Champions Manchester City needed two goals from Sergio Aguero to salvage a 2-2 draw against a rampaging Queens Park Rangers side led magnificently by strikers Bobby Zamora and Charlie Austin.
It remains to be seen if the adversity and bad luck currently afflicting Queens Park Rangers is a harbinger of doom, or whether the Hoops’ ability to plough on straight through it regardless will eventually be rewarded under the old football adage of ‘what comes around goes around’.
You’d forgive Rangers for raising their collective arms to the heavens and giving up with a resigned sigh — and anybody unfortunate enough to be in the away end for their gutless 2-0 defeat at West Ham a month ago would expect nothing more of them. To dominate against a Liverpool side that, last season at least, was among the most threatening and exciting in the country only to lose 3-2 to two own goals, and goals scored in the ninetieth and ninety fifth minutes, was disheartening. To then go to this year’s inevitable champions Chelsea and match them blow for blow only to be beaten by a controversial late penalty intensely annoying. And then there was Saturday night’s humdinger with Manchester City at Loftus Road…
City are champions, with a squad they’ve lavished a billion pounds on in transfer fees and wages, but have looked mentally fragile of late. Yaya Toure, a colossus in their title winning season, has suffered a crisis of form, confidence and thought process and dragged a team robbed of its other midfield shining light — David Silva — through injury down with him. A farcical, ill-disciplined showing against CSKA Moscow in the Champions League in midweek saw a flood of money for second-bottom QPR before kick-off — their odds dropped from nines to fives between Wednesday night and Saturday morning.
Loftus Road was not where Manuel Pellegrini’s side wanted to be: the night black as pitch, the rain coming down in sheets, a lime green playing surface slicker than ice, and 18,000 people crammed into Rangers’ unique little stadium scenting blood. Fireworks from distant bonfire events peeped over the top of the stands and the old girl crackled and fizzed like only she can.
City’s Chilean boss has been there, seen it and done it, so a Saturday night in Shepherd’s Bush shouldn’t hold much fear for him, and yet he got his selection entirely wrong. This was a night for James Milner and Frank Lampard at the heart of the midfield. Without pandering to lazy stereotypes and the old cliché about wet nights in English football’s outposts this was not a night to be relying on Fernandinho and Fernando. Pellegrini did anyway and it played right into QPR’s hands.
Rangers’ recent results and league position suggests a poor team bang in trouble, but their performances have improved markedly of late and they set about City with lust and hunger. Without Vincent Kompany at the heart of the defence, City paired accident-prone duo Martin Demichelis and Eliaquim Mangala - £37m-worth of centre half if you believe the tags in the shop and yet clearly out of their depth against a budget pairing of Charlie Austin and Bobby Zamora from the very first whistle. Harry Redknapp and his coaches have discovered an effective way for this collection of players to go about their work and it fairly annihilated City for long periods of this match.
After Dunne had blocked the first shot of the game from Samir Nasri, Rangers settled to their task and Austin had the ball in the net after seven minutes. QPR flowing freely down the right, Gael Clichy hopelessly exposed, Eduardo Vargas crossing at full gallop for the former brick layer to plant a firm header beyond Joe Hart. An offside flag ruled the goal out. Rattled, Hart made a mess of the resulting free kick, accidentally treading on the ball with his left foot as he went to clear it with his right and sending the ball straight back to Austin on the edge of the area who lashed it back past the stricken keeper and into the bottom corner. Referee Mike Dean, on advice from his assistant, correctly ruled the goal out as a double touch from Hart necessitated a retake — a rule that rewards incompetence and failure.
Hart had a wild night, mixing moments of catastrophe like that with wonderful saves. He sprawled full stretch to his right to palm aside Austin’s next effort after 13 minutes when Zamora cleverly nodded the ball into his path. Later, when Austin broke clear in the area again after a Fernando howler and put his laces through the ball, the England keeper thrust up an arm and rescued his team once more. But in the second half he could be found seeking out QPR fans halfway up the Ellerslie Road stand with wayward kicks. At the other end, Green scrambled a mishit Aguero volley away.
City couldn’t live with their hosts. QPR were completely dominant. In an attempt to hang onto Rangers’ coat tails, the visitors took to disrupting the play with fouls. Clichy, having a torrid time at left back, hauled back Maurcio Isla, then five minutes later Fernandinho slid into Karl Henry and 60 seconds later still Samir Nasri tripped Charlie Austin. Referee Mike Dean, apparently taking into account the early time on time on the clock, the slippery conditions, and the fact that all three players were committing their first offences, kept his yellow card in his pocket.
Then, inexplicably, the Wirral official started to persecute QPR. Sandro was immediately booked for his first foul on Yaya Toure and he was followed into the book at ridiculous speed by three team mates — Isla for fouling Sergio Aguero, Richard Dunne for a tackle on Nasri, and then Vargas for fouling Fernandinho. Loftus Road howled with indignation. The big-club conspiracy theorists added paper to their files. A clearer example of one rule for one… you’ll rarely see.
In actual fact it helped. The crowd, already on the rowdy side of raucous, cranked it up another notch. Despite the refereeing and the disallowed goals Rangers remained in full stride. They took a richly deserved lead on 19 minutes when Isla made the most of Clichy’s latest slip to feed Austin in space — and, crucially, just onside — and he finished crisply past Hart and into the corner. He was quickly buried under a pile of team mates.
City looked ashamed of themselves. Cold, wet and fed up. Yaya Toure, much maligned of late, couldn’t be faulted for his effort and desire, but for every 25 yard shot that fizzed just wide of the top corner with Robert Green well beaten, there was an inexplicably awful pass into the side stand to the delight of the home crowd. He was fighting alone in midfield though — Karl Henry completely dominant, Vargas a pesky presence on the flank, Sandro seeing a powerful low shot from the edge of the area blocked away by what seemed to be Bacary Sagna’s hand. No penalty, naturally.
But in Sergio Aguero, City have the league’s outstanding talent at the moment. An honest, muscular presence in attack, the Argentinean waited half an hour to see any ball at all and then when Mangala chipped a ball up to him, totally isolated between Richard Dunne and Steven Caulker, he went to work with an immaculate first touch and powerful finish past Robert Green and into the corner of the net. He handled the ball on his way through, and Green protested long and hard that the goal should have been disallowed. No free kick given, naturally.
QPR could have gone into their shells at this point. What was the point of this super-human effort if City can be battered this comprehensively and still craft an equaliser from nothing? If every single decision was going to go against them? To make matters worse, Sandro was lost to his weekly injury at half time. They could have sulked and moaned and protested. Instead they simply kicked off and picked up where they left off, totally dominating the game and looking bloody good doing it. Joey Barton returned from injury against his former club instead of Sandro and turned in his best performance of the season.
Broken play from a second half corner saw Barton play Richard Dunne, of all people, into space down the left flank and the giant centre half’s deep cross was met flush on the volley by Vargas and almost accidentally turned into the net by Steven Caulker on the edge of the six yard box. Another deflection, off Demichelis this time, almost carried Leroy Fer’s volley beyond Hart and into the net.
City slung on Eden Dzeko to add presence in attack but the big Bosnian striker, strongly suggesting he hadn’t warmed up properly, pulled up with a muscle strain almost as soon as he’d run onto the pitch and was replaced within four minutes of coming on. It summed City up better than any other incident apart from one…
With a quarter of an hour to go Barton tried to feed Vargas in the City half, creating a 50/50 loose ball in the middle of the park with Fernando and QPR’s bullish Chilean arriving at the same time. The City man’s attempt at a tackle was absolutely pathetic. Powder puff. They were wide open from that moment and when Charlie Austin produced a wicked low delivery from the right and Zamora flung himself full length at the ball, Demichelis could do nothing other than steer it into his own net from eight yards out.
A shame for Zamora, who deserves a goal more than anybody else at the moment, but a wonderful assist to crown Charlie Austin’s best all-round display in a QPR shirt. Austin usually comes alive around the penalty area when the ball arrives, but here he was the dominant figure, charging around the joint and frightening Manchester City to death. Roy Hodgson looked on.
Vargas almost made it three in spectacular fashion, scissor kicking another delivery from wide just off target, and the Chilean really seems to be revlling in a wide right role that allows him to chime into attacks when he sees an opportunity, and being afforded more space than if he were stationed at centre forward.
But for the first time in the match QPR started to look panicked and second best after taking the lead a second time. Aguero was fed by a poor back header from Barton but denied by Richard Dunne on the line after rounding Green. Milner, on for the ineffective Nasri, had a header cleared from the line by Caulker and Green bravely blocked the follow up from Toure. Heart-stopping goal-mouth scrambles suggested a long last ten minutes in store but in actual fact Rangers didn’t make it beyond the eighty second minute.
Another long, raking pass from the back — Toure this time — caught Dunne too high and under the ball. Aguero was there again, waltzing around the goalkeeper and slamming in his second of the day. Mesmeric. So fleet of foot for a man carrying the weight of an entire team on his shoulders. Without him City would have been thrashed here.
Own goals, bad refereeing, awe-inspiring individual brilliance from opposing players, defeats from games that should be drawn and draws from certain victories — all hallmarks of a team destined for relegation. But QPR certainly don’t look like that at the moment. They were magnificent here, thoroughly good value for a precious point and fully deserving of two more — overcoming adversity, controversy and pure frustration to do it as well.
It was enthralling, breathless stuff. Energetic and relentless. QPR were still banging away right to the end, despite only making one substitution. The early season fitness issues apparently solved. A kinder run of fixtures now approaches from which a clutch of points is required, and will certainly be won if this level of intensity and quality can be maintained.
Pellegrini looked even more haunted than normal by the whole experience. Rangers left the field to thunderous applause.
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QPR: Green 7; Isla 7, Dunne 6, Caulker 6, Suk-Young 7; Vargas 7, Sandro 7 (Barton 46, 7), Henry 7, Fer 6; Austin 8, Zamora 8
Subs not used: Hill, Phillips, McCarthy, Hoilett, Kranjcar, Onuoha
Goals: Austin 21 (assisted Isla), Demichelis own goal 76 (assisted Austin)
Bookings: Sandro 18 (foul), Isla 36 (foul), Dunne 39 (foul), Vargas 45+1 (foul)
Man City: Hart 7; Sagna 5, Demichelis 5, Mangala 5, Clichy 4; Navas 6, Fernandinho 4 (Dzeko 64, - (Lampard 68, 6)), Fernando 3, Toure 6; Nasri 5 (Milner 74. 6), Aguero 9
Subs not used: Zabaleta, Milner, Caballero, Jovetic, Boyata
Goals: Aguero 32 (assisted Mangala), 83 (assisted Toure)
QPR Star Man — Charlie Austin 8 A terrific goal and assist, terribly unfortunate to have another fine strike ruled out, and his most complete all-round performance for the club. A persistent pest to Manchester City and an obvious QPR man of the match in front of watching England manager Roy Hodgson.
Referee — Mike Dean 4Couple of points added for getting the Joe Hart-farce correct in a high-pressure situation — the law an ass on that one rather than the referee — but apart from that I thought his first half display was about as poxy and one-eyed as you’re ever likely to see. Manchester City fouls were free kicks only, Dean taking account of the conditions, letting them away with their first fouls, not wanting to book players early in the game, etc etc. Then, bang, bang, bang, bang, four QPR yellow cards one after the other. The Isla one in particular was no worse than what had gone unpunished before it. Aguero handled the ball in the build up to the first goal and was allowed to play on - Charlie Austin shouldered the ball down late in the second half and was immediately whistled for a handball which led shortly after that to City’s second equaliser. Sagna blocked a shot from Sandro with his hand in the air. Simply not fair.
Attendance — 18,005 (1,700 Man City approx) The Saturday evening kick offs always make for a raucous, alcohol-fuelled atmosphere at Loftus Road and this was no exception. The place was jumping, responding to the fantastic action out on the pitch and contributing to it.
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