A last minute own goal from Newcastle’s Ciaran Clark got QPR a 2-2 draw at St James’ Park on Wednesday night — some small form of redemption following the 6-0 at Loftus Road in September.
On a night when QPR stood toe to toe with a team that had previously wiped the floor with them, and won a richly deserved point, perhaps the greatest oddity of all was just what on earth that nonsense on Saturday was all about.
The pathetic display and desperately poor result against Burton Albion at Loftus Road at the weekend had punctured optimism and derailed progress made through January by Ian Holloway’s new look Rangers side. It didn’t exactly bode well for the longest away trip of the season, up to Tyneside on Wednesday evening to face second-placed title favourites Newcastle United who had won 6-0 when the teams last met just over four months ago in West London.
A theme of that chastening experience was the time, space and freedom awarded to the Magpies’ creative and yet combustible central midfielder Jonjo Shelvey, who was allowed to pretty much do as he pleased and calmly led his side through a flawless display which ended in QPR’s record home defeat in the league. When the former Swansea and Liverpool man was again afforded acres of real estate on the edge of the QPR box to lash in a loose defensive header and open the scoring after just 42 seconds in this return fixture, you’d have forgiven the travelling Rangers faithful for fearing the worst.
And yet despite the difference in resources between the clubs, despite the obvious gulf in class between the teams, despite what had happened in Shepherd’s Bush when they last met, despite the early Shelvey goal and despite QPR’s shambolic efforts against Burton on Saturday… Ian Holloway’s team bounced back up off the canvass, were much the better of the two sides for the next 59 minutes at least and richly deserved the point they won from a 2-2 draw.
There was a huge slice of luck involved along the way. Trailing with stoppage time approaching, and struggling to threaten Karl Darlow’s goal after all three substitutions had made the team progressively worse (not the first time we’ve said that recently), it looked like Rangers would be forced to claim only a moral victory from a 2-1 defeat. Kazenga Lua Lua, one of those introduced from the bench, again looking leggy and off the pace after several months with little first team action at Brighton, slung in a hopeful cross which missed both his team mates in the penalty area.
Newcastle’s back line was faced with two options: Darlow could have called and come to claim the ball unchallenged at chest height; or centre back Ciaran Clark could have headed the ball away back down the field. I guess we’ll never know if Darlow came without calling, or came and called too late, or was simply ignored by Clark; whether Clark was still suffering the after effects of cracking his head together with Jamie Mackie’s in the first half, if he lost his bearings, if he lost the ball in the lights, if he got caught in two minds. It was one of those extraordinary moments that will write the Irish international defender’s name firmly on the role of honour at the Jamie Pollock and Richard Keogh Hall of Fame. You couldn’t explain it in truth, other than to say that Clark has spent a substantial portion of his career to this point playing for Aston Villa, and they tend to do things like this quite a bit down there.
Clark rose, met the ball as it arrived, flicked it over the stranded Darlow, and collapsed to his knees as it bounced over the line and into the net underneath a raucous 610 QPR fans who’d gone to the other end of the country in the depths of winter on a Wednesday night to watch a game they could have seen on the television at home and were certainly in the mood to make their voices heard. It. Went. Off.
There was still a save for the increasingly excellent Alex Smithies to improvise in the added time — and he’s perhaps fortunate that substitute Sammy Ameobi smashed the rebound wide after his unorthodox fisted save — but it would have to be a particularly one-eyed Geordie to say that QPR didn’t deserve something from this game. It was, apart from that first 42 seconds, as if the Burton Albion game, and indeed the first meeting between these two sides this season, had never happened.
The way Rangers, resplendent in their knocked off Huddersfield Giants third strip, were able to hold their nerve and chin after the start they made was admirable. Even a month ago we were talking about how the first goal for the opposition generally meant we’d lost — Ipswich away, against a very poor side, a prime example of a minor setback quickly turning into a 3-0 drubbing with Rangers simply throwing the towel in. Already this team seems to have a bit more about it, Saturday not withstanding, and continued to calmly execute a clever gameplan despite being a goal down, and despite Grant Hall (a key figure in this new set up) missing the game through injury. James Perch went into the holding midfield/auxiliary centre back role against his former club and, as so often happens when the utility back moves positions, turned in a far better display than he ever has in QPR colours at right back. With Ryan Manning restored to the midfield to his left having a wow of a first half, and Massimo Luongo recovering from a performance against Burton which was akin to an amateur player winning a place in the team in a competition on the back of a packet of Shredded Wheat, Rangers controlled the ball well.
An injury to Idrissa Sylla meant Conor Washington had to plough the lone furrow through the middle — not something that has ever worked well before. But with Pawel Wszolek, newly signed on a permanent basis, and Jamie Mackie, restored to the starting line up, in tireless mood either side of him Washington turned in perhaps his best game for the club. Gone was the aimless hoof ball to a lone striker we’d seen at the weekend, and in its place came a considered passing game with Rangers able to move the ball down the field in a progressive manner, working triangles around Newcastle players. Unlike the impressive display and result at high flying Reading, here QPR had 50% of the ball. Without it, Manning, Luongo and Perch all did a fine job of suffocating Shelvey’s impact. There was a real method to the Londoners’ play, and it was decent to watch as well.
The question was, would there be a goal to show for it? Luongo curled one shot wide, saw another that looked destined for the top corner blocked away, and had a firm downward header saved by Darlow as his long wait for a first QPR goal continues. A great ball by Manning to free Wszolek began a move that ended with Jamie Mackie delaying his shot for too long. Perch was booked for a cynical/tactical foul but Rangers were soon heading forwards again. A corner from Manning late in the half was half cleared, volleyed back towards goal by Jake Bidwell and then immaculately controlled and poked in from point blank range by Conor Washington. Two in two for him now, the first time he’s scored in consecutive games since goals for Peterborough against Sheff Utd and Preston in January last year.
The second half, predictably, wasn’t as plain sailing as the first had been, although it could have been a very different story had Pawel Wszolek’s powerful first time shot after Paul Dummett’s horrendous mistake in his own area gone through Darlow and in rather than being bounced back into play off the young keeper’s legs.
Dummett’s mistake was fairly typical. The unique position of the away end/Cloudbase 9 at St James’ Park 32 storeys up in the air makes it hard to gauge the atmosphere pitchside, and indeed pick out one player from another — Jamie Mackie’s bandage after the clash with Clark (Mackie back on his feet after 20 seconds, Clark off the field for four minutes) helped but it is still like watching the bloke three doors down play Sensible Soccer on a portable television. That said, it felt quiet, and while St James’ and the mammoth attendances they get relative to the level — in excess of 47,000 here for this, actually the lowest home crowd they’ve had in the league this season — can be a weapon to intimidate second tier sides with, it can also be a hindrance to the home team. Expectations are understandably high and there was a real air of "go on then, entertain us” around the place. Sideways, never mind backwards, passes brought audible groans and moans from the home crowd. Having sensibly signed players with Championship experience and know-how - albeit at some considerable expense - Newcastle have also by default brought in players for whom this size of stadium, crowd, club and expectation will be a new thing, and it looked to be weighing heavy on one or two.
It’s a point to consider ourselves as well — Loftus Road’s atmosphere and close proximity to the pitch is supposed to be an advantage to us but has too often been used as a weapon against our own players in recent times. Rangers, never particularly good travellers, now have 18 points away from home this season as opposed to just 16 in West London.
Even when Matt Ritchie restored the Newcastle lead, rather out of the blue and against the run of play with a flying jump that rather bullied Darnell Furlong out of the situation a bit too easily and a bullet header into the far top corner, the noise quickly died away again.
That did look like being enough to win the game though. QPR were indebted to goalkeeper Alex Smithies for keeping them in it after that — a one on one save from Ayoze Perez who had half a field of space to work with after being slipped in behind the offside trap was a particular let off. Smithies made an even better save to deny Gouffran from close range, and leapt up to punch the rebound away during the ensuing scramble.
QPR, as they’ve tended to do recently, got worse for every sub they made. Manning had tired, but after just five senior appearances he’s already integral to the way the team plays and, as on Saturday, Rangers weren’t even half as good once he’d gone off — Luke Freeman seemed an odd choice for that deeper lying role and he had a tough debut. Lua Lua then replaced Mackie but he, again, often held onto the ball for too long and try to do too much. Sean Goss, making a first ever appearance in senior football, looked a little nervy and unsure of himself. With this, Shelvey's influence grew and he started pinging passes around, including his favourite curler into the right channel which he executes perfectly nine times out of ten.
Shelvey’s petulant kick out at Mackie before he was subbed could have brought more punishment from referee Tim Robinson, as could Joel Lynch’s apparently deliberate trample of Ameobi out by the corner flag which roused the Geordies briefly. That suggested Newcastle were frustrated but, in truth, QPR’s goal threat had dissipated and although the best travelling support (volume wise) the club has enjoyed for some time kept the singing going, hope appeared to be running out until Clark intervened.
Last minute comedy own goals are hard to beat. It just remains to be seen exactly which QPR team turns up for an eminently more winnable fixture at Blackburn on Saturday. Play like this and they’ll do just that. But, then, if they’d played like this against Burton…
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Newcastle: Darlow 7; Yedlin 6, Lascelles 6, Clark 5, Dummett 5; Hayden 6, Shelvey 7; Gouffran 6, Perez 5 (Diame 86, -), Ritchie 7; Murphy 6 (Ameobi 66, 6)
Subs not used: Hanley, Lazaar, Gamez, Sels, Mitrovic
Goals: Shelvey 1 (Unassisted), Ritchie 54 (assisted Hayden)
Bookings: Ritchie 89 (foul)
QPR: Smithies 8; Furlong 6 (Goss 81, -), Onuoha 7, Lynch 7, Bidwell 7; Luongo 7, Perch 7, Manning 8 (Freeman 66, 5); Wszolek 7, Washington 8, Mackie 7 (Lua Lua 74, 5)
Subs not used: Cousins, Ingram, Doughty, Petrasso
Goals: Washington 44 (assisted Bidwell) Clark own goal 89 (assisted Lua Lua)
Bookings: Perch 44 (foul)
QPR Star Man — Conor Washington 8 I was going to give this to Manning, who I thought was superb in the first half and the team suffered when he went off in the second. Smithies got the TV nod, but that implies that QPR were battered and grateful to their goalkeeper, which wasn’t really the case. In the end Washington’s fine touch for a crucial goal and excellent leading of the line all evening shades it for him.
Referee — Tim Robinson (West Sussex) 6 Nowhere near as annoying as he was in our home match with Wolves, but still not great. Missed both Shelvey’s kick out at Mackie, and Lynch’s stamp on Ameobi. Seemed to lose the plot rather in the last ten minutes, with fouls awarded for very little and other obvious bad tackles waved on.
Attendance — 47,907 (610 QPR) Home atmosphere already discussed. The QPR fans, for whatever reason, were in better voice and more supportive mood than they have been for many months. Really great away following to be a part of last night, entertaining and consistently behind the team despite a couple of set backs along the way.
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Pictures — Action Images