QPR begin 2011 sitting seven points clear at the top of the Championship, but start the new year at Norwich where a previous pursuit of this trophy was brutally wrecked by the Canaries.
Npower Championship >>> Saturday, January 1, 2011 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Carrow Road, Norwich
The omens have been stacking up in QPR’s favour this season ever since Pope Benedict touched down on these shores back in the summer ready to greet his fellow Catholics and dodge questions about paedophile priests. The last time a Pope came to Britain was at the start of the 1982/83 football season and by some strange quirk of religious fate that was the last time QPR were promoted from this division. Come back soon your holiness, don’t let those journalists asking awkward questions put you off.
Back then, when the Terry Venables revolution was in full swing in W12, this division was called, much more sensibly, the Second Division and it became the First Division when the Premiership formed in 1992, and then the Championship when Coca Cola stuck their filthy noses in back in 2004. The upshot of all these changes is that the trophy we are now playing for, unless Npower have done away with it as part of their sponsorship deal this season, is the silver jug that has always been handed to the title winners in the First Division. That means we are in with a chance of finally lifting a trophy that has eluded QPR throughout their 124 year history – which brings me somewhat cumbersomely onto this Saturday’s game at Norwich City.
Few QPR fans need, or want, a reminder that we have come close to lifting this trophy on only one previous occasion. In the 1975/76 season QPR had the best team in the country. It was a glorious mixture of skill, ability, experience and guile; Parkes, Clement, Gillard, Hollins, McLintock, Webb, Thomas, Francis, Masson, Bowles and Givens with an honourable mention for Mick Leach. Rangers only used 17 players in the entire season but Jesus Christ they were good players. Awesome in fact.
It hasn’t escaped many people’s attention that our final game of that season, just as it is this, was against Leeds at Loftus Road. Rangers needed to win to keep their hopes of the title alive, and duly did so with goals from Bowles and Thomas sealing a 2-0 win in front of 31,002 in Shepherds Bush. Sadly, as we all know, Liverpool played Wolves in a game in hand some ten days later and scored three times in the final 15 minutes to snatch our title away from us. They just slung it with all the others and quickly forgot about it, QPR have never been anywhere close to matching those achievements since.
It’s not really the Leeds game, or the Liverpool Wolves match, that everybody remembers though – it’s the only blot on the QPR copy book in the entire second half of that season, the defeat that cost them the title. On January 31, 1976 QPR won 2-0 at Aston Villa with goals from John Hollins and Gerry Francis. Then they beat Wolves 4-2, and Tottenham 3-0, and Ipswich 3-1 and so it went on.
The R’s actually won 13 of their final 15 matches, drawing one of the other two. The remaining game was the fixture we face this New Year’s Day – Norwich away. Three matches from the end of the season Rangers went to Carrow Road leading the league by a point and knowing that three wins would seal them the league title – with two of the remaining games at home the R’s had one hand on the trophy. Norwich won 3-2, handing the championship to Liverpool, and revelled in it rather more than they probably should have done. It was as close to a genuine tragedy as football ever gets.
QPR, seven points clear this time but still some distance from the finish line, can exorcise a few Carrow Road ghosts this Saturday. How ironic that we face this fixture this week, three days after Wolves actually beat Liverpool in the top flight – a similar reversal of history in East Anglia would go down very nicely indeed.
The Story So Far: It has been a superb season back in the Championship so far for Norwich City. For once I am on solid ground when I say that it was always going to be the case that the promoted sides from League One did well this season – because tipping Leeds and Norwich for promotion pushes this year was just about the only pre-season prediction I got right when writing the LFW preview.
The reasons for this prediction, and the way things have turned out so far, are very similar for both clubs. Both Leeds and Norwich have excellent managers in Simon Grayson and Paul Lambert. Grayson proved himself at Blackpool previously while Lambert is enjoying his first run of continuous success with Norwich after a managerial career that has spluttered through three clubs with moments of huge triumph, mostly in the cup competitions with Wycombe, inter-mingled with disappointment in the league. He has proved to be an inspired appointment by Norwich and may yet secure a second consecutive promotion for them this year.
They’re also both decent sized clubs with big support and they both came into this league with decent teams still in place and the momentum and confidence that promotions inevitably bring. Usually there is a reality check ten games or so into the season at the new level but the Championship is a mediocre league at best this season with none of the three relegated Premiership sides posing any kind of a threat so far so it was always likely to be wide open for a team such as Norwich or Leeds to make a mark.
League One is certainly not the footballing equivalent of a day at the beach. It’s a dirty, grimy sort of a league where teams who knocked around in non-league circles on little more than park pitches suddenly find themselves thrust into action against top flight mainstays who have fallen on hard times. Southampton, Norwich, Oldham, Leeds, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield Wednesday, QPR – founder members of the Premier League each one of them - have all suddenly found themselves plunged into a level of hell they had previously read about only in books. Did Dante ever visit Layer Road in Colchester? I very much doubt it. Even he would have struggled to comprehend the horror. Having negotiated that successfully last season the Canaries set about the Championship starting in August.
Having tipped Lambert’s men for the play offs prior to the big kick off, and Watford for one of the three relegation spots, I was somewhat alarmed to see the Hornets storm to a deserved 3-2 win at Carrow Road live on Sky on the first night of the season. Norwich rely a great deal on Grant Holt, who bagged 30 goals in League One last season, and this opening day defeat had me re-assessing somewhat. Holt is built like a barman rather than a footballer and had never succeeded in this division prior to the start of this season. If he was going to be found out as a lower league journeyman maybe hopes of a promotion for Norwich this season would turn out to be hugely over optimistic.
Holt, and Norwich, have since settled down. They were up into the play off positions by the time they came to Loftus Road in October and became the first team to give QPR a real game in W12 this season. Rangers’ unbeaten start to the season stretching across ten games was seriously threatened that afternoon, and would have been smashed had Wes Hoolahan converted a first half penalty after Holt had collapsed under challenge from Matt Connolly.
City have been good on their travels – five wins and four draws is just one point less than we have managed ourselves. They’ve won at Preston, Scunthorpe, Bristol City, Derby and Coventry which, if you’re being unkind, you might say are not the most taxing away games a side could possibly face but winning away from home is always a big ask.
Earlier this season they approached their game with QPR on a run of four wins from six games and they are in similar touch as we prepare to meet again – four wins from five, one defeat from nine, and nicely positioned in fifth.
They can always rely on tremendous support at Carrow Road, even with their extortionate ticket prices, and have already begun adding to their squad ahead of the January transfer window, although admittedly the signing of Aaron Wilbraham from MK Dons strikes me as a strange move – more on him in a moment.
If I may chance my arm by making a second prediction for Norwich this season I think they will make the play offs but find themselves out thought at the semi final stage by one of the sides currently knocking around up there who have been in this division a little bit longer and are perhaps a bit more streetwise. If it turns out that they are still in the Championship next season, I wouldn’t mind having a tenner of my money on them taking one of the two automatic spots in 2012.
Manager: Whenever pundits use their privileged position to criticise boards for making early managerial changes, which of course often involve their pals getting the boot, the example of Paul Lambert should be rammed down their throats. Bryan Gunn may have been a Norwich legend but the Carrow Road board decided swiftly after a 7-1 defeat in the opening match of last season that a change should be made, and the man that inflicted that massacre with his Colchester United team might actually look quite good in a yellow tracksuit. Colchester were furious, but there was nothing they could do about it.
You’ll never find anybody in football with a bad word to say about Bryan Gunn. Northern the Elder used to tell me a story every so often about the QPR fans standing to a man in the away end at Carrow Road and applauding Gunn out onto the field of play for his first match after his daughter had died of leukaemia. Something QPR hating journalist and Norwich fan Mick Dennis neglects to mention when he whinges on about not being able to get a fucking cup of tea at Loftus Road on a cold day.
Ironically losing 7-1 at home on the opening day has turned out to be one of the best things that has ever happened to Norwich. Gunn’s plans for a season of consolidation were immediately torn up by Lambert who immediately set about promoting the Canaries as impressive 95 point champions. Had Norwich lost that game 2-1 or 1-0 Gunn may have stayed – they won their next game 4-0 at Yeovil with him still in charge after all. Had he done so I very much doubt we’d be facing Norwich at all this season, never mind meeting them in a top of the table clash with both sides now possessing genuine hopes of a return to the top flight for next season.
Paul Lambert should be a good manager. He’s Scottish (like all good managers and awful footballers are), he’s won everything there is to win in the game as a player including the European Cup, he’s played both at home and abroad and he has educated himself as a boss by starting at the bottom with the likes of Wycombe and Livingston. If you had to draw a managerial career blueprint his would be absolutely ideal to this point.
As a player Lambert was a strong, combative and yet classy central midfielder who won the European Cup with Dortmund after emerging through the ranks at St Mirren and making his name with Motherwell. He left Fir Park in 1996 and by the time he returned 12 months and the biggest prize in the club game later he was so vastly superior to anything else the SPL had to offer it was almost embarrassing. Lambert helped to turn around nine years of Rangers dominance north of the border and re-assert Celtic as the top dogs with Martin O’Neil’s hand on the tiller. He reached the UEFA Cup final with Celtic too – no mean feat considering the day to day fixtures for Celtic bring them up against the likes of Bob Malcolm and Michael Duberry and their European run pitted them against Boavista, Stuttgart and Liverpool when Liverpool weren’t such a shambolic laughing stock.
That glittering club career seemed to weigh a little heavy on his shoulders when he moved into management. He won just twice as Livingston manager between August and February in his first season and resigned. Then at Wycombe he twice rebuilt the side, and went on a couple of memorable cup runs that saw them reach the semi final of the League Cup against Chelsea in 2007, but he couldn’t get them out of League One and the frustration of that saw him resign after a failed play off attempt in 2008. During his time there he used our old wild child Tommy Doherty in the same midfield role he himself used to perform in.
His next job was at Colchester in League One – another club that stuck with a manager after relegation only to then sack him a couple of months into the season which is always a sure fire path to failure. Lambert steadied the ship after Geraint Williams had left, and seemed to have built a side capable of winning promotion back to the Championship last year as Norwich found out to their cost on day one. His appointment at Carrow Road has seen the club rescued from the precipice and has really seen him cement his reputation as a manager.
Three to Watch: With nine goals scored, seven assists made and a league leading 53 fouls committed Grant Holt is the man to watch in every possible way at Carrow Road this Saturday. At Loftus Road earlier this season he crawled all over over Kaspars Gorkss and Matthew Connolly who barely hung onto his coat tails – in fact when Connolly literally did that the giant striker hit the deck in laughably theatrical style to win a harsh penalty which Hoolahan then stuck past the post.
Few players we will face this season have improved their game since coming onto the scene as much as Holt has done. He’s built like a lower league target man, with a mop of unkempt hair and a pair of shorts with the Neil Ruddock patented expandable waist band, and that’s where he made his name – throwing his ample weight around on the muddy fields of Workington, Halifax, Barrow and, after a brief and unsuccessful spell with Sheffield Wednesday, Rochdale.
Big, northern, angry, aggressive, agricultural – unpleasant basically. Like Geoff Horsfield, only uglier. The kind of player that bullies kids finding out what football is really about in non-league and makes veterans who have dropped down that far for the love of the game wish they’d retired years ago. And that’s where I always thought he’d stay. He scored 20 goals in his time with Nottingham Forest after a £300,000 move but that was in the division below this one and the Reds allowed him to join lowly Shrewsbury for half the money they bought him for in 2008. Unsurprisingly, back in League Two, goals started to flow again. Holt crawled, barged and battered his way to a 28 goal campaign in 2008/09 and although Shrewsbury lost in the play offs that year he was promoted anyway with League One Norwich taking a risk.
Holt was the outstanding name in League One last season – 30 goals a staggering total for a player who had previously looked like any other big lump you might find knocking around in the attack of any other Conference side. The big test was whether he could do it at this level and so far the stats are stacking up in his favour – he has a staggering 41 goals in 67 appearances since moving to Carrow Road and defenders find him almost impossible to deal with mainly because on the rare occasions they do manage to win the arm wrestle with him Holt will hit the ground like a man a quarter of his weight and win soft free kicks and penalties.
While Sheffield United were left complaining about Holt’s cynical manipulation of the rules of the game at the weekend, the actual slaying was mostly done by former QPR transfer target Wes Hoolahan. He, along with Kaspars Gorkss, had been part of a big Blackpool success story in 2007/08 and really caught the eye. Clauses in both players’ contracts allowing cheap departures brought several clubs to the table and while QPR made a right pig’s ear of the Gorkss deal (smoothing over an illegal approach by sending some players in part exchange) Norwich got the Hoolahan transfer done reasonably quickly and it was seen as something of a coup at the time. Not so. Hoolahan, like everybody at Norwich that season, was dreadful. From making the Republic of Ireland squad at the start of the campaign he found himself in and out of a team heading for League One.
His reputation rebuilt in League One Hoolahan has a point to prove this season, and has more pressure on his shoulders with another eye catching midfielder Andrew Surman on the long term sick list. Hoolahan scored a hat trick against the Blades earlier this week to take him to eight goals for the season.
Norwich have already entered the transfer market ahead of the January sales, although perhaps not where you would expect them to do so. Aaron Wilbraham has been loaned from MK Dons ahead of a permanent move and that one seems very strange indeed to me. Wilbraham has three goals in League One this season and scored 12 last term. He has 98 goals in his career from the thick end of 400 appearances but they have come almost exclusively in the lower divisions and his sudden elevation into a team contesting promotion from this division came quite out of the blue at the age of 31. That said, he did score twice in this division against QPR for Stockport in the 2000/01 season – admittedly against a defence comprising Matthew Rose, Steve Morrow, Karl Ready and Ian Barraclough.
Links >>> Norwich Official Website >>> Norwich Message Board >>> Travel Guide
Recent Meetings: Wes Hoolahan’s first half penalty miss was the headline of a goalless draw between these two sides at Loftus Road earlier this season. The Irishman drilled a spot kick wide of Paddy Kenny’s left hand post midway through the first half after a theatrical fall by striker Grant Holt under meagre contact from Matt Connolly in the penalty area – topical, considering a similar incident in the Canary’s weekend win against Sheffield United. In truth both teams seemed happy with a point from pretty early in the second half and a goalless draw was a fair result from a drab fixture.
QPR: Kenny 7, Walker 8, Connolly 8, Gorkss 8, Hill 7, Derry 6, Buzsaky 7 (Leigertwood 27, 4), Mackie 6, Taarabt 6 (Smith 76), Ephraim 5 (Agyemang 69, 5), Helguson 6
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Orr, Clarke, Faurlin
Booked: Derry (dissent), Mackie (foul)
Norwich: Ruddy 7, R Martin 7, Barnett 6, Ward 7, Drury 6 (Steven Smith 58, 6), Crofts 7, Hoolahan 5 (C Martin 69, 6), Smith 6, Lappin 6, Holt 7, Jackson 5
Subs Not Used: Rudd, Fox, Johnson, McNamee, Berthel Askou
Booked: Ward (foul), Barnett (impeding throw in), Lappin (foul)
Our last trip to Carrow Road was the season before last when a backs to the wall effort by Iain Dowie’s men secured a memorable victory. Rangers continued their assault on the top of the table with a fine 1-0 win. Things did not start well when Matt Connolly was sent off in the first half for two bookings – the first one was harsh, the second could have been a red on its own. Despite the numerical disadvantage Rangers went in at half time in front thanks to Martin Rowlands’ thrice taken free kick. On the first two occasions and Norwich player rushed out of the wall to block the ball despite it being a direct free kick and the QPR captain was therefore given a second and third chance to find the back of the net which he duly did. It could have been so much better had Ledesma and Blackstock finished gilt edged chances before halftime. The second half was inevitably a backs to the wall effort but Kaspars Gorkss really ‘arrived’ as a QPR player and only a very late header from Antoine Sibierski really had Rangers fans worried.
Norwich: Marshall 6, Omozusi 6, Kennedy 5 (Grounds 62, 6), Stefanovic 5, Pattison 7, Fotheringham 7, Russell 6, Bertrand 7, Hoolahan 6 (Cureton 66, 5), Sibierski 7, Lupoli 6 (Croft 46, 6)
Subs Not Used: Nelson, Koroma
Booked: Fotheringham (encroaching at a free kick), Lupoli (nobody seemed quite sure)
QPR: Cerny 7, Ramage 7, Stewart 9, Connolly 5, Delaney 8, Rowlands 8, Mahon 8, Leigertwood 8, Cook 5 (Gorkss 30, 9), Blackstock 7 (Agyemang 77, 7), Ledesma 7 (Buzsaky 82, -)
Subs Not Used: Camp, Parejo
Sent Off: Connolly (two bookings)
Booked: Connolly (foul), Connolly (foul), Blackstock (repetitive fouling)
Goals: Rowlands 33 (unassisted)
Head to Head: >>> Norwich wins 42 >>> Draws 32 >>> QPR wins 38
Previous Results:
2008/09 QPR 0 Norwich 1
2008/09 Norwich 0 QPR 1 (Rowlands)
2007/08 Norwich 3 QPR 0
2007/08 QPR 1 Norwich 0 (Rowlands)
2006/07 Norwich 1 QPR 0
2006/07 QPR 3 Norwich 3 (Rowlands 2, Smith)
2005/06 Norwich 3 QPR 2 (Ainsworth, Cook)
2005/06 QPR 3 Norwich 0 (Furlong, Santos, Nygaard)
2000/01 Norwich 1 QPR 0
2000/01 QPR 2 Norwich 3 (Carlisle, Wardley)
1999/00 QPR 2 Norwich 2 (Kiwomya 2)
1999/00 Norwich 2 QPR 1 (Wardley)
1998/99 QPR 2 Norwich 0 (Murray, Peacock)
1998/99 Norwich 4 QPR 2 (Sheron, Peacock)
1997/98 Norwich 0 QPR 0
1997/98 QPR 1 Norwich 1 (Peacock)
1996/97 QPR 3 Norwich 2 (Peacock, Dichio, McDermott)
1996/97 Norwich 1 QPR 1 (Impey)
1994/95 QPR 2 Norwich 0 (Ferdinand, Gallen)
1994/95 Norwich 4 QPR 2 (Barker, Gallen)
1993/94 Norwich 3 QPR 4 (Barker, Penrice, Peacock, White)
1993/94 QPR 2 Norwich 2 (Sinclair, Ferdinand)
1992/93 QPR 3 Norwich 1 (Ferdinand 2, Wilson)
1992/93 Norwich 2 QPR 1 (Allen)
1991/92 Norwich 0 QPR 1 (Bailey)
1991/92 QPR 0 Norwich 2
1990/91 Norwich 1 QPR 0
1990/91 QPR 1 Norwich 3 (Wegerle)
1989/90 QPR 2 Norwich 1 (Falco, Clarke)
1989/90 Norwich 0 QPR 0
Played for Both Clubs: Jamie Cureton
Norwich 1993-96 >>> 2007-2010 >>> QPR 2004-05
Although born a West Country boy of Bristol, Cureton actually started his footballing career over in the east county with Norwich City. He made his debut for the Canaries in their last Premier League season before relegation and scored an impressive eight goals in just 17 games for City. However Cureton struggled to get into the team the following season and despite becoming a cult-hero at Carrow Road for dying his hair green and yellow for a match against rivals Ipswich in 1996, Cureton moved onto Second Division Bristol Rovers under manager Ian Holloway. It was at The Memorial Stadium that Cureton really showed his goal-scoring prowess, twice scoring more than twenty goals in one season to finish as Rovers top scorer.
A move to promotion hopefuls Reading followed and he continued his goal-scoring feats with the Royals and helped them gain promotion to the First Division in 2002. A year later though Cureton decided to try his luck abroad and signed for South Korean club Buscan Icons, turning down a summer move to Loftus Road in the process. The gamble never really paid off for Jamie though and a year on with just four goals to his name in Asia, Cureton decided to come back to England. It look as though it would be with Peterborough until former gaffer Ian Holloway got his man at the second attempt with the help of the ‘Our QPR’ fund. This was somewhat controversial at the time as the fund had initially been started to pay bills and keep the threat of administration away from a potentially promotion winning QPR side – chief executive David Davies had said earlier in the season that players may have to be sold to meet costs. QPR had also bought Tony Thorpe after being rejected by Cureton that summer so the move was a strange one all round. He struggled to get into the side that won promotion back to the Championship that season with a last day win over Sheffield Wednesday, but did contribute two vital goals, including one with the last kick of the game, to a 3-2 win against Port Vale at Loftus Road without which Bristol City would have beaten us to second place.
The goals never quite came for him, mainly due to Holloway repeatedly playing him out of a position on the right-wing to accommodate Tony Thorpe along with Kevin Gallen and Paul Furlong. His only goals in the Championship the following season strangely came against Coventry, with a memorable hat-trick that included a Van Basten like volley at Loftus Road and another at Highfield Road but he soon found himself surplus to requirement and was farmed out first on loan to Swindon then Colchester before landing a permanent moved to Layer Road in 2006. It was here he rediscovered his shooting boots winning the Championship Golden Boot award with 24 in the 2006/07 season and securing a move back to his first club Norwich City.
Cureton has been very hit and miss for his entire career – enjoying great spells with Bristol Rovers and Reading, and poor ones with QPR and then Norwich second time around. Cureton managed just 48 starts, and a further 28 substitute appearances across three years in his second spell with the club – a time that saw Norwich quickly rattle through four managers and sink down into League One. He spent time on loan with Barnsley and then Shrewsbury looking for first team football before joining Exeter City this summer at the end of his contract and he has scored ten goals in League One so far this season, including two in a 5-1 rout of Sheff Wed last time out.
Links >>> QPR 0 Norwich 0 Match Report >>> QPR 0 Norwich 1 Match Report >>> Norwich 0 QPR 1 Match Report >>> Connections and Memories
Team News: Shaun Derry told Talksport this week that his legs felt like concrete during the win at Coventry just two days after the 4-0 thrashing of Swansea. Neil Warnock resisted the temptation to rotate his squad for that game but with Bristol City to come at home on Monday may look to one or two fringe players in this game. Clint Hill successfully appealed his red card against Swansea and is available for this match. Lee Cook, Akos Buzsaky and Peter Ramage are long term absentees.
Norwich are facing a bit of a selection headache ahead of this game. Defender Elliott Ward and loaned Arsenal midfielder Henri Lansbury will both sit out again having also missed the win against Sheffield United, and they have been joined on the treatment table by Simon Lappin who was booked for the fifth time this season against the Blades and is consequently banned. Leon Barnett is also banned, his one game suspension for two yellow cards extended for throwing the ball at the referee on his way off. Paul Lambert has strengthened his squad today with the signing of striker Aaron Wilbraham on loan from MK Dons and he goes straight into the squad for this match.
Elsewhere: A full programme of Championship action with a couple of early kick offs and an evening televised game thrown into the bargain. The all Yorkshire affair between Leeds and Middlesbrough at Elland Road is at 1pm, followed swiftly by a South London tear up between Millwall and Palace at The Den. Cardiff’s trip to Bristol City with Stuart Attwell in charge is probably the pick of the 3pm games apart from our own, Swansea in third host Reading in sixth with the Royals in excellent form at the moment. Preston play for the first time since Darren Ferguson was sacked, and his father Alex childishly withdrew his three loan players from Deepdale as a result, with a home fixture against a Derby side that similarly cannot buy a win at the moment. Sheffield United start life with Mickey Adams at Burnley who sacked Brian Laws this week – Paul Hart and Phil Brown are loitering, a fearsome prospect for fans of clubs currently without a boss.
Referee: Jon Moss is the man in the middle for this game – an excellent referee but one with whom QPR have a terrible record. The R’s have lost three of the four games he has refereed us in but his calm, unfussy attitude to officiating has won him high marks on LFW in the past. We must hope for no repeat of his last trip to this part of the world though – Norwich won 5-2 against Wycombe in League One the last time he refereed on this ground. More details here.
Norwich: The Canaries have won four of their last five matches and have lost only one of their last nine – they also benefitted from an extra day’s rest over Christmas when their Boxing Day match at Crystal Palace was a victim of the weather. They certainly haven’t been infallible at home this season with four defeats to their name so far, three of them coming against teams that you wouldn’t think would come here and win – Hull, Palace and Portsmouth. Watford won here on the opening night, and Leeds and Burnley got draws. City have scored 23 times at home, only three teams have done better, but they have also shipped 19 which, apart from Leeds, is the worst home defensive record in the top 20. Grant Holt has committed more fouls, 53, than any other player in the league this season.
QPR: We’re all well aware of the QPR stats by now – more goals scored at home than anybody else (26), less goals conceded than anybody else (14), fewest number of defeats (two), best away record (20 points from 11 games), most points (47) and so on. However the R’s recent form has been forming into neat pairs of results – two draws, followed by two wins, then two defeats, then two wins. I suppose if that pattern was to continue then we’re in for two draws this weekend but anyway. Adel Taarabt’s two goals against Swansea puts him clear as our top scorer with 11, third highest in the league, and another assist at Coventry puts him clear as the league leader with nine. Only Derby’s Kris Commons (44 on target, 37 off, five off the woodwork) has had more shots on goal than Adel’s 50 on, 29 off, and one off the frame of the goal.
Prediction: A draw. Norwich are in good form but have players out, QPR have looked in determined mood over the past two games and in a keenly contested game, which I expect to be a whole lot more attractive than the debacle at Coventry on Tuesday, I think it will be honours even. With Grant Holt and Adel Taarabt on the field it will need an eagle eyed referee not easily swayed by the inevitable numerous attempts to con him into giving free kicks and penalties.
Half time draw, full time draw, 9/2 with Stan James