 Friday, 11th Jan 2008 00:29 QPR’s new look team returns to league action this weekend with a trip to Bramall Lane to face Sheffield United. It’s a sign of the times at Loftus Road that there were actually a fair few supporters bemoaning our performance at Chelsea last week both on message boards and in the upper Shed End near me at the match. Some said we lacked ambition, some said we showed them too much respect, some said we could have won the game quite comfortably if we’d gone all out for it, some said Luigi De Canio was too negative with his team selection and tactics, some said we didn’t get stuck in enough and so it went on. It may have been the best time to play Chelsea with so many of their big name players missing, but that doesn’t mean it was a good time to play Chelsea because, really, is there ever a good time to take your Championship side to one of the Premiership’s big four? The players Chelsea used last Saturday totalled just under £80m in transfer fees, compared to our £4m. The Chelsea players that played against us boasted 330 international caps, to Stewart and Buzsaky’s moderate collection of Jamaican and Hungarian appearances. They beat us, on their own patch, by a single goal that could easily have gone wide instead and by the end of the match were keeping the ball in the corner to waste time. It seems a little harsh to criticise our players at all to me, but that’s just my opinion. If there are those willing to get stuck into our players after a defeat at Chelsea in the FA Cup, it’s not going to be too long before the boo boys are out in force at league games if it takes our new look team a few weeks to gel. What De Canio and the board are trying to achieve at QPR is going to take time, we’re not going to win the next 20 league games and romp past West Brom to take the title on the final day of the season at Loftus Road. We’ve added eight players already this month with another one due shortly – you can’t just sling a whole new team together mid season and hope for it to work straight away. I’d expect it to be March or April before this team is playing to its full potential – and I hope the supporters are more tolerant with them while that happens than they seem to have been after Saturday’s creditable, narrow loss. The game in Sheffield this weekend is a prime example. Three months ago we’d have taken this fixture as a defeat without thinking too much about it, now there will be many QPR fans not only hoping for, but expecting a victory at Bramall Lane. Me included I’m slightly scared to say. But if I’m wrong I won’t stamp my feet and abuse our new look side, I’ll walk the two miles from the away end back to my house and get ready for Barnsley at home, safe in the knowledge that my football club will still exist by the time next Saturday comes round – I still can’t get used to this financial security malarkey after so many years of sleepless nights. Whether others will be quite so care free I’m not sure. Actually I am sure, expect the first “De Canio’s spent all this money and we still can’t win” post on the message board as soon as we go two games without a victory. As well as blending a whole new team together while still coming to grips with the language, De Canio and the players are going to have to deal with soaring expectations. Still, it could be worse, our new manager could have been Bryan Robson… Five minutes on Sheff Utd Now I don’t like Warnock. I don’t like the fact everybody hails him as some kind of football genius despite the amount of time and money it took for him to get Sheff Utd up, I don’t like the way he remorselessly picked 4-5-1 formations in the Premier League away from home regardless of circumstance even in the penultimate match when a win against an Aston Villa side who’d packed up and gone away for the summer months previous would have seen them safe. I don’t like the way he fills my local paper for eight months saying he’s desperate to land Luke Beckett and then loans him out to Huddersfield within ten minutes of finally getting him, I don’t like the way it’s never his fault when things go tits up and I don’t like the knowing glances we’re all giving each other now Palace have gone 15 unbeaten. I don’t like the guy. However to remove a manager with a proven record of finishing in the top half of this division and replace him with a manager with a proven track record of relegating teams, a proven track record of spending millions making a team worse than it was before he started, somebody with a reputation of being in the old school of “a pint after the match is fine” in an age of pasta and dieticians makes about as much sense as continuing to play the League Cup semi finals over two legs. If there’s one person I hate more than Neil Warnock, it’s Bryan Robson. I grew up detesting the guy because he always had a surly grin on his face in my sticker album, and he played for Man Utd as well of course and regular readers will know that I keep my patio curtains closed at all times in case “The Reds” suddenly fancy a kick about on my lawn. Then he took up managing. I can count on the fingers of one hand managers who would actually have been able to relegate Middlesbrough when Robson did. With the Premier League’s top scorer Ravenelli up front and the outstanding talent of the season Juninho in midfield they should have been looking at European places – instead they dropped out of the league altogether. In the end the club’s decision to skip a game at Blackburn because of a sickness bug which resulted in a points deduction cost them their place in the division. If Robson had done what a competent manager would have done, turned up to the game with 11 kids from the youth set up they would have stayed up even if they’d lost 28-0. Still he was kept on, and allowed to spend £4.5m on Paul Merson in his prime to annihilate Division One by himself. So they were back and, incredibly, he almost pulled off the same trick again. Only the introduction of Terry Venables at Christmas saved Boro – the sight of El Tel standing on the touchline directing the players while Robson lurked in the shadows afraid to say anything to a team that was meant to be his will live long in the memory. Once finally put out of his misery he surfaced briefly in Division One with Bradford City and relegated them. And yet, with two relegations and a near miss to his name, West Brom came calling and gave him another crack at the whip. And he relegated them as well. His defence when he got the push (again) was that West Brom’s team was worth a lot more when he left than it was when he arrived. The fact that it was now a Championship team as opposed to a Premiership one escaped him. Tony Mowbray is now showing him how easy it can be to be West Brom manager. I thought that was it, I thought nobody would be so stupid again, I thought we’d have to suffer him in our television studios forever more. Surely after three unmitigated disasters the world of football would be sensible enough to leave Bryan Robson on the scrapheap neatly positioned between Peter Reid and Nigel Spackman. Apparently not. I could run through the Shef Utd season to date, I could tell you about the poor performances, the dropped points, the fact that Robson is again taking a team with the division’s outstanding forward in it and leading it on a steady spiral towards the drop zone, the fans running on the pitch and throwing their shirts at him as he stands there looking gormless on the touchline. But I won’t, it’s a waste of me typing because I’ve written it once already – six months ago in fact, before the season even started. I’ll leave you with what David Price and myself wrote about Sheff Utd’s prospects in our preview of the forthcoming Championship season back in August. What do we think? A squad good enough to make the top six and challenge the top two but a manager not fit for purpose and a frustrating season of under achievement awaits. Who to watch out for With Beattie still injured and more than likely to miss this game the Blades will have to look at a combination of their other strikers against QPR. Luton Shelton (named after the town of conception?) and Jon Stead got the nod for the FA Cup win at Premiership side Bolton last week while Stead was partnered by Rob Hulse in a 0-0 draw at Wolves the week before. Shelton is seriously quick, you’re unlikely to see a faster player, and he cost the Blades £1.85m this time last year as Warnock searched for a striker capable of firing them to Premiership safety. Neither Warnock nor Robson have found much use for the Jamaican international though. He made just two starts and two sub appearances in the top flight, and only has four starts and eight sub outings this term a division lower. Both his goals for the club have come in the League Cup against Morecambe and he has so far flattered to deceive. He’s had another chance recently with Beattie injured but is yet to score – you know what we’ve always said about strikers and teams out of form against QPR, surely not another Dean Bowditch moment? Stead has flattered to deceive since bursting onto the scene with Huddersfield Town before bagging six goals in 13 matches after a seven figure move to the Premiership with Blackburn Rovers. When Mark Hughes arrived at Ewood his form dipped to two goals 20 starts and 14 sub appearances and he was subsequently sold to Sunderland where he famously managed just one goal, at Everton, in an entire season of Premiership football. Derby had some success with him on loan when they used him as a wide man rather than a striker and they were keen to get him permanently for their promotion campaign before United stepped in with three quarters of a million this time last year. Five goals in 12 starts for the Blades was creditable but he’s back down to four in 20 appearances this season and is another one struggling in Robson’s team. Those two were Warnock signings, Billy Sharp was a Robson man. Sharp initially left Bramall Lane for Scunthorpe after being buried under Warnock’s mountain of strikers but was tempted to return to the club he supports in the summer after two fantastic seasons, during which he scored 55 times for the Iron, in a transfer worth more than £2m. But like Shelton he’s bagged only two goals, both in the League Cup, and has started just six league games. He’d really have been better off staying where he was – he’s now right back where he started, in Sheff Utd’s reserves. Throw in Rob Hulse on his way back from a broken leg and Danny Webber and his record in this division and it’s hard to see why United’s goal scoring record is so shocking. Five times in the last eight games they’ve failed to score at all, the last time they scored more than once in a match was ten matches ago against Charlton. Beattie’s absence is obviously a big blow and being keenly felt, but there’s enough talent backing him up on paper for it not to be the huge hurdle United seem to be making it. It’s not like they’re short of attacking options from midfield either. Lee Hendrie was a cut above everything else in this league when on loan at Stoke last season and he looked a superb signing for the Blades during the summer – but he has started just five league matches this year and is yet to score. Gary Speed brings a wealth of experience and aerial threat at set pieces, Keith Gillespie is also a quality winger at this level, Michael Tonge was one of the division’s best players under Warnock and they’ve now added Lee Martin on loan from Man Utd, although he is suspended for our visit. At the back Gary Naysmith and Matthew Kilgallon are both players who cost a decent wedge and have Premiership experience. Chris Morgan has played in the top flight for Barnsley and the Blades, Phil Bardsley likewise for Man Utd, Gary Cahill likewise for Aston Villa. Every player named here is a good or fantastic player at this level – the United squad is teeming with players other Championship clubs would kill to have in their team. In my opinion they have the best team in the league on paper, excluding West Brom who are in a bit of a league of their own this year, and are being held back by the manager. They currently sit 16th, five points away from the relegation zone, and that’s scandalous for a team with those players that has cost that much. What happened the last time these teams met? Sheff Utd: Kenny, Morgan, Kozluk, Collins, Armstrong, Ifill, Jagielka, Tonge, Montgomery (Unsworth) Akinbiyi (Shipperley) Horsfield (Webber) QPR: Paul Jones, Bignot, Evatt, Shittu, Rose, Bircham, Cook, Lomas (Santos) Langley, Furlong, Nygaard (Youssouf) Head to Head Past Sheff Utd v QPR Matches Team News Sheff Utd have added Lee Martin to their squad this week on loan from Man Utd to the end of the season. Martin is fresh from a loan spell with Plymouth and played against QPR on Boxing Day but he is suspended for this one for accumulating five bookings while with the Pilgrims. James Beattie remains injured so Robson will chose between Stead, Shelton, Hulse and Sharp for his attack. Referee What’s happening elsewhere? Form Rangers have lost only one of their last five and two of their last 11 games in this corner of Sheffield. They have lost one of their last seven league matches, a last minute goal at Plymouth resulting in a 2-1 defeat. Away from home they have won two and drawn one of their last four in the league. QPR have three away wins from 13 matches and a further five games have been drawn. Those wins came at Burnley, Watford and Charlton. They sit 18th with 30 points from 26 games. Prediction
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