Queens Park Rangers, fourth in the Championship, contrived to lose 1-0 at bottom of the table Barnsley on Saturday — the Tykes’ first win in 15 games, and third in 30 league matches this season.
And so, into the annals of QPR brain freezes, alongside John Jensen’s only Arsenal goal in 138 appearances, Lloyd Doyley’s first Watford goal in his 269th appearance, those bloody Swindon Town defeats (which were in 1993/94 Olly, 1993/94, not 1992/93) and countless other beer shits besides, we can now file this. Rangers pushing for promotion, fourth in the table, unbeaten in seven league games, three defeats in 18 games, scorers in 22 consecutive away games, best team we’ve had for a decade. Barnsley, a bin, on wheels, on fire, accelerating downhill, two league wins from 30 games played, no victory in 15 matches, a club record wait for a new manager to register his first maximum, to all intents and purposes already relegated. One nil. As was, is, and seemingly ever shall be. Amen.
For all the brilliant overachievement of this team in this season, it would now be third with 58 points and knocking right on the door of second but for league defeats at Peterborough and Barnsley who are, by any standard of measurement you care to take, the worst two teams in the league. Another frighteningly similar cup loss at London Road the fish paste filling to this most unpleasant of sandwiches. The default in such circumstances is to roll one’s eyes, smile knowingly, and give it the tired, well worn, oft-heard "typical QPR”. Oh, wouldn’t you just know it; oh it’s Charity Park Rangers again; oh we should have backed it and at least made some bloody money from it. Ha ha ha ha. Everybody’s a comedian. Straight to fucking video. I’m sick of hearing it. I’m sick of writing it. I’m sick of saying it. And I’m really, really, really sick of being there to watch it unfold all over again.
The next stop on the express service to Disappointment Parkway is Anger. Perhaps you’ve cleared your weekend, spent your money, booked your extortionate train, planned your journey, maybe chucked a hotel stay in there, for a 15.00 kick off at Barnsley, only to then find it moved (at less than a month’s notice) by the division’s host broadcaster to the - frankly fucking insane - slot of 20.00 on a Saturday night. Perhaps you’ve then changed your weekend, spent some more money, booked another extortionate train (kind of EMR not to offer refunds in a time of global pandemic), almost definitely chucked a hotel stay in there, for a 20.00 kick off at Barnsley, only to find it then moved at barely a fortnight’s notice to the - obviously very much more sane- slot of 15.00 on Saturday. Perhaps you’ve then changed your weekend a third time, spent some more money, booked another extortionate train (sorry Phillip), wrestled back a hotel refund, for a 15.00 kick off at Barnsley, only to find this wonderfully talented and brilliantly put together Queens Park Rangers team inexplicably channelling Beavis and Butthead. If any of this is you, and you were cross at five to five last night, then I don’t blame you. It is possible to commend this team, these players, this manager, this set up, this board, these executives, on a job incredibly well done, while also at the same time finding this sort of hapless no-show unacceptable when you've forked over three figures to stand in the middle of Hurricane fucking Katrina and watch it — particularly when it’s happened three times this season already.
ATTITUDE. That’s the go-to in this situation. 'Attitude', the jilted masses cry. They didn’t want it enough, they didn’t understand the importance of it. They didn’t care about it as much as you did. They didn’t appreciate the opportunity. They’re just the same as all the others: Steve Slade, Jose Bosingwa, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Luke Young , Joel Lynch … Mercenaries, just here for the money, found out the moment the going moved even slightly in the vague direction of tough. If you were in the mood to lash out, there was plenty of fuel for that raging fire at Oakwell on Saturday. Just like the two trips to Peterborough, too much backwards and sideways passing. Too many easy options, not enough risk, not enough penetration, not enough attacking intent. These teams are absolutely thrilled to death to see you knock it around harmlessly and aimlessly in front of them in neutral territory. QPR recorded 63% possession and almost all of it was exclusively held by the three centre backs who spent it looking to launch hopeless diags in a howling wind, and when that wasn’t on (or failed) turned it lazily back inside to a colleague or David Marshall who then, more often than not, punted it away. Rob Dickie had his worst game of the season. Yoann Barbet’s distribution couldn’t have been less accurate if fired from a potato gun. There was a feeling, from really early on in this game, that QPR were going through the motions expecting and assuming it would go ok regardless of their input and output. It felt like this in both the Peterborough games too. They’re shit, we’re quite decent, just keep shuffling around and something will open up, almost by accident. An away following of some 1,400 - holed up against the sort of wind and rain only this 'hills, mills and Toby Carvery' part of the north can whip into your boat race — went from proclaiming Lyndon Dykes as "the best on earth” into silence. Twenty five minutes in, a lone cry of "move you cunts” was the first sign of the market weakening. Rangers were booed off at the end for the first time this season.
Let's be real and fair here though... this team, these players, and this manager have proven themselves worthy. Attitude, commitment, caring — these things obviously aren’t a problem. To say so is either willfully ignorant, or an angry comment spat out into the teeth of an abject 1-0 defeat to the worst team in the league on a day when almost everybody we wanted to drop points (bar Chris Wilder’s increasingly formidable Middlesbrough, and an extremely spawny Bournemouth) did exactly that. There are some other common themes across the Peterborough and Barnsley away games this season that better inform where we’re going and how we do across the remaining 16 games and what lies beyond.
The first, most obvious, is that Chris Willock started none of them. His performances and numbers are accelerating towards what Ebere Eze did at the same stage of his QPR career, and as we know Ebs went from a free transfer from Wawaawwwaalll to a £20m footballer in double quick time. Willock’s assist and goals stats since Christmas, the percentage of QPR goals he’s either scored or set up, is ridiculous. QPR have scored 11 goals in their last seven league games and Willock has scored two and assisted six of them. But, at the moment, if he doesn’t do something, nobody else really does. Two identically ropey performances at Birmingham and Coventry were transformed into consecutive 2-1 away wins by moments of brilliance from Willock.
Another is Albert Adomah, who did start the first game at Peterborough but neither the cup tie nor Saturday. QPR’s shape, system, style, pattern of play, and everything else relies heavily on the influence of the wing backs and Adomah is streets ahead of the back up options we deploy when he is rested. Moses Odubajo did nothing to dampen the idea that his QPR career peaked in a pre-season friendly against Man Utd when he was playing for a contract with a thoroughly abject performance here. When he should have gone, he stayed; when he went, he should have hung back. On the rare occasions he actually, often accidentally, stumbled past an opponent into space, he then immediately panicked and produced a final ball of non-league standard. This culminated, as by this point we’d all long since accepted it would, in the winning Barnsley goal a quarter of an hour from time. Lots of recurrent failures came home to roost as Odubajo gave the ball away, Rangers just about recovered, David Marshall was then too casual, Jimmy Dunne pisballed about, the ball was hurried out to Odubajo for a second time and he really rather farcically kneed it off into the midfield chaos once more, and from this point Barnsley finally put a killer move together which ended with the game’s outstanding player Domingos Quina rattling one in off the underside of the bar. A better goalkeeper would have saved it. It was only once Adomah came on that QPR looked anything like halfway decent at all. Odubajo’s individual display was as bad as we’ve had in our team this season.
In all three disaster classes, QPR have played with two strikers. Dykes and Austin were both paired in attack for the two trips to Peterborough, and here it was Dykes and Andre Gray. Talk about service if you like, it wouldn’t be without justification, but I contributed more from the back of the stand than Gray did in an utterly wretched 62-minute outing. There was a moment, when Ilias Chair intercepted and broke in three on two, but Gray’s shot having been teed up was deflected over. He should, frankly, be fairly embarrassed of his contribution and influence here. Not so much could he have done more, as could he possibly have done any less?
With Charlie Austin not in good form, biblically awful at Peterborough in the FA Cup, and holding back none of the tide from the bench in this game, my completely untrained and clueless eye thinks it’s probably time to accept that two strikers neither suits us, nor do we have two strikers capable of playing it. If it cannot be Illy and Willy behind a lone front man, then it has to be Illy or Willy and another attacking midfielder with legs, energy, press, ambition. For a second match report in a row, I can’t help feel we’re under-utilising Luke Amos. You don’t win games of football by losing the midfield, and here we lost it to 21-year-old Man City loanee Claudio Gomes by himself. Even if your technicians aren’t available, I can’t help think we’d be better off with pace, energy and legs behind a lone striker, than sticking two lumps up there together like we did here. Even the recent rampant destruction of abysmal Reading stopped dead in its tracks when we substituted on a second striker after an hour.
We’ve all got homes to go to, let’s do some minute-by-minute or we’ll be here all night. Initially it was the battle of the bereft and the barely interested. Dykes’ hook back to Gray for a bouncing volley towards Brad Collins on two minutes got proceedings underway — who would have known this would turn out to be our biggest threat and best shot on the goal right through until the last second of added time? A period of distinctly mediocre head tennis on nine minutes ended with Sam Field losing out and Carlton Morris shooting tamely at Marshall. Soon Josh Benson was bursting through the middle of the field unchallenged and just when he really should have been thinking about a shot he butchered an attempt to play Callum Styles in on goal.
Barnsley surprised at the space and opportunities being presented to them would become something of a theme. It was only around the half hour mark that they perked up any interest or hope in the game at all, despite QPR repeatedly sending out personalised invitations and party bags. Styles sauntered in like a pitch invader on 24 minutes - bemused opponents standing around wondering where he came from — and his shot deflected wide for a corner which Dunne and Dickie had three cracks at clearing between them before finally accomplishing the mission. Dykes flailing in vain for a free kick (Michael Salisbury had whistled for less to be fair, as he veered frequently between leniency and pedantry) set in motion another counter which full back Williams ended with a wild shot over the bar. Ilias Chair chanced a nonsense header back into traffic - that he wouldn’t have attempted in a million years against one of the supposedly better teams in the league and in a theoretically more competitive game, furthering the theory that we took this way too lightly — and in the ensuing chaos Amine Bassi (or so it says here) went searching for the top corner and missed by a gnat’s cock hair. Gomes liked the look and sound of that and tried one of his own from identical range two minutes before drinks, and missed by a slightly wider margin.
It really wasn’t until the final ten minutes of the half that Rangers were able to break out of the constant sideways and backwards pattern of lethargy and actually start penetrating. When they did, an infuriating tendency to cut a ball back to red shirts manifested. Odubajo finally did something right in the 39th minute, beating his man to the ball and accelerating into good, attacking, space from where he very calmly picked out the only Barnsley man in the picture and in the resulting counter attack Josh Benson shot wide. Odubajo really may as well have been playing for them, though he did craft a perfect cross in first half stoppage time which Dykes missed at the near post, and Lee Wallace side netted at the far. One speculator from Ilias Chair was comfortably saved, amongst the rebounds a free kick was awarded which the Moroccan took himself, outswung when inswing looked favourite, and unmarked Yoann Barbet’s shot is still travelling. We’re offering a reward for sightings of it.
If you thought the second half would be much different from the first then you’re a fucking idiot. Like me. Marshall scrambled from his line to smother Styles on the corner of the six-yard box within moments of the restart. So much (too much) of the possession QPR held was with the back three, and so much of it (too much of it) just shuffled backwards and forwards between them, or to David Marshall. The lack of options and movement up front was key, the absence of Willock obvious, the lack of contribution from Gray particularly stark. They had little choice but to turn back inside and seek salvation in conservative options. Usually Willock gets them out of these scenarios — sans-Willock was a long drawn out affair.
When they did stretch out, so many of Barbet’s trademark diags were scuffed wildly straight into a midfield increasingly dominated by Gomes. Life, meanwhile, was fast draining out of Dickie, who isn’t taking players on and progressing forwards, nor opening his body up to options anything other than a diagonal ball back into traffic from wherever he’s standing. Lack of options for a pass are key, and again I think when Willock and Chair are out we’d be better sticking with one up front and adding the likes of Amos, for extra body mass in midfield, extra options for a pass, extra people who are comfortable on the ball, just to get us playing 20 yards further up the field where it can actually hurt teams. But, still, this Dickie, compared to the rampaging titan we saw at Hull in a similar fixture against meagre opposition in August, was alarmingly depressing. At one point Jimmy Dunne tried a diag of his own, and, well, God loves a trier. Not that there was much evidence of God’s existence here, until we were able to make the 17.11 train to ANYWHERE FUCKING ELSE WILL DO.
A tale from my notes: "Backwards and backwards, baxkwakwarss backwards backwards backwards”. Stefan Johansen was introduced for Jeff Hendrick, who’d played way too deep and not been able to influence things further down the field as we needed. Johansen ticked the same bingo card in the same square. Adomah soon followed, and would get the star man award for 23 minutes of input were I so inclined to award one. The mood in the away end turned a good deal of time before it dawned on Barnsley that this was here for the winning. Quina had mostly spent his time being a contrary little fuckshite, rightly and stupidly carded for delaying a harmless restart before the hour, until he realised he was the only player on the pitch with attacking intent. His absolute embarrassment of Barbet put what should have been the winning goal on a plate for Gomes but he fired miles over. They did then score, as described. Quina. Odubajo. QPR. It had been coming. When the former Sheff Wed full back bollocksed the whole thing up again on 88, Styles curled over. My God he was dreadful. Not him, him.
Whether I would have celebrated Lyndon Dykes’ equaliser in injury time is up for debate. A draw here was a bad result. If you’d offered me it, even 1-0 down on 85 minutes, I’d have turned you down. What is this position we’ve worked for ourselves if not something to be seized and attacked? But, six minutes of stoppage time deep, and with some tempting service finally provided from wide by Yoann Barbet, I’d have quite liked him to have headed home. Particularly as I reckon I’d have scored it myself. How he didn’t, only he can say. How QPR keep doing this to us and themselves, only they know. Whether you think it’s fated, attitudinal, or tactical, is probably up to you. What it means in the context of the season, we’ll know in May. For now, we go to Millwall, requiring a response.
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Barnsley: Collins N/A; Williams 6, Helik 7, Anderson 6; Gomes 8; Styles 7, Benson 7 (Palmer 69, 7), Quina 8 (Cole 81, -), Vita 6; Morris 7, Bassi 6
Subs not used: Moon, Hondermarck, Halme, Wolfe
Goals: Quina 74 (assisted Gomes)
Bookings: Quina 59 (delaying the restart)
QPR: Marshall 5; Odubajo 3, Dickie 4, Dunne 5, Barbet 4, Wallace 4 (Adomah 67, 6); Hendrick 5 (Johansen 62, 5), Field 5, Chair 5; Gray 3 (Austin 62, 4), Dykes 4
Subs not used: Dieng, Amos, Thomas, Sanderson
Bookings: Dickie 75 (foul)
QPR Star Man N/A
Referee — Michael Salisbury (Lancashire) 6 Nothing much to referee really. Combines moments of extreme pedantic pettiness with others of remarkable leniency. Strikes me as somebody who’d interrupt your discussion from an adjacent pub table with a point about "the laws of the game”.
Attendance — 12,476 (1,405 QPR) And one dog.
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