Wednesday night’s match at Chelsea looks like a hiding to nothing for QPR, but there is much to do after this to ensure the club is in a less sickly state in 12 months time. LFW offers some New Year Resolutions for the R’s to consider.
Premier League >>> Wednesday January 2, 2013 >>> Kick Off 7.45pm >>> Stamford Bridge, London, SW6
QPR New Year’s Resolutions for 2013:
- Implement a wage structure. To have Jose Bosingwa at QPR on £65,000 a week, more than any of the Tottenham players that Harry Redknapp had under his charge previously, is astonishing. A strictly adhered to wage cap is required immediately – both for the financial security of a club with an 18,000 capacity stadium that’s about to go into the Championship, and for the harmony of the squad which has clearly become split between the haves and have nots. If that wage cap means a player is unaffordable then don’t sign him – he’s probably not the sort of player that’s going to be a good fit for QPR anyway.
- Appoint a technical director. Somebody with experience of the game and clubs of a similar size, independent of the manager, to properly oversee the vast amounts of work that need to be done at QPR over a long period of time.
- Stop talking yourself up. If you’re great, people will say lovely things about you of their own volition. If you’re dreadful, the Comical Ali routine makes you look stupid to the wider footballing world, and annoys the support base.
- Stop trying to solve every problem by signing a new player. If you’re bringing in five or more players in every transfer window then you’re not doing it right. Coach the players you have, work on their weaknesses, don’t be so quick to cast them aside. If you get to the end of the transfer window and you have half a dozen senior professional players who aren’t even in the 25 man squad then, again, you’re doing it wrong. There needs to be a change in mindset among supporters on this one as well: stop saying that everything will be fine once we’ve signed yet another player. Turn Sky Sports News off and stop getting all moist over the transfer window because the last three of them have actually been bloody awful for QPR – we’re safer when the damn thing is shut.
- Sign players for specific positions with a team and a system in mind. Always spend money with the mindset that the position then won’t need to be addressed again for three or four years. Do not sign players you don’t actually need simply because they’re a big name, or even because they’re a wonderful player and the opportunity is too good to turn down – the Cesar and Granero signings haven’t exactly proved to be runaway successes have they?
- Scout players carefully and perform due diligence on them so you know what you’re getting and where they’re going to fit into the team. As a general rule, if QPR are signing a player everybody has heard of then it’s probably not going to be a good signing for them. Stop signing players over 30, stop signing players for whom QPR is a step down and/or the smallest club they’ve ever played for. Look for players with points to prove, with potential, with future sell on value.
- Practice set pieces – both attacking and defending. At the moment QPR very rarely visit the opposition penalty box, so when they do get there it’s important to make it count. To pass up the opportunity to put six or seven players in there and deliver a reasonable cross to them as often as Rangers do from their corners and free kicks is not acceptable. At the other end, given that the experts on our game make out that you could basically train a group of monkeys to defend set pieces and any goal conceded from them is a crime, perhaps the R’s might like to do a spot of work on that side of the game as well.
- Learn to take throw ins. If you had a right full back who conceded possession every single time he received the ball to his feet he would quickly be dropped, it would not be tolerated – so why is it acceptable for QPR’s to give the ball away within two touches of every single throw in they’re awarded simply because they’re using their hands? They do it every time without fail. Every single throw in is back with the opposition within two touches.
- Treat the supporters with more respect. It may not seem the case when you’re talking about building a global brand and running a Premier League football club, but little things matter and the fabric of a football club can be judged by how well they do them. I brought up the example of my Supporter of the Year trophy in the Liverpool match report and I bet thousands of you have a similar story to tell about how QPR is failing to do the little things correctly. Start cherishing the fans that are already here, because they’re the ones who will be first to help if things go badly.
- Communicate with the support base. Stop mistaking communication with supporters as Tweeting interview clips from players acknowledging how dreadful they are and how much better they’re going to be. Stop referring to supporters as “haters” when they respond to that sort of dirge with criticism. It’s wonderful that Tony Fernandes is so accessible via social media, but again that is not proper communication with the supporters. A fans forum every six months would be an easy place to start.
- Without fans, there is no club. It is completely out of order for the club to be charging season ticket holders £28.50 to go to this Saturday’s game with West Brom, so soon after paying £60 at Chelsea and shelling out for numerous other matches over Christmas all of which were dreadful. The £3.50 booking fee is scandalous anyway. Supporters are very easy to lose, and very hard to win back. Going to the football is a habit and once out of it people often find they don’t miss it. The West Brom match should be a tenner all in (if that) by way of a reward for the faith people continue to show and an apology for what has happened this season. Charging £28.50 each is scandalous, shameful and shows a total lack of awareness of the support base and what it’s thinking.
- And with that lack of awareness in mind – stop being afraid to appoint QPR fans to jobs at the club. Occasionally – such as when the head of press is about to Tweet that “spirits are high among the media team” towards the end of a 500 mile December 22 round trip to Newcastle for a dreadful performance and 1-0 defeat – we can provide useful input like “I’m not sure that’s going to go down too well.” You may also find the other supporters more receptive and understanding when they know they’re dealing with one of their own.
- Know your history. David Bardsley, born in Manchester originally and somebody who turned out for half a dozen different clubs in his career, loved his time at QPR so much that when he set up a youth coaching academy in Florida he named it after the club and turns the teams out for their matches in blue and white hoops. Bardsley wants to affiliate this academy with QPR officially, and bring his best prospects to Rangers once a year for them to have first pick from, but says nobody at the club has returned his calls on the matter. Similar stories about total lack of acknowledgement have been told in the past by Dave Thomas and others. This is not only an easy PR opportunity, but it’s the right and proper thing to do for players who gave their best for this club when the money was poor and the medical treatment for injuries sustained in a far more physical sport didn’t stretch much further than a bucket of water and an old cloth.
- Walk a mile in our shoes. Have somebody ring the box office every now and again to see what it’s actually like when that call goes through to a Ticketmaster call centre in Manchester – a call centre that 50% of the time won’t actually be able to help you with your query and advise you to call the box office, which you do only to then be put back through to Ticketmaster. Sit in the home ends at the big matches and see how pleasant it is to find yourself parked next to some Liverpool fan from Wimbledon Common wearing his red shirt and celebrating the goals with a ticket he bought from Viagogo. Ideally, tell Ticketmaster, Viagogo and Lotto to kindly fuck off – all three of them are doing a lousy job for Queens Park Rangers supporters.
- Spend some money on a website development team. The official website is a window on the club for the world, and a first port of call for information for supporters, but the new design is awful, doesn’t work on most mobiles, and is often impossible to navigate. Some of the QPR Player features are really excellent, but they’re hard to find on the site and behind a pay wall in any case. How much is that subscription making for the club? Why not use it as a marketing tool and make it available for free on YouTube?
- We are QPR. Remember that. Remember what QPR is. Stop trying to make it something it’s not.
Links >>> History >>> Referee >>> Travel
Team News: Harry Redknapp says four players picked up knocks in the Liverpool game and may miss out here, but refused to name names. DJ Campbell has been recalled from his loan at Ipswich but does not return in time to feature in this game. Ji Sung Park is has returned to training after his knee injury but is unlikely to start. Bobby Zamora and Andy Johnson are the long term absentees. Samba Diakite is available for the final time before he joins up with Mali for the African Nations Cup this weekend.
Chelsea lost goalkeeper Petr Cech at half time of their weekend win at Everton and he will be sidelined again here with Ross Turnbull set to start. All eyes are usually on captain John Terry on these occasions but he has a knee injury that makes his participation doubtful.
Elsewhere: The majority of the New Year Premier League action took place earlier today and if you’re still of a mind that QPR could yet catch the teams above them and survive then the results will have given you some hope at least. Wigan were thrashed at home by Manchester United 4-0, Reading took an early lead at Spurs but eventually lost 3-1, and Southampton were pegged back at home by Arsenal to eventually draw 1-1. Villa stemmed the tide after their nightmare 15-0 Christmas but still shipped a late equaliser in a 2-2 draw with Swansea.
Higher up the league there were wins for Man City who beat Stoke 3-0, and West Ham who won 2-1 at home to Norwich. Fulham ended their recent run of poor results with a 2-1 success at high flying West Brom.
That leaves three fixtures for Wednesday evening with Newcastle’s home match against Everton live on Sky, Liverpool hosting Sunderland and of course QPR heading to Chelsea.
Referee: The good news just keeps on coming for QPR who will arrive at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday to find that the authorities have deemed now an appropriate time to return Lee Mason to Rangers games after a prolonged absence following last season’s debacle at Old Trafford. Mason, a supporter of Rangers’ close relegation rivals at the time Bolton Wanderers, awarded United a first half penalty and sent off Shaun Derry despite the player involved, Ashley Young, standing four yards offside when the ball was played to him and then collapsing under no contact whatsoever. Just to make things worse still, Harry Lennard is back on the line just two matches after he failed to award the R’s an obvious spot kick in the Boxing Day clash with West Brom because he said it was too dark for him to see. Joy. Full case file available here.
Chelsea: Rafael Benitez seems to be enjoying ramming words back down one or two throats around Stamford Bridge. Booed throughout his first match in charge as the Blues drew 0-0 with man City he then presided over another lifeless raw with Fulham and a poor 3-1 defeat to West Ham. Since then however Chelsea have won all five of their domestic fixtures, including difficult away games at Sunderland, Leeds and Everton, scoring 19 goals in the process. They haven’t been as imperious at Stamford Bridge this season as in previous years – Liverpool also left here with a draw – but only Man Utd have managed to win here in the league so far. Chelsea have won ten of the 11 league matches that Frank Lampard has started, and just one of the eight he hasn’t.
QPR: Rangers need to find at least nine wins from their remaining 18 games to survive. That means they’re going to have to start finding a way to arrest their outrageously bad away form. No wins in 23 road games now stretching back to November 2011, just three points from a possible 51. If that’s going to start on Wednesday it would be the first QPR win on this ground since the League Cup quarter final success of 1985/86 12 visits ago. West Brom in 2004/05 are the only team to escape relegation from the Premier League after sitting in last place at the turn of the year. Rangers lost 23 matches in 2012, and won just seven in the league, but are unbeaten so far in 2013.
Prediction: Prediction League champion Nathan McAllister says…
“I live 6000 miles away from Loftus Road (actually 5939 as the crow flies, although I doubt very much any crow has made such a trip) and so I rarely get to see Rangers play in the flesh. The last time I did happens to have been the home game with Chelsea earlier in the season. Apart from showing typical class in loudly booing Anton Ferdinand and cheering every touch made by John Terry and Ashley Cole, Chelsea fans spent most of the match gleefully boasting of their status as ‘Champions of Europe’, yet if the teams hadn’t been wearing their respective team kits it would have been hard to work out which had just won the Champions League and which was team was just one place off the bottom. I thought Rangers were excellent that day. The back four were solid and organized, Granero and Faurlin were getting the better of Chelsea’s expensively assembled midfield, and Zamora and Johnson (until he picked up his season ending injury) were linking really well up front. I left that game thinking that, on the evidence of what I’d just seen, there was no way Rangers would be ending the season with another terrifying scrap for survival on the last day.
“And it seems I was right, but not in the way I’d expected, because it now looks inevitable that Rangers’ relegation from the Premier League will be confirmed long before they visit Anfield on May 19. Rangers will have to average about 1.5 points a game over the remainder of the season to give themselves a chance, (roughly equivalent to the eighth best team in the Premier League) and judging by the most recent pathetic display the players have neither the ability or desire (many have one or the other it seems but very few have both) to get anywhere near that. Liverpool seemed happy to declare at 3-0, but ,as we saw when they played Villa recently, Chelsea are unlikely to be as merciful if QPR produce a display anywhere near as shambolic. I don’t expect Rangers to be quite as bad as they were on Sunday, but this is game still looks a complete and utter mismatch and I’m just hoping they keep the scoreline within the realms of respectability.
“Ah, well. Happy New Year everybody! And remember, it’s only a bloody game.”
Prediction: Chelsea 4 QPR 0
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