Following a shellacking by Newcastle on Tuesday night, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink is coming under pressure for the first time in his QPR reign. A trip to league leaders Huddersfield could have been better timed.
Championship >>> Saturday September 17, 2016 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather — Cloudy, reasonably warm, supposedly dry >>> John Smith's Stadium, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, Yorkshire, Yorkshire
Now this isn't ideal.
Not because an away game at the early league leaders who have won five and drawn one of their first seven matches, including an away victory at our Tuesday dominatrix Newcastle, is always going to be a difficult game - though that's certainly part of it.
Nor because after the humiliation of a 6-0 home defeat you probably want a little bit longer than three days to pick a few jaws up off the floor and prepare for the next battle which would preferably be against the Under 11s amputee side from a nearby community centre — you know, just to get your eye back in, remember what the football feels like when you're in possession of it and stuff like that.
But mainly because Huddersfield Town blow almost every excuse QPR have for Tuesday's ritual humiliation clean out of the water.
Newcastle's resources dwarf our own, and that multi-million pound talent was in evidence all across the park at Loftus Road during the week. Men against boys doesn't even start to cover it. When you consider Newcastle had Matt Ritchie (£12m), Aleksander Mitrovic (£14.5m) and Jonjo Shelvey (£12m) in the starting eleven and were able to leave Dwight Gayle (£10m), Mo Diame (£4.5m), Grant Hanley (£5m) and others on the bench while Daryl Murphy (£3m) didn’t travel at all it's little wonder that the new QPR-on-a-budget got whipped.
But Huddersfield, who operate without even the parachute payments QPR are blessed with for another 18 months, won at St James' Park 2-1.
QPR, recovering from years of excess, signing players on a budget from Europe while trying to strip back the big earners from their squad, aren't meant to be able to compete at the top end of a division that includes not only Newcastle, but also the likes of Aston Villa, Norwich, Derby, Sheff Wed and Brighton. That's still fair enough for me.
And yet, Huddersfield, who brought in 14 new players this summer almost entirely on free transfers and loans from all around Europe, and have spent most of the last five years selling their best players, are top as it stands.
Joel Lynch (QPR, £1m), Alex Smithies (QPR, £1.5m), Conor Coady (Wolves £2m), Jacob Butterfield (Derby, £4mish), Adam Clayton (Middlesbrough, part ex), Oliver Norwood (Reading, £1.2m), Lee Peltier (Cardiff, £850k), Jack Hunt (Palace, £2m), Scott Arfield (Burnley, free), Jordan Rhodes (Blackburn, £8m) and Anthony Pilkington (Norwich, £2m) have all left Huddersfield in the last five years representing a significant talent drain.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink is only ten months into his work at QPR, and is currently bedding in seven new signings made during the summer, most of whom are playing in the UK for the first time. His training regime is said to be harsh, with double sessions and fitness work key to gaining an advantage over more monied opponents. His style is said to revolve around a high tempo and a high press, the reason given for the summer release of crowd favourites Clint Hill and Ale Faurlin.
But David Wagner only arrived in West Yorkshire in November last year too, and came with only spells in the reserves at Hoffenheim and Dortmund behind him since retiring as a player. Most of his retirement has actually been spent training to be a teacher. His summer was harsh and maverick as well — Huddersfield spent a week in the Swedish forest fishing for their dinner — and he too preaches high press, high tempo, and double training sessions. He's bedding in new players too — twice as many as QPR brought in.
And yet while QPR are overly cautious, overly defensive, slow on the ball, and yet to register a goal from open play. Huddersfield are winning, and winning well — they look good doing it. Record season ticket sales and crowds are flocking to see them.
QPR, let's not forget, were able to poach two of Town's supposedly better players — Alex Smithies and Joel Lynch — with more lucrative offers in the last 18 months.
Hell, you can even boil this down to the two Australian's in the respective line ups. While QPR's Massimo Luongo troughs alarmingly in form after the long international trips, and hasn't played either game since returning from his latest jaunt, Huddersfield's Aaron Mooy (on loan from Man City) has not only played both of theirs he scored the winner at Leeds a week ago.
There has been a small section of QPR supporters against Hasselbaink from the very beginning, because they're against Les Ferdinand for their own various reasons. They need no excuse to wade in. But Huddersfield performing like this, and entertaining while they're doing it, while QPR are performing like this, is a genuine line of inquiry. Their new manager is less experienced, has had a greater turnover of players, has had less money to spend on transfers and wages, doesn't have the lure of London to attract players and so it goes on. I fear the reaction if Rangers are beaten here as well.
Although there had been rumblings about the style of play, the dullness of the game, the negative tactics and so on, I still doubt you'd have found many QPR fans who didn't think Hasselbaink should stay as manager had you done a survey on Tuesday morning. By Wednesday that number will have jumped alarmingly, partly because of the extreme nature of the defeat, partly because football supporters are ridiculously fickle, but also because of the way QPR were playing even before Newcastle came and bummed them in the gob. Even two of the three wins this season were fairly staid affairs.
Hasselbaink could have spent less credit with a 90 minute phone call to a Thai sex line on Tuesday night. A 3-0 or 4-0 defeat might have been swallowed with mainly shoulder shrugs all round. But a 6-0? You're lucky if you live to tell the tale of that one in the modern day Championship.
And now this. Anywhere but Huddersfield. Sounds like it could have been a Beautiful South song.
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Highlights of QPR's somewhat fortunate 1-0 win on this ground just over a year ago. Tjaronn Chery got the only goal eight minutes from time.
Team News: James Perch went for a scan on his injured knee following his early departure from Tuesday's debacle — all indications are that this will be a long termer and he joins Jamie Mackie on the write off list. Joel Lynch was back on the bench on Tuesday, and may get a debut against his former club after an abdominal injury stunted his start to the season. Massimo Luongo is over whatever it is happens to him every time he goes on international duty and can play, as can Seb Polter whose massive glute has healed sufficiently.
No fresh injury concerns for Huddersfield, though they are still without Joe Lolley (brain ache) and Sean Scannell (stag do).
Elsewhere: Owen Coyle has taken the blame for the Mad Chicken Farmers' poor start to the season, so it'll be interesting to see how they respond (and what the crowd is) for a home game against fellow relegation faves Rotherham as round 7,643 of the Championship comes and goes in a flash with 12 matches all on the same day for once.
That list is bookended by jolly japes, friendly notions and rounds of pass the parcel between Cardiff and the Champions of Europe at 12.30; then Birmingham hosting the Sheffield Owls in the evening.
The Aston Villa Train Wreck rolling into Ipswich, who've already done a smash and grab number on another Midlands side that thinks the answer to ever problem is another signing this week, has crisis point written all over it. And speaking of the Derby Chokers, they won't fancy a trip to Bristol City much with only one win and three goals to their name so far.
Watch out for the division's other surprise package Barnsley and their eminently winnable home match against Waitrose. Probably feel free to ignore Brentford v Preston if you've got a lot on.
Watch out Wolves, Newcastle are quite handy.
One wouldn't imagine Tarquin and Rupert's sojourn to Wigan RLFC will be pulling the big numbers in. Nigel Clough's Burton Albion v Brighton is a game between two sides beginning with B. Nottingham Trees v Norwich City is a match between two sides beginning with N.
Referee: Fresh from the somewhat perverse handling of Aston Villa 2 Nottingham Trees 2 last weekend, occasional Premier League referee Simon Hooper heads north to take charge of this one. Hooper dished out nine yellows and a red at Villa Park, including dismissal for Hildeberto Pereira for over celebrating a goal he didn't even score. His last QPR appointment was the 3-2 home loss to Middlesbrough last season, while his previous Huddersfield match was back in 2014 against rangers at Loftus Road — the London side winning 2-1. Stats and case file here.
Huddersfield: Town have won three out of three in the league this season, bating Brentford, Barnsley (both 2-1) and Wolves (1-0) so far. In fact, four of their eight matches have finished 2-1 either way in all competitions, and none have been won by more than a single goal. They suffered their first league defeat of the season on Tuesday night at Brighton (1-0). Only MK Dons (13) lost more home matches than Huddersfield (10) last season, with QPR victorious on this ground over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
QPR: Rangers' form has been wild so far this season. Two away wins from three road games so far, and two clean sheets into the bargain, but the third was a defensively catastrophic 3-2 loss at newly promoted Barnsley. They've won only once in four attempts at home, with Preston and Newcastle winning to nil and scoring eight between them and bottom-placed Blackburn escaping with a 1-1. None of the nine goals Rangers have scored in the league this season have come from open play, and four were penalties.
Prediction: You know things are getting bad when our ever-optimistic Prediction League champion Dylan Pressman is telling us…
"QPR's form has actually been better away than at home this season. But that isn't likely to help that much away to Huddersfield. Town have been winning regularly but haven't been scoring a ton of goals and half of their eight fixtures have ended in a 2-1 scoreline this season, so that is my prediction. Chery to get one for us to keep it close."
Dylan's Prediction: Huddersfield 2-1 QPR. Scorer — Tjaronn Chery
LFW's Prediction: Huddersfield 2-0 QPR. No scorer.
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