A very pleasurable visit to Oak Furnitureland for QPR as Tyler Roberts comes out of his cage and does just fine with two goals and Jamal Lowe makes a big impact from the bench for Neil Critchley's work in progress.
Tonight, we’re going to be talking about sin.
When I was a little lad living by the seaside in Grimsby I heard my younger brother padding up the stairs one evening and decided to hide in his room, jump out, and scare him. Midway through executing the plan, and with no time left at all, I changed my mind on placement and tried to make a dash across his room, cracking my cheekbone and eye-socket on the corner of his bed as I went. Made a right mess of it as it goes. In something of a state I went downstairs screaming, mother asked what had occurred, and I said the little bugger had pushed me. Although there was a six-year age gap I was basically a midget until I was 16, while he came out looking like the Michelin man, with a giant head shaped like a potato, so this wasn’t that implausible, and he got told off for it. This was a lie, and I was going to take it to my deathbed, but I’m telling it publicly now and I apologise for it.
I had a bit of a thing for one of my teachers at secondary school, and used to have very impure thoughts about that. I’m sure this is not unusual among the teenage boy population, and at no time was it acted upon by either party, but it is true and I am sorry for that too.
There was also an occasion, when my parents went away, and I staged a house party to try and boost my non-existent popularity in a town full of people that hated me almost as much as I hated them. While I was upstairs going from never-been-kissed to rattling round bases one, two and most of three with a girl from my maths class, things got a little out of hand downstairs resulting in some substantial damage to a couple of ornaments, a beloved family pet, and an expensive living room carpet. A couple of people went to A&E at a point in time you could go to A&E and get seen in the same caIander month. I blamed this on an "over exuberant game of indoor football gone wrong”, and also never called the poor girl again out of mortified embarrassment. I know mum didn't believe me at the time but I feel it's now worth saying that all of this was wrong. Poor decisions, lies, bad behaviour. I apologise for it. Hands up. White flag, Dido.
The girl I went out with at university, and for several years afterwards, who I shared my first house with and had a loving and caring six-year relationship with was, in fact, originally, the girlfriend of another lad I played football with. We loved each other, we stayed together a long time, many happy memories, but I know that’s not the done thing. I know it ruined his first year at uni and made things very awkward for a lot of our mutual friends, and given my time over again I’d handle that differently. Again, I’m sorry.
Maybe it’s something else. I’m racking my brains here. I’d like both regular readers to do the same. Please use the comment facility below. Let’s be having you, as Drunk Delia would say/yell. Let’s be hearing your confessions. Let’s turn this whole thing into Simon Mayo’s radio show, because either I’ve done something egregious, or one of you fuckers has, and clearly Vengeful God is going to keep going all Old Testament on us until we confess our sins and plead for forgiveness. I’ve had my suspicions this is all a bit too relentlessly cruel not to be the product of some sort of curse, or punishment from a higher power, for a while now and Saturday has confirmed it.
I submit into evidence Jeff Hendrick — Jeff. Hendrick. — striding onto a loose ball 30 yards from goal and planting it firmly into the bottom corner of the QPR net. Jeff Hendrick. Thirty yards. Tears stream, down your face, indeed.
If Jeff Hendrick had ever once got within 30 yards of the opposition goal while playing for us there’d have been national holidays declared on both sides of the Irish Sea. All talk of Stormont and hard borders and Brexit and protocols and DUP and Sinn Fein would have just melted away. A statue of Jeff would have been erected on the green in the middle of Batman Close. Brits and Irish of all backgrounds, political persuasions and religious beliefs would have come together to worship it in a big hand-holdy circle. We’d have all sung Jeff Hendrick songs around the Jeff Hendrick statue on National Jeff Hendrick Day (this must not, repeat not, turn into a bonfire), and the whole community would have rejoiced in the time Jeff Hendrick got close enough to the opposition goal to pose some sort of threat to it. Smile, darn ya smile, you know this whole world is a great world after all. And yet, here he was scoring an actual goal, like shelling peas. Witchcraft, I'm telling you now.
Still sceptical? Well Shane Long, on early for the perennially crocked Sam Hutchinson (can’t believe it), should have made it two nil when played through on goal on an angle soon after, but that was deflected out for a corner because that, apparently, wouldn’t have been punishment enough. No, instead, what happened was Andy Yiadom got free in much the same position, hit a shot that was struck firmly enough but still easily saveable for a goalkeeper of Seny Dieng’s ability. Possibly caught in minds between catching it and parrying it (or where to parry it), Dieng did nothing of anything, allowing the ball to squirm through his hands horribly and bounce up on the line in front of an open goal. Who’s that there, nodding it in for 2-0? It’s Jeff Hendrick again. Fuck my life.
It’s a demon. It’s a demon I’m telling you. One of you invited it here. Let's have a proper sort out now, which one of you was it?
Mercy. Mercy, honestly, mercy. I’ve taken a lot, I can’t take any more. If it’s something I’ve done then tell me, give me a sign, I’ll apologise and make it right. I’m trying to be a better person every day. Do you want me to stop the casual cunting? Is that it? I can do that, I was well brought up. Do you want me to actually come down to the church on Sunday and say all this in person, sing along to some of the hymns? I’ll do it. I’m that desperate now. I can’t take this any more. Through the wind and the rain, through the delays and the cancellations on our crumbling rail network, through the ongoing town and transport planning disaster that is Reading, through two hours in a Walkabout — a fucking Walkabout — listening to people in Reading scarves cheering on Man Utd on the television, past the world’s biggest Oak Furnitureland, and my reward for that is two goals from Jeff Hendrick and a couple of hundred pimple-faced virgins giving it the biggun across a dividing rope? Jeff Hendrick? Mercy, please, enough now. Enough. Whatever it is, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You should all be sorry too, apologise now, join me, we can beat this thing together, hopefully without the need to get Barry Fry down here and piss against the corner flags. I can’t speyk. Jeff Hendrick. If anybody needs me I’ll be in the bath with the toaster.
QPR actually hadn’t played that badly, certainly relative to their efforts against Luton, Cardiff and Fleetwood. There were a lot of the same problems recurring — Andy Carroll was proving difficult to handle for a defence vulnerable in the air; the play out from the back, particularly between Dunne and Dickie, was frequently too slow and laboured to trouble the hosts; Chris Willock was again playing like somebody with a whole fist up his arse (not his own fist either); and the decision making in the final third was often abject and indeed the first goal had originally stemmed from a rather hopeless giveaway by Tyler Roberts necessitating a professional foul and yellow card for Rob Dickie — but there had at least been moments. When Jimmy Dunne strode out of defence with the ball at feet and committed a couple of men on 32 minutes he found all of the possibilities that can open up when you stride out of defence with the ball at feet and commit a couple of men, opening up a very promising attack which ended in Chair cutting a ball back for Dykes whose backhealed flick beat former R Joe Lumley all ends up but dribbled just wide of the post. Dykes has scored just shy of 20% of all his QPR goals against this opponent and was inches away from increasing that ratio here. The second goal should have been saved, but also came from a QPR free kick at the other end. Two nil, and could have been three with the Long miss of course, nevertheless felt a little bit harsh.
The FA Cup humiliation last weekend has brought the mentality police to town. There’s a man, going round, taking names. He wants to know how this team can go from playing like that, to like this? New boss Neil Critchley — hiya Dave, what did ya have for ya tea? Corned beef hash. Ooooh. — got jolly angry and stamped his feet a bit in the post-match last week. "I’m not interested in being part of mediocrity”, he said, at a point where mediocrity is something for this group to aspire to. How would they react to that? Are they arsed? Are they having this new manager? Half time, 45 minutes to go, two nil down, it was time to pick a team.
Had referee Darren Bond — sans Alice band these days, coward — awarded Reading the penalty they wanted for Jimmy Dunne’s clumsy effort on Shane Long at the start of the half then the whole thing would have become an academic exercise. I’d have wanted it, from the other end it looked blatant, but Bond’s overall performance, which included that lesser-spotted effective early yellow card for time-wasting, was one of the best we’ve seen from an official this season and Long’s dive was well spotted from a much closer view than the one I had.
The mood in the away end was right on the cusp of turning nasty. The "we’ve got the ball… we’ve lost the ball…” mocking had begun, and when Lyndon Dykes shot three miles wide from just as far out the effort was sarcastically celebrated like a goal. But QPR didn’t go away, didn’t down tools, didn’t drop their heads, and didn’t disappear. There were signs of life, first from Ethan Laird, in an advanced role, hitting a deflected shot over — an effort rather spoiled by the latest short corner cock up by Chair and Willock. Chair did a good deal better with a 25-yard free kick soon after that, won himself after he’d seemed to dribble into a bit of a cul-de-sac but pegged an inch wide of the top corner with the wall out of the equation and Lumley watching it go. Nearly. Better
Things started to swing properly with movement from the bench. Carroll’s barely fit enough to blow through an hour of football these days and as his impact on the game waned so did Reading’s. Tactical mastermind Paul Ince Is A Wanker made a series of negative, defensive moves, bringing on veteran defender Scott Dann and his non-union Mexican equivalent Sr McIntyrio for midfielder Loum and winger/pastry enthusiast Junior Hoilett. Against a team rock bottom in confidence, with one win from 11 games, with the fans turning on them, Reading decided to try and hold what they had, stop going forwards, and start time wasting. Slow Joe Lumley was very slow indeed. Afterwards Ince Is A Wanker said: "We were our own worst enemies. We've got the habit at this club of trying to protect leads and we got deeper and deeper and deeper.” Presumably it was somebody else who took midfielders and wingers off for centre backs? Or was he expecting Scott Dann to start turning tricks on the left wing? There’s a Paul Ince look-a-like here in a giant hot-dog costume looking for the guy who’s responsible for this. As ever, as we’ve come to know over 40 years dealing with "The Guv’nor”, none of anything negative that occurred here was anything really to do with him. Only the good stuff, before that, which was all his doing, and a bit of Tom/Thomas'. Reading's surrender was everything to do with their manager, and nothing to do with the referee - not that you'd guess that from the post match interviews.
QPR meanwhile - belatedly by the tastes of most in the away end, but down to lack of match action and fitness according to Neil Critchley in the post match — summoned new boy Jamal Lowe. The Bournemouth loanee immediately started running forwards with the ball, beating opponents. The Bournemouth loanee immediately started passing the ball forwards, past opponents. The Bournemouth loanee immediately started looking up and thinking carefully about who he might pass to in the final third — often that person was wearing the same coloured top as he was. In the land of the bald, this made him Carlos Valderrama. His cute ball inside was turned on superbly by Tyler Roberts who finished low across Joe Lumley and into the far corner for 2-1. Look how easy this game can be. It's the thing over there with the net hanging off the back of it, let's go that way with a bit of intent and see where it gets us.
Lowe transformed the attack. It suddenly carried numbers, threat and belief. It looked like a coherent, effective unit. The rapid decline of Chris Willock is desperately sad, and he cut a forlorn figure at full time, but the difference Lowe made here was stark. It could have been 2-2 immediately, but Lumley saved brilliantly from Dykes as he improvised a half scissor kick at goal from eight yards out. Lumley thought he’d saved his team, and denied his former employer, again when he spread himself and magnificently denied Ethan Laird from point blank range ten minutes from time, but the ball squirmed loose and Roberts had his second from the exact spot Hendrick had headed home from earlier. Two for Hendrick, two for Roberts — the ultimate fuck you to LFW. I may as well go an open a fucking bicycle shop.
Away end alive, Rangers buzzing, we'll always be together however far it seems, the first time we’ve scored two goals in 12 games, and now seemingly the flow and the traffic only heading one way. Laird right in the thick of things with Chair again as the final grains of sand drained out of the hourglass won a corner which provoked another scramble, Lowe launched himself at a diving header and agonisingly missed the ball by milimeters — any sort of meaningful contact and it was 3-2, and no surprise at all that it was him who nearly got it.
What a transformation. And not by doing anything too difficult, just basics of the sport — the goal is over there, let’s move towards it with the ball, and numbers, at some speed.
It’s difficult to pinpoint turnarounds at the time they happen, they’re very much a hindsight thing. I still can’t really believe a First Division team with John Spencer, Danny Dichio, Trevor Sinclair, Andy Impey, Nigel Quashie, Paul Murray, Gavin Peacock, Rufus Brevett et al didn’t even make the play-offs, and that a 4-0 half-time deficit at Port Vale recovered with three goals in the final three minutes of the game wasn’t some sort of a catalyst for a late push. I’m amazed that signing Lee Cook on loan from Watford at the same time as Olly realised Gino Padula was quite good afterall took a team that was losing by wide margins to Notts County, Cardiff, even Vauxhall Motors, and turned it into a remorseless 18-month winning machine that monstered a play-off near miss and automatic promotion. That started with a limp 1-0 Christmas win at home to Barnsley in front of an empty stadium, Richard Pacquette scored. A man that signed Brett Angell, acquired a Midas touch. Kevin McLeod looked like a God. Paul Furlong went from cupping his ear, Mark Hateley-style, at his own supporters at Meadow Lane, to being serenaded by 8,000 behind the goal at Hillsborough, inside 15 months. "Fantastic, fantastic,” he said. And fantastic it was, and he was. At the absolute nadir of the Steve McClaren era I saw QPR go two nil down at Hull, and claw it back to two two through the efforts of a couple of much maligned substitutes — Josh Scowen accidentally scored from range, Tomer Hemed accidentally scored at all. Good. Good, we said. They do get it. This is important. Fine. They then lost at home to Rotherham, their only away win at this level in two years of trying, and again to Bolton who were bottom and tanking towards League Two at the time. McClaren was sacked within a fortnight of that apparent line in the sand.
Lights will guide us home, through the perennial bleakness of supporting our club. We’re often quick to proclaim a flicker the end of the tunnel, when in fact it’s another train coming towards us. It can, at times, feel like living on the tracks of the Northern Line. It’s up to these players to dispel these lazy ‘typical bloody QPR’ stereotypes and, as first steps go, the last half hour here wasn’t a bad one. We asked for a response and we got one. But let's see what they've got for us next.
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Reading: Lumley 6; Yiadom 6, Holmes 6, Sarr 6; Loum 6 (McIntyre 61, 5); Hoilett 6 (Dann 61, 5), Hendrick 7, Hutchinson 5 (Long 15, 6 (Meite 78, 5)), Rahman 6; Ince 6, Carroll 7 (Joao 78, 5)
Subs not used: Bouzanis, Mbengue
Goals: Hendrick 28 (assisted Long), 42 (assisted Yiadom)
Bookings: Rahman 41 (foul), Yiadom 72 (time wasting)
QPR: Dieng 4; Laird 7, Dunne 6, Dickie 6, Paal 6; Iroegbunam 5 (Dozzell 90+4, -), Field 6; Roberts 7 (Richards 86, -), Chair 6, Willock 5 (Lowe 64, 7); Dykes 6
Subs not used: Kakay, Clarke-Salter, Archer, Adomah
Goals: Roberts 66 (assisted Lowe), Roberts 80 (assisted Laird)
Bookings; Dickie 27 (foul), Richards 87 (foul)
QPR Star Man — Jamal Lowe 7 Ran forwards with the ball at pace, played the ball forwards with purpose, selected good passes in the final third with calmness and composure. You get the fire going, I’ll fetch the wicker man from the van.
Referee — Darren Bond (Lancashire) 8 I pointed out the other week that, post-pandemic, they really seem to be trying to cut down on distances travelled by officials. This means we get lumbered with the Southern-based officials more often than not which in a very northern-based league means a lot of Gavin Ward, and a hell of a lot of Keith Stroud as he’s listed as a Luton fan so can’t do their games limiting his options still further. We’ve already had half a dozen appointments with those two this season, while for Lancashire based Darren Bond this was only a second QPR appointment in two years (Stroud, meanwhile, had to take a trip all the way up to Sunderland for only the second time in five years, and that went as well as one might expect). A shame, because this was also the best refereeing display we’ve had in one of our games for months. Paul Ince fumes about the Shane Long penalty appeal and at the time, from the other end of the ground, I thought it was blatant as well, but you look at the replay and you can see the referee is right — Long, an experienced player, jumps across the front of his man to initiate and exaggerate the contact. A nice early booking for time wasting as well, when it does serve as a deterrent and make an impact on the behaviour. Very good. Made a nice change.
Attendance 14,186 (2,189 QPR) I think QPR got this comeback in just in the nick of time — mood in the away end was starting to turn. A second comeback from two down in as many visits to Reading, absolutely hilarious at the best of times but especially since they opened that creche next to the away end — a couple of hundred spotty virgins climbing over each other giving it the "hold me back” routine from behind the safety of a dividing barrier and line of stewards then having to stand there and watch their team blow a healthy lead right in front of them.
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