QPR and Norwich, promoted into the Premier League together little more than a year ago, meet again on Saturday reeling from respective 5-0 defeats on the opening day of the new season.
Barclays Premier League >>> Saturday August 25, 2012 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Carrow Road, Norwich
Nothing breeds panic like panic itself.
QPR – supporters of and the club as a whole – show more and more characteristics of a hardcore smack addict with every passing week. New players are the elixir this junkie craves. Bring him new players, hook them to his veins.
QPR have signed 54 players in four years, and cast aside a further 65, and that’s without totting up the loan deals which would go close to doubling that inbound total. For reference, Southampton have signed 29 in the same period and 14 in the three year reign of Nigel Adkins and risen just as far from the same starting point in half the time.
Last week the beast had gorged. Ji Sung Park, Andy Johnson, Ryan Nelsen, Junior Hoilett and others were racing in the blood stream and a victory against Swansea – another team that dabbles with class C transfer window activity for a more prosperous existence – was seemingly assured. Rangers have signed so many players already under the management of Mark Hughes that he doesn’t actually know what to do with them all – Bobby Zamora, Johnson and Nelsen were all benched at the weekend.
Those who thought it safe to leave their problem child to its own devices for the opening week of the season in favour of a summer break abroad have returned this week to find him naked in an empty bath, rocking backwards and forwards in bitter withdrawal. More players needed. Always more players.
It’s Ricardo Carvalho now apparently. Or Michael Dawson. Or Ryan Shawcross. It depends whose agent has been chatting to the sports reporter of the newspaper you read really. Quietly leaving through the tradesman’s entrance is Matt Connolly, a 24-year-old graduate of Arsenal’s academy who QPR have spent four years doing nothing to improve. Even Connolly’s harshest critics would concede that there appeared to be enough talent within him to become a decent backup centre half, if not more, with proper coaching. Out he goes, in comes Ricardo Carvalho on loan ten years Connolly’s senior.
I think I saw a vein down there in his foot, stick it in there.
To be fair to smack addicts, the mood swing at Loftus Road this week has been extreme even by drug addict standards. I can rarely recall a QPR support base quite as optimistic as everybody was prior to kick off last Saturday in my 20 years following the club home and away. I found only Neil Dejyothin with words of caution before a game that, universally, people assumed would be won at the beginning of a fantastic season. Now people are looking down the fixtures and wondering whether QPR will be facing West Ham at home on the first Monday in October without a win to their name. Had we beaten Swansea the potential signings of Dawson and Carvalho would be being hailed as the latest masterstrokes on our way to global domination, instead they’re now billed as panic signings. The truth, like QPR’s prospects as a whole, lies somewhere in between.
Michael Dawson, without question, would be a superb signing for QPR and vastly improve their options at centre half. For all the rabid transfer activity Rangers do look short of quality at centre half. But Tottenham already have his replacement – younger, potentially better, and with a year of Championship and a year of Premiership experience already under his belt thanks to intelligently planned loan deals. Spurs could finish this week with Sebastien Bassong at Norwich, Michael Dawson at QPR, somewhere in the region of £12m in the bank, and Steven Caulker ready and waiting to step into the breach for free. I was still a sperm the last time QPR engaged in forward planning like that.
Rangers are also apparently looking at goalkeepers. If true that’s short termist even by football’s ludicrous standards. Do I rate Rob Green? No, never have, but he’s here now. Build him up, coach him. Coach him. Coach him. Don’t just give up and sign another goalkeeper. Always with the new players.
QPR were not a dominant force ready to conquer all before them prior to last weekend’s disaster, and they’re not a hopeless bunch of morons that need replacing after it. The worst thing the supporters could have done last week is imposed unrealistic expectation on the players from the stand, the worst thing they could do this week is write them off as no hopers.
A mass axing of players or a huge influx of new faces is not required. Even without new arrivals Anton Ferdinand, Nedum Onuoha, Ryan Nelsen, Armand Traore, Fabio, Luke Young, Jose Bosingwa and Clint Hill should be able to be coached into some sort of back four. I’ve seen Luigi De Canio create, if not a silk purse then certainly a functional wallet, out of Bob Malcolm, Damion Stewart, Zesh Rehman and Chris Barker. It can be done.
Freak results happen on opening days. Last year Bolton won 4-0 at Loftus Road and ended the season relegated. The season before Blackpool won 4-0 at Wigan and also started the following year a division lower. Back in our Championship days Reading and then Hull started promotion winning seasons with 3-2 home defeats by lowly Plymouth.
The players need to be relaxed, calm and organised. The management need to have clear heads, organise the team better than they did last week and work on things like team shape with and without the ball. The supporters need to take a breath, forget about the opening day, support the team and not target individual players (particularly goalkeepers) for abuse. Nobody should panic.
Progress is slow, but we’re in it for the long haul. Perhaps.
Links >>> Opposition Focus >>> Betting >>> Match History >>> Referee >>> Podcast >>> Travel Guide
Team News: Depending on which newspaper you read/believe QPR could give debuts this weekend to Michael Dawson, Ryan Shawcross, Ricardo Carvalho and Julio Cesar. In all likelihood nobody new will have signed prior to kick off at Carrow Road, and with Alejandro Faurlin still nursing his way back to fitness after eight months out of action it’s left to mark Hughes to reassemble his squad into a more effective shape than he managed last week. The defence which shipped five against Swansea is highly likely to be changed with Ryan Nelsen and Armand Traore possible starters and Jose Bosingwa set for a debut. The ostracising of Luke Young, who scored on this ground last season, seems strange given Nedum Onuoha’s struggles at right back last weekend. Further forward Andy Johnson and particularly Bobby Zamora must be confident of inclusion from the start. This is game two of 12 in Joey Barton’s suspension.
Norwich have added two defenders to their arsenal following last weekend’s massacre at Fulham. Left back Javier Garrido, on loan from Lazio, and former Spurs man Sebastien Bassong are both likely to make debuts, probably at the expense of Marc Tierney and Ryan Bennett. Other than that Hughton must decide whether to stick with his new 4-5-1 set up which critics say isn’t playing to the strengths of last season’s top scorer Grant Holt in attack. Steve Morrison came on at half time at Fulham to little effect, but may start here against a club he’s excelled against in the past.
Elsewhere: Brendan Rodgers hasn’t silenced any sceptics at Liverpool yet with an opening day hammering at West Brom and nervous 1-0 win at Hearts (Scottish football) this evening. This weekend he has his first competitive fixture at Anfield with champions Man City in town for a Super Sunday fixture. Mind you, champions or not, City looked vulnerable against a plucky Southampton side last weekend.
Nigel Adkins’ men will have drawn confidence from a narrow 3-2 defeat but creditable performance at Eastlands ahead of their much more winnable home game with Wigan on Saturday. Wigan, typically, started with a home defeat against Chelsea but presumably we can expect them to suddenly burst into life in early March as usual.
Chelsea needed an offside goal from Fernando Torres five minutes from time to break the resistance of newly promoted Reading during the week and will need to be a lot better to beat Newcastle in the ESPN match on Saturday evening. Reading meanwhile head to Sunderland.
The early televised game on Saturday is Swansea v West Ham, fresh from opening day victories that came without a goal being conceded. West Ham’s victims were Villa, and they face Everton at home this Saturday which is a tough match against a team that backed up my pre-season prediction of them being dark horses for a top five push with a 1-0 home win against Man Utd on Monday night. United are almost certain to bounce back against Fulham on Saturday – the Cottagers are notoriously bad travellers, although they had their own 5-0 opening day win to draw strength from.
That just leaves the annual spectacle of a school yard bully shaking dinner money from an upturned bookish geek in football form – Stoke v Arsenal is your early Sunday fixture.
Referee: Mark Clattenburg from County Durham is the man in the middle for this one, and he’s a face well known to QPR supporters. Considering the meagre achievements of the club over the past three decades it’s an amazing coincidence that Clattenburg has presided over our only ever play off victory against Oldham, our promotion sealing victory at Sheffield Wednesday, and home match with Leeds when we were presented with the Championship trophy. He was less lucky for us last season, refereeing two draws and a defeat in four games and sending off two QPR players. He was in charge of this fixture last season when the R’s were beaten 2-1. For a full case file click here.
Norwich: Two things you can usually be sure about with Norwich is they will score and concede at least once in each match. They scored 28 goals at home last season which was more than anybody else in the lower half of the table, the same as seventh placed Everton and just one less than fifth placed Newcastle. Away from home they scored 24, the best record outside the top five and the same as sixth placed Chelsea. But they conceded 30 at home, more than anybody outside the bottom three, and 36 away which only QPR and the three relegated teams did worse than. There was one goalless draw, at home to Chelsea, played out in 41 league and cup games last season. They failed to score on nine occasions in those 41 games, and kept just three clean sheets. Their 21 matches without a shutout at the start of the season was a Premier League record and they’re back up to 17 games without a clean sheet now so they might break it again at some point in October if they keep going. Their home form at the end of last season was bipolar – they lost 3-0 to Liverpool, 6-1 to Man City and 2-1 to Championship side Leicester, beat Wolves and Villa and drew with Wigan and Everton.
QPR: Norwich and QPR have played each other more than any other football league club. This has been a fixture for 55 of the last 79 Football League seasons and all but seven of the last 30 years. They’ve met 116 times in league and cup with Norwich ahead so far by 45 wins to 38. I’m reminded of the Mitchell and Webb sketch. This isn’t great news for QPR really as they’ve developed a habit of losing to Norwich regardless of circumstance – the R’s have won once on this ground in their last nine visits and lost the other eight. Not the ideal place to be coming on the back of a run of away games without a win that stretches to 14 league and cup games running all the way back to last November – a run that started after a 3-2 win at Stoke with a 2-1 set back on this ground. In that run the R’s have lost their last seven straight away games. Last week’s 5-0 home reverse came as a bit of a shock but is by no means the first time the R’s have been whitewashed on day one. In 1976, the year after comin so close to winning the league, QPR lost 4-0 at home to Everton on day one (and then lost the subsequent first away game 1-0 at West Ham) and eventually finished fourteenth in Division One. In 1965 Rangers were beaten 6-1 at Brentford, won the next game 4-1 against Brighton and finished third before embarking on a rise up through the leagues from Division Three to One the following year. Keep the faith.
Betting: Professional odds compiler Alex Roe writes…
After both sides got the season underway in equally woeful fashion it’s fair to say both managers will have been back to basics on the training ground this week so a tight, low scoring affair could well be on the cards.
Ferdinand & Hill both played huge parts in keeping us in the division but reading the team sheet last week prior to kick off it was evident which area in the side was the weakest. I’m certain Hughes had already made his mind up to recruit further quality in the heart of the defence so the positive to come from last Saturday was the urgency for quality signings in that area accelerated. It looks unlikely any incomings (Carvalho/Dawson) will be completed in time for the trip to Norwich who themselves have strengthened and will have Sebastian Bassong available to partner Michael Turner as well as Javier Garrido an option at left back.
As we witnessed last season Hughes can be infuriatingly cautious away from home and I won’t be expecting anything different this weekend as he’ll be desperate for a clean sheet. Hughton himself was often criticised by Birmingham fans last season for operating with Marlon King as a lone front man at St Andrews (sounds familiar) and with the players at his disposable I can see a similar approach. Both benches will be doing everything they can NOT to lose the fixture making this a tight affair, which is why I’ll be backing the 11/10 about Under 2.5 goals.
Prediction: The winner of our Prediction League last year Nathan McAllister writes…
One remarkable feature of Rangers’ dramatic and unlikely escape from relegation last season was that they did so despite losing their last seven away fixtures. What's more, Rangers' first road trip of the present campaign takes them to a ground where they have a truly dreadful recent record, having lost on eight of their last nine visits. So the omens for this game were pretty dire even before last week's humiliating 5-0 home drubbing at the hands of a team being widely tipped - certainly among the LFW fraternity - for relegation. (alright, alright, I know – ed)
However, football rarely fails to provide straws for desperate fans to clutch at. The very obvious one here is that Norwich are only being propped up at the bottom of the Premier League by Rangers - and even then only on alphabetical order - after an opening day mauling by the same scoreline at the hands of Fulham. Filling Paul Lambert's shoes at Norwich was always going to be a daunting task for Chris Hughton, and already he seems conflicted - caught between following his own instincts and playing Grant Holt as a lone striker, or going with the more attack-minded 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond favoured (and employed so successfully) by his predecessor. At Craven Cottage he tried both, one in each half, but to little avail. They were outplayed from start to finish.
Who knows how this one will turn out? Rangers could have three out of four players in the defence making their debuts if this week's transfer rumours are to be believed, and Norwich have added two new players to their back four as well. We seem to be either on the brink of having our best team for a generation or a spectacular failure resulting in the most gargantuan wage bill the second tier of English football has ever seen. My hunch is that two teams, both lacking confidence and defensive solidity, will play out a tense, nervy score draw.
Score Prediction - 1-1
QPR Scorer - Junior Hoilett - Two in two for Blackburn last year against Norwich. At least there's one player in Hoops who will relish playing them.
We will be Tweeting match updates live from Carrow Road, and from various trains and pubs in Norwich through the day on Saturday. Follow @loftforwords on Twitter.
Pictures – Action Images