 Friday, 17th Aug 2012 19:07 by Clive Whittingham, Alex Roe, Nathan McAllister Day one at Loftus Road, and Swansea arrive nursing a record of no wins from 19 attempts in W12. Can QPR continue that run and blow away the Olympic hangover? QPR v Swansea CityBarclays Premier League >>> Saturday August 18, 2012 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Loftus Road, London, W12 Ahhh the sweet release of the football season starting again. Dinner party this weekend Clive? No, I'm at the football. Reporter needed for an Andorran television festival this weekend Clive. No, I'm at the football. Invitation to the wedding of casual acquaintance A and guy you never liked anyway B on Satur-no, I'm at the football. I'm at the football again. Every week for nine months. Fuck it feels good. Bollocks to the rest of the world and their social functions. Once again this summer I've realised that those people who look at me with a puzzled/worried/outraged look on their face when I tell them I go to every QPR game ("yes, the away ones as well") are, in fact, the ones with the problem. How do they cope with a lifetime of off season? How long can they justify their own existence while journeying off to some of our country's finest out of town retail parks every weekend? Christ, I'd rather be at work I think. Or dead. Probably dead. I've seen them, queuing down the Finchley High Road to get into the Whetstone B&Q, and they look dead inside. You can tell by their eyes. It's been a quicker summer than usual to be fair. First of all we had the European Championships, from which England returned with some positive press and hope for the future despite being absolutely abject for most of it. Long balls to Andy Carroll you say? Be still my beating heart. Rejoice at the dawn of a bright new day for English football. What's that? A pointless friendly match with Italy being played, for some reason, in Switzerland? Well where's my ticket? I was only thinking last week in a moment that never actually happened that I was missing my England fix and could do with a round of international friendlies before some proper football started again. I'm starting to wonder if we should just jack this international football malarkey in altogether. We're not taking it seriously, we're not getting anything out of it and we're starting to embarrass ourselves a bit. Even QPR are now one of those teams that withdraws all three of its internationals with spurious injury worries ahead of a week of friendly games, and QPR fans now rejoice in this rather than moaning about the bigger clubs damaging the chances of the home nations by doing so. Quite right too, bollocks to international football. Long balls to Andy Carroll indeed. Watch out world, here we come. The Olympics was a much more edifying experience, and somewhat symbolic for the city of London coming a year to the day since the chav uprising that destroyed scores of homes, small businesses and branches of Footlocker. Worth remembering that at this point last year most of the city was still on fire and we weren't even sure whether we'd have a game against Bolton on the Saturday or not. There was a moment on the Piccadilly Line during "The Games" where my mother, joining me on the way to Heathrow Airport to drag my younger brother kicking and screaming back into the real world after six months of travelling, started a conversation with a stranger sitting opposite us. Despite my protestations that this simply wasn't the done thing they talked happily about shoes for ten minutes. That simply wouldn't happen outside of Olympic time. If she did it this week she'd more than likely be stabbed to death. My lucky acquisition of a spare ticket to the Olympic Stadium two Saturdays ago led me into one of the most amazing experiences as my life as first Jess Ennis (looking absolutely resplendent in tight pants) and then Mo Farrah won gold medals. I've never heard noise like that at a sporting fixture, and I've followed Scunthorpe United to a Third Division play off final. The country has mostly returned to its normal state post-games – selling off school playing fields for tightly packed housing developments that nobody can get a mortgage for and what not – and the only "legacy" (a word Seb Coe likes to chunter about without actually achieving anything) seems to be a stick with which to beat our footballers over the head. "Why can't our footballers be more like the Olympic athletes," prattle a collection of South London housewives and Daily Mail readers. What, disqualified for doping on a regular basis you mean? Or completely ignored for four years until the whole country suddenly, and for two weeks only, gives a shit about who can swim fastest out of Great Britain , the USA and Belarus? Like it or not, football is the national sport and no amount of handwringing or worthy newspaper editorials will change that or the feeling that thousands of people like me have this evening that, while watching the badminton and the handball was all very nice to pass the time, there is no feeling like the football season starting again. Yes our footballers are overpaid, mostly quite thick and almost universally awfully behaved but there are players out there who have worked every bit as hard as our wonderful (no sarcasm) Olympians to achieve what they have – Clint Hill and Jamie Mackie two cases in point at QPR. Comparing Jess Ennis to Joey Barton in an attempt to condemn all footballers is like comparing Hogan Ephraim to Ben Johnson. Yes we have a lot of footballers that don’t do themselves any favours, and yes they’re paid ridiculous sums of money, but there are bad athletes as well and I don’t get this rush to use a fantastic Olympics to condemn football. Football is the be all and end all in this country. It is exciting, exhilarating, maddening, thrilling, frustrating, controversial and brilliant. And it's back. And not before time. Links >>> Opposition Focus >>> Betting Preview >>> History >>> Referee This SaturdayTeam News: Plenty of intrigue around the QPR starting line up with pretty much only Rob Green guaranteed a started place. Only in England does the discussion over who will captain a side take up quite so much time, but that’s still up for grabs. Of far more intrigue and importance is the situation with Samba Diakite who has mysteriously disappeared from the scene once again after completing a personal move. Mark Hughes says he has a bang to the knee, Tony Fernandes says he is dealing with some family problems, the rumour mill says all sorts including the plausible theory that his absence at the end of last season, delayed signing this summer, and continued disappearance now during Ramadan is because he’s actually a diabetic. We await further developments. Joey Barton serves game one of his 12 match suspension and Armand Traore, as usual, is a doubt with an ankle injury and Jamie Mackie has a calf complaint. Swansea have signed Arsenal defender Kyle Bartley on a three year deal to replace Steven Caulker and he could make his debut. Chico Flores, Michu and Jonathan De Guzman are also in line for first starts for the Swans. Their key piece of team news surrounds two former QPR wingers – Scott Sinclair has refused to sign a new contract amidst reported interest from Man City, Wayne Routledge may replace him in the starting 11. Rangers fans know only too well just how bad Sinclair can be when he’s not fully committed to the task in hand. Elsewhere: Six Premiership matches at 3pm to kick off the Premiership season and one or two intriguing games amongst them. Arsenal minus Van Persie open up against Sunderland minus any strikers at all while new look Liverpool provide the opposition for Steve Clarke’s first match in charge of West Brom. Newly promoted Reading host Stoke on day one while Fulham’s home game with Norwich isn’t proving much of a draw given the amount of two for one ticket offers for it floating around London today. West Ham open up against Villa. The televised action starts on ESPN on Saturday night Tottenham’s trip to Newcastle in Andre Villas Boas’ first competitive game in charge. On Sunday it all looks rather predictable with champions Man City hosting newly promoted Southampton and European Champions Chelsea going to perennial slow starters Wigan. Rather more intriguing proposition on Monday with Everton, who I fancy to go well, hosting Man Utd with Robin Van Persie in tow. Referee: It almost goes without saying that Lee Probert is the referee for this one. The Wiltshere official did both meetings between the two sides last season. At the Liberty Stadium he allowed Danny Graham to score after bringing the ball down with his hand, but that apart he was fairly bog standard and, given his past history with QPR, we should always be grateful for him being no worse than that. This is the referee who sent off Jude the Cat (8ft tall, baseball cap, tale, a cat) for looking like Paul Furlong and confusing him. It’s also the referee who allowed our 2-1 defeat at Wolves to play through to a conclusion under a foot of water because the home team was winning. Ian Holloway once branded him the “village idiot”. A full case file is available here. FormQPR: Rangers have never won an opening day fixture in the Premier League – they drew with Man City in the first ever Premiership Monday Night Football game in 1992 and have since lost to Aston Villa (4-1), Man Utd (2-0), Blackburn (1-0) and Bolton (4-0). Beware a big opening day win though – Bolton were relegated after their triumph at Loftus Road this time last year and the year before the team that won 4-0 on the opening day (Blackpool at Wigan) also finished the season relegated. Rangers have alternated between defeats and victories for 11 straight games now and if the pattern continues they will win this having lost at Man City on the final day of last season. Rangers have won their last five competitive home matches, and haven’t conceded a goal in the last three including a 3-0 home win against Swansea in April. Djibril Cisse maintained his record of a goal or a red card in every QPR appearance so far with his strike at Eastlands on the last day of last season. Swansea: Loftus Road is not a happy hunting ground for the Swans who have failed to win any of the last five meetings between these clubs, or any of the 20 matches played between the two in W12. Their last two visits to this part of the world ended in 3-0 and 4-0 defeats. Swansea haven’t won on the opening day since a 2005 2-0 success at home to Tranmere in League One and have lost their last six fixtures on the first day of the season – they also lost 4-0 in the opening weekend last season, although their set back against Man City didn’t have quite the catastrophic effect on the opposition as QPR’s defeat to Bolton. Swansea won four away games last season – at Villa, West Brom, Wigan and Fulham – but lost three of their last four on the road at the end of the campaign. Betting: Professional odds compiler Alex Roe writes… Go back to August 2011. It should have been the most exciting summer in W12 for many, many years but add together the efforts of the FA, Briatore and Ecclestone it was far from the happy time it should have been. Now fast forward to August 2012 and the feeling around the place is exactly what we should have enjoyed 12 months ago. The feel good factor around Loftus Road this Saturday afternoon could well see the team fly out of the traps and propel us to mid table mediocrity come May…Bliss! Last year Swansea correctly won plenty of plaudits but a summer of change could well see them struggle certainly early doors. Sinclair and Dyer on either flank were excellent at isolating a full back and getting to the bye line, but what went un-noticed was how little interest they had in tracking back the other way. Time and again when I watched Swansea Joe Allan and Leon Britton were superb at not only keeping possession but helping out Angel & Taylor at full back when Sinclair and Dyer seemingly had better things to do. Ignore the price tag - the loss of Allan will be big. Its expected De Guzman will fill that role, whether he’s tactically aware enough to pick up loose runners however, we’ll have to wait and see. Another unsung hero of last year was Steven Caulker. His displays have now seen him included in the England squad (although not sure that’s the achievement it once was). The replacement Chico Flores arrives from Genoa via Mallorca & we’ve seen down the years centre backs that arrive from the continent tend to struggle with the physicality of the premier league. Onto the R’s and the gaffer has given away very little pre season in terms of what he views as his strongest side so from an early betting point of view its worth keeping stakes to a minimum. Taarabt, Hoillet, Mackie whoever Hughes decides to go with in the wide areas they've got the ability to get at and beat Taylor & Rangel especially with the lack of assistance the full backs will receive. Zamora and Cisse will be a match for any centre back this year so to have two powerful forwards capable of unsettling Chico Flores and Vorm (who was suspect in the air last year despite the plaudits he received for his shot-stopping) we could certainly have some joy in front of goal. Taking into account all of the above it's no surprise to see the early quotes of 5-4 about the home win snapped up by punters as soon as prices were available. As it stands we're a top price 11-10 and I can't see that still being available come kick off. I’m going to be splitting my stakes between comfortable winning scorelines for the R's. 2-0 (9-1 Stan James) & 3-0 (20-1 Stan James) As for the rest of season I see us filling a spot anywhere between eighth and thirteenth come May. A top ten finish can be backed at 11-4 with a few firms but with so many teams with similar ambitions I could leave us at that price. One price makes plenty of appeal is Djibril Cisse to finish as the club’s top Premier League goal scorer 9-4 (Bet Victor & Stan James). The other potential runners – Zamora does great work for team but is far from prolific. Taarabt as we know can be brilliant, awful, magical & inconsistent. Hoilett will play wider than he did at Blackburn & Johnson I’m not sure will get enough game time to win it leaving me with the conclusion that Cisse should collect for Punters at 9-4. Whatever you’re backing, good luck.
Prediction: Winner of the Prediction League last season Nathan McAllister writes… They have lost their manager and three players who were instrumental in their unexpected success in their first Premier League season, so I guess it's no surprise that Swansea have seemingly become everyone's tip for relegation. Then again there were plenty writing them off after they lost Roberto Martinez - yet they have improved their league position every year since, and Swansea's knack for bringing in players and managers that fit in seamlessly to the formation and style of play originally established by Martinez may be about to continue. Laudrup looks a decent appointment to me, and his signings - all proven players in Spain's top flight, two of which have worked with Laudrup before - could be shrewd investments if they can settle quickly. I certainly don't see this fixture being the one-sided affair it's been over the last two seasons. I can't see us keeping a clean sheet for a start. Our defence is the one area of our team that has not really been strengthened this summer, and by all accounts Laudrup favours an attacking style of play. Swansea - Danny Graham in particular - have been free-scoring in pre-season, for what that's worth. So Rangers will need to score at least twice to win this one - but with all the attacking talent Hughes now has at his disposal that should not be beyond them. Prediction: 2-1 Rangers First scorer - Cisse (who else?!) Tweet @Loftforwords, @agrowe86 Pictures – Action Images Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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