Make that one win in 15 now for QPR who, despite taking the lead against an obviously bereft Huddersfield side on Saturday, were forced to settle for another draw in West Yorkshire.
Well, it was better than last week, but given last week was a 3-0 defeat to Hull City it could hardly have been worse. A draw, instead of a defeat, is good news, but then a man slowing down after punching you in the face 100 times in a minute is technically good news too.
You won’t find many teams at this level worse than this Huddersfield outfit, playing like they did on Saturday. Queens Park Rangers, who came in on a run of one win in 14 games and had failed to score in eight of those, did the hard bit by taking the lead in the first half. The hosts had been lousy prior to that, and looked utterly bereft after it. A victory, a precious victory, here at last for the taking. In the end Rangers spent the closing moments of the match fending off a string of Huddersfield corners just to hang on to a single point. The incompetence of our team knows few bounds.
It’s very on trend at the moment for football fans to become so disillusioned with their club and the sport as a whole — the ticket prices, the wages, the Sky moves — that they abandon both altogether and go to watch non-league football instead. Cue so many social media posts about how much better the beer is, cheaper the tickets are, friendlier the people etc. Well, if you are tempted, good of Huddersfield and QPR to serve you up exactly what it looks like on the field at least.
This was a Championship fixture in name only. The amount of misplaced passes — like, yards and yards misplaced, frequently high into the stand at the side of the pitch — was astonishing for a professional fixture. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the usually impressive Jonathan Hogg ever play as badly as he did here. I genuinely think there will have been better quality, more technically adept football matches played five, six, maybe seven levels below this one this season. Initially it took Rangers a few minutes to realise just how poor their opponent was. Chris Willock’s lazy leg foul on the corner of the box after five minutes was fairly typical, QPR turning their first attacking throw in into a pass all the way back to Seny Dieng likewise. Sam Field’s gorgeous, defence splitting pass on the half volley with his left foot found Jamal Lowe with pinpoint accuracy, but he was yards offside — the best thing we’ve done for four months, and it’s still wrong.
Soon, though, it dawned on the Londoners just how simple this could be for them. Lowe decided to do it all himself in the first instance, punting the ball in behind Town’s high line and accelerating past them into the space himself before squaring the ball for Ilias Chair to shoot wide. Rangers had reverted out of last week’s busted 4-2-3-1 into a 4-3-3 set up, dropping two of the worst underperformers from Humberside Rob Dickie and Tim Iroegbunam for Jake Clarke-Salter and Andre Dozzell, missing Tyler Roberts with whatever mortal wound he reckons he’s suffered this time, and most importantly having Stefan Johansen back from the start for the first time since this whole sorry run began at the start of October. Sam Field played further up the field, and won a number of early headers, allowing Rangers to play a bit in the opponent’s half which has been… an issue.
The improvements wrought by multiple switches saw the R’s take the lead when the Terriers’ latest foolhardy attempt to play out from the back with players incapable of the job eventually saw Chris Willock half press Matt Lowton into an appalling back header and Lowe beat debutant Tomas Vaclik — heard about your Czech caps, you’ll need more than that today — to the ball to head into the empty net. A shambolic defensive goal entirely in keeping with its surroundings, but the mood QPR are in we’ll take whatever we can get.
What we should have got was a second goal, clearly here for the taking with the home crowd now in open revolt against their own team, and manager Mark Fotheringham left to applaud the intention of oh so many balls out from the back that sailed straight into touch. What we did instead was concede a foul so blatant and dumb on the corner of the penalty box that even Geoff Eltringham thought it was worth a yellow card — Rangers had been fortunate on three previous occasions that it was this referee in charge, any other in the league would have booked at least Clarke-Salter and Johansen for deliberate fouls before this — giving Huddersefield a dangerous free kick. Ilias Chair joined the defensive line-up to make it a three-and-a-half man wall which horny show-off Joseph Hungbo was able to beat with some ease. Seny Dieng saw it all the way, but got himself in an awful mess trying to execute some elaborate camera save up in the top corner and from a rebound that never should have existed Ollie Turton nodded down for Martyn Waghorn to score his first goal for the club into the empty net from a foot away. QPR, having failed to react at all to the loose ball, stood en masse and appealed for an offside that never came — this seems to be our prime defensive tactic at the moment.
Rangers would have to do it all again, and with Johansen inevitably set to tire and leave the game around the hour mark there were strong doubts in the away end at half time that we had it in us. These proved prophetic during a second half that was, somehow, miraculously, even worse than the first. The travelling 753 lunatics passed the time by taunting the home fans with the traditional "is this a library” chant, but libraries are places of education and learning and I could feel myself getting stupider just standing here and watching this gluten free bun fight. Ethan Laird, in a crossing position, with time to choose his fighter, toed a hopeless effort straight into the chest of the nearest defender, then put a half-arsed attempt at a tackle in allowing him to waltz around him with the ball and head off up the touchline on a counter attack. Pathetic stuff. Another daft free kick given away brought a big handball appeal in the box at the far end.
Thicken up that runny, low fat Championship fixture by stirring in a spoon full of Jordan Rhodes. You couldn’t help but think he was destined to score here, and he almost certainly would have done with either of the two chances QPR created for themselves in the final 20 minutes. Showing poise, awareness and execution entirely out of keeping with its surroundings, Stefan Johansen cut the home defence apart with an incisive through ball from a quickly taken free kick. Jamal Lowe should have been through on goal, but so surprised to receive some good quality ball from a team mate his first, second and third touches were each incrementally worse than what had gone before and a one-on-one chance with the goalkeeper turned into a dribble into touch for a goal kick.
Even worse was to come. Sinclair Armstrong, rewarded for his showing at Hull with another sub outing here, was set free beyond the last defender by an intelligent, low, early kick by Seny Dieng. Into the penalty area, with only the keeper to beat, Armstrong had Ilias Chair joining him for company to his left. Welcome to Neil Critchley’s Putting Challenge, I am Critchley, now, choose a club. You have selected three wood. May I suggest a putter? Three wood. Now enter the force of your swing, I suggest Feather Touch. You have entered: POWER DRIVE. Ball is in: PARKING LOT.
Thankfully a string of late Huddersfield corners were planted exclusively, firmly and enthusiastically onto the head of the man at the near post every single time. Substitute Brahima Diarra could have won it in injury time but fired over. At the end of another purposeful run from the Frenchman Seny Dieng had to spring out and save at Rhodes’ feet. We were hanging on rather, for a point, at Huddersfield Town. Would you like to play again? I have selected: NO.
Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread
Huddersfield: Vaclik 5; Turton 6, Lees 5, Helik 5 (Pearson 79, 5), Lowton 3; High 4 (Koroma 63, 6), Hogg 4 (Knockaert 64, 5), Kasumu 5; Hungbo 6 (Diarra 70, 6), Waghorn 6 (Rhodes 63, 5), Rudoni 5
Subs not used: Bilokapic, Headley
Goals: Waghorn 39 (assisted Turton)
Bookings: Hogg 41 (foul), Rudoni 90+4 (foul)
QPR: Dieng 4; Laird 4, Dunne 5, Clarke-Salter 5, Paal 5; Dozzell 4 (Armstrong 66, 4), Field 6, Johansen 6 (Iroegbunam 76, 5); Chair 5, Willock 5 (Adomah 66, 4), Lowe 6
Subs not used: Kakay, Dickie, Amos, Archer
Goals: Lowe 16 (unassisted)
Bookings: Clarke-Salter 37 (foul), Adomah 72 (foul)
QPR Star Man — Stefan Johansen 6 Little glimpses of what we’ve been missing.
Referee — Geoff Eltringham (Durham) 7 Let a hell of a lot go, as he does. Clarke-Salter and Johansen would both have been booked by any other referee in the league for their deliberate fouls to interrupt counter attacks in the first half. But isn’t it amazing how the play-acting and injury feigning dries up when a referee just ignores it and plays on through everything? I’ll take his style over everybody else’s.
Attendance 17,954 (753 QPR) With 749 of us at Hull and 753 here it would appear that we have, to within a margin of error of about three or four people, established exactly how many nutters there are in our midst.
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