QPR travel to Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day where no doubt their own version of this new-fangled, modern, possession-based snooze-a-thon football will continue apace. Merry Christmas my R’s.
Old First Division, Old Old Second Division >>> Thursday December 26, 2013 >>> Kick Off 19.30 >>> City Ground, Nottingham >>> Live on Sky Sports 1
Perhaps I’ve simply watched too much football.
Thanks to the LFW obligations, the ongoing QPR obsession, the work for the Telegraph sports desk and the want of something better to do with my time I’m constantly taking in a hell of a lot of this wretched sport and I am, with concerning frequency, finding it very boring indeed.
Not let’s bear in mind please that I’ve sat through a whole year of two-hour media law lectures that were unkindly scheduled at 09.00 on a Wednesday morning after I’d been off to some Godforsaken midweek game the night before. I’ve done summer jobs trying to sell duty free watches and sunglasses to disinterested tourists kicking their heels while waiting for their holiday flight to leave. I dated a girl once who managed to spend no less than eight hours clothes shopping in the Freshney Place shopping centre in Grimsby — which is every bit as two-bob as it sounds. I now sit in endless television conferences where perma-tanned American executives talk about how "excited” they are about their new reality show that, in their opinion, really strikes at the "zeitgeist” of the growing "millennial” audience in US television at the moment.
Not to go all Terry Tibbs on you, but don’t talk to me about boredom. I know boredom. I’ve been masking boredom behind dead eyes for some considerable time now. I’ve been fighting that urge to stand up and yell "will you please, please, please, please just fucking well fuck off” at a variety of lecturers, girlfriends, executives and colleagues for years. I’ve sat in conferencing facilities in American hotels wondering how many of the other people in the room I’d think it acceptable to slay in return for one beer and a video of Walsall’s recent 0-0 draw at Crawley and concluded that I’d gladly kill everybody in the room and a good few of the lobotomised gibbons outside as well far too regularly for somebody who is allowed to continue roaming free in open society.
So I don’t throw this ‘boredom’ thing around lightly when it comes to football.
But I was sitting watching Arsenal v Chelsea on Monday evening — a game teed up by four days of hyperbole, a delayed airing of Match of the Day, and specially commissioned dramatic opera music — and thinking that something isn’t quite right. With two minutes of normal time remaining, and the score deadlocked at 0-0, Arsenal — the home team — have the ball on the halfway line with Thomas Vermaelen. They’re playing a Chelsea team that set its stall out nice and early for a 0-0 draw and has shown little inclination to deviate from that, and it’s their job to go and win a key game on their own patch. So Vermaelen moves the ball right and it goes right again to Sagna who is in the right full back spot on the halfway line and he stops the ball and has a bit of a think and then decides that he’s going to roll it back left and then it goes left again to Vermaelen. We’ve now passed 30 seconds of time and the ball is back where it started, with Vermaelen the Belgian centre back in the centre circle. And he controls it and has a bit of a think and then decides to move it right and it goes right again back to Sagna on that right wing. So another 30 seconds has passed, a minute in total, and all we’ve achieved is moving the ball from the centre circle to the right back spot, all the way back again, and all the way back again. Sagna, predictably, went left again and it ended up back with Vermaelen who lost the ball. Two minutes, in the end, of needless pisballing about for zero end result.
And I wonder if I should blame Sky, and the intrusion of BT Sport for this. The whole Sky model is based on having exclusive live rights to the best football. Let’s be honest nobody — or at least not a significant enough number of people for the business to be viable — are subscribing to Sky so they can watch the increasingly poxy Sky Movie channels or some reality series masquerading as factual programming on History or Nat Geo. That is threatened now by BT who seem to have a blank cheque to snatch as much of that top football away from Sky as they can. Both companies are involved in not only a battle for rights, but also a fight for hearts and minds — our kick off times are better, our matches are better, we’re better. Consequently both channels are hyping their games beyond anything that’s ever likely to be achieved. Everybody remembers Liverpool 4 Newcastle 3 because it was an incredible night of football. But that was in April 1996. Try to comprehend all the Premier League games that have taken place since then — and you’re still remembering that one. Such moments are unique, one offs, once in a season type games — but it’s in the interests of both Sky and BT to convince you that every match they’re about to screen is almost certainly going to be every bit as brilliant as that.
Perhaps football has always been like this, but I’m getting swept up in the hype. After half an hour at Ashburton Grove on Monday Martin Tyler described it as an "epic encounter.” Well I’m sorry Martin — who, incidentally, I absolutely adore — but I’ve had more epic half hours creosoting my back fence than that.
But then I sat down last week to watch my home town team Grimsby Town play Kidderminster in the Conference and found it a real eye-opener. People laugh at me, and tell me to get a life, and tell me to get a girlfriend, and take the piss in general when I say I spent my Thursday night at Blundell Park but then they all sat down and watched Arsenal on Monday and I promise you now I saw far more entertaining football on the North East Lincolnshire coast than I did in the trendy part of North London this week. It was basic, but by no means ugly, and the playing surface was immaculate, and both teams brought the ball down and tried their best to play football that was based on passing directly to the wingers and getting crosses into the box. It finished 3-1, but that was no reflection on Kiddersminster who, just like Grimsby, came with a well thought through game plan to try and win the match. It was the most open, entertaining game of football I’d seen since I took in Barnet v Cambridge (2-2) in the same division a few weeks before.
It occurs to me that the higher up the divisions you go, the more it becomes important not to lose, rather than to win. Games seem to be based entirely around possession of the football, and goals against, rather than taking a chance, and going to win the match. We were heading this way a few years ago, but the whole thing was rudely interrupted by Ian Holloway’s Blackpool who attacked the Premier League with real purpose and gusto and very nearly stayed up against all the odds. For a while people realised that if a team with Ian Evatt and Alex Baptiste as its centre backs can almost stay in this wonderful "best league in the world” of ours maybe there’s something in this idea of attacking play. But Blackpool did go down, and Ian Holloway is a shell of his former self these days, and in their absence an era of one-up-front and a draw is always a good result has taken a firm hold.
Now don’t write me off as a Philistine here please. I watched Liverpool at Tottenham recently, Brendan Rodgers and his finger cymbals proudly standing on the touchline, and was captivated by the speed, tempo and incision of their play. I watch Everton, with Roberto Martinez in charge, and quite often wish my dad had taken me to Goodison Park as a kid instead of Loftus Road. But even with Rodgers and Martinez I am frequently bored to tears — the opening goal in the Swansea v Everton match on Sunday woke me from a deep, drooling sleep by the fire. The first hour, whatever anybody says, was turgid.
And I’m not in any way advocating the Tony Pulis/Aidy Boothroyd/Gary Megson approach to the game at all. I’m just saying that if, on occasions, we have a shot rather than playing another pass, or we toss a corner or a free kick into a crowded penalty box rather than working it short, then the Germans and the Spanish are not going to come for us in the night and laugh at us in our sleep. There’s a happy Jurgen Klopp-style medium to be achieved here where the football is technical, and possession based but also done with an attacking purpose and at pace. Too often now I’m watching Championship and Premier League games and seeing passes played for the sake of playing passes, often with zero purpose and almost always at a pedestrian pace. And it’s dull. I’m sorry, but it’s dull.
In the interests of making this relevant, I should point out that QPR — who ponced about more than most in the second half on Saturday against Leicester — are playing Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day and this long, drunken, Christmas Eve ramble is, ostensibly, the match preview for it. God bless you and your total football QPR, I still wouldn’t swap you for anything in the world but, if it’s not too much trouble, and you can bring yourselves to do it then, on the odd occasion, it would be just wonderful if you could stop waving it around and start fucking.
It would be remiss, as is traditional in the December 24 write up, not to wish a very merry, happy, peaceful Christmas to everybody who supports LoftforWords in their various ways. In the direct-contact, beer-buying, safety-ensuring roles that’s Simmo, Lacoste, Colin, Harriet, Owain and particularly Neil, Tracey, Andy and Jas whose fault it is I’m still alive and doing this. Merry Christmas also to Gerry, Catherine and the staff at the Crown, who are far more accommodating to us than they really have to be — albeit in receipt of a calculated £15,000 of our collective cash in bar takings a season.
There are now literally thousands of people logging onto this site to read the content, post on the message board, comment on the articles — often to tell me I’m talking bollocks — and on occasions send me wonderful e-mails from all four corners of the globe sharing their connection with this silly football club with me. You keep the site viable, and keep me in designer jeans, so thank you to all of you and enjoy your holidays. Judging by the amount of time people in this city spend on here during the working day I’m convinced the economic recovery of the nation would be 18 months further advanced if I’d just closed the bloody thing.
Thanks also to Owen Goulding, Mase, Andy Hillman, Lewis Jones and others who consistently submit copy to deadline, for no reward, when they have so many better things to do with their time, to help make this site more than one idiot northerner rabbling on. And then there are the long-suffering people who sit around me at the match — Gaz, Dave, Murph, Smiffy, Glen, Paul and others — who have, very decently, never once used the club’s anonymous number to report the persistent spewing of foul language and obscene sexual imagery that pours forth between 15.00 and 17.00 every Saturday for want of something better to do with my time.
You’re all brilliant. Merry Christmas.
Links >>> Opposition Profile >>> History >>> Referee >>> Travel Guide
Ray Wilkins slides in on Forest’s Gary Crosby during QPR’s 1-1 draw at the City Ground on the opening day of the 1990/91 season. Roy Wegerle scored first for the R’s, and hit the post later in the game, before Rangers succumbed to a late equaliser. It remains as close as they’ve ever got to winning on this ground.
Team News: St Joey Barton’s 84 minute quest to talk himself into the referee’s book against Leicester at the weekend paid double dividends with a sending off which means he is banned for this Christmas clash at Nottingham Forest. Karl Henry would be the pragmatic, uninspiring choice, alongside Little Tom Carroll at the base of the midfield. Junior Hoilett and Yossi Benayoun both came off the bench to little impact against the Foxes and will surely be pushing for a start in one of this quick rush of four fixtures. Bobby Zamora and Ale Faurlin are long term absentees.
Forest also have a suspension in an area where they’re a little thin on the ground. Darius Henderson was sent off against Birmingham at the weekend and is banned which means, with Dexter Blackstock out for the season, a team that has already been struggling for goals is even lighter in attack. At the back Danny Collins is nearing full fitness.
Elsewhere: Right, I’m absolutely certain that nobody will be reading this preview, and if they are then they certainly won’t have got this far. However, the Fans Network lawyer, who described our Transfer Deadline Day Sort of Live event (http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/18030/transfer-dead >First attempt - http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/32748/the-second-an >Second attempt) as "the most litigious thing it’s ever been my misfortune to have responsibility for” says they will and therefore I cannot tell my Christmas story about the time Nigel Pearson got absolutely off his chops while in possession of a giant carrot that looked like Gary Megson. Anyway, Leicester v Reading this Boxing Day.
Presumably the rozzers had some sort of influence on Charlton v Brighton and Udinese v Millwall kicking off early. No doubt they’ll regret that profoundly when they have to get up early after a big Christmas Day to work the shift and the pesky rapscallions leather the shit out of each other on the way back to the station anyway. Boys will be boys, and they’ll fight if you kick the damn thing off at 04.30 if they want to. A policy followed with real gusto by the proper, hardened, northern police who fancy a bit of a dust up themselves and have therefore allowed Blackpool v Leeds to kick off at 17.15. Have that.
What else do we have here? Middlesbrough v Burnley: northern. Huddersfield v Derby: Schteve goes for eight wins on the spin — crazy umbrella wielding coaching maniac. Grounded Globetrotters v Birmingham: George Cross for all attendees. Bournemouth v Yeovil: shhhhh, nobody has noticed you’ve both sneaked into the Championship, keep it down and you’ll be fine. Champions elect Bolton go to Barnsley as well.
Football League chairman Greg Clarke said: "Please continue to resist that urge to lay in the most comfortable bed you can find, warm and snug next to the person you love the most in the world, and drive through dreadful weather to pay upwards of £26 to watch some more of this irrelevant shit instead.”
And we all did.
Referee: Well, something has to give at Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day. QPR have never won at the City Ground — 28 attempts and counting — but they’ve also never lost with referee Keith Stroud who takes charge of the R’s for the twelfth time in his career this Thursday. He’s been in card happy form so far this season, which you can read more about by clicking here for his stats and previous case history with Rangers. Of course, something doesn’t have to give, it could be a draw, which might not be a bad bet.
Forest: Davies’ side started the season with four straight wins but have been wildly inconsistent since — ten draws, five wins, five defeats. They’ve drawn four and won only one of their last six and although away wins at high-flying Leicester and resurgent Sheff Wed in the last three road trips bodes well for their chances they haven’t won a home match in five attempts. Reading and Blackpool have won on this ground already this season and Ipswich, Burnley, Bournemouth and Middlesbrough have escaped with draws. Forest haven’t conceded a goal for three matches, but have only scored one in that time which means their last two fixtures have finished 0-0. Since winning 3-1 at Brighton at the start of October they’ve scored more than once in a game only three times in ten attempts — and they only won one of those.
QPR: Rangers have never won on this ground in 29 attempts in all competitions and drew 0-0 when they visited this part of the world during their 2010/11 promotion campaign. Prior to Saturday they were being propelled towards promotion by a formidable home record of eight wins and two draws from ten played with only two conceded. The defensive record remains impressive, but that single Jamie Vardy goal at the weekend was enough for a first defeat in W12 this season. With trips to Forest and Watford over Christmas focus now switches to the away form which has been patchy. A 2-0 success at Blackpool last time out was the first in six attempts on the road. QPR have already won at Bloomfield Road, Yeovil, Leeds and Bolton on their league travels this season but have lost at lowly Doncaster and high-flying Burnley.
Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion Mase is working over Christmas as well. God bless him. He says…
"Rangers arrive for their second televised match in less than a week under some pressure to achieve a result. After a disappointingly blunt second half response against Leicester, a visit to the City Ground would perhaps not be the first choice of game to follow. Rangers have yet to achieve a victory in any competition in their history there, as I am sure you all by now know. Will 2013 be our year?
"Thinking about the fury Forest displayed in their last match against Birmingham City (net result, a suspension for Darius Henderson) makes me nervous that the togetherness they demonstrated then could be harnessed more productively soon. Allied to the fact they have seemingly sorted out a defence prone to leakiness, this will be a very tough test for us.
"Our resident philosopher serves his latest ban for his inveterate temper-problems, meaning a likely return for Karl Henry (or less likely, Forest old-boy Jenas) alongside Little Tom Carroll in the starting XI. If it is Henry who starts there, and if Onuoha is again unavailable, I cannot see us winning this. We will be pressed too far back, and the chasm between Charlie Austin and the ten behind him will once again be difficult to plug. I still think we have enough to avoid a defeat, particularly if we can keep our discipline, but the wait for our first success in NG2 will continue at least another season.”
Mase’s Prediction: Forest 0-0 QPR. No Scorer.
LFW’s Prediction: Forest 0-1 QPR. Scorer — Charlie Austin.
Tweet @loftforwords
Pictures — Action Images