QPR return to action after the World Cup break and their own manager dramas with a difficult home game against league leaders Burnley on Sunday, waiting nervously to see how the team will react to the latest upheaval.
Lancashire and District Senior League >>> Sunday December 11, 2022 >>> Kick Off 13.00 >>> Weather — Cut glass nipples >>> Loftus Road, London, W12
One of the few things that Mick Beale said during his brief time at Loftus Road that wasn’t an outright lie was that the team was still working out exactly what it wanted to be.
As Rangers return to action post World Cup break, sans the manager who took them through the first 21 games of the season, they are sixth in the table — up a spot last week courtesy of Millwall’s heavy defeat at Sunderland. There will forever be that ‘what might have been’ curiosity about how things may have turned out here had Beale stuck around — Rangers were top of the nascent league table just five games ago remember.
That’ll become particularly acute and rose tinted if his replacement, likely Neil Critchley, leads a fall away back down the table, but then if getting QPR into play-off contention in October/November is the benchmark then Steve McClaren was a good manager for Rangers. All of our recent bosses have had a little flurry of results in the autumn that made us think we were finally getting somewhere, only to then fall away (often dramatically) over the winter. Remember Ian Holloway beat Jorge Mendes’ Wolves, Ruben Nevers and Diogo Jota and all, followed by Chris Wilder’s peak Sheff Utd, in a week, with Matt Smith, Conor Washington and Idrissa Sylla up front, then lost 4-0 to Nottingham Forest that weekend.
QPR have been bad every bit as often as they’ve been good under Beale. Sometimes their best performances have bumped up against their worst in the same week — the loss at Swansea coming after great showings against Watford and Hull, the heavy and deserved loss at Luton coming after great performances and results against Sheff Utd and Reading. Sometimes these contrasts have occurred within the same game: so destructive and dominant in taking a 3-0 first half lead against Middlesbrough, so desperately hanging on by our finger nails in the second half; at Bristol City a 2-0 half time lead should have been double that, one of the best QPR away performances in years, and yet the second half was spent pisballing about, running the clock, and eventually also hanging on there desperate for the final whistle. The best we can say is we’re a far better team when Chris Willock and Stefan Johansen are in the starting 11 and fit enough to be there, which we knew already.
Now there’s an added element of uncertainty — how will they react to the manager’s defection? There are several players in this team now who are here because of Beale, because they’d worked with him before, or both — Tim Iroegbunam, Leon Balogun. Some, like Kenneth Paal and Jake Clarke-Salter, made big personal commitments to come to QPR and work with him or turned down other potentially better offers elsewhere to do so, or both. Are they pissed off? Feeling let down? Already plotting their own exit strategies? Are those who’ve been here a while longer, and grown used to each light at the end of the QPR tunnel turning out to be yet another train heading towards us, now weary and resigned? Or do they have the determination to muck in and ‘go again’ as the modern cliched parlance would have it? Are they going to get mad, or get even, over the Beale betrayal?
The caretaker manager situation always adds an interesting dynamic to this as well. Have Paul Hall, Andy Impey and Paul Furlong been sitting there quietly thinking that they’d do it this way or that given the chance with the first team? I remember when John Hollins came in following Stewart Houston’s departure he made a point of dropping all the Arsenal players Houston and Rioch had brought with them from Highbury. I didn’t like this at the time because it meant dropping Lee Harper for Tony Roberts, and I always considered a team starting with Tony Roberts in goal was effectively giving the opposition a one goal start, but it lifted the mood around the place and the Loftus Road faithful gave it the "we’re not Arsenal any more” treatment at the games Hollins took charge for. Later Gary Waddock upset Ian Holloway and caused a big rift between them when he was openly scathing of the style of play the team he inherited was playing. He brought in several of the Paladini agent buys that Holloway didn’t have time for and quickly put a superb 3-2 win at Sheff Utd on the board playing a more attractive style, before his season fell off a cliff with a nine match winless run that included a 2-0 lead at Norwich being blown in the final ten minutes. It’s an open secret now that relations between Mark Warburton and the first team coaches and Paul Hall and the academy ones had deteriorated to non-existent by the end of last season — a big part of the reason they felt Warburton had to go once the promotion dream had died, and the seemingly excellent John Eustace wasn’t kept on to replace him — will Hall use this brief opportunity to give a chance to some of the younger players his group felt Warburton should have given more time of day?
It’ll be very difficult to make any kind of judgement against Burnley, easily the outstanding team in the league to this point. Their tricky financial situation post relegation was eased by £70m+ worth of player sales in the summer and they’ve been able to completely transform the ethos and style of play from Sean Dyche’s regimented pragmatism to a more continental, free flowing approach under Vincent Kompany. Anass Zaroury’s absence with Morocco is as big boost to our chances, but as God gives with one hand he takes Ilias Chair away with the other.
We’ll have all on to get a result, and with Preston and Cardiff away to come followed by Luton and Sheff Utd down here, it’s not the Christmas run of fixtures we’d have picked for a new manager.
Links >>> A debut to forget — History >>> Kompany’s impact — Interview >>> Prem ref — Referee >>> Burnley Official Website >>> No Nay Never — Podcast >>> Lancashire Telegraph — Local Press >>> Up The Clarets — Message Board
Team News: Morocco’s surprise progression to the World Cup quarter finals means both teams unexpectedly miss their productive wide attackers for this game — Ilias Chair from QPR and Anass Zaroury (six goals in nine, three in his last two) from Burnley. Other than that Paul Hall was keeping his cards close to his chest on what’s likely to be his one and only QPR team selection as manager. Seny Dieng is back from his World Cup duty and ready to play — FIFA’s policy of compensating clubs to the tune of $10,000 a day for every day their players are away at the World Cup means Rangers have pocketed the best past of £360,000 (and counting) for Dieng and Chair to play not a single minute of football in Qatar. Stefan Johansen finished the first half of the season in a protective boot and having injections into a heel injury, but he, Tyler Roberts and Luke Amos have all been back on the grass at Heston this week. Aston Villa are apparently keen for Tim Ireogbunam to remain at QPR beyond January despite Mick Beale’s departure, though the noises are not quite so positive around Ethan Laird.
It was a busy summer at Turf Moor following relegation, with 11 permanent signings at a cost of around £24m and five loan signing, 13 players going out permanently with incomings of more than £70m, and two players out on loan including Holland’s surprise two-goal hero from their World Cup quarter final Wout Weghorst. Perhaps a sign of how stagnant and stale things had become at the club under Sean Dyche and how much mediocre players were being paid there that four of the players released (Aaron Lennon, Phil Bardsley, Dale Stephens and Matej Vydra) remain free agents or have retired through lack of other offers. Two of the new arrivals, League One player of the year Posh Scott Twine and Stuttgart’s Darko Churlinov have managed just three sub appearances totalling 70 minutes between them so far but are now back in training awaiting full Burnley debuts. Jay Rodriguez missed the 3-0 humping of Blackburn in the east Lancs derby before the break, and Ashley Barnes scored two in that game in his place, so with both players fit and available for this one Vincent Kompany faces a judgement call up front.
Elsewhere: Nine fixtures today as the Championship creaks back into life, starting with the early Lancashire derby between Blackburn and Preston, and a meeting of two out-of-form sides Rotherham and Bristol City in South Yorkshire.
It’s been another tumultuous few weeks at Coventry, who are subject of rival competing takeaover bids from local businessmen while at the same time having their arm moved up their back by Mike Ashley — who appears to have picked up their stadium on the cheap as a way to force his own buy-out of the club and has presently served an eviction notice on the club. A first documented example of any club ever being grateful to be away at Reading today therefore.
Millwall’s ascent into the play-off spots before the lockdown was undermined somewhat by last week’s fairly typical Millwall Away performance at Sunderland — lifeless in open play, reliant entirely on set plays, beaten three nil. They return to action on their own patch against Wigan, whose eye-catching appointment of Kolo Toure as manager certainly makes them one to watch in the second half of the campaign. He inherits a team third bottom of the league, with only Blackpool (at home to impressive and in form Birmingham) and Huddersfield (a tough Yorkshire derby away at Sheffield Red Stripe) below them.
Rob Edwards continues to get his feet under the desk at Lutown as they head to Middlesbrough; Swanselona v Norwich is one for the purists; Stoke v Cardiff most certainly is not.
Watford and Hull face off against each other in the second Sunday match after our own, while Monday Night Football sees Sunderland hosting West Brom.
Referee: Premier League referee Peter Bankes in charge for this one — last at Loftus Road for a 3-1 defeat here against Sheff Utd at the very end of last season. Details.
QPR: The World Cup break seemed to come at a good time for QPR who’d cratered from eight wins from 11 matches to one point from 15 and one goal scored in five matches. Since Beale turned down the Wolves job on October 20, Rangers’ total of four points from six games is the worst in the league bar Bristol City’s total of three. They lost three on the spin in the final week of action, including defeats here to the bottom two Huddersfield and West Brom. Rangers had been unbeaten in six in W12 prior to that dire week, but now have a fairly iffy home record so far of 5-2-3. The performances and results under Mick Beale really were chalk and cheese — Rangers have already scored three goals in a game on four occasions, and won four times away from home, but they have also failed to score in eight of their 21 matches. For every 3-1 win against Hull there’s been a 1-0 against Swansea, for every demolition of Cardiff a lesson from Luton, and frequently those have occurred in the same week. Lyndon Dykes and Chris Willock are joint top scorers with six — Rangers are still to lose a game when Willock has scored for them in his time here, W13 D3.
Burnley: The Clarets were three points clear at the top of the table, and five clear of third, prior to the start of this weekend’s action having lost only two of their 21 games so far this season. This despite blowing a whopping 15 points from winning positions already, a formidable stat when you think they’ve posted 41 points in 21 games regardless. An unbeaten run of 17 matches came to an end in spectacular fashion at Sheff Utd just before the World Cup break, but that 5-2 set back was swiftly followed by a 3-0 home win in the derby against Blackburn and Burnley arrive into this fixture having won eight and drawn one of the last ten. They are the form team in the division, taking 15 points from the last 18. They’re not quite as infallible on the road. Both losses this year have been in away games at Watford and Sheff Utd, and there have also been 1-1 draws at West Brom, Preston, Cardiff and Birmingham. Nevertheless, their 40 goals scored is easily the best total in the division to this point — Sheff Utd trail behind with 35 as the next best record. These teams went from the 1982/83 season to 2000/01 without meeting at all. Since rivalries were rekindled QPR have won just three of the 11 meetings at Loftus Road with five draws. Rangers are unbeaten in the last five meetings here but four of those have been draws. The overall head-to-head makes for intimidating reading, with Burnley registering 22 wins to QPR’s 11 and Rangers winning only one of the last 13 games.
Prediction: We’re once again indebted to The Art of Football for agreeing to sponsor our Prediction League and provide prizes. You can get involved by lodging your prediction here or sample the merch from our sponsor’s QPR collection here. Just two games to go before we hand out the prize for our ‘top at Christmas’ leader and barring miracles there are five posters in reach of that target with Aston Hoop leading the way. Let’s see what last year’s champion Cheesy thinks this week…
"As I am getting older, the goings on at Loftus Road don't annoy me as much as they used to. Losing Beale was met with a shrug of the shoulders. Four weeks ago I was thinking maybe, just maybe this team has a chance. Now I have the feeling that things are going to get worse before they get better and I am not expecting much from the visit of Burnley on Sunday.”
Cheesy’s Prediction: QPR 0-2 Burnley. No scorer.
LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-3 Burnley. Scorer — Lyndon Dykes
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