend after having their game moved by Sky, and have sunk to the bottom of the table as a result of Reading drawing 2-2 at home to Newcastle on Saturday. None of the other strugglers won though – Southampton were fortunate to only get beaten 3-1 at Everton, Swansea continue to accelerate towards the bottom of the table at speed after a meek 2-0 surrender at Stoke, Norwich were tonked 5-2 at home by out of form Liverpool and Wigan were beaten 1-0 at Sunderland after having Jordi Gomez harshly sent off with the score at 0-0. A win would therefore lift the R’s at least four places, and is important to stop a gap opening up above that bottom group if nothing else.
It’s been a key weekend among the title challengers with Arsenal undermining their positive start to the season by conceding two soft goals in a home defeat by Chelsea. Man City squeezed a 2-1 win out of in form Fulham but became the first ever champions to concede at least once in the first six games of their title defence in the process. Everton moved into second with their win but the day’s headline came at Old Trafford where Tottenham won 3-2, their first win on that ground since 1989, to lift themselves to fifth and drop United to third.
On Sunday West Brom were unfortunate to only draw 1-1 at Villa but looked physical, organised and impressive ahead of a home game against QPR next weekend. The Baggies are now fifth.
Referee: Mark Clattenburg was once considered a lucky referee for QPR. Trophies and promotions are few and far between in W12 and come along only very seldomly, so for one referee to have presided over a play off semi final win, a promotion sealing victory, and a Championship trophy presentation procession seemed uncanny. But Rangers have won only one of their last eight fixtures with this referee, and felt hard done by when he sent off two of their players at Loftus Road last season – Djibril Cisse against Wolves and Adel Taarabt against Spurs. He has already been in the middle for our 1-1 draw at Norwich this season when he incorrectly allowed Bobby Zamora to equalise having encroached on a penalty kick. His full (and it is pretty extensive these days) QPR case file can be studied here.
QPR:The early round so the League Cup have become almost a reserve team competition in recent years, so I often leave the results out of form assessments. West Ham, for instance, lost 4-1 at home to Wigan last week but did so with most of their team missing. QPR on the other hand were beaten at home by lowly Reading with their first choice side on the pitch, so I’ve little other option than to include it in the write up here. Rangers have won one of six matches so far this season – against Walsall – and have lost three and drawn two of their five games against Premiership sides. At Loftus Road they’ve failed to score in two of the three matches and taken just one draw. Rangers are struggling to score goals – the two they got against Reading was the first time this season they’d managed more than one in a game and they still lost, only Norwich (two) have scored fewer than QPR’s three in the league – while shipping them at a rate (11) bettered only by Southampton (15) so far. Bobby Zamora is the only player to have scored a league goal this season for the R’s - West Brom by comparison have had nine different goal scorers.
West Ham: Historically meetings between these sides couldn’t be much closer with 19 QPR wins, 18 draws and 20 West Ham wins. But the Hammers do not have a happy recent record at Loftus Road with QPR winning seven and drawing two of the last nine – these sides haven’t met competitively since the 2004/05 season however. It’s a real 50/50 split between West Ham’s home and away form so far on their return to the big league – they’ve won two and drawn one of three at Upton Park while conceding only once; lost one and drawn one of two on the road without scoring a single goal. Stretching back to their last premier League season it’s 11 on the road without a win, but in the Championship they broke the club record for 13 wins on the road. I watched both their away games at Swansea and Norwich and they were dreadful, rarely looking like scoring, so long may all this continue. Rangers shouldn’t expect it easy though as the Hammers have kept three clean sheets already, a record bettered only by Chelsea.
Betting: Professional odds compiler Alex Rowe writes…
“My punting over the last few weeks is much like Fernando Torres in front of goal, low on confidence and frequently missing the target. Like every punter/striker I’m determined to punt my way out of a barren spell.
“Despite recent results there has still been positives to take from our games against Man City, Chelsea and Spurs but my one major concern throughout Hughes reign has been how vulnerable we look when defended set pieces. The last thing I think we need at the minute is Big Sam’s famed tactics & a packed away following. So in our game I’m going for Winston Reid at 50-1 first goal & 20-1 anytime with Blue Square.”
Prediction: Last season’s Prediction League champion Nathan McAllister writes…
“While listening to the excellent Football Weekly podcast last week I was reminded of a well-known quote from John Toshack, made after a poor performance while he was manager of Real Madrid. Basically it goes along the lines of: ‘After the game you swear you’re going to drop all 11, then on Tuesday you decide to drop seven or eight, on Thursday it’s down to two or three …. then on Saturday you play the same 11 arseholes as the week before.’
“This quite neatly mirrors my own thought processes since Wednesday night. After the game I was going to put this one down as a 3-1 away win, citing the mounting pressure on the players and manager to get that crucially important first win, combined with an impatient home crowd getting on the players’ backs more and more with each misplaced pass as a recipe for the sort of dismal home defeat we saw all too often last season.
“Then, after a night’s sleep I remembered that West Ham suffered an even more humiliating midweek cup home defeat themselves, and although they rested loads of players for the game with Wigan their first choice 11 is still yet to get a win – or even a goal – away from home this season. Surely, with five days rest our players should have recovered sufficiently to make the game competitive. A 3-1 home win becomes a 1-1 draw.
“Then on Thursday night I watched a replay of our game at Spurs to remind myself just how bloody good we were last Sunday. Just as I remembered, for 60 minutes we really did outplay Spurs. Played them off the park. At White Hart Lane. Sure, the Hammers direct and physical approach under Allardyce will ask our defence some very different questions, but it looks like they’ll be up against not Andy Carroll - apparently yet to recover from his hamstring problem - but Carlton Cole. Surely if Clint Hill can keep Pogrebnyak in his pocket for 60 minutes then he and Ryan Nelsen should have Carlton Cole well sewn up.
“I know. I’m almost certainly going to regret this. Have I learnt nothing from 34 years as QPR fan?! But really, if we can’t back ourselves to beat West Ham at home then when can we?”
Prediction: TheSameElevenArseholesAsTheWeekBefore 2 West Ham 1
Scorer: Zamora (against his old club)
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