Early in the season, but the natives are restless and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink is on the defensive on and off the pitch. If he can be a little bolder with the former, he might find the latter will relax a little.
Championship >>> Saturday September 24, 2016 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather — Cloudy, warm >>> Loftus Road, London, W12
Whenever a season goes particularly brilliantly or badly, there’s always a game around this time of year that you look back on come May and think ‘we should have known then’.
When QPR were relegated from the Premier League in 1995/96 my eleventh birthday (which makes me 29 again this week, thanks for Facebook messages) "treat” was to take a couple of friends to a Monday night home match with Spurs after school. QPR went 2-0 up, and were playing well, but contrived to concede three in the final half hour of the game and lose.
I recall thinking, as a naïve kid, that QPR would never be relegated, as I’d only ever known them in the top flight. I subsequently ended up looking forward to doing a few new grounds and bouncing straight back up after Chris Wright took over only for it to turn into a 15-year collection of defeats at Stockport County.
We had known that season was going to be tough, with Clive Wilson, Ray Wilkins, Darren Peacock, Andy Sinton and, of course, Les Ferdinand all drifting away from the side that finished fifth in 1993. We’d lost the first home game to Wimbledon, and been trounced in the second by Sheffield Wednesday, but still that didn’t feel like too much to worry about — QPR often started slowly, Wimbledon were always awkward, Sheffield Wednesday were our bogey side, it would be fine. Man City, Bolton and Leeds were subsequently beaten in reasonably quick succession.
But that Spurs game… that was the moment, confirmed several months later by the infamous Eric Cantona equaliser during the second reading of the classified football results. To be playing so well, to be 2-0 up at home, against a poor Spurs side that we beat regularly at Loftus Road at that time, and not even end up getting a point was a savage blow. We blamed the referee at the time I think — David Ellery treated Teddy Sheringham to a scandalous penalty for the first goal to set the comeback in motion — but when you’re making Jason fucking Dozzell look like the bastard love child of Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff you’ve got issues other than the bloke with the whistle.
Not only that, but the mental effect of blowing a lead like that at home, in a London derby, on the television, with your old manager leaping out of the opposite dug out and celebrating the winner on the pitch, reached far beyond that of the standard 3-2 loss. QPR subsequently went on a dozen match winless run over Christmas and New Year and dropped down a division.
It works the other way as well though. In 2010/11 Neil Warnock’s team started the season with 19 unbeaten matches to lay the platform for a title winning campaign. There were some thumping wins in amongst them — 3-0 at Ipswich, 3-0 at Sheff Utd, 4-0 at home to Barnsley — but it was the worst performance of the lot that should have told us what we had that year.
The last match in August, away to Derby County, QPR were dreadful for the whole thing. Adel Taarabt was taken out of the game, Derby did a number on us, the home side led 2-0 going into the second minute of stoppage time. Rangers, of course, salvaged a 2-2 from it. The injection of belief that gave the players, the momentum it helped maintain and build further, stretched on for months afterwards. That was a special, tight group of players and that game showed them and us what could be achieved. The team rarely looked back and won the league despite a blip over Christmas, despite the Ale Faurlin hearing saga and more besides.
One can only hope that game is still to come for us this season — perhaps this Saturday against Birmingham, a big win with our backs to the wall and pressure mounting on the manager — because if it’s already happened then we’re bang in trouble.
It’s hard to shake the feeling that the Newcastle debacle may have been our moment of 2016/17. A 6-0 home defeat. I’m still not over it. There have been two matches since, and although the first hour of the Sunderland game was kind of fun in a bumbling, YouTube-compilation-of-horses-falling-over, way both have gone by in a bit of a numb blur for me. Six goals.
Off the field it’s accelerated the feelings against Hasselbaink. Had we lost 2-1 or something like that, and continued on an indifferent run thereafter, I suspect the level of vitriol against him would have reached its present level by mid-November. The Newcastle game crammed that process into 90 horrifying minutes. Before the match there was some concern and discontent, because the Preston and Blackburn matches had been so bloody dull, but you’d have struggled to find somebody who wanted him sacked. Now you’d struggle to find somebody who doesn’t.
I’m still firmly in the camp that QPR need to grow up a bit, and stop being that club that constantly craves a change of manager, another signing, more blood. Already in this young season our fan base has — as a whole, as a small group, or an individual basis — demanded another managerial change just ten months after the last, booed our own team at the end of several games, booed our own team while a game was taking place, sent messages to youth teamers’ personal Twitter accounts saying they were "atrocious” after the first senior appearances for the club, demanded more money spent and more players signed, sat silently for vast swathes of the home games and almost all of the away games, screeched at the chairman on social media to change the manager or buy more players, called our black manager "Malteser head”. Imagine what we’d be saying if Chelsea fans were behaving like this.
But, all that set aside, QPR are not cheap to watch, and they’re not good to watch. Tonight’s quotes from Hasselbaink on West London Sport sum it up quite well for me. Every time our manager speaks I agree with 98% of what he says, and think ‘thank God there’s somebody with his head screwed on in the middle of all this’ — but in the remaining 2% he tends to throw out a load of total nonsense. His insistence that the first 40 minutes at Huddersfield last week was good is concerning, partly because it obviously wasn’t and you wonder whether our manager can see properly, but mainly because if he aspires to that first 40 minutes at Huddersfield as the benchmark then we’re in trouble because it was absolute crap with zero goal threat from us and plenty from them. We were lucky not to lose by far more at Huddersfield, it's not to be held up as any kind of positive.
On the pitch, who knows what lasting damage that Newcastle game has done to the players? That sort of humiliation and embarrassment doesn’t go away overnight. Charlton had a couple of similar games last season, at Huddersfield and Hull, and we know what happened to them.
This Saturday is a big game. The natives are very restless now and that’s understandable — although whether it’s acceptable to send direct messages to Osman Kakay and Nico Hamalainen immediately after their second and first senior appearances for the club respectively describing them as "atrocious” is open for discussion. That could get a lot worse tomorrow.
There have been some bits and pieces to take out of the last few games: Kakay looked very steady at right back, and crucially looked comfortable with the ball going forwards which none of our other available right backs do; Idris Elba looked well capable of playing a lone striker role in the Championship on Tuesday’s evidence, and was a good deal better than Seb Polter has been of late; Conor Washington finally looked like he can be lively and effective if used in a wide area; the central midfield was better for being without Karl Henry and Jordan Cousins had his best game for the club; Ariel Borysiuk made a big difference in the second half at Huddersfield; Joel Lynch impressed on Wednesday.
If all of this, along with the latest flavour of the month Sandro, is ignored, and Hasselbaink simply returns to the 4-2-3-1 with Henry in midfield, inverse wingers, Cousins out of position, Onuoha at right back… and it doesn’t go well… Well, you can only fear for the reaction come five to five on Saturday.
It’s a big moment for Hasselbaink this, with two difficult away matches approaching in the six days afterwards. What we shouldn’t lose sight of is we want him to come through this.
We want QPR to win tomorrow, and Tuesday, and next Saturday and on we go. We want Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink to be the best manager we’ve ever had. We want him to win promotions and trophies, because that’s what we want for our club. I do get a sense — because people don’t like an old Chelsea man in charge, because people are bored by the football, because people don’t like Les Ferdinand, because people wish Neil Warnock was in charge, because people have seen their friends and/or sources leave the club since the latest regime took charge — that some are sort of waiting for this to go even more wrong so they can jump on the team, the manager, the board and force another change. When even the people who are meant to be on your own side are waiting for an opportunity to hammer you, so they can say "I told you so", as some sort of karma for some perceived wrong you've committed previously, you're on fast diminishing time.
Hasselbaink could help himself by starting to throw a bit of caution to the wind.. Most people outside the padded room appreciate the circumstances the club is operating within, but also don’t care to spend £30 a week or £550 a season to be bored to tears, to see a team playing slowly and defensively at home against the division’s worst teams and so on.
Big, big day.
Links >>> Another sound start for Brum — Interview >>> One snowy night — History >>> Eyes on the squirrel — Referee
Highlights of QPR’s thumping 5-2 victory against Birmingham from the 1970/71 season, and Rodney Marsh’s famous perfect hat trick.
Team News: Probably the biggest team selection of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink's brief (and it is still brief, ten months) reign at QPR so far. Will some or all of Tjaronn Chery, Seb Polter, Jake Bidwell, Nedum Onuoha, Grant Hall, Alex Smithies and the dreaded Karl Henry be recalled? Or will some of Idirss Elba, Osman Kakay, Joel Lynch and the even more dreaded Sandro retain their spots? Will Ariel Borysiuk ever do anything other than carry water bottles to and from the bench?
On the injury front James Perch and Jamie Mackie are long term. Yeni Ngabokoto missed last weekend's game attending his father's funeral.
Birmingham love a goalkeeper with a Z in his name, which is bad news when Tomasz Kuszczak remains sidelined with a groin problem, but not too bad when you have Adam Legzdins to deputise. Top scorer Clayton Donaldson is a doubt while midfielder Robert Tesche is helping a friend move house this weekend and is therefore unavailable.
Elsewhere: Do you want to watch Preston v Wigan on the television box tonight? Do you? Who doesn't? Friday night, sun blazing, beer gardens across the city flooded with flimsy white blouses, but home we go for a big dollop of Preston v Wigan instead. A classic in store I'm sure.
Everybody else is playing on Saturday with the game of the day at Villa Park as the Aston Villa Train Wreck takes on Newcastle at 17.30 on Sky.
Of the eye catching 15.00 kick offs — one of the predicted challengers, Brighton, plays at home to one of the surprise packages, Barnsley, and it will be interesting to see if they repeat the reality check they delivered to Borussia Huddersfield a fortnight ago in similar circumstances. The Germans, naturally, recovered from that to beat QPR last week and they go to Waitrose this weekend still leading the table following Newcastle's loss to Wolves a week back. Wolves themselves, wildly inconsistent, host Brentford.
The Derby Chokers, currently finding it impossible to score goals — just three so far — will surely be able to fill their boots at home to the Mad Chicken Farmers. Their nearest and dearest Nottingham Trees are away to the Sheffield Owls. The Champions of Europe host Ipswich while Tarquin and Rupert welcome The Wurzels to the summer house for the second time in a few days having met in the cup during the week.
Norwich v Nigel Clough's Burton Albion and Rotherham v Struggling Cardiff are also football matches taking place this weekend.
Referee: Paul Tierney, a man who once had control of a game wrestled from his grasp by the Loftus Road squirrel, is back in W12 with deer stalker hat and air gun at the read. Full case file and stats available here.
QPR: Rangers started the season with four wins, a draw (won on penalties) and two defeats in their first seven matches and sat fifth in the league just a fortnight ago. They also kept three clean sheets in those games, including the first two in the league which were both won against Leeds (3-0) and Cardiff (2-0). It's all gone to pot since though, with three straight defeats and a draw with bottom placed Blackburn the form leading into this match. They've also started conceding goals at quite a rate, four in the last two games, ten in the last three, 11 in the last four. At Loftus Road they've won one of four games in the league so far, with then bottom Preston winning 2-0 and currently bottom Blackburn getting a 1-1 draw prior to the 6-0 shellacking by Newcastle. Remarkably, none of 11 goals Rangers have scored in the league this season have come from open play - and the three scored by Sandro against Rochdale and Sunderland were all from corners as well.
Birmingham: A very solid start to the season from Gary Rowett's men, who sit fifth at the start of play having lost just one of their first eight games in the league and conceded only six goals. They've won four and drawn three of the others, and are unbeaten in four away matches so far with wins at Leeds and Fulham and draws with Reading and Wigan. A 3-0 home win against Norwich, and 3-1 set back against Wolves, have been the exception to a low scoring season so far — they've had two 0-0s and two 1-0s in all competitions so far and the last three matches (two wins, one draw) have yielded just four goals in total. Away from home last season they won seven, drew ten and lost six — fewer away defeats than anybody in the league south of fifth, and one fewer than Middlesbrough suffered despite winning promotion in second. One of those was, of course, at Loftus Road last time these sides met. Brum have completed fewer passes than any other Championship side, despite their lofty league position.
Prediction: Reigning Prediction league champion Dylan Pressman, fresh from a spot on call at Huddersfield last week, tells us…
"September has been rough month for QPR in recent years; in four of the last five seasons Rangers have failed to win a single game in September (the exception being our promotion season of 2013/14). I am hoping that we will break that duck this year (against Burton maybe), but I don't expect it to be this week. Birmingham will just be too good for us and we will lose 2-1 at home, with Chery getting the consolation goal.
Dylan's Prediction: QPR 1-2 Birmingham. Scorer — Tjaronn Chery
LFW's Prediction: QPR 0-0 Birmingham. No scorer.
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Pictures — Action Images