A grind of a week for QPR finished with a 1-1 draw against Rotherham at Loftus Road - a game in which Rangers once again had more than enough chances to win.
It has been a frustrating seven days for Queens Park Rangers, and their new manager Mick Beale.
Three games against teams recently promoted from League One, two of them at home against sides widely tipped for a relegation struggle, could, should, have represented a great opportunity to post early points. League tables this side of Christmas are a nonsense, and we’ve already seen with Blackburn’s results so far that there’s months of sorting out, sifting through and returning to means to be done yet. But early points for QPR would have helped restore confidence and belief to a team that collapsed last season, it would brought relief and relaxation to an angsty and downtrodden support base, and it would have taken the pressure right off Beale as he attempts to impose his style and ethos on things, which was always going to take time anyway even before he suffered a number of injuries to key players.
Instead, Rangers have managed just two draws, and have been behind in all three games. There have been positives. Principally, the R’s have created more than enough chances to win all three games. Albert Adomah, Rob Dickie and Tyler Roberts could (should, etc) have scored at Sunderland last Saturday; Lyndon Dykes, Lyndon Dykes and Lyndon Dykes absolutely should have done against Blackpool on Tuesday; and here against Rotherham Dykes again, Ilias Chair, Sinclair Armstrong and Mide Shodipo all erred in front of goal. The home side had two very, very good claims for a penalty as well. It’s an old football cliché that as long as you’re creating chances you’ll be fine, it’s when you’re not that you need to worry, but it’s given some credence by the modern trend of xG and all those trendy analytics currently have QPR twelfth in the nascent table. There are players to come back that will improve us — Luke Amos’ legs and drive make a hell of a difference to this stodgy midfield, Jake Clarke-Salter showed enough at Ewood Park to suggest he’ll be key to this team and how it wants to play stepping in from the left side of the defence as Rob Dickie does from the right but Jimmy Dunne struggles to do.
But none of the players to come back cure the key problem with this team at the moment — the strikers aren’t good enough. More than 60% of the ball, 17 shots on the goal, five on target, but only one goal. There is zero FFP headspace to do anything about that, even if Macauley Bonne leaves, and I guess the best hope is that Taylor Richards gets fit and fires as part of a three with Chris Willock and Chair, allowing Tyler Roberts to push further forward in place of the now apparently completely bereft Dykes, who seems to have taken absolutely nothing at all by way of confidence and self esteem from his season opener against Middlesbrough which I had hoped might kick him into gear. Just before half time here, with the game level, QPR busted Rotherham up the middle, the ball ran loose and plum for Dykes 18 yards out, but with all the time and space he needed to pick a spot he hit a tame shot at a beautiful height for visiting keeper Viktor Johansson. I’m often quite impressed with him when I see Rotherham play, but you didn’t need to be a particularly good goalkeeper to save that one. I often lazily say ‘he just needs one to go in off his arse or something’ about strikers in this sort of touch, but he had that against Boro, the support of the crowd here for him was admirable, and it’s made no discernible difference. Perhaps we could try running out to Flower of Scotland.
The first half hour was almost entirely QPR as they looked to shrug off Tuesday’s fairly dire second half and seize the initiative. Star boy Willock was back to bolster the attack, playing for the first time this season with Chair and Roberts from the start, behind Dykes in attack. They’d sacrificed a midfield number to do that, gone to more of a 4-2-3-1, and tried to put the pedal to the metal. Fair play. Rotherham included former charges Conor Washington in attack, and Grant Hall at centre back — good of him to deem this game important enough to grace with his presence, we should feel very honoured.
A nervous opening ten minutes in which Washington, who could certainly tell Lyndon a few stories about toiling up front in this team, burst the offside trap but lacked support for a cut back, soon gave way to a steady flow of possession and attempts at the School End. Dykes pressured Johansson into kicking the ball out and Chair widened that throw in for Kenneth Paal to shoot wildly over. A good move on 13 saw Chair chip to the back post for Dykes to shoot wide, and when the Scotsralian returned the favour five minutes later Chair had strayed just offside.
Dunne stepped out of defence well to win a corner midway through the half and when Tyler Roberts headed it firmly back across goal at the far post Oliver Rathbone appeared to divert it away from danger with an outstretched arm. Look, the hand is out from the body, in an unnatural position, stops the ball dead in flight preventing a goalscoring opportunity, which we’re told is what the officials look for in these situations, and our old chum Chuckles was looking straight at it with an unobstructed view from the edge of the area. But you know, and I know, and anybody who’s been watching this club and this referee for any period of time knows, that there is honestly more chance of Kelly Brook and I travelling to Mars in a VW campervan and living out the rest of our days colonising the place with a race of large-breasted offspring, than Andy Woolmer giving QPR anything, anything, A.N.Y.T.H.I.N.G., at all that’s within the margin of 50/50 doubt. He will tell you it came at him at pace from a short distance away, and given there’s an even worse decision still to come, we’ll leave it at ‘alright mate, whatever you need to tell yourself’.
Further hope for Rangers came soon after when Chris Willock, looking a little borderline fitness wise I thought, finally took up the sort of threatening central position he’d scored from in his other appearance this season, and he got Ethan Laird in for a shot to the near post that was saved. When Rotherham broke from the resulting corner, however, Rob Dickie had to commit a professional foul and take an obvious yellow to bring it to a close and that sparked a first concerted period of Rotherham pressure from which they would eventually score. QPR, as we’ve become accustomed to already under this new management, hauled every player back into their own penalty box to defend the first free kick, a resulting long throw, and a second set piece awarded right on the cusp of the penalty area after a bad foul by Paal on Chiedozie Ogbene who gave him a tough time all afternoon. As we’ve also become accustomed to, this packing of our penalty area isn’t doing anything to stem the tide of goals conceded — QPR were the worst in the league bar Peterborough for this through last 20 games of last season, and have opened up this with four from four. Bringing every player back allows more opponents to come forward, it means QPR struggle to get out of their own third when they area able to clear, and it seems to create a chaotic panic when the ball drops. Sam Field was the guilty man this time, fluffing a clearance straight to Ogbene who calmly returned it straight into the bottom corner for his third of the season. Too early to say this tactic isn’t working? Doesn’t feel it.
A repeat of Tuesday night against Blackpool would not have been the one. A two nil deficit even less so, and when play was waved on by referee and linesman despite the ball bouncing a foot over the goalline, Rotherham won another long throw which — stop me if you’ve heard this before — provoked panic and chaos in a crowded penalty area and could have gone to two nil. Fortunately, the descent was halted by the shining light of Willock, bursting in from the left flank onto the end of a nice one two with Chair — looking much more effective and comfortable than he has lately, with his little mate back to help him — and finishing expertly, reversing the ball into the opposite corner Johansson would have been expecting for one one. Blessed relief. Should have been more than that, but Dykes spurned his chance on half time.
I thought, and said, QPR were crap in the second half against Pool. Less chasing the game, more standing on the platform watching it go. This was a much better attempt at piling pressure on than that had been, despite a sluggish start to the half with multiple stoppages that would have suited the visitors down to the ground, and the now typical injury for Stefan Johansen requiring his removal.
Roberts was involved in an early move, brought to a sad close by Dykes’ touch of a trampoline. Really good, concerted, sustained, pressure around the box prior to the hour broke the ball eventually to Laird for a low shot through the crowd that Johansson not only saved, but held cleanly with a queue of onrushers awaiting a rebound. Really sound goalkeeping that, I’m surprised this lad doesn’t get more attention. He should have had a penalty to face minutes after that when Chair brilliantly chipped Laird in behind his man, goal side, only the keeper in front of him, chance of the match, tripped, brought to ground, penalty kick all day long, Woolmer looked at it and shook his head. I can’t speyk. Within seconds Laird also got the wrong side of his man out by the far touchline under the roof of the Stan Bowles Stand, the Rotherham man contacted him from behind, Laird went down, Woolmer swooped in immediately with the award of a free kick. Exactly the same incident, exactly the same players, exactly the same foul, exactly the same thing in every possible way, except one would have given QPR a penalty and one wouldn’t. The standards of officiating at this level are now easily, by miles, by far as bad as they have ever been in my lifetime. Approaching a crisis point, with zero accountability or leadership at the top, so little talent coming through the ranks that this referee actually gets returned to the Championship list having originally been demoted from it for his incompetence, and the ones we do have are of a painful, laughable standard. This was a joke by definition, but not funny in practice — like something Miranda Hart would trot out.
Stock referee answer — it’s not Andy Woolmer missing chances, misplacing passes, giving the ball away is it? His latest torching of a QPR fixture wouldn’t have mattered had Ilias Chair somehow not missed the ball entirely when a lovely, sweeping counter attack involving new arrivals Albert Adomah and Sinclair Armstrong, on for Dykes and Roberts, presented him with a low cross, unmarked, corner of the six-yard box, only the goalkeeper to beat. Got his feet mixed up, missed the ball, fell over. Sigh.
Rangers looked quite good at this point. Seny Dieng strode out to the edge of the area to neutralise a long ball, then sprang a three v three with a brilliant early kick. Adomah collected and sprung Armstrong in behind, but he shot weakly at the keeper. The pace, verve, power and raw danger was there again from Armstrong after he came on, but he snatched at a couple of chances, and showed pretty poor technique with a couple of shots. I’m not criticising, I’m merely making mention because the narrative at the moment is this boy is the saviour, should play more minutes, should be starting, and this was possibly a timely little reminder that he’s only just 19, lives at home with his mum and dad, eight starts and eight sub appearances in his whole life at senior level and most of those in the Conference. We’re hoping for a lot from him, because of circumstances outside of his control. Tread carefully people.
Still, Rotherham decided they didn’t care for that counter attack very much at all so when Adomah set off again in an impressive cameo from the bench they grabbed hold of Armstrong off the ball and wrestled him to the ground in full view of the referee so he couldn’t get up in support. I’d give benefit of the doubt and say Woolmer played the questionable advantage to see if Adomah could beat three defenders and the goalkeeper by himself, but I’m not even sure he thought it was a foul. It gets to points in games like this where you wonder what exactly he might think was a foul. Or a substitution for that matter, because a chunk of the five minutes of time added on at the end of the game were taken by him stopping the match for a change when no change was to be made, seemingly mistaking QPR coach Damien Matthew for somebody coming on to play for the R’s. Quite apart from QPR having no subs left to make, Matthew is, with all due respect, clearly not going to be playing in a professional football match any time soon. Cue much looking around, many perplexed looks, much confusion, and in the end a shrug, a giggle, and off we go again for the final act of this latest circus. Rotherham keeper booked for time wasting with 90 seconds left for play when it no longer mattered or made any difference to the behaviour — fuck me I bet he’ll lose some sleep over that one. Maddening. Maddening.
The pattern of swift QPR counter attacks ending in lousy QPR finishing concluded with Adomah again getting the final ball right, fellow sub Mide Shodipo approaching at the far post, but lacking the anticipation to get to the ball in time and steer an effort on goal.
It was certainly better than Tuesday, and this performance with this level of chance creation will win games like this more often than not. There were many more positives, though the impact made by even a seemingly half fit Chris Willock really did highlight how reliant we’re going to be on him to make us tick. Also key to the success of this manager will be the players retaining faith and sticking with his ideas, even when they don’t get their rewards as has happened this week — it’s very easy, and you see teams do it time and time again, to sit here and say that we’ll be ok if we play like this, get players back, and so on, only for the team to lose faith in what a new coach is trying to do in the meantime, and not manage to produce even this level of performance in the future. A win this week would have been so helpful with that.
But for all the positives and improvement in performance, the chances missed, the penalty appeals, you do unfortunately have to wonder… if you can’t beat Sunderland, Blackpool and Rotherham at this level then who, exactly, are you going to beat?
Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread
QPR: Dieng 6; Laird 7, Dickie 7, Dunne 6, Paal 5; Johansen 6 (Dozzell 56, 6), Field 6; Chair 7, Roberts 6 (Adomah 70, 7), Willock 7 (Shodipo 81, -); Dykes 4 (Armstrong 70, 6)
Subs not used: Kakay, Archer, Travelman
Goals: Willock 43 (assisted Chair)
Bookings: Dickie 29 (foul), Dozzell 64 (foul), Field 74 (foul)
Rotherham: Johansson 8; Peltier 6 (Harding 55, 6), Hall 6, Wood 7, Humphreys 6, Ferguson 6 (Bramall 56, 5); Barlaser 6 (Lindsay 86, -), Rathbone 5 (High 65, 6), Wiles 7; Ogbene 7, Washington 5 (Kelly 65, 5)
Subs not used: Eaves, Vickers
Goals: Ogbene 33 (unassisted)
Bookings: Humphreys 64 (foul), Johansson 90+5 (time wasting, bet he’s devastated)
QPR Star Man — Chris Willock 7 Even half fit, he’s our best player, and he showed his team mates how finishing is done. I thought Laird was good down the right, and Dickie as well, Chair much better for having his mate back but that was a horrible miss at the end. To be honest I found it hard to pick and I’ve just gone with the goalscorer. If you disagree, I don’t know, write to your MP or something.
Referee — Andy Woolmer (Northants) 4 A poor referee, refereeing poorly, getting the big decisions wrong and looking thrilled to death about it. Booking the goalkeeper for timewasting in the ninety fifth minute about sums it all up. Absolutely cretinous. The really, really sad thing is, this performance was about par for Championship refereeing at the moment. This is just the level that’s now the league standard. I’m actually struggling to remember the last game I came away from thinking it had been well refereed, the last time I gave somebody an eight and was able to say nice things. Officiating at this level is in the absolute bin.
Attendance 12,230 (400 Rotherham approx.) More than I thought there might be given the rail strike — Twickets had plentiful supply of season tickets on offer on Friday, and I wonder if those count on the attendance whether they attended or not? Credit to the Rotherham fans paying our ticket prices and making that journey on a strike day. Good club, good people, and a team that looks like it might have enough about it to survive this time which would be a great achievement for them and their wonderful manager who I could listen to all day.
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