QPR return to the Premiership for the first time since 1996 this Saturday against Bolton Wanderers at Loftus Road.
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Barclays Premier League >>> Saturday August 13, 2011 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Loftus Road, London, W12
Living in London this week has been like having an extras part in some evil cross between the classic and sadly missed BBC cartoon series Monkey Dust and the second film in the Ghostbusters franchise. The feeling that your home city is being, almost literally, consumed by what seems like an unstoppable force is a deeply unsettling one. London has done well, through the spirit of normal people with brains and a sudden influx of the sort of police numbers that should be the norm anyway, to drag itself back from the brink of a total and permanent descent into lawlessness. Hell, at one stage on Wednesday a gang of 300 Millwall skinheads suddenly seemed like a force for good.
During the events of the last week people have lost their lives at the hands of feral scum who roam around our streets in ever greater numbers talking like rappers and making ridiculous hand gestures. It’s all understandably further overshadowed QPR’s long awaited and eagerly anticipated return to the Premiership this Saturday. I say further overshadowed, because Rangers were doing their best to destroy the feel good factor from last season’s title win themselves before the scum of the earth took to the streets to grab themselves a new pair of trainers either in memory of a man shot in Tottenham last week, or as pay back to the government, or any other pathetic reason that sprung to their tiny minds.
Flavio Briatore said when he arrived that he wouldn’t be paying too much attention to those people who "turn up once a week and pay £20” — me and you basically. I wonder if his opinion has changed now we’re shelling out two and three times that much? The ticket prices, particularly the walk up fees, and the disgusting decision to charge an extra £35 for benefits that have come as standard with season tickets since season tickets were invented began a far more depressing summer at Loftus Road than it ever should have been. Amit Bhatia, the one board member who seemed to know what he was doing and was liked by the supporters, walked away after the prices were announced. Then there was Neil Warnock complaining about his lack of transfer funds, followed by a humiliating public rebuke from the board in a laughable statement that played up the fact that we have signed "Welsh international Danny Gabbidon” in that sort of clueless "well what else do you want?” sort of a way.
Targets like Danny Graham and Wayne Routledge went elsewhere, press coverage of our prospects and club has been almost entirely negative and it seemed at one stage as if Warnock was actually going to walk away from the job altogether. The club, just in case you needed a reminder of how little you matter and how out of touch the marketing team really is with the support base, promoted tickets on the official site as a chance to see players like Wayne Rooney at Loftus Road — as if any QPR fan gives a flying toss whether they get to see that pug faced minge or not. They went a step further this week, promoting QPR tickets in the Evening Standard as a chance to see the Premiership’s finest on your doorstep with a picture of Chelsea striker Fernando Torres among others. Mind blowing. If we’re finding it so hard to shift a measly 18,000 tickets to watch a team playing in the top flight for the first time in 15 years that we have to advertise them in the local paper has it not occurred to somebody somewhere that they’ve cocked this up? That perhaps ‘We are QPR’ might have been a better road to go down, with rewards for loyalty and the old "this is our cave” attitude that our team will so desperately need this season?
And then there’s the shirt. QPR’s first Premiership shirt for 15 years should have been a marketing team’s dream — thousands of the bloody things should have flown off the shelves already. And yet we’ve spent the whole summer knocking around at pre-season games in last season’s third strip with gaffer tape over the sponsor logos. The Premiership handbook has the kit designs in, they’ve been available to view there for two weeks. Insulting your intelligence, the club now says you can see them "exclusively” (a word they clearly don’t understand) in this Saturday’s match programme which is "just” £3. Or you could wait ten minutes and see them come out onto the pitch wearing it. Shambolic.
The stupid thing is most reasonable fans of our club don’t want to see us throwing stupid money at mediocre players putting us in a horrible financial position. We just want a club that is well run, competitive, and welcoming to its supporters. I fear QPR may be none of those this season.
The best thing about our club at the moment is the squad of players we have and the manager who is in charge of them. They’re likeable, talented lads and Warnock has shown himself to be a master motivator and tactician in bringing us this far. The manager and his players are something for us all to be really proud of, and get behind, and personally I cannot wait for the first kick of the ball on Saturday.
You see all that I’ve written above is true, but I’ve been writing it and reading it and hearing it all summer and it can become like a pulsating boil at times. During the season that boil is lanced on a weekly basis because the team appears on the pitch and does us proud, but during the summer that doesn’t happen and so all that is left in the vacuum is the anger and bitterness that surrounds our club’s off field activities. Misery breeds further misery, one conspiracy leads to another, every piece of news from the club good or bad is quickly chewed up and spat back as another sign that the end of the club and possibly civilisation as we know it is nigh — I do it myself to the point where I can actually feel a little thunder cloud around me whenever I sit down in this chair to write for this site. That’s not what your hobby/interest/love should do to you. This is a sport, it’s meant to be fun, and the sooner we can get back to the actual sport at Loftus Road the better.
Hopefully this Saturday and over the coming weeks and months Warnock can work his magic again and make sure that, while QPR in general may treat you like absolute shit, the team itself is still something you feel proud and privileged to sit there and shout for. In Warnock We Trust, as I believe the stock phrase of the downtrodden masses has become.
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Team News: Kaspars Gorkss and Danny Gabbidon both returned from midweek international duty unscathed leaving Neil Warnock with just two injured players to affect his thinking ahead of this game. Jamie Mackie will hear from his surgeon this week how his recovery from a broken leg is progressing and when he can step up his training but is unavailable in the meantime. Fellow striker Rob Hulse is also out with a knee injury. Jay Bothroyd, Kieron Dyer, DJ Campbell, Brian Murphy and Bruno Perone await their competitive debuts for QPR. Of those Bothroyd is likely to start in the lone striker role with Campbell joining Tommy Smith and Adel Taarabt behind him. Derry and Faurlin are likely to anchor the midfield while Warnock seems to be preferring Gabbidon and Fitz Hall as his centre half partnership although God only knows how long that will last with their respective injury records. It’s a straight fight between Bradley Orr and Dyer for the right back slot with Clint Hill likely to start on the left pending further arrivals. Perone and Murphy will make the bench at best.
Bolton are beset by injuries already. Lee Chung Yong and Tyrone Mears both broke legs in pre-season to join Stuart Holden and former Fulham man Sean Davis on the long term injured list. Tuncay has been signed on loan from Wolfsburg to bolster an attack that lost Daniel Sturridge (end of loan) and Johan Elmander (Galatasaray) this summer but he is unlikely to receive a work permit to play in time.
Elsewhere: The three favourites for the title this season don’t start their campaigns until later this weekend. Chelsea go first with an awkward opening fixture at Stoke in the live Sunday lunchtime fixture followed by champions Man Utd who travel to West Brom. On Monday night Man City welcome newly promoted Swansea to Eastlands.
Arsenal’s disastrous collapse last season and summer transfer activity that has seen quality players heading out has the faithful in North London wondering whether they might struggle to make the top four this season. They start their season at Newcastle in the ESPN game on Saturday night, the Magpies themselves are being talked about in hushed tones by punters looking for a surprise struggler on the coupon. Jose Enrique is the latest quality player to leave St James Park this week without replacement. Enrique is going to Liverpool who have spent some serious cash this summer and have red hot Luis Suarez in attack as they look to break back into the Champions League places. Spurs had to settle for the Europa League this season and their quest to break back into the top four has not been helped by a lean summer in the transfer market — their opening day fixture with Everton is off.
Of those that QPR will be looking to finish above at the bottom Blackburn are most people’s tip for a season of struggle. They will debut striker David Goodwillie at home to Wolves in the first listed Saturday 3pm kick off — that is a reverse of the last fixture of last season at Molineux where Blackburn won 3-2 but both teams stayed up by the skin of their teeth. Two other relegation candidates, Norwich and Wigan, meet at the DW Stadium. A clash between two sides surely destined for midtable, Fulham and Villa, rounds off the list at Craven Cottage.
Referee: Neil Warnock was fulsome in his praise for the Premiership referees that came to Loftus Road last season, saying they put their Football League understudies to shame. How long that jovial attitude will remain in place as QPR fight for survival in the Premiership remains to be seen. We start with Martin Atkinson, probably second in line to Howard Webb as the country’s top official despite the criticism from Alex Ferguson last season. Atkinson refereed at Loftus Road last season, awarding the R’s a penalty and sending off Patrick McCarthy as we won 2-1 against Crystal Palace. For his full QPR case file please click here.
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QPR: Rangers won the Championship last season by four clear points from second placed Norwich and eight from third placed Swansea, losing just six matches all season. Two of those defeats came at Loftus Road against Watford in December and Leeds on the final day of the campaign. Rangers did however fail to win any of their final three home games with draws against Derby and Hull preceding the Leeds match. QPR’s last Premiership game on this ground was a 3-0 win against West Ham in 1996 which wasn’t good enough to take the fight for survival to the final day at Nottingham Forest because of results elsewhere. In pre-season QPR lost to Serie A side Cesena, drew with their rivals Atalanta and beat last year’s losing Europa League finalists Braga in the competitive friendlies. Non league Harrow and Crawley were beaten but Conference side Luton won 3-1 last Friday night in a game where QPR’s first team led 1-0 at half time before nine changes were made. League Two side Plymouth were beaten 1-0 with a last minute goal.
Bolton: Bolton finished fourteenth in the Premiership last season but it could have been so much better. Their league form collapsed just before the end of the season and they lost their final five matches to ruin hopes of a top ten finish. That came on the back of a 5-0 humiliation at Wembley against Stoke in the FA Cup semi final which seemed to floor Wanderers. Their away form was a problem last season with just two wins registered, the joint lowest total in the league along with relegated West Ham and Birmingham. The away wins they did manage came at West Ham in August and Wolves in November which means they’re without an away league win in 12 attempts, 11 of which ended in defeat including the last five. Bizarrely they managed to beat three Premiership sides — Birmingham, Fulham and Wigan — away from home to reach the FA Cup semi final though. In pre-season they have won six games against the likes of Bury, Bradford and Newport but lost to Tampa Bay and latterly to Spanish side Levante 1-0 at the Reebok. In their last competitive away game they lost 4-3 to Blackpool for whom DJ Campbell scored twice.
Prediction: QPR played 48 matches last season and I wrote the preview for all of them bar Millwall at home and Palace away where I took a well earned break in the sun. All ended with a prediction and of those 46 attempts at getting the result right I succeeded just once — a 2-2 draw at Cardiff. So this is probably futile but for the record my heart is saying we’ll take the lead and either scrap out a narrow 1-0 win. My head however is saying we might get a bit of a rude awakening and lose 2-0 against a team that many QPR fans will expect us to take points from but who have been at this Premiership malarkey for quite some time. Ultimately I’ll go in the middle and tip a 1-1 draw with Rangers getting up to speed late in the game and equalising an early Bolton goal.
Bolton half time, draw full time, 14/1 with various outlets.