 Friday, 26th Nov 2010 00:25 by Clive Whittingham Top of the table QPR host second placed Cardiff in W12 this Saturday with the winner claiming top spot and a crucial psychological blow in the title race. QPR (1st) v Cardiff (2nd)I finally accepted earlier this month that the BBC are not going to replace Nicky Campbell on Five Live any time soon. When they all went on strike he was described as one of their best paid and most highly valued presenters, so it looks like they’re going to stick with the smug prick for a good while longer yet. That has sent me searching for other radio stations to listen to in the morning and it’s been quite hard to find something that fits into my criteria because generally before 11am in the morning I don’t want anything that makes any noise, or talks to me, or makes me think, or asks me a question, or plays me any music. But I want something. Just a gentle droning noise with occasional jokes. Wogan used to fit the bill (yes, I’m 26 years old, I know) but they’ve shuffled him aside in favour of Chris Evans who is very loud and is constantly demanding I text him or phone him to play his silly games. I’d rather eat my own feet than listen to Chris Moyles and as I spend the nine hours after getting out of the car writing local news BBC Radio WhereverthefuckIamnow is my worst nightmare. I’d listen to Magic if I was in London, and a taxi driver. I’ve settled, for now, on TalkSport. I do feel like I’ve just intruded on a private conversation in a transport café where the football discussion is occasionally broken up by somebody talking about van insurance or where the trade go to buy their plywood but in general it’s ok – there’s no music apart from that bloody advert for Trade Point done to the tune of Vindaloo and Alan Brazil sounds about as hungover and fed up as I usually am. I particularly enjoyed their vague attempt on Tuesday to cover the fact that North Korea had tried to start a bit of a war during the night. “I’m really worried about this Korea business,” slurred Brazil, demanding Fay Carruthers, the news reader, was hauled back into the studio answer questions from van drivers about North and indeed South Korea and whether either of them needed some new spark plugs for their armoured Land Rovers. They didn’t keep up the pretence for long, it was soon back to discussing the merits of Tim Cahill as an out an out striker and looking ahead to another round of largely meaningless Champions League group games. And that’s how I see Loftus Road this Saturday (see, I always return to the subject in hand eventually). There may be war and famine and poverty and reporters rushing to the north east to point at half an inch of snow as if they’ve never seen the stuff before and that person that used to shout at fat people and slag them off for doing turds that smelt like turds may well have just been plunged into another tank of rats for our own general merriment – but really, there’s only one show in town this Saturday. First against second, a mouth watering prospect. I’ve been excited since Tuesday and I don’t get excited often. Sky, right on the ball, are televising Burnley v Derby. The two camps have adopted different approaches this week. Neil Warnock has been keen to talk it all down and point out repeatedly that Cardiff’s attack is better than ours, Cardiff have been talking their chances up. Adel Taarabt and Craig Bellamy have, predictably, been on their own trumpet blowing mission but then that’s the case every week regardless of the opposition. On the day it will come down to who handles the occasion the best – and I happen to think it will end in a draw. The only precedent we have for this sort of fixture in this part of the world in recent times is the November 2003 Loftus Road clash with Plymouth Argyle. Rangers won that day, hammering their nearest title rivals 3-0 with a near faultless display that put us clear at the top of the table. By May, we were hanging on for second. So if we win don’t get too carried away, and if we lose don’t be too down about it would be my advice. There’s a long way to go – in 2003/04 we played Plymouth again in April and lost, a result that gave them the title. This season we play Cardiff away in April, and there’s a lot of football in between.
Five minutes on CardiffRecent History: It’s been a story of near misses on and off the pitch in this part of South Wales since they beat QPR in the Second Division Play Off Final back in 2003 to take up residence in this division. They have had just two managers in that time – Lennie Lawrence who brought them here at our expense, and Dave Jones who has been agonisingly close to taking them into the Premiership several times since taking over in 2005. Cardiff have specialised in escaping winding up orders, and collapsing in the second half of seasons since their last promotion – and when you consider they’ve been unfortunate enough to have Sam Hamman and then Peter Ridsdale running their club that’s no real surprise. City always seem to be out doing other things when the line is formed for the hand out of new owners. Off the pitch much of what they have done has left a bad taste in the mouth. There’s been a bit of a Southampton situation occurring where players have regularly been sold for big money only for that cash to seemingly vanish – during the last four seasons they have sold Roger Johnson for £5m, Glenn Loovens for £2.5m, Michael Chopra for £5m, Aaron Ramsey for £5m, Chris Gunter for £2m, Cameron Jerome for £4m. And yet the unpaid bills kept mounting up, the tax man kept calling, Hamman kept trying to bring forward the repayment date for the substantial amount of money he says the club owe him. Under Hamman’s reign Cardiff, fighting against relegation, successfully lobbied the PFA to pay their players’ salaries for a month. That prevented administration, a ten point deduction and certain relegation. At the other end of Wales there was no such let off for Wrexham who were relegated as a result of their penalty. It’s this sneakiness that leaves a sour taste in the mouth when looking at Cardiff’s recent history. Ridsdale, as we all know, runs football clubs like a drunk football supporter would. Bills are left unpaid but players are always signing, deals are always closing. Every single club in this country that has gone into administration in the last decade has gone there owing money to the St John’s Ambulance, and yet it’s always the football debts that have to be settled in full. The culture is changing and this behaviour is frowned upon, but Ridsdale has never cared about such things. The only lesson he learnt from bankrupting Leeds United seems to be not purchasing a tank of expensive fish. This summer, while Cardiff owed Motherwell a relative pittance for the purchase of Paul Quinn in 2009 and still had outstanding tax liabilities, they went out and added Craig Bellamy to their squad. Manager Dave Jones has repeatedly tried to paint Cardiff as some poor cash stricken underdog this season, a club that hasn’t been allowed to sign any players at all – which conveniently overlooks the arrival of Bellamy, Andy Keogh, Seyi Olofinjana, Danny Drinkwater and Jason Koumas who were all Premiership players last season. And they all came in during a time when Cardiff were in the High Court as often as they were out on the football pitch. With that in mind Jones’ assertion is cheekier than the Cheeky Girls’ favourite pair of hot pants. On the field they’ve been rather more successful, but have choked in various glorious circumstances over the past few seasons. Last year they were overwhelming favourites to win the play off final against Blackpool but lost after Jay Bothryod limped off with one of those pathetic little knocks that Jay Bothroyd tended, at least prior to this season, to limp off with quite often. The season before that they were comfortably in the top six and possibly eyeing up an automatic promotion place when they inexplicably lost 6-0 at Preston four games from the end of the season. Further defeats followed to Ipswich and Sheff Wed, neither of whom had anything to play for, and ultimately they missed the play offs altogether – beaten to the punch by Preston courtesy of one lousy goal scored. Had they lost 5-0 at Deepdale instead of six they’d have qualified. Stop giggling at the back. In 2006/07 they led the table by six points from second and seven from third in October, and were three points clear when relegation haunted QPR won at Ninian Park in November. The crash from there was spectacular – just one win from their last 12 games and a final position of 13th. Dave Jones turned to the experience of Robbie Fowler, Jimmy Flloyd Hasselbaink and Trevor Sinclair in response, and was rewarded with a trip to the FA Cup final at Wembley, but the Premiership place they crave has eluded them so far. Stories of unpaid bills continue to circulate but Jones seems to believe that following investment from a Malaysian consortium he will have funds to strengthen his team in January. This time last season Ridsdale asked City fans to purchase season tickets for future years in advance so money could be spent in the transfer window – then when they did he spent the cash on other things, and no players arrived, prompting marches on their new stadium. You’d therefore forgive City fans if they are wary of Jones’ claim, or another late season collapse, but in a wide open division of limited quality Cardiff really should be looking no further than the top two this season with the players they have. The Manager: Dave Jones seems to be adopting the Steve Coppell technique of getting steadily more and more miserable as his team gets steadily better and better on the pitch. I mean he’s never been the most cheerful chap in the world, but his demeanour during the recent Sky broadcast of our game at Bristol City was horrendous – he could hardly be bothered to hold his microphone up and it was worth staying tuned to the bitter end just to see whether he’d try and hang himself with it, or beat the ever cheerful Clarke Carlisle to death with the fuzzy end. In the end he mumbled something about QPR being a bit lucky and sloped off into the night to find somebody else to talk to about how hard done to he is. Miserable bastard or not, I’ve always thought of him as a decent manager. A player with Everton, Coventry and Preston back in the day Jones came to national attention as a manager with Stockport County when they were riding high in this division and regularly upsetting bigger sides in the cup competitions. Sheff Utd, Blackburn, Southampton and West Ham (with a famous Iain Dowie own goal) were all vanquished by Jones’ Stockport side that included Brett Angell, Jim Gannon, Alun Armstrong, Chris Marsden and goalkeeper Paul Jones. The latter pair followed Jones to The Dell when he was given a chance to manage in the Premiership at Southampton. Although Jones successfully kept Southampton in the Premiership for two seasons, which is as much as anybody was able to do with them at that time, his third term was interrupted by the infamous false allegations about alleged child abuse at homes on Merseyside where he worked in the 1980s. The case was thrown out by the judge who lambasted the CPS for ever bringing it to court, but Southampton used it as an excuse to usher him aside anyway. Jones was never really very popular with Saints’ fans and Glenn Hoddle did a fine job as his stand in while he defended the case so the outcome was inevitable and a claim for unfair dismissal was later dismissed. With a reputation to rebuild Jones succeeded where Colin Lee, Graham Taylor, Mark McGhee, John Ward and Graham Turner had all failed in getting Wolves promoted to the Premiership. They only managed to stay there for a season, despite a memorable home win against Man Utd, and when bitter rivals West Brom pipped them to promotion back at the first time of asking his time there started to fall away. Interestingly it was Neil Warnock’s Sheffield United side that Wolves beat in the play off final to win the promotion in the first place – Wolves were 3-0 up at half time in the Cardiff final. Jones arrived at Cardiff in 2005 taking over a team that had become tired under his long serving predecessor Lennie Lawrence. He has developed a wonderful knack of buying talent cheaply and selling it on for huge profit in South Wales while still maintaining consistent promotion pushes during his time there – albeit promotion pushes that seem to crumble from the spring onwards. He has also unearthed some tremendous strikers for the club with Cameron Jerome, Michael Chopra, Ross McCormack and Jay Bothroyd all shaking off failures elsewhere to succeed in his team. After so many near misses could this be Jones’, and Cardiff’s, year again at last? Three to Watch: Sometimes I like to be a little obtuse with this section and pick up on players that perhaps didn’t occur straight away, and it was tempting to do that again here. I expect Seyi Olofinjana to put the rounds of the kitchen through Adel Taarabt very early in the game and escape under the “it’s a bit early for cards” unwritten rule, so maybe he’s the one to keep an eye on early on at least. But, really, two of the three to watch are easy here because it’s the pair that everybody has been talking about since day one. Jay Bothroyd made a surprise England debut last week against France and has 15 goals for Cardiff already this season. Now in my opinion the capping of a 28-year-old Championship player who will no more go to the European Championships than I will is a farcical waste of everybody’s time and is typical of the haphazard and short termist way Fabio Capello is currently picking his England squads but it is nevertheless hard to argue that Bothroyd has been anything other than brilliant this season – if his stats aren’t enough then look how poor Cardiff were against Swansea without him for a clue. Bothroyd happily told reporters before the France game that his spell with Perugia was the making of him after a notoriously tempestuous early career where he was booted out by Arsenal and Coventry. Nobody really picked him up on this fact but it’s worth bearing in mind that Bothroyd actually returned from Italy a good five years ago now and has since played for Blackburn, Wolves, Stoke and Charlton during which time the only moment of note was when he kicked that Norwich player up in the air by the corner flag at Carrow Road for a clear and obvious red card. He was very hit and miss for Cardiff before this season as well – always crying off with some non-existant knock or other. He couldn’t make the substitution sign any quicker in the play off final at Wembley last season, a game he should have been desperate to complete, and he took Cardiff’s hopes of winning with him when he went off so toothless were they without him. So it’s all come as a bit of a surprise to me, and probably most people, to see him playing this well, this consistently this season. Not an international striker in a million years but one of the best front men the Championship has to offer this season without a doubt. The best front man the Championship has to offer is Craig Bellamy. It’s an absolute farce that he’s ended up here at all, conveniently ignoring all that “boyhood Liverpool fan” stuff he trotted out when he moved to Anfield to suddenly declare that he was dropping a division to help the club he has loved all his life. Bellamy would rather be at Spurs, or anywhere in the Premiership really, but Man City didn’t want him competing against him so offered to pay most of his £80,000 a week wages for him to go somewhere out of the way – that’s the long and short of it whatever anybody says, and don’t expect Cardiff to be the last team to take advantage of the barmy situation at Eastlands either. Bellamy scored a 30 yard free kick against Doncaster on his City debut but has only scored one since. He was one of the ten best players in the top flight last season though, and prior to the romp at Fulham it was hard to see why City had let him go with their dull and lifeless team clearly missing his sort of pace and spark in recent weeks. Bellamy says he is fitter now than he has been at any point this season, which sounds slightly ominous from a QPR point of view on Saturday. Kyle Walker can keep pace with him, but can he stop him? Finally, the QPR connection, Tom Heaton. The young goalkeeper was on loan at Loftus Road this time last season from Manchester United, and played well in League Cup games against Accrington and Man Utd. The LFW messageboard, as it is a little bit prone to doing sometimes, immediately said he should be signed on the basis of those two games but the departure of Jim Magilton put paid to that and he spent the rest of last season with first Rochdale and then Wycombe before Cardiff picked him up on a free in the summer. Heaton looked decent with crosses and shot stopping in the brief time he was with us, but looked really unsure of himself in the big game with Swansea recently and QPR will be hoping he freezes again on Saturday. Knowing our luck he’ll play brilliantly and make us wish we’d signed him after all. Links >>> Official Website >>> Message Board >>> Weekend Tube Closures
HistoryRecent Meetings: QPR lost this fixture 1-0 here last season as they wound down their season and Cardiff headed for the play offs. Neil Warnock included three loan players in his starting 11 and made no secret of the fact that he was looking forward to a big clear out and rebuilding job in the summer. Any lingering doubts over our Championship safety had been put to rest the previous week with a 2-0 win at Crystal Palace so there was mild disappointment, but no outpouring of grief, when Cardiff got the goal their promotion push required ten minutes from time when former R’s loan star Mark Kennedy set up Joe Ledley for the winner. Cardiff fans invaded the pitch in celebration, an act that has seen them docked tickets for this fixture on Saturday. QPR: Cerny 6, Leigertwood 6, Ramage 7, Gorkss 6, Tosic 6, Ephraim 5 (Parker 84, -), Buzsaky 6, Faurlin 6, Taarabt 8, Priskin 5 (German 90, -), Simpson 6 (Cook 83, -) Subs Not Used: Putnins, Vine, Hill, Oastler Booked: Ramage (foul), Taarabt (diving) Cardiff: Marshall 7, McNaughton 6, Blake 6, Gerrard 6, Kennedy 7, Whittingham 7, McPhail 6, Ledley 7, Burke 6 (Etuhu 67, 6),McCormack 6 (Chopra 63, 5), Bothroyd 6 Subs Not Used: Enckelman, Gyepes, Capaldi, Matthews, Wildig Goals: Ledley 80 (assisted Kennedy) QPR’s excellent run of form that carried them to fourth in the table by the start of November last season began with a 2-0 win at Cardiff City in September. On their first visit to the new Cardiff City Stadium Rangers were absolutely excellent, with Watson and Rowlands pulling the strings at the heart of midfield and Routledge and Jay Simpson running amok in attack. The R’s were two goals up before half time as Simpson buried his first for the club from a suspiciously offside position then took advantage of a surging Routledge run to receive the ball in space and drill it home. Buzsaky struck the Cardiff post and Vine curled a chance fractionally wide in the second half as Rangers dominated from start to finish. Cardiff: Marshall 5, Kennedy 5, Hudson 5, Gerrard 5, Quinn 5,Whittingham 6 (Magennis 54, 6), Burke 7, Ledley 4, Taiwo 6 (Rae 54, 5),Bothroyd 5 (Scimeca 67, 5), Chopra 5 Subs Not Used: Enckelman, Gyepes, Capaldi, Comminges Booked: Quinn (foul), Chopra (foul) QPR: Cerny 7, Leigertwood 7, Stewart 7, Gorkss 7, Borrowdale 7,Routledge 7, Rowlands 9, Watson 8, Buzsaky 7, Simpson 8 (Pellicori 77, 6),Vine 6 (Agyemang 82, 6) Subs Not Used: Heaton, Ramage, Mahon, Faurlin, Ephraim Booked: Stewart (foul), Pellicori (handball) Goals: Simpson 19 (assisted Vine), 40 (assisted Routledge) Head to Head >>> QPR wins 31 >>> Draws 11 >>> Cardiff wins 25 Previous Results: 2009/10 QPR 0 Cardiff 1 2009/10 Cardiff 0 QPR 2 (Simpson 2) 2008/09 Cardiff 0 QPR 0 2008/09 QPR 1 Cardiff 0 (Mahon) 2007/08 Cardiff 3 QPR 1 (Agyemang) 2007/08 QPR 0 Cardiff 2 2006/07 QPR 1 Cardiff 0 (Blackstock) 2006/07 Cardiff 0 QPR 1 (Jones) 2005/06 Cardiff 0 QPR 0 2005/06 QPR 1 Cardiff 0 (Nygaard) 2004/05 Cardiff 1 QPR 0 2004/05 QPR 1 Cardiff 0 (Shittu) 2002/03 Cardiff 1 QPR 0 (Play Off Final) 2002/03 Cardiff 1 QPR 2 (Furlong, Langley) 2002/03 QPR 0 Cardiff 4 2001/02 Cardiff 1 QPR 1 (Pacquette) 2001/02 QPR 2 Cardiff 1 (Thomson 2) 1999/00 QPR 1 Cardiff 2 (Peacock) 1999/00 Cardiff 1 QPR 2 (Langley, Fowler og) Played for both >>> Richard Langley QPR 1996-2003, 2006-2006 >>> Cardiff 2003-2005 Few have separated the opinion of supporters more in recent years then Richard Langley. Some thought he was our best player and midfield linchpin, while others considered him over-rated and lazy but in truth I think he has the tendency to prove both sides right in his two spells at Loftus Road. Part of the youth system at Rangers, Langley made his first team debut for QPR as a sub during a 3-1 defeat to Swindon in October 1998, at only 18 years old. A month later Langley got his first goal for the club in only his second appearance, opening the scoring in a 2-1 win over Barnsley at Loftus Road. Langley looked like a great prospect and under Gerry Francis formed an eye catching partnership the following campaign with Gavin Peacock and Stuart Wardley in the centre of the park, in a season where he only missed two league games for the Superhoops. Unfortunately the following season was a disappointing one for both Langley and Rangers as the team was relegated to the third tier for the first time since the seventies. Langley missed the second half of that campaign and the start of the new season after suffering a serious knee injury in a home match against Fulham. When he returned to the team Ian Holloway was in charge but still saw the midfielder as a key part of his Rangers side – strangely his injury was a bonus for QPR because he would undoubtedly have been sold if fit with the club in administration. The 2002-03 season was arguably Langley’s best in a QPR shirt. Playing on the right-wing he helped Rangers finish in the top six and make the play-offs. His goal in the semi-final first leg against Oldham vital in seeing Rangers make the final, but a sending off, and another red card earlier in the season in an LDV Vans game with Bristol City, in the same game meant that a gutted Langley would miss the final which the R’s went on to lose 1-0 to Cardiff. That summer he decided to leave Loftus Road for the league above and somewhat surprisingly signed for Rangers play-off conquerors Cardiff for a £200,000 fee. He spent two uneventful seasons in Wales where the fans never really warmed to him and won caps for Jamaica before returning to Rangers, now back in the Championship, on deadline day 2005, signing a one-year deal. He played 33 times that season and Rangers finished in the top half but was released that summer and joined Luton Town. His career has curtailed somewhat since then with further horrific knee injuries all but retiring him early. His time at Bristol Rovers was cut short and a subsequent move to Mansfield fell through. Played briefly in Thailand but can now be found summarising QPR games for local radio among other things. - AR Links >>> QPR 0 Cardiff 1 Match Report >>> Cardiff 0 QPR 2 Match Report >>> Connections and Memories
This SaturdayTeam News: Neil Warnock is able to welcome back several key men after sending a patched up side out last week against Preston. Bradley Orr returns from a three game ban, Shaun Derry from a one match suspension for card accumulation, and Tommy Smith is available again after a quirk of his loan set up ruled him out last week. Mikele Leigertwood has left on loan and we were waiting to see late on Thursday night whether the same fate would befall Martin Rowlands with Crystal Palace waiting in the wings. Heidar Helguson should be fit for the bench. Peter Ramage and Lee Cook are the long term absentees. Akos Buzsaky has resumed light training this week but is not yet fit to start. Cardiff have injury doubts over winger Chris Burke (thigh) and left back Lee Naylor (groin) who missed last weekend’s game against Nottingham Forest in South Wales. Young full back Adam Matthews is ready to step into the breach should Naylor not make it. Craig Bellamy says he is feeling fitter than he has at any other point this season after finally completing a full week of training. Elsewhere: The Championship fixtures are spread over four days this weekend, starting with Swansea hosting Portsmouth at the Liberty Stadium on Friday night – they can draw level with Cardiff on points with a win. On Saturday the evening televised game is Burnley v Derby as the pair battle for the play offs, Reading v Leeds is another clash of teams looking towards the top six while at the bottom Middlesbrough v Hull and Bristol City v Sheff Utd looks like a pair of six pointers between teams you wouldn’t necessarily have expected to struggle this season. Two televised derby games finish the weekend off with Norwich v Ipswich on BBC on Sunday lunchtime, and Leicester v Forest on Sky on Monday night. Referee: Premiership referee Kevin Friend is the man in the middle on Saturday. He has a mixed history with QPR, essentially based on whether we’ve been at home or away. Whenever he has had us at home dubious decisions have gone our way, whenever we’ve played away he has persecuted us. He’s a homer in most matches you see him and has only presided over two away wins in 11 matches this season – including our late 2-1 success at Crystal Palace. Hopefully all of this will continue on Saturday. For a full run down of his QPR history click here.
FormQPR: As we well know by now QPR remain unbeaten as we approach the halfway point in the season. The 3-1 win against Preston last Saturday made it six wins and three draws from nine home matches this season – Matt Connolly’s own goal was only the third goal shipped by Rangers in W12 this season and one of those three was a penalty. Cardiff have lost four games but remain in touch with Rangers because of the amount of games drawn by Neil Warnock’s men – but the R’s are currently ahead of the two points a game average they need to almost guarantee automatic promotion. Cardiff: City overhauled QPR’s six point lead at the top of the table to move into first place themselves with a run of five straight wins that culminated with a 3-1 home win against Norwich at the end of October. However since then they have faltered slightly, perhaps backing manager Dave Jones’ previous claims that it’s better to chase than lead. They have lost two and drawn one of their last four games. Overall away from home this season they have won six, two more than QPR, and scored 18, four more than we have managed on our travels. Both meetings between the sides last year finished as away wins. Prediction If you assembled a team made up from these two squads you’d probably end up with everybody from Alejandro Faurlin back from QPR, and everybody from Peter Whittingham forward from Cardiff. Neil Warnock has been keen to talk up Cardiff’s strike force and our hopes in this game will depend on our defence and work rate – so far both have been excellent this season. I expect a tight, tense game and as ever when a draw suits both teams that’s what I expect to happen. QPR will remain top and unbeaten with a point, Cardiff will not slip five points behind, so that’s what I fancy here. Draw, 12/5 with Victor Chandler and William Hill Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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