I guess it was always going to happen one day given the quality of Luton’s team, but QPR will still be disappointed to have dropped so far short of their best in a rare but deserved defeat at Kenilworth Road on Saturday.
It’s not often Queens Park Rangers hold a positive winning record over any team they’ve played with any degree of frequency. If Uncle Frank says no, it must be really bad, and if QPR are your bogey team, you’ve got serious issues. Nevertheless, that is this day in the life of Luton Town. Two wins in 26 meetings going back to 1988, and it needed QPR to score the goal for them in one of those — Zesh Rehman could often be relied upon for such brain farts.
Given that record, it should never be a surprise when a QPR team, no matter how feckless and inept, comes to Kenilworth Road and gets a result. Mark Warburton’s class of 21/22 were actually pretty decent compared to much of the sludge that had slopped through W12 prior, but by the time they came to this fixture in March the wheels were, if not quite all the way off, then certainly giving it a fair old wobble. The real meltdown was still to come later that week, with Chris Willock’s season ending injury, the death of a third goalkeeper in five, and a third loss of the campaign to lowly Peterborough. Still, the R’s were in lousy form of one win in eight and trailing 1-0 at the break there felt like more chance of Jim Davidson making you laugh than any manner of positive result heading back through the M1’s beloved "smart motorway” speed restrictions and back to the capital in 45 minutes time.
I’m not even sure the players involved, and certainly not the fans who massed behind the goal that day, are quite sure how Rangers did it, but a 2-1 win was secured against all odds, against one of the form teams in the league, against a team that would make the play-offs by one that would not. It briefly, gloriously, lifted QPR back up to fourth in the table, with what felt like that home banker against Posh to come a week later and then an international break to get some players back and hopefully resuscitate one of the goalkeepers. It almost certainly kept Mark Warburton in a job that weekend — the hierarchy had been minded to replace him there and then if the game went as feared — and so for one brief, shining moment, a gap in the clouds appeared, blue sky was visible beyond, and maybe the tale would have happy ending for Rangers after all. The celebrations of fans, staff and players reflected that context. Jimmy Dunne, who it’s often missed/forgotten copped fearful and unnecessary abuse from the front rows of the side stand during the first half when stretched out over the touchline receiving treatment for an injury, gave it the particular big ‘un.
The meeting at Loftus Road, earlier in the season, also won by Rangers thanks in large part to Simon Sluga’s fondness for us, was marred after the match by fan violence along the Uxbridge Road, during which one Luton fan nearly lost his life. A rivalry familiar to our dads is turning toxic once more, and despite our positive on field record, excellent form coming into the game, and Town winning only one of their home games thus far, this fixture has been looming up on the calendar like a mortgage renewal date. It would be many things to many people. None of them pleasant.
Sure enough, Rangers erred for the first time in six games. They looked intimidated, off their game, and sloppy. Luton were sharper, more focused, more committed, more concentrated, more physical, and better than us in almost every department. The front two of Carlton Morris and particularly the excellent Elijah Adebayo crawled all over the visiting defence, giving them their toughest afternoon of the season to date. They scored three, could have had a couple more, and were thoroughly good value for the victory that provided for them. On the rare occasions Rangers did climb on top, they used tactical fouls, and on a couple of occasion deliberate yellow cards to ‘take one for the team’, more adeptly than you’ll see anywhere else. Chair, as often happens without Willock, took on too much work, was easier to crowd out, and quickly became frustrated.
Sometimes you just have to hold your hands up when you’ve been done. Luton were somewhere approaching their best, QPR were off colour, and that combined with the big misses of Ethan Laird and Chris Willock from the starting line-up was more than enough for a defeat here. It didn’t help that Mick Beale’s solution to the absence of Laird, and the physicality of Luton’s attack - picking Leon Balogun at right back - lasted precisely one minute when he went up for a header, caught one in the kidneys from a Luton player below him, and was stricken from that point on, soon to be replaced by Osman Kakay who had a ropey time of things in his place.
QPR might have struck early when Tim Iroegbunam’s delicious ball to the right opened up all kinds of space for a loaded counter attack but Luke Amos stumbled on the ball just as it seemed to be opening up for a shot. But they’d already come under a fair barrage of diagonals to both sides before this and, as is often the case, been warned several times a goal was coming before it did. Amos got a headed clearance from a corner wrong and Lansbury shot wide of the top corner. One cross from right to left was just about cleared with Dieng scrambling about and when Dunne was then slow out to Morris he produced a mirror-image ball back the other way and Adebayo put the ball and Kenneth Paal into the back of the net for 1-0.
Rangers did go on to have some prolonged spells of possession around the Luton box, and forced a number of corners, the best of which, from Paal, was only one slightly bigger flick off Lyndon Dykes’ head away from equalising. But with Premier League referee Tony Harrington in the mood to award a free kick for somebody looking at an opponent a bit funny, the R’s found themselves penned in their own box and repeatedly having to head and scramble clear crosses, free kicks and corners throughout the first stanza. It could so easily have been two nil when Adebayo climbed higher than any man ever did climb before and met what looked like a perfect header towards the top corner only for it to strike the inside of the post, hit Dieng, and stay out. Maybe it would be our day again after all? Maybe it is a curse?
If it was to be, QPR were doing an even better job of hiding that plot twist than they did in an insipid first half last season. I thought Mick Beale judged his post match just right — it’s a poor performance, and result, but we’ve had some good away days already this season, Luton played well, let’s not hang and flog the players, move on, two home games this week. But if I did have a criticism of us, it’s just how whiny and moany we were with each other, in the first half at least. This did not look like the happy, confident side of recent weeks. Tyler Roberts, in particular, slouched around the place with a right face on him, constantly bitching and moaning at teammates who’d done his porridge ever so slightly too cold or ever so slightly too warm. He did this a couple of weeks ago when brought off the bench against Hull — turning what should have been a free hit for him to try and get a goal or two against a team already well beaten at 3-0 down into an ongoing slagging match with Albert Adomah because he’d hit a ball over his head into the channel for him to chase when he wanted it to feet. You’re not too good, or big, for us, or for this league, Goldilocks, otherwise you wouldn’t be stuck here playing for us in it. Him and Chair had a prolonged barney in the first half when it was actually a QPR free kick they’d won in a dangerous position — Beale did not look or sound impressed with that from the touchline. Chair wasn’t blameless either — his big, exaggerated, woe-is-me exasperation with Osman Kakay for the heinous crime of not taking a quick throw in was, I felt, pretty poor stuff from the captain towards a junior member of the team having a tough enough time as it is, right in front of the away end where we could all see and hear what was being said. Get over yourselves and get on with it eh?
Not that we’d have been talking about any of this had Jake Clarke-Salter’s 66th minute shot off sub Stafan Johansen’s typically well delivered free kick nestled in the roof of the net instead of bouncing back into play off the bar. He was probably just grateful to be up that end of the pitch having fun, rather than having Adebayo crawl all over him as he had done all afternoon. One early second half header from the Hatters’ point man set Jordan Clark away into the area but Kakay got back with an excellent recovery tackle. When the same player later improvised a chip from range Dieng was on hand with one for the cameras.
Game still technically in the balance at this stage, seeing Adebayo and Morris removed felt like an absolute mercy killing, but things were going so right for Luton on the day that even Cameron Jerome came on and played really well. When Iroegbunam, not for the first time it must be said, left a set back sloppily short and off target, the fresh sub was able to nip in, round Dunne, go in one goal, and as Dieng rushed out on a rescue mission the whole thing ended in a horrible collision which resulted in the ball rolling into the empty net, and Dunne crocked and off for the rest of the match. Luton’s media team posting a picture of the agonising impact captioned "Job Done” probably not the classiest or best advised course of action, and that of course was then later trumped by this sport’s latest example of some horrible cunty little shit DMing racial abuse directly to the scorer of Luton’s first goal and clear man of the match on the day. God I’d dearly love one of these brave little virgins to actually come face to face with the men they’re sending this shit to, or have their precious cloak of social media anonymity removed for a public flogging that decimates their career and life prospects. Still, welcome to Britain, 2022.
Town could, should, have scored a third straight from the kick off — Clark’s shot bound for the top corner bar a desperate late header on the line. Chair did similar at the other end, with the same result, and there was something by way of hope to come when four minutes of stoppage time began with sub Rob Dickie forcing a QPR goal in via the bar and back of Luton keeper Ethan Horvarth. Any hope for a remarkable late show the likes of which we haven’t seen for, ooooh nearly a month now, Jones left to skulk across the pitch while we all sing "it’s happened again” was snuffed out almost as soon as it had been lit. QPR, pushed forward, wide open. Kenneth Paal, a rare misstep with a daft free kick and yellow card on halfway. Luke Freeman, our former emperor penguin, off their bench and in at the near post with a typically cute finish for 3-1 and game over. It was so richly deserved I’m actually pretty calm and sanguine about the whole thing. It’s when we lose to idiot scum like Barnsley, or a referee cons us out of something we deserve, that I get upset. You couldn’t come away from this game feeling anything other than the result was just, mirrored the pattern of play entirely, Luton looked a good team and we move on.
Nathan Jones, needless to say, was not calm and sanguine. After last season you knew he desperately wanted to win this, and his behaviour at full time fully confirmed that. His post-match press conference read so much like two people having an argument when actually it’s just one person speaking that, even in heavy defeat, I couldn’t help but read it this morning and chuckle. "I said in the press that we didn’t, but of course we did, because we don’t want that on our patch in our back garden. Jimmy Dunne was doing the conga down the left-hand touchline and Johansen was whooping like he was on Wheel of Fortune, so it was a little bit, but I’ve been guilty of that, I’ve jumped into crowds, as I’ve said. So we hold no malice in that to call them out, but that’s what happened on the day. To be fair, it drove us on a little bit and it was a sick thing, the way they celebrated, the disrespect they showed us, which we kind of used, but we didn't emphasise, because that happens in football. Sometimes I celebrate and it can be misconstrued as disrespectful, but it's not, it’s exuberance, so they were exuberant after a win in a tough place. But we finished above them last year, so it didn't detract from us. Maybe it actually galvanised us a little bit, as after that we didn’t lose many more games.”
So, to clarify, they did use it to motivate them, but didn’t tell the press that so QPR wouldn’t know, but obviously QPR would know and obviously they would use it, so they did, but not really because it’s football isn’t it and these things happen, but they did a bit because it was very disrespectful, but not really because I celebrate like that sometimes so we can’t really say anything, except we can because that’s just exuberance whereas this was disrespect, so it was something for us to use but it wasn’t really and we didn’t except we did. And what fucking year does he think it is? Wheel of Fortune?! Does he do anything other than coach Luton and go to church? ‘You’ve got Lee Wallace there acting like he’s just completed Virgo’s Trick Shot, David Marshall behaving like he’s on Michael Barrymore’s My Kind of People…’ Somewhere out there is a guy with an enormous butterfly net looking for this man.
You’ve got to laugh, but on a Frank Lampard more serious point I think this might be an opportune moment for these two football clubs to get their heads together. You’d never know it to look at and visit this soon-to-be-replaced ground, which is one small fire away from the death of a thousand people, but Luton is a fantastically well-run club, with better recruitment, scouting and analytics than almost the entire rest of the league. We, rightly, talk about how difficult it is for QPR to sign and own strikers on our budget in this market — all of this highly impressive Town forward line has been available to us in the last three years on our budget and for less/similar money to that we spent on Dykes and Macauley Bonne. Lee Hoos, our CEO, has his critics, but he’s a practical and pragmatic guy who is good at his job. I wonder whether he and his Luton counterpart might have a sit down, and starting with whatever apology they feel we need to make for last season and moving quickly on to Nathan Jones’ rhetoric and behaviour, talk about how we ratchet this fixture down a couple of notches. Luton have got their win now, that monkey has gone, some balance has been redressed in their eyes one would hope. It’s a good chance for everybody to calm the fuck down. It’s a football game. We’ve now had a bloke nearly killed, something a section of the QPR fans present felt was worthy of a fucking song on Saturday, we’ve had a player racially abused, we’ve had a club’s media team ripping the piss out of an injured player. The amount of police required for this game (which these two financially limited clubs have to foot the bill for) makes the whole populated area around the stadium look like a demilitarised zone on matchdays. Where’s this path leading us? And for what?
Familiarity and regular meetings are once again breeding contempt between these two rivals of the 1980s and early 2000s. The return fixture already looms large.
Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread
Luton: Horvarth 6; Lockyer 7, Bradley 7, Potts 6; Bree 6, Lansbury 7 (Freeman 67, 7), Clark 7, Campbell 7, Bell 6; Morris 7 (Cornick 67, 6), Adebayo 8 (Jerome 67, 7)
Subs not used: Berry, Isted, Onyedinma, Doughty
Goals: Adebayo 18 (assisted Morris), Dunne own goal 77 (assisted Jerome), Freeman 90+2 (assisted Cornick)
Bookings: Clark 44 (foul), Lansbury 54 (foul)
QPR: Dieng 6; Balogun 5 (Kakay 14, 5), Dunne 5, Clarke-Salter 5, Paal 5; Amos 5 (Johansen 62, 5, Iroegbunam 5, Field 6 (Dickie 62, 5); Roberts 4 (Richards 79, 5), Dykes 5, Chair 5
Subs not used: Archer, Dozzell, Adomah
Goals: Horvarth og 90+1 (assisted Dickie)
QPR Star Man — N/A But not in the sort of passive aggressive, bitchy way I usually use that when we’ve had a walloping, I just didn’t think anybody was really any good.
Referee — Tony Harrington (Cleveland) 6 Controlled a potentially difficult fixture through the medium of awarding a free kick for absolutely every single thing that happened.
Attendance 10,001 (1,000 QPR approx.)
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