Manager Mark Warburton has been moved to appeal for calm, and faith in his team as the return home from a chastening week on the road.

QPR (15-7-9 DWLDLL 4th) v Hull (9-6-17 WWLLLD 20th)

Mercantile Credit Trophy >>> Saturday February 19, 2022 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather — Wet and Windy >>> Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium, Loftus Road, London, W12

It’s the half an hour afterwards that’s the worst. While it’s all unfolding, however badly it’s going, there’s enough going on to distract you. Even if it crashes and burns to the extent of a 4-0 deficit before half time, there’s still that tiny nagging feeling in the back of your mind that we’ve recovered two (and nearly three) of those before. Two nil down at Millwall a minute into injury time, playing like a bunch of tarts, but you could have said exactly that about the Derby away game the last time we won this league, and we escaped from that with a point in the end. It came to define the season.

Once the final whistle has gone however, then it’s live. The frustration, anger and exasperation bubbles up and over, because the team’s no-show has been confirmed and now cannot be recovered from, withdrawn or taken back. It’s a very different feeling from the standard defeat, where a bounce of the ball didn’t go your way, or a refereeing decision cost you, or the team was a bit unlucky, or the opposition were just a bit better. When you get a performance and defeat like we had at Barnsley, and again at Millwall, those that paid to travel there and watch it, seethe. If the game’s an important one, if you’re overly-invested in its outcome, if the team’s capable of so much better, and if it’s really been that bad, then the brain starts to spit with hot anger.

This increases exponentially with the distance and cost of the trip, the shiteness of the opponent (both factors at Barnsley), or things like being subjected to a ridiculously heavy-handed and aggressive policing operation while opposition fans are allowed to run amok around you (Millwall). Minds in those away ends start to race, injustice and unfairness start to course, angry people stride away from the scene with the Phat Planet song from the Guinness advert pulsating through them at ever-increasing volume. Every other word is a swearing one. In the queue for the train at South Bermondsey there wasn’t a player in the team who wasn’t, at some point, dropped loudly by one angry fan or another. Some, it was said, “should never play for the club again”. Theories and sweeping statements of all shapes and sizes hung in the air. Scapegoats littered the pavement, salvation lay in everybody from Luke Amos to Dom Ball, George Thomas to Osman Kakay. None of this, but none of this, would apparently have happened if the fucking tight fucking board had fucking paid for fucking Jamie fucking Paterson when they had the fucking chance. The team, the system, the formation all required ripping up and starting again. Warburton should have been sacked months ago. Chris Wilder should have been brought in. Warburton should definitely be sacked now. Neil Warnock should take over. Points were delivered repeatedly, often aggressively, often at very close range, and presumably into the face of people who went to the game as friends. Tick followed tock followed tick followed tock.

It was like watching and listening to live internet trolling, and of course disadvantage of social media no.23,475 in the series is all of this escapes from the car park at the Metrodome or the queue at South Bermondsey station and onto the web to be shared, retweeted and gather momentum. Managers that would once have had to lose seven or eight on the spin to start drawing fire, now catch it after literally three poor performances in ten days after an unbelievable 14 months of promotion form. I’ll be honest, I had my “unforgivably poor” Tweet composed and ready to go on the final whistle at Barnsley, because I was so bloody angry at going all that way, at all that expense, through all that weather, to stand there and watch them do that, in that game, with all the opportunity we have to do something this season. I wanted to lash out, and show them I was angry. Others booed them off, for the first time this season. All of which now I can see now is manifestly excessive and unfair on a group of players and manager who have done brilliantly this season, are still fourth in the league, have just come off a fantastic unbeaten January, and even if none of that were true could never be accused of not caring or not trying. But, at the time, at that precise moment, you don’t care about that. People are furious - do you know how much this cost me? Do you know how much hassle this has been? Do you understand how disappointing this is? - and they come out swinging. Sometimes literally (Peterborough).

Mark Warburton was fuming himself. You could see it and hear it in him. In the post-match press conference a fairly standard and harmless question about whether the defeats (and more to the point the performances) against Peterborough, Barnsley and Millwall would bring about changes for Hull riled him up. He did later admit that he was looking for a row with somebody, because that is the mood in that half hour period when you’re invested in it, and you care about it. Even the level headed Mark Warburton is looking for a fight in that half hour.

Then, naturally, you calm down — and that has been the theme of Warburton’s message since the final whistle on Tuesday night. Poor performances, absolutely. Bad results, there for all to see. Disappointed, of course. Missed opportunity, again just look at where we could have been in the league. But not terminal. There is no hole below the waterline. This can be easily recovered and forgotten about. Bournemouth are still second, they won two of ten games through November and December. Blackburn are still third, they’ve won one of six and failed to score in five of those. Teams have blips and wobbles and moments in successful seasons. Remain calm, keep doing what got you here, don’t panic, the ship will right itself, we're assured. I said a couple of previews ago the Championship averages from the last 20 years tell you our form could drop all the way off to nineteenth-in-the-table level and we’d still gain enough points for the top six. I didn’t expect the team to start such a dramatic examination of that so soon — these two defeats exacerbated because of how bad the performance levels were, how low the opponents are in the table, and the difficulty of the away games we still have to play — but it remains true.

Four of QPR’s next six are at home, against twenty second, twentieth, nineteenth and fifteenth. Of course, a week ago, you could have added bottom Barnsley and fourteenth Millwall to that, and we fucked those up. Rangers often most lethal when you expect them to win. If we can take a big points haul from those however, with a five point gap to Forest already on the table (they have Sheff Utd, Huddersfield, QPR and Fulham in their next seven fixtures) we’ll still be well set even if we suffer defeats in all the others around them.

Another part of the alarm is that we know, and proved at Barnsley who are the worst team this league has seen for many a year, that we won’t beat anybody playing like that, home or away. There’s a perception that we weren’t playing that well even when we were winning, bar Reading at home and, well, everybody beats those cunts. Consecutive away wins at Coventry, Bristol City and Birmingham were great, but weren’t brought about by brilliant performances. I don’t think this is an entirely fair criticism, but the trendy xG stats and analysis around it has consistently said that QPR are higher in the league than they should be even back to August when we were playing so well at Hull and Boro.

Warburton has asked for calm, and for faith, in a team that has shown themselves well capable, and worthy of our trust, for more than a year now. What he, and the team, don’t want or need is the morgue-like atmosphere from the final half hour against Boro, the booing at Barnsley, and the anger post Millwall to morph into a crowd turning on the team. Entirely counter productive, and massively unfair if it does happen - a product entirely of raised expectations, because we all (we all) would have taken fourth and five points clear of seventh at this point if offered it in August. That's worth remembering too.

He’ll have to make changes to cover Rob Dickie and Lee Wallace tomorrow. It’ll be interesting to see how much other tinkering he does, to try and stop the growing trend of QPR playing backwards and sideways in front of teams, without any of the penetration we saw from wing backs, wide centre-backs, or our creative tens previously. We need to introduce some pace, some energy, some threat and possession higher up the field, some press. I'm intrigued to see if we get back to that, and how and why we do it. You won’t get many better chances to come out firing and showing improvement than a Hull side with one goal in four games, and not far off safe and done for the season with three months left.

I guess for now we wait. That’s what we do.

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Team News: Warbs Warburton was riled in the post-Millwall press conference by the suggestion he may ring the changes after three defeats in four games, so I wouldn’t be expecting wholesale switch arounds here. Rob Dickie is definitely out - an eleventh yellow card of the season and tenth in the league means a two-match ban and a certain recall for loanee Dion Sanderson. Lee Wallace tweaked his groin at The Den and while this isn’t one that’s going to keep him out for a serious length of time he won’t play here, which means a choice between the out-of-form Moses Odubajo or Sam McCallum, who has played three U23 fixtures following a four-month injury lay off and would ideally get another 90 under his belt at that level before stepping back up according to the manager. The Seny Dieng v David Marshall debate continues. Luke Amos leads the queue of reserves hoping for a chance.

Mallik Wilks, 22 goals in 50 outings last season but just three in 19 this, is back in the travelling party for the first time since Forest away on December 18. Lewie Coyle, only three games back from a prior injury, looked to have pulled his hamstring in the midweek 0-0 at Sheff Utd and won’t play here. Nathan Baxter, Josh Emmanuel and (to the relief of Nick London and myself) Allahyar Sayyadmanesh were all missing during the week and remain so.

Elsewhere: In “football without fans is nothing” news, Bournemouth spent all of Thursday and Friday persisting with the idea that their Friday night fixture (entirely coincidentally also a live Sky fixture) with Nottingham Forest would be taking place despite the worst storm in 30 years blowing through the south of England. This nonsense held until 16.00, by which time the majority of Forest fans already forced to suffer a 400-mile round trip on a Friday night, would have completed all or at least the majority of their journey on a day when the advice was not to leave the house. It was then postponed because of a previously undeclared safety inspection to previously unmentioned damage to the stadium. Never again, never again, must football clubs, football broadcasters, football media, football marketers or any of the vulturous leaching companies that look to pick off this sport for their own gain ever be allowed to trot out that “football without fans is nothing” guff ever, ever, ever again. Since returning from lockdown the competitions, the broadcasters and the clubs have gone out of their way to shit on the match going fans at every single turn. No time for Forest at all, but that’s fucking disgusting.

Ahem. Ten fixtures other than our own tomorrow, and two further chances for clubs around us to take points from each other. League leaders Tarquin and Rupert are the lunchtime game, hosting fifth placed Sporting Huddersfield. Then two of the teams immediately outside the six, and heading in opposite directions, face each other as Lutown host West Brom. Opportunities then, for ourselves, for Stoke at home to Birmingham, Sheffield Red Stripe at home to Swanselona, Blackburn sans-Brereton v Wawlll, and Boro down at Bristol City.

At the other end, following the midweek classic between Peterborough and Reading, the perpetrators head out on the road with Posh staring down the barrel of the recovery at Wayne Rooney’s Derby County, and Reading up at Preston Knob End. I’d be astonished if that’s not a pair of thumping home wins. Barnsley are away at Coventry and Cardiff — three wins in four just as they’re about to turn up at Loftus Road — host Blackpool.

Referee: Experienced Championship official Tim Robinson is in charge of QPR for the first time this season, and there’s a real blast from the past at fourth official — the original Stroud, Trevor Kettle. Might see the first example of an exploding substitute’s board. Details.

Form

QPR: Rangers have gone from unbeaten in seven matches with five wins to no wins in four with three defeats. They have gone from scoring in every league game bar two, and 22 consecutive away matches, to failing to score in four of the last six including the last three on the road. After losing twice to Stoke and Bournemouth in December, Rangers are at least now unbeaten at home in five matches, with victories against West Brom and Reading and draws with Rotherham, Middlesbrough and Swansea. Lee Wallace has lost as many games in the last fortnight (three) as he had in his previous 21 games dating back to Forest A on April 5 last year. Ilias Chair hasn’t won since the 2-1 at Derby at the end of November — D1 L5. Hull went 14 visits to Loftus Road between 1963 and 2014 without a win, but have now won four of their last five here and lost only one of six.

Hull: It says something for the bottom end of this season’s Championship that on 33 points Hull are already as good as safe, 12 points north of the relegation places with 14 games to play and neither Reading nor Peterborough showing any inclination towards chasing them down. If they do survive it will be despite a winless run of nine matches which began with QPR’s 3-0 win in the corresponding fixture in August, and two separate winless spells of five games which will become three if Rangers are victorious tomorrow. The whole season hangs on four consecutive wins against Barnsley, Birmingham, Cardiff and Millwall in November, and three against Blackburn, Bournemouth and Swansea in January. Six clean sheets were kept across those seven games, but Hull have only won two other league games, 4-1 at Preston on opening day and 2-0 at home to Boro in October, and kept four other clean sheets. Only Peterborough and Barnsley have scored fewer than their 26 goals in the league, and they arrive into this fixture having scored once in the last four games — and that in a 3-1 loss at Derby. They have three defeats and a draw in four matches prior to arrival in W12. They’re 4-3-9 away from home with the victories coming at Preston, Barnsley, Cardiff and Derby.

Prediction: We’re indebted to The Art of Football for once again 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. Last year’s champion Mick_S says…

“It’s becoming more difficult by the game to predict what Rangers team is going to show. Hull have won only once in five, don’t score a lot and have conceded the same amount as us. I’m hoping our recent problems have been identified, so I’ll guess at a narrow 1-0 win. Chair to score.”

Mick’s Prediction: QPR 1-0 Hull. Scorer — Ilias Chair

LFW’s Prediction: QPR 2-0 Hull. Scorer — Chris Willock

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Paddyhoops added 18:56 - Feb 18 I like the possibility we could have Amos and Mr wilks on the same pitch tomorrow. For vintage Emmerdale fans a rare treat. . 2.0 Rangers!
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Patrick added 22:41 - Feb 18 Feel your anger. But look at the table. That dotted line just below. The playoffs, not our usual fretting about 50 points. But. If you (we) rely on 5/6 players age 30+ then February is an accident waiting to happen. (Team of men, and all that.) Time to give some of the younger ones a go, win or lose. (Says one of the older ones.) Keep the faith.
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062259 added 00:02 - Feb 19 “We need to introduce some pace…” From where? I’ve said before that I think lack of pace is this team’s biggest weakness. They need to rediscover the guile that enabled them to win a bunch of games in January even when outpassed by the opposition and not playing particularly well.
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thehat added 07:12 - Feb 19 Brilliant preview Clive - One of your best. So very true about emotion after the game with adrenaline thumping through the veins. My wife checks the football results 5.00pm every Saturday to gauge what the remainder of the weekend has in store.. It really shouldn’t be like that….
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TacticalR added 14:43 - Feb 19 Thanks for your preview. Has anyone been able to fathom our drop-off in form? The Millwall game in particular felt like the form of the period prior to the arrival of Austin and Johansen when teams held us at arm's length and then picked us off. We are all mightily disappointed because our expectations have been raised. You did warn earlier in the season (in your preview to the home game against Birmingham in September) that 'this expectation that we should be, nee must be, making the top six could at worst envelop the support base and the club and lead us to doing and saying silly things'.

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