A real sense of déjà vu on Saturday as QPR slipped to an undeserved defeat to an Owen Coyle side in Lancashire thanks largely to an obviously incorrect decision from an assistant referee.
There’s something about Queens Park Rangers playing games in this part of the world against teams managed by Owen Coyle that turns assistant referees into incompetent, window-licking morons, incapable of finding their own arse with both hands or identifying the blatantly obvious when it occurs right in front of their face.
Joining Bob Pollock in the hall of horrors this week is Tony Peart. Or, perhaps, some random member of the Blackburn branch of the Royal Society for the Blind on whom Tony Peart had played a cruel trick earlier in the day, quietly swapping the guide dog for a flag without the poor bastard noticing and shoving him off in the direction of Ewood Park.
In fairness to Pollock — not a sentence I ever thought I’d be starting — Clint Hill’s famous ghost goal against Coyle’s Bolton in 2012 never actually hit the ground. On that occasion goalkeeper Adam Bogdan clawed a header out from well behind the line after it had kissed the underside of the bar on the way in. That happened fast.
Quite what defence Saturday’s scrotum can offer for his abomination I’m not sure. It began with a long throw from Darnell Furlong, who doesn’t really have a lone throw. This was no Dave Challinor/Rory Delap-style missile, more a gentle loft into the vague vicinity of the area. Using every inch of his height and straining every neck muscle substitute Matt Smith was able to help the ball on to Conor Washington who, in similar style, looped a header over goalkeeper Jason Steele, onto the underside of the bar and down into the net.
The ball never got above snail’s pace throughout. The whole thing happened in super slow motion. The ball dropped so far over the line it actually didn’t land on the grass at all, but came to rest on the artificial turf which surrounds the Ewood Park pitch. This was not, by any stretch of any pathetic excuses this anal gimp may come up with, a difficult decision to make.
Peart, whose positioning four yards away from the byline suggests he’d switched off and started thinking about other things, realised he was in trouble and sidestepped down the touchline to get himself level with the goal — where he should have been in the first place — after the incident had happened, presumably hoping the ball might have stopped dead where it landed so he could have a look. Of course, it hadn’t, long gone by now, and so with nothing to go on Peart delivered a firm no — shaking his head and waving his hands in the manner of a man absolutely sure of his decision.
We can talk about goalline technology in the Championship all we like — not much of a discussion, it should absolutely be here and should have been here since it was introduced in the Premier League — but the simple fact is this one was blatantly fucking obvious. A one-eyed, drunk chimp could have told you it was a goal.
Later in the half a Blackburn player allowed a ball to run under his boot accidentally and out for a throw in. Well, not quite, because having retrieved the ball from a yard over the touchline (on the artificial grass again) Peart allowed him to play on and kept his flag down. You couldn’t help but wonder whether Tony Peart actually knows the rules at all. Absolute haemorrhoid of a man.
QPR should have been in front long before this. Having conceded after just 42 seconds at Newcastle on Wednesday night, the R’s very deliberately set off with a fast start against lowly Blackburn at Ewood Park. A wonderful ball by Ryan Manning set Conor Washington away down the right in the first minute and his ball right through the face of the area was met by Jamie Mackie at the far post but Steele made a fine save — should have scored. Soon Massimo Luongo was seeing a shot from a similar position blocked at the near post and Steele saved well again from Joel Lynch at the resulting corner. Mackie then saw a shot deflected straight to Steele when it would have flown into the other corner on another day — four shots on target in four minutes, three saves and a bad miss, we should have known it wasn’t to be there and then really.
That pace wasn’t maintained. Blackburn came back into the game and Liam Feeney, a Hammersmith boy who’d scored the winner when these teams met in the FA Cup last month, volleyed just wide with Smithies beaten in Rovers’ first attack after ten minutes.
Manning had a superb first half, guiding his team around the park with a wonderful range of passing, and setting the tone and tempo with his relentless hassling of players in possession. He wasn’t far away from a spectacular goal from the edge of the area when he tried to seek out the far top corner on the half hour.
Jake Bidwell was having a decent game at left back as well, but you couldn’t deny that Rangers had gone off the boil by half time and in a game where it felt like the first goal was always going to be the winner the pressure was on Ian Holloway to do a better job with his second half substitutions than he has done of late. The first worked well, with Matt Smith coming on for a debut instead of Jamie Mackie, who’d been busy but quite as effective of late.
Smith, Wszolek and Washington formed an interchangeable front three and QPR started to dominate once more. Washington turned and smashed one into the side netting, then seized on a Smith knockdown but couldn’t finish crisply enough to beat Steele. He did, of course, score once, but in the make believe world of Tony Peart it doesn’t actually count unless the ball actually hits the net and stays in there.
James Perch, who’d earlier rightly been yellow carded for a brutal hack on Elliott Bennett that had the home physio summoning a priest to read his man the last rights, blasted a powerful shot on goal which Steele did well to get plenty behind and keep out.
But, like the first half, and despite Ravel Morrison coming on for a second QPR debut to make a front four, Blackburn started to come back into things. Smithies made an unorthodox save from Darragh Lenihan at the back post after a Connor Mahoney free kick had been allowed to drift all the way through the penalty box at the midway point of the half. Home sub Hope Akpan volleyed over from range, and then the always-excellent Sam Gallagher did likewise from a similar position. The visitors were indebted to Bidwell for getting back at Feeney with a superb sliding tackle in his own area as a goal looked likely on 71.
Nevertheless, it felt like a game drifting away to a 0-0 draw. And then something else odd happened. A long punt by Steele to nobody bounced straight through to Smithies. What remains of Blackburn’s home support, long suffering and understandably angry and frustrated with what’s happened to their club, started to boo. Coyle, down on the touchline, seemed to gesture towards the home end to get behind their players. Not a popular appointment in the first place, and not having much success on the field so far, Coyle has previously criticised the Rovers faithful through the local media which didn’t go down well and this latest response didn’t prove to be a particularly smart PR move.
Suddenly the ground, almost silent throughout except for one lone drum, was alive with fury and protest. "Owen Coyle, he’s taking us down” and "we want Coyle out” rang around the place, and the manager was loudly booed and heckled whenever he returned to the touchline to deliver instructions. It gave a previously dull and fairly lifeless encounter a fraught feeling. The game became stretched and frantic and through the chaos a winning goal went the way of the home team.
Marvin Emnes, one of Coyle’s subs, cut the ball back from the byline and Gallagher, a real scourge of QPR this season, slammed the ball in at the near post from close range. To add insult to considerable injury, Darnell Furlong was booked for a foul in back play as the celebrations commenced.
You can look at this pragmatically and say that having won a point at Newcastle thanks to a comedy own goal in the last minute, QPR perhaps can’t really complain about bad luck in this next match. But bad luck it certainly was. A game Rangers would have been disappointed to draw (14 shots and seven on target to Blackburn’s 11 and three as an away side) had somehow been lost through a mixture of poor finishing, bad officiating and rank bad luck.
As we’ve said so often this season, under Ian Holloway and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, there was lots to go on here. You could see what Rangers were trying to do, at times they were very impressive with it, there was plenty to be optimistic about moving forwards. But QPR handed Burton three points last week and have now done likewise to Blackburn. Burton and Bristol City both won on Saturday as well. For all the improvements and positives, that whirlpool below us is still too close for comfort and it’s in-form Huddersfield next up at Loftus Road on Saturday.
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Blackburn: Steele 6; Nyambe 6, Greer 6 (Akpan 70, 6), Lenihan 6, Lowe 6; Feeney 7, Mulgrew 6, Conway 6 (Mahoney 65, 6), Bennett 6; Gallagher 7, Graham 5 (Emnes 65, 7)
Subs not used: Joao, Guthrie, Brown, Raya
Goals: Gallagher 90+1 (assisted Emnes)
QPR: Smithies 6; Furlong 6 (Lua Lua 90+4, -), Onuoha 6, Lynch 6, Bidwell 7; Luongo 6 (Morrison 78, 5), Perch 6, Manning 7; Mackie 6 (Smith 62, 6), Washington 6, Wszolek 6
Subs not used: Freeman, Hall, Goss, Ingram
Bookings: Perch 59 (foul), Manning 80 (foul), Furlong 90+1 (foul)
QPR Star Man — Ryan Manning 7 With and without the ball, QPR’s best and most effective player. Jake Bidwell also had a good game after some recent ups and downs.
Referee — Tony Harrington (Cleveland) 6 Quite a decent referee actually from what we’ve seen of him this season. Good with the advantage, not too hot with the cards, tries to give games a good chance. Sadly, completely let down by an assistant referee here who should certainly be considering a change of career, or a full frontal lobotomy. Useless fucking prick.
Attendance — 10,846 (570 QPR) The national media have been a bit prone to getting stuck into what remains of Blackburn’s home support (not much) for making it more difficult for their team to play at Ewood Park amidst a toxic atmosphere of protest. It all kicked off again here, and to an outsider looking in it seemed very harsh on home manager Owen Coyle. Not a popular choice, understandably given his record, but really who else is going to come here and work for the Venkys? Coyle isn’t doing particularly well, but again who would be able to succeed under these owners? That all said, the supporters have had their stable, midtable Premier League club sold to a bunch of mad Indian chicken farmers who, under heavy influence from one particular football agent, have overseen the systematic destruction of the team and club to leave it, in no time at all, an empty shell heading for League One. The Venkys, and Jerome Anderson, have been allowed to get on with it unchecked by the FA, Premier League or Football League. You’d be pretty pissed off as well if it was your club.
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