QPR slipped to second in the Championship for the first time since the opening week of the season a 1-1 draw against an impressive Burnley side at Loftus Road on Saturday.
It was Homer Simpson who said “beer, the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems.” It was also Homer Simpson who questioned whether baseball was always boring when he attended a game sober for the first time in his life. On both points I empathise with him.
For the two outfielders discussing with each other who was to remove the beach ball that had blown onto the pitch at the latest Springfield Isotopes game we had referee Iain Williamson on Saturday. A man with a very loose grasp of the rules but a very firm desire to see every throw in and free kick taken from exactly the right spot. No not there, there, there, over there, no too far forward there, level with me, no there, there, there, over there player, no, there, there, there – right, now we can take the throw in. Is football always like this? Have I been wasting my time drunkenly stumbling round watching monotonous crap controlled by pedantic arseholes for the last 20 years?
The reason for my rare Saturday afternoon of sobriety was a wisdom tooth extraction, and subsequent prescription of very large pills in the same colour scheme they paint nuclear warheads. For those that haven’t had the pleasure this involves an extremely large needle being jabbed into the inside of your mouth, followed by an equally large knife being thrust in there to cut a gum that, while numb, can still be felt being sliced in two and bleeding out into your throat. Then there’s half an hour or so of pulling and pushing with something that looks remarkably like a tool I have hanging up in the shed for repairing the lawnmower and bludgeoning burglars to death followed by three extremely large cracks and the emergence of a tooth that by this stage you wish you’d just left where it was. The needle and knife and pliers are then followed into your gob by a sewing kit to try and draw the large bleeding hole together and they pack you on your way £50 lighter and clutching pills that forbid you from drinking.
And do you know what? I’d gladly climb in that chair and do the whole thing again rather than watch another match refereed by Iain Williamson. Here is a man who could probably quote you the rules of association football word for word without need for reference, who could identify rolling stock on the Great Western mainline from half a mile away, who probably keeps a small toothbrush in his glove box of his car specifically to clean the air conditioning ducts with – but probably didn’t get to touch an actual woman’s breast until his mid-20s. His history as a semi-pro footballer bode well for an afternoon of understanding and common sense but his astonishing card count (183 yellows in his last 42 games) betrayed a man with a footballing heart the size of a pea and so it proved.
That said it wasn’t Mr Williamson who volleyed over when unmarked at the back post, or headed limply wide from a yard out, or bobbled another presentable header wide from inside the six yard box, or spent an afternoon playing direct balls straight onto the head of Clarke Carlisle – QPR did that all for themselves. Rangers didn’t deserve to win this game regardless of how mercilessly the match officials disrupted it because they didn’t take the chances they did create, they didn’t play to their strengths, and they found themselves playing second fiddle to Burnley for huge swathes of the action.
They spent far too long in the game playing direct football towards Rob Hulse, making his first Loftus Road appearance in attack instead of the injured Heidar Helguson. Hulse looked like a man without a lot of football in his legs, while Hogan Ephraim in support looked like a man with rather too much. It was only when Tommy Smith came on for the final ten minutes that QPR started playing to their strengths and consistently troubling their visitors. Nevertheless there were moments to admire from Adel Taarabt who supported Hulse with help from Jamie Mackie. Further back it was the usual set up with Faurlin and Derry in front of Walker, Gorkss, Connolly and Hill with Paddy Kenny in goal.
Burnley dominated this game for long periods for two reasons. Firstly they had Chris Iwelumo as their loan striker and while Hulse only won one of every five attempts in the air it’s hard to recall Iwelumo losing a header without at least nudging the defender off balance first in his entire 80 minutes on the field. Secondly they had Mike Duff and, more importantly, Clarke Carlisle at the back who repelled QPR’s direct approach with such ease and dominance it rendered us toothless for long periods. Carlisle’s behaviour while with QPR, and after his departure, rightly earned him a chorus of boos before this game kicked off, but just as he had done on his last return to Loftus Road the season before last he was so dominant it hardly seemed worth him changing out of his club suit. As I said in the match preview, this performance only reinforces my belief that if he’d steered clear of the special brew, hard tar cigarettes and cruciate knee ligament injuries he’d have played at the top level in this country for many years. He’s intelligent enough to know that himself, which must play on his mind in quieter moments.
Before kick off there was an emotional scene as the family of Acting Corporal David Barnsdale, a QPR fan recently killed in Afghanistan, laid a wreath in the centre circle. This was then taken and placed behind the Loft End goal for the duration of the match to warm applause.
The game started as it meant to go on – with old fashioned direct Championship football and crap refereeing. In the second minute Kyle Walker tried to seek out Kaspars Gorkss at the near post with a long throw, one of the two Burnley players marking him sandwich style nodded the ball behind and the first, rather easy, decision of the day for Mr Williamson presented itself. He looked at the players, and at his linesman, and at the players, and at his linesman and then he guessed that it was a goal kick which of course it wasn’t and so we began. This guessing game took place several more times on the afternoon, far more than it really should have for a man with apparently decent eyesight, and I did wonder at one point whether or not it would be better to just stick a tombola drum on the halfway line with a load of decisions in and draw them out randomly whenever the ball went dead. It would have been a lot fairer and we would have seen more correct calls than we actually did.
For every mistake and guess there shortly followed an evener – i.e. a soft decision given in favour of the team just wronged by his incompetence. There was a moment in the first half where QPR kicked the ball out for a Burnley throw which they set about taking, only for Williamson to change his mind and award it to QPR for no apparent reason at all – an incident that perplexed everybody down on the pitch and in the technical areas and had everybody in F Block uttering “what?” in unison.
Within a minute of the corner that never was QPR were awarded a soft free kick for a foul on Walker and from that they won an actual corner which Kaspars Gorkss really should have headed home as he attacked it at the near post but could only glance across the face of the goal.
Gorkss was in the thick of the action again six minutes later when he crudely chopped down Tyrone Mears in full flight during a Burnley counter attack. A clearer yellow card you could never hope to see but Gorkss protested, wrongly, that he had won the ball so Williamson let him off.
Conceding set pieces to Burnley wasn’t the best idea really with Iwelumo, Duff and Carlisle all posing a big threat in the air and Daniel Fox the left back available to deliver them. Fox, you may recall, caught out Radek Cerny with a 40 yard free kick that he hit towards goal instead of crossing during his Coventry days and when Burnley forced a corner from this free kick he almost did it again. QPR positioned nobody on the near post for the corner so Fox whipped the ball into that area hard and low and Kenny was forced to re-adjust and make a fine, if a little unorthodox, save on the goal line with both feet.
Now I’ve made a note in the book at this point that simply says ‘Clint Hill penalised late, Graham Alexander trying to referee’ and while I can’t remember exactly what happened in that incident it’s worth bringing up here simply because both of these things became a feature of the refereeing on the day. Firstly Mr Williamson frequently seemed to give decisions long after the incident had occurred simply because the crowd or the players had demanded it – Chris Eagles fell foul of this a little later on. Secondly Graham Alexander, while still a fine player, is an absolute bastard with referees – constantly around them offering an opinion, asking for a booking, arguing the toss. At one stage I wondered whether he shouldn’t just be given the whistle and card himself he seemed so keen to control things – like the tombola drum idea, he could hardly have done any worse.
QPR should have opened the scoring after a quarter of an hour. The R’s finally worked a passing move down the left flank with Ephraim, Taarabt and Hill combining nicely to work a crossing opportunity. That was cleared out to Derry on the edge of the box and when he scuffed a volley towards goal the ball inadvertently fell to Mackie in the six yard box but his first touch was heavy and prevented him from converting a very presentable chance. Six weeks ago Mackie would have taken the shot on first time and buried it without breaking sweat but a series of recent misses and moments of misfortune seem to have knocked his confidence somewhat. He, like the team, has regressed from his August and September form back to a level which I expected of him back in the summer.
Immediately after the Mackie chance Burnley fashioned a decent opening. The ball was knocked long to Iwelumo who won it on the edge of the box and nodded it down to Jay Rodriquez who in turn laid it off for Dean Marney and the former Hull man drove the ball wide of the goal.
Last time we played Burnley here in the league I said they were the best side we faced at Loftus Road that season, and they’re certainly the best team we’ve played in the Bush so far this team – but for different reasons. Under Owen Coyle the football flowed and it was people like Eagles and Wade Elliott who tortured us. On Saturday the game plan was clear – get the ball pumped up to Iwelumo early and then work off him. Not particularly attractive as a style of play but ruthlessly effective with Gorkss and Connolly again struggling against a physical target man and Burnley flooding the space around Iwelumo with players every time the ball went up to him meaning QPR’s centre halves were dominated and their midfielders outnumbered. QPR hadn’t conceded a goal at Loftus Road in six league games prior to this one and Burnley posed more of a threat to us on Saturday than Barnsley, Scunthorpe, Doncaster, Middlesbrough, Millwall and Norwich had put together.
In a crazy 60 seconds of action midway through the half we could potentially have had a penalty at either end and a Burnley goal. The madness began with a Burnley corner – not for the first time on the day QPR were slow to organise themselves prior to it being taken and there were at least three Burnley players unmarked in the area as it was delivered. One of them was Chris Eagles and when the ball fell to him in the box he collapsed theatrically under minimal contact. It was a pathetic piece of blatant cheating and worthy of a yellow card but QPR didn’t hang around to ask questions and stormed to the other end of the field where Adel Taarabt took a turn in theatrical falls in the penalty area. Again there looked to be little contact and the player could easily have been booked, but once more play went on and Burnley countered right back at Rangers. Eagles, back on his feet and ready to play properly, picked up on some fine service from Iwelumo who turned Gorkss with ease and launched a shot from the edge of the area that Kenny should have held but spilled on the wet surface straight to Jay Rodriquez who must have thought a goal was inevitable only for Kenny to produce a miraculous second save that had three sides of Loftus Road standing to applaud. I cannot recall seeing a better save since a similar incident involving Simon Royce, ironically against Burnley at the Loft End, when he denied Ade Akinbiyi against all odds.
Kenny made another save soon after that, scrambling across his goal to get a fingertip to a curling shot from Alexander.
On the half hour, Eagles did get his yellow card for diving. He ran right to the heart of the penalty area with the ball at feet but with few options for a pass and QPR ranks massing around him it was clear that he was running out of pitch in which to do anything so he toed the ball out for a goal kick and then flung himself to the floor in dramatic fashion. If the first incident had been pathetic, this one was laughable. Eagles, a fine player in his defence, has always been the Gillian Taylforth of Championship footballers, never knowingly missing a chance to go down, but again the referee seemed content to award a goal kick until Derry confronted him, Kenny stood over Eagles having a go and the crowd rose and booed the player as one – only then, very belatedly, did the yellow card come out.
Immediately after that Eagles was penalised for planting a high boot in Clint Hill’s face and within five minutes he’d been tricked by Adel Taarabt and kicked the Moroccan up in the air tight to the touchline. It was no surprise to see him withdrawn by Brian Laws at half time and replaced by Ross Wallace – a red card would surely have been shown if he’d continued down that road.
In between the Eagles indiscretions Rangers took the lead with a goal of the season contender. Adel Taarabt, so awful and ineffective in the last game at Bristol City, collected possession 35 yards from goal, ran directly towards the area, worked space for himself with a neat shoulder drop and then lashed the ball past Lee Grant from 25 yards out. Grant is a goalkeeper who has a string of fabulous performances and saves against QPR on his CV but he was never going to get anywhere near that. Hopefully this puts to bed the ludicrous suggestion put forward by a section of the QPR support after the Bristol City game that Taarabt should be dropped whenever he has one of his selfish and sulky days.
The goal seemed to send confidence coursing through Taarabt and he was unplayable for ten minutes after it. First there was the trick and subsequent foul drawn from Eagles, then he went on a mazy run to the byline that ended with a perfect cross to the back post and QPR really should have made it 2-0 – Ali Faurlin arrived unmarked for what looked like a simple header but must have failed to call because Rob Hulse tried to execute a scissor kick and the pair simply kicked and headed each other rather than the ball. It rather summed up both their days.
For every good thing Taarabt does there’s often a bad moment just around the corner, and four minutes before half time he was booked for handball when he appeared to be fouled and put his hand on the ball expecting a free kick to be awarded. It’s a shame really that he doesn’t play for Man Utd because I gather the rules are slightly different for them in the same situation.
Our referee came to the fore again right at the very end of the half when he awarded Burnley a very soft penalty kick – again, I felt he was possibly evening things up for the earlier Eagles decision. Matt Connolly and Dean Marney came together in the area in what looked to be more of an accidental collision with both players equally at fault than anything else. The penalty was awarded and Graham Alexander, who had actually missed his first penalty in 40-odd attempts earlier in the season, calmly planted the spot kick into the top corner with Kenny well beaten. It was a joke decision from a joke referee.
So with pantomime villain Chris Eagles removed and Ross Wallace introduced the second half got underway and Burnley completely dominated the first half an hour of it.
Dean Marney sounded the first warning, bringing the ball down on the edge of the area and then volleying wide. Then Wade Elliott collected possession in a similar area and cracked a 20 yard shot off the top of the cross bar – although an offside flag would have seen the goal disallowed had it dipped in. Within a minute Iwelumo had nodded down for Wallace to fire over and the game continued in this pattern with Burnley winning the first header at both ends of the field through Iwelumo and Carlisle and reaching the second balls first too through sheer weight of numbers in the midfield. QPR weren’t helped by Alejandro Faurlin having a rare off day that put extra pressure and workload on the shoulders of Derry who looked, medical term here, well knackered midway through the second period.
Neil Warnock responded to a poor start to the second half by replacing the ineffective Hogan Ephraim with Patrick Agyemang. Duff and Carlisle had comprehensively dominated Hulse so the choices were clear – either stop going so direct, or introduce more muscle to the attack, and Warnock went with the latter. Thankfully it was the interested looking Dave that came on, buoyed by his goal at Bristol last week, rather than the lazy waste of space he has been before and he actually seemed to worry the Burnley defence during his half hour cameo, something QPR had only managed to do for ten minutes in the game prior to that.
Mr Williamson’s latest unwanted intrusion into proceedings came just after the hour when Mears appeared to be fouled in clearing the ball behind his own goal but a corner was given. Then having done that he took the classic cowardly referee’s get out clause by immediately awarding Burnley a free kick in the box for some non-existent climbing offence in the crowd of players. There could be no arguments about Kaspars Gorkss’ yellow card a minute later though – he crudely upended Elliott having been well beaten by the winger – or that issued to Mike Duff for a blatant trip on Mackie as he threatened to burst through on the edge of the area but Taarabt could only find the wall with a weak free kick.
The teams then took it in turns to create and miss glorious opportunities as the time ticked past 70 minutes. First Jamie Mackie broke down the right wing with Agyemang in support but held onto the ball in the knowledge that his partner would have been offside if he had played it early, which otherwise would have been the ideal move. Once Dave got his arse back onside Mackie did send over a cross and it was about a foot away from Agyemang’s forehead and flew right across the face of goal. Then Iwelumo started to spread havoc in the School End penalty area – seizing on a cut back from Ross Wallace who probably should have shot himself and working space for a shot on the turn that flew barely an inch over the bar with Kenny well beaten.
Graham Alexander then picked up the yellow card he’d been begging for from the first whistle when Taarabt danced past him and was cynically hauled back – the free kick was stood up to the back post (a rare reasonable delivery from a QPR set piece) where Gorkss nodded it back across to Agyemang who should have done better than simply nodding the ball limply wide of the post.
Speaking of people with odd nicknames missing glorious chances, play then flowed straight back down to the other end where Jay Rodriguez (or J-Rod if you’re one of the brain dead morons that calls Graham McDowell G-Mac or Robert Pattinson R-Patz or Susan Boyle Su-Bo or, agggh I can’t take it anymore, hand me my gun) somehow managed to screw the ball a couple of inches wide when played through one on one with Paddy Kenny by a beautiful pass from Elliott. Rodriquez broke QPR hearts with a last, gasp extra time winner in the FA Cup replay at Turf Moor two seasons ago but missed Burnley’s best two chances on Saturday and while he can point to a wonder save from Kenny as mitigation for the first, the second was a complete sitter.
And then things all got a little bit silly – as was the inevitable consequence of the frustration that builds in teams when the referee can’t whistle quickly or often enough for petty, trivial offences but misses the stuff that actually matters. Jamie Mackie was at the heart of it all, hitting the deck and staying down clutching his face after claiming he had been struck by a retreating Burnley player during a counter attack. The referee and linesman completely missed that - the least surprising news of the day – and spoke to Mackie instead. The former Plymouth’s man ire would only have increased when he was then penalised for a high boot on Duff even though the ball was barely waist height and the Burnley man was ducking down to head it. And then he got booked when Duff cleared the ball, followed through onto Mackie’s boot and hit the deck clutching his shin. I’ve never needed a drink more in my life than I did at that moment.
Two substitutions then changed the course of what remained of the match. Brian Laws, never the most positive of managers in the same way that Hitler wasn’t the most tolerant of leaders, took off Chris Iwelumo and sent on Stephen Thompson. This immediately killed Burnley as any sort of attacking force and the time wasting, which had been prevalent from the twentieth minute and only stopped briefly after Taarabt’s goal, really stepped up a notch or two. Mike Duff and then Clarke Carlisle were both particularly guilty, stretching treatment for minor ailments out for what seemed like hours to disrupt the flow of the game. Neil Warnock meanwhile sent on Tommy Smith for Adel Taarabt and it was only then, with Smith grabbing the game by the scruff of the neck, that QPR actually started to play to their strengths and trouble the Burnley defence. The home side could have scored four times in the brief period Smith was on the field. That’s no reflection on Taarabt by the way, who was very decent on the day.
First, with five minutes remaining, a corner was half cleared out to Kyle Walker whose low cross found Kaspars Gorkss at the back post and his powerful half volley flew just too high. Then a silly foul by Mears on Smith gave the former Watford man a chance to deliver a free kick into the area where it was flicked up in the air by Faurlin and then nodded agonisingly wide by Hill.
Those chances were barely a minute apart and I don’t think a further 60 seconds had passed when Smith seized possession on the halfway line, ran at the heart of the Burnley defence and then slipped in Mackie whose low shot rolled out of Grant’s reach but also just wide of the upright. Five minutes of added time gave Smith a chance to make further inroads and he looked to have won the game for QPR during that period when he picked up a throw on the corner of the penalty area, turned his man and then curled a delightful shot towards the far top corner and with Grant well beaten God only knows how it didn’t nestle in the net because it looked like a goal from the moment it left his boot – curling, swirling, climbing and dipping to what seemed like absolute perfection only to then somehow land in the lower Loft.
And if you thought that was the last chance of the game you’d have been wrong – Leon Clarke, on for Hulse with 15 minutes remaining but only effective in this one stoppage time move, nodded a cross down at the far post and Shaun Derry drilled wide from eight yards out when the goal was begging to be scored. Rangers were left to rue that chance, and the 80 largely wasted minutes that had preceded Smith’s introduction. Had we played like that throughout the game a big win would have been inevitable.
So what’s gone wrong? Well, in my opinion, not a lot. At the start of the season I didn’t think we would make the play offs and as we stand now I’d only back us to make the top six rather than top two. We were superb in August and September against largely poor opposition (Ipswich apart) and now we’re playing at a level more akin to what I expected against better sides. Burnley, Swansea and Norwich are the three best sides we’ve played, we haven’t lost to any of them and we’re still second. This is better than anything I expected to happen and I’m satisfied with how things are going. I’d like to see Tommy Smith start, but apart from that I like the team and I like the system.
I think in a way we’re victims of the fixture list. We’re simply finding that there’s a difference between playing Swansea, Norwich and Burnley as we are doing now, and Gordon Strachan’s Middlesbrough and Kevin Blackwell’s Sheffield United as we did earlier in the season. When faced with weaker sides (Bristol City apart) we’re beating them and when we play stronger sides we’re not losing, even when we’re below par, and that’s something to be really encouraged by.
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QPR: Kenny 8, Walker 6, Connolly 6, Gorkss 6, Hill 5, Derry 6, Faurlin 5, Ephraim 5 (Agyemang 62, 7), Taarabt 7 (Smith 82, 8), Mackie 6, Hulse 5 (Clarke 74, 5)
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Orr, Leigertwood, Rowlands
Booked: Taarabt (handball), Gorkss (foul), Mackie (foul)
Goals: Taarabt 32 (unassisted)
Burnley: Grant 6, Mears 6, Carlisle 9, Duff 8, Fox 7, Eagles 5 (Wallace 46, 6), Alexander 6, Marney 6, Elliott 6, Rodriguez 6, Iwelumo 8 (Thompson 83, -)
Subs Not Used: Jensen, Cork, Paterson, Cort, Bikey
Booked: Eagles (diving), Duff (foul), Alexander (foul)
Goals: Alexander 45 (penalty)
QPR Star Man – Paddy Kenny 8 Burnley managed seven attempts on target to QPR’s three and the scores finished level mainly because Paddy Kenny was only beaten by a well taken penalty. The second half of his double save in the first half was world class and there was another one at full stretch shortly afterwards that sort of got lost in the euphoria of the first. The best of a mediocre bunch.
Referee: Iain Williamson (Berkshire) 3 Not often I agree with Brian Laws but I thought the Burnley manager got his assessment of the refereeing spot on. Laws said: “I could question whether the game was too big for him because there were some horrendous decisions. In the end I have had to make a decision because of his decisions. I had to take Chris Eagles off because I think if I hadn't he would probably have sent him off.” One blatantly wrong decision followed another, usually to even up the previous one, and in the end Williamson just started to drown in a sea of his own incompetence. Constantly blowing his whistle, issuing cards and generally being a bloody pain in the arse.
Attendance: 15,620 (1,404 Burnley) A better atmosphere than was prevalent at the last home game against Norwich and thankfully there wasn’t a lot of dissent around the place even when Burnley were battering us at the start of the second half. Nevertheless we were comprehensively out sung by the away fans in the upper School End until the final ten minutes when the home fans responded to the improvements on the pitch by building a decent wall of noise to encourage them.