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Sense prevails as QPR get Saturday Hull game after all — full match preview
Sense prevails as QPR get Saturday Hull game after all — full match preview
Friday, 28th Jan 2011 00:09 by Clive Whittingham

QPR have a chance to open up a significant gap at the top of the Championship on Saturday when they travel to Hull while their rivals rest or play cup football.

 

Hull City (12th) v QPR (1st)

Npower Championship >>> Saturday, January 29, 2011 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> KC Stadium, Hull

I’m certainly in a better frame of mind sitting down to write the preview of this game than I was when it was originally scheduled to be played at the beginning of December. I’m sure you recall that at that point, just under two months ago, most of the country was encased in a solid block of snow and ice and was just about grinding to a halt. The postponement of our clash at Hull was inevitable, but was left until the Friday before the game to give it every opportunity to go ahead — the health and safety Nazis got their way in the end, but not before I’d spent the usual three hours on a Thursday night getting the preview in order.

Opinion seemed divided at the time on my assertion that if a pitch is playable and the teams can get there then the game should be played, and fans left to decide for themselves whether it is safe for them to travel to the match. Some Hull fans, never ones to agree with anything they read on LFW if they can help it, agreed that as the KC Stadium’s excellent under soil heating system had done its job and the pitch was ready to host a match that one should take place. Others pointed out that the city was probably the worst hit of any in the UK and it would have simply been an impractical farce to try and play a match in a location under that weight of snow.

I’m not some “soft southerner” resting soundly in my bubble in toasty Fulham as you all know by now, my parents live 20 minutes from Hull and they told me all week that it was as bad as they had seen it. Ultimately the people on their street had to club together to hire a JCB and clear the solid, packed down ice just so they could get their cars moving and start earning a living again.

But I do maintain that if a football pitch is playable then the football match should take place. We are all grown adults, perfectly capable of deciding for ourselves whether or not it’s safe to go outside or set off in the car. Sadly I was going to finish that sentence with: ‘and face the consequences of our actions if we make the wrong decision’ but I can’t as we now live in a blame compensation culture imported from America by ambulance chasing lawyers encouraging plebs to sue everybody and everything every time they trip, fall or guzzle too many cheese burgers. It’s this relentless “where there’s blame, there’s a claim” attitude that grips authorities and companies with fear and now sees decisions about just how safe the pavements are taken out of our hands. We’re a worse country for not allowing people to use their own common sense and face the consequences of their own decisions.

As I said at the time I find it interesting that such woolly nonsense as “the safety of visitors is always paramount” quickly goes by the wayside when there’s money involved. How many shopping centres closed in the run up to Christmas because of the snow, forcing their outlets to go without a day of takings? Even in Hull, so gripped by snow that we couldn’t be trusted to try and go to a game there, Princes Quay remained open. And a fortnight later at Ipswich they steadily made their way through two hours of farcical football, regularly stopping to sweep the lines of a clearly unplayable pitch clear of snow, because it was a live Sky game. Was safety of either players or supporters paramount there? No, the Sky match fee was. So these games can be played if there’s enough will to do so.

Thankfully a brief ray of common sense shone on this fixture in the end. The decision to swiftly re-arrange it on FA Cup fourth round day within hours of both these sides being eliminated at the first hurdle was one to be welcomed and applauded. So many times in recent years QPR have sat through empty Saturdays on fourth and indeed fifth round day only to then play four or five Tuesday night matches before the end of the season and with Saturday 3pm kick offs a rarity for us this season I’m sure we all welcome any decision that spares us a Tuesday night trek to the north.

It could work out for the better in a footballing sense as well. Hull City are undoubtedly a better team now than they were at the start of December, but so too are QPR after a highly successful transfer window. And we’re in a no lose situation this weekend too. We’re top regardless of the result, nobody else is playing apart from Norwich which means we can only extend our lead over the others in the chasing pack or keep it at five points. Don’t underestimate the demoralising effect seeing a rival win their game in hand and going further clear while you’re not playing can have. I remember the famous night at Loftus Road where we beat play off chasing Preston in a crucial game in hand to open up a gap between us and the sides around us like Southend and Leeds — it was the catalyst for our recovery which sapped the life out of the other haunted sides.

On that occasion we were fighting to avoid League One, this time the prize is much greater.

Five minutes on Hull City

Recent History: As said, we will face a much stronger Hull City side this Saturday than we would have done on the original date. We’ve strengthened too, adding five good players to our squad this January and making Tommy Smith’s move permanent, but Hull have been making waves of their own — five in, four out and two loan extensions.

The takeover of the club by the Allam family was being worked through when we were originally scheduled to come here — it has now been completed and the local businessmen who say they have bought the club to give something back to the community which has helped them make their fortune have wasted no time in backing the manager Nigel Pearson. Their acquisition of Matty Fryatt and Aaron McLean represents the biggest outlay of any Championship side this January, and means we will be facing a whole new strike force to the one we originally prepared for. Two months ago an out of form Jay Simpson was all they had by way of goal threat, so much so that they took Rowan Vine on loan from us at one stage and we all know that any side that thinks that is a good idea has scraped the barrel bottom so much they’ve actually gone through to the concrete floor beneath.

A mediocre, at best, start to the season means Hull may have left themselves with too much to do this season. They have climbed from nineteenth to twelfth in the period between the two dates this game has been scheduled for but remain eight points outside the play offs with the likes of Leicester, Burnley, Watford, Reading and Forest all ahead of them and in varying degrees of brilliant form. Tigers fans will know though that three years ago when they were promoted from this league it was done with a late run of form based on signings like Fraizer Campbell made after Christmas — so history may repeat itself.

If it doesn’t Hull will be among the favourites next season because they now have a chairman who appears ready to throw some money at the team and more importantly somebody I believe is one of the division’s outstanding managers to spend it. This wasn’t always the case, and for that reason this season was always likely to be one of rebuilding.

It’s an analogy I’ve used before but I’ll go for it again — following Phil Brown into a managerial job is like following a particularly fat man into a particularly small and poorly ventilated toilet at a particularly grimy back street curry house. There’s going to be a lot of cleaning up to be done before you can get down to your own business.

Brown is a ridiculous figure. In his first managerial job at Derby he took a team that had finished in the play offs the season before and made them relegation candidates inside six months, at one stage signing up seven loaned players for his side in a league that only permitted five to be named in any matchday squad. He was sacked, and he deserved it.

A defence lawyer may have offered up the dodgy boardroom dealings at Pride Park at the time as valid mitigation — Director of Football Murdo Mackay and finance director Andrew Mackenzie were subsequently found to have taken the best part of half a million pounds out of the club and were jailed for three years each for the fraud. And when Brown was subsequently appointed as Hull manager having originally arrived as an assistant to Phil Parkinson and then made caretaker, he led them to a promotion few had predicted in his first full season in charge. A good manager after all? Or somebody who perhaps got lucky with the Fraizer Campbell signing and was able to live off the glory that came with it for far too long? You can probably tell which I believe to be true.

Hull caught the top flight off guard. The Premiership, thanks to pioneers like Tottenham, Hull and Blackpool, has become a very different league over the past three years. When the Tigers first arrived in it 4-5-1 was the game, making sure you don’t lose was the aim. Teams would happily play for draws in every single away game, and most of their difficult home games as well, so to suddenly have a team like Hull come into away matches with two up front and attacking ambition was a surprise to many. Arsenal were the highest profile victims, although that game is now remembered by most people outside Hull more for the visiting supporter’s laughable “you’re getting mauled by the Tigers” chant coupled with appropriate hand actions. Start pitching pink tents now and I’ll let you know when you’re as camp as that.

Thanks partly to Hull we now have a much more entertaining top flight where teams like Tottenham, Sunderland, Blackburn, Blackpool and Bolton who have all been highly negative at one time or another now play a fast, attacking game and go to win most matches they play.

Sadly though once the element of surprise, that brought them six wins in their first eight games and a further six points through November and December to leave them fifth going into Christmas, had worn off Hull had nothing to offer. On Boxing Day they came up against a Man City side in the first throws of new money, boasting a very decent team geared to attack at every opportunity. Hull needed to be right on their game to get anything at all and having collapsed to a 4-1 defeat at home to Sunderland the game before a further loss was always likely. Paul McShane against Robinho was never likely to be a conspicuous success and as it turned out City were 4-0 up at half time. Shit happens, move onto the next game. If we get promoted this season one thing we must accept is that next year there will be some thrashings on the road.

Phil Brown then, for reasons entirely ego related, delivered a half time bollocking, complete with exaggerated finger waggling, to his beleaguered team on the pitch in front of the spectators. “Brilliant” cried the radio phone in idiots, “about time these molly coddled footballers were brought down a peg or two.” The ex professionals in the media were less fulsome in their praise, preferring instead to suck their teeth and mutter things along the lines of: “I wouldn’t have done that if I were him.”

Brown’s team was sixth in the Premiership when he marched them back onto the pitch for a dressing down they probably wondered what they had done to deserve. They won only two more league games all season, out of 19 fixtures, and stayed up on the last day despite failing to win any of their last 11 matches on goal difference alone. Brown, discreetly, took to the field sporting a ridiculous beard to sing a few bars of “this is the best trip I’ve ever been on.” His image as a complete joke of a manager was firmly cemented.

Last season the poor form continued. They won only two of their first 11 league matches and between December and February failed to win at all. Brown had an important ally in chairman Paul Duffen, but while Hull were sinking deeper into the relegation mire he was busy undoing the sterling work of his predecessor Adam Pearson by working up a mountain of debt paying vastly inflated wages to poor players. Only this week have they been able to offload Jimmy Bullard and his £45,000 weekly wage, and even now they will pay 60 per cent of that while he plays for Ipswich. Hull had the worst side in the league, but were in the top ten wage payers in the league.

Ultimately it needed Pearson to retake control of the club in the spring and usher Duffen, who was jut as big a liability as Brown, off to the side to stop it going into meltdown completely. Brown was finally replaced and far from learning from his mistakes took the opportunity of his recent appointment at the Championship’s bottom club Preston to state his surprise at how long it had taken him to get another job. “We thought after the job we had done at Hull we’d have got back in almost straight away,” said Brown. “We” is Brown and Brown’s ego, in case you were wondering.

This summer, a good appointment. In the midst of a deep Duffen/Brown created financial crisis the Tigers tempted Leicester manager Nigel Pearson to move north and a long and painful rebuilding process has now begun.

The Manager: I can’t help but think Nigel Pearson must have watched developments at the Walkers Stadium with a wry smile on his face of late. Transfer funds, or rather the lack of them, were a constant source of arguments between him and Milan Mandaric during his time there. No sooner does he leave than some far eastern businessmen arrive and suddenly fees Pearson was denied access to even for permanent signings are being spent on six month loan deals. Such is life and football.

The former Middlesbrough and Sheffield Wednesday centre half has built a very tidy coaching reputation for himself in the game since retiring — working with Stoke, West Brom, Newcastle and the England Under 21s. He stepped into management properly (an early spell as last man standing at Carlisle hardly counts, although he kept them up against all odds with the famous Jimmy Glass goal for the record) for the first time at Southampton. He found a skint club down on its luck and facing relegation from the Championship but kept them up, and in some style with a late in the day win at West Brom. His reward for that was the sack, as well known mentalist Rupert Lowe tried to instigate a joint first team and academy set up at St Mary’s with little known Dutchman Jan Poortvliet at the helm. Southampton were promptly relegated and plunged into administration which is nothing more than they deserved.

Pearson meanwhile rehabilitated Leicester who passed Southampton coming the other way 12 months later. After they won League One at a canter they made the play offs in the Championship last season and looked good for the final after recovering from losing the first leg at home to take Cardiff to penalties on their own patch only for Frenchman Yann Kermorgant to stupidly elect to chip his crucial spot kick in the shoot out and then watch in horror as it was easily saved. Still, Leicester looked good for a push this season which made it all the stranger when Pearson walked out to join cash strapped Hull City.

To move from a financially stable club that already had a team capable of making the play offs, and join a newly relegated side deeply mired in crisis, debt and takeover talks seemed like Pearson was cutting his nose off to spite his face. I really rate Pearson, despite his dourness, but the job at Hull City is a massive one. The transfer window system increases the time it takes to conduct a rebuilding job such as the one City clearly need — a whole host of big earners need to be moved out while maintaining a league position, and then another clutch of new faces need to come in. Takeover now complete Pearson has made great strides in moulding a team as he wishes this January and I expect them to get better and better with every passing window.

Assuming they don’t stage another astonishing push up the table into the play offs this season, and despite their activity this month I don’t expect them to, they’ll be among the favourites next season.

Three to watch: Aaron McLean is getting a second chance to impress at Championship level after a disappointing season in this league with Peterborough last season. McLean, a stocky and bull like forward, was one of several splendid non-league talents brought into the Football League at London Road by Darren Ferguson and he, along with former Stevenage man George Boyd and one time Dagenham and Redbridge striker Craig Mackail Smith, were the stars of the Posh side which won promotion into the Championship the season before last.

That was their second consecutive promotion, and Chris Kamara tipped them to make it three and go all the way to the Premiership in his Sun column before the 2009/10 season kicked off. Ferguson, upon his bizarre return to London Road this month after a disastrous ten months with Preston, has admitted they were a little naïve about what would be required, and full of themselves. Mclean scored just seven goals in 35 league appearances, after an 18 goal haul in League One the year before. He has 14 goals to his name already this season for Posh which has tempted Hull to give him another shot in the second tier, presumably hoping the former Grays man will benefit from being surrounded by better players than he was before.

He’s yet to score in four outings for his new club — even QPR fans of limited experience will know that probably spells trouble.

McLean forms part of a new look partnership in the Hull attack with Pearson’s former Leicester talisman Matty Fryatt, however for the sake of this column I’m going to stick with Jay Simpson as I did in the first game for now and maybe talk a little about Fryatt when we meet the Tigers again.

Simpson is a man who will be familiar to QPR fans after a season long loan deal at Loftus Road last term. He signed from Arsenal last August and seemed to be the ideal man for Jim Magilton’s QPR side — a striker the team had long been crying out for. Initially, as Magilton’s ideas clicked into place, Simpson was a success. He scored twice in his third match at Cardiff as the R’s won 2-0 and had ten goals to his name by the turn of the year. Sadly, as the team fell apart and worked its way through three managers, Simpson lost confidence and form completely. He seemed to have his touch back at the end of February with three goals in five matches as Neil Warnock arrived but a succession of bad misses in a home game against Plymouth knocked his confidence again and he failed to score in any of his last 11 games at Rangers. When Arsenal said they would sell him in the summer, Warnock showed no interest, which said a lot.

He endured a tough start to life at Hull following a permanent transfer in the summer. It took him 15 appearances to score at all although when he did he managed four in two games against Bristol City and Sheffield United — this pattern of sudden bursts of goals, and long barren spells, hints at a real confidence based player and that is always what he seemed to be at Loftus Road. He has been an unused sub in the last two games but if Pearson believes that he is indeed a player who performs when his mood is right he may be in line for a recall against a club he would want to perform against following a brace for the reserves against Leicester during the week.

Finally Robert Koren seems to have settled in a lot better than Simpson and made a much bigger impact. The Slovenian international, capped 44 times, was a surprise release from West Brom in the summer and seemed set for Leicester for most of the close season before City swooped in. His debut wasn’t a conspicuous success, losing 4-0 at Millwall, but he has scored six goals already since then including one in their last home game, a 2-0 win against Barnsley, and Shaun Derry will have to be on his guard against the threat he poses from midfield.

Links >>> Hull City Official Website>> Hull City Message Board >>> KC Stadium Travel Guide

History

A feature of the Luigi De Canio reign at Loftus Road, and our recent visits to Hull City, has been late goals against. The Tigers broke Rangers’ hearts in 2007 when Stuart Elliott scored twice in the last five minutes to turn an away win into yet another defeat, and they were at it again on our last visit here — keeping their promotion push just about on track with an injury time goal by defender Michael Turner. Earlier Dexter Blackstock had been awarded the first goal after a mistake by Bo Myhill, although the ball barely seemed to cross the line and Rangers were fortunate to be awarded the goal.

 

Hull City: Myhill 6, Ricketts 6, Turner 7, Brown 7, Dawson 7, Garcia 6 (Hughes 54, 7), Ashbee 4, Marney 6, Pedersen 6 (Folan 61, 7), Windass 6 (Fagan 75, 7), Campbell 7

Subs Not Used: Duke, France

Booked: Fagan (foul)

Goals: Turner 90 (assisted Folan)

QPR: Camp 7, Mancienne 6, Stewart 7, Hall 7, Delaney 7, Ephraim 7, Ainsworth 7 (Connolly 90, -), Mahon 6, Rowlands 7, Blackstock 6 (Leigertwood 55, 5), Agyemang 7 (Balanta 80, -)

Subs Not Used: Pickens, Lee

Booked: Rowlands (foul), Camp (time wasting), Leigertwood (foul)

Goals: Blackstock 14 (assisted Ephraim)

Luigi De Canio got his QPR reign off to a flying start against a poor Hull City side at Loftus Road. A fine first half strike from Ephraim, who cut in from the left flank before curling a low right footed shot into the corner from the edge of the area, preceded a vintage Mikele Ligertwood strike after the break. There was only really one team on the pitch which makes it all the more surprising that by the end of the season Rangers had stayed in much the same position while Hull won promotion into the Premiership.

QPR: Camp 7, Mancienne 7, Cranie 8, Stewart 7, Barker 7, Rowlands 7, Ephraim 8, Leigertwood 8, Buzsaky 7 (Ainsworth 86, -),Vine 7 (Nardiello 90, -), Nygaard 7 (Bolder 81, -)

Subs Not Used: Cole, Timoska

Booked: Mancienne (foul), Barker (foul), Stewart (foul), Vine (wasting time)

Goals: Ephraim 26 (assisted Rowlands) Leigertwood 56 (assisted Ephraim)

Hull: Myhill 5, Ricketts 5, Turner 6, Brown 7, Delaney 4, Garcia 5 (McPhee 58, 6), Ashbee 4, Marney 7, Okocha 4 (Featherstone 71, 6), Windass 7, Campbell 6

Subs Not Used: Duke, Dawson, Livermore

Booked: Turner (foul), Delaney (foul)

Head to Head >>> Hull wins 13 >>> Draws 13 >>> QPR wins 15

Previous Results:

2007/08 Hull 1 QPR 1 (Blackstock)

2007/08 QPR 2 Hull 0 (Ephraim, Leigertwood)

2006/07 Hull 2 QPR 1 (Blackstock)

2006/07 QPR 2 Hull 0 (Blackstock, Jones)

2005/06 QPR 2 Hull 2 (Ainsworth 2)

2005/06 Hull 0 QPR 0

1991/92 QPR 5 Hull 1* (Thompson 2, Bailey 2, Bardsley)

1991/92 Hull 0 QPR 3* (Barker 2, Thompson)

1985/86 Hull 1 QPR 5 (Kerslake 2, Rosenior 2, Fillery)

1985/86 QPR 3 Hull 0 (Kerslake, Dawes, Bannister)

1972/73 QPR 1 Hull 1 (Bowles)

1972/73 Hull 4 QPR 1 (Givens)

Played for Both — Damien Delaney

Hull 2002-2008 >>> QPR 2008-2009

One thing that can never be doubted about Delaney is his heart and commitment to the game, although the fact that Ipswich and QPR have spent the thick end of £2m between them on a player who has little else in his locker apart from that during the past two years serves to underline how crazy football, and QPR and Roy Keane in particular, has become in recent times.

Delaney is a big, bruising, committed centre half from Cork. That’s what he was bought as by Peter Taylor when he was the manager of Leicester City who were then a Premiership club. Delaney never made it at Filbert Street and was loaned out to Mansfield, Huddersfield and Stockport before Hull City, then under the management of Taylor themselves, spent £50,000 on him as a Third Division club. It was at Hull, out of a lack of other options as much as anything else, where Delaney found himself switched to left back and he became a mainstay of the Tigers team making 239 appearances as it ascended up into the Championship.

Inevitably at the higher level Delaney’s short comings as a full back were exposed and he was best remembered by QPR fans for an attempted back pass from the halfway line at Loftus Road that managed to sale out for a corner to Rangers with just a single bounce. It was with therefore with some horror that the R’s faithful greeted news that not only was Delaney being bought instead of Sheff Wed’s Tommy Spurr who had been the first option in January 2008, but that the R’s were going to be spending £750,000 on him.

To be fair, at a time when QPR were busy packing their squad with injury prone mercenaries on huge contracts who had smelt the new money and instructed their agents to set the sat nav for W12 immediately, Delaney could always be relied upon for 100 per cent effort, commitment and honesty both on and off the pitch. His days at the club were always likely to be numbered when he ignored the party line and openly criticised the laughing stock Flavio Briatore had turned the club into at an end of season sponsors’ evening. In between his arrival and that incident Delaney developed a reputation for rampaging away down the left flank when Luigi De Canio was in charge, scoring a couple of goals nobody ever realised he had in his locker in the process. But the stricter defensive regimes of first Dowie and then Sousa took that facet of his game away and he was nothing more than a very limited player for us after that.

At Ipswich, who actually paid QPR more than we had paid for him originally for reasons known only to them, Delaney has re-found his position at centre half. He’s still a limited footballer, as his disastrous recent match up with Grant Holt in the East Anglian derby game showed, but when you need somebody to just head it and kick it he’s your man. He was magnificent in the League Cup semi final first leg against Arsenal, before being predictably found out in the second game.

A steady Championship centre back, fondly remembered at Loftus Road for his attitude more than his ability.

Links >>> QPR 2 Hull City 0 Match Report >>> Hull 1 QPR 1 Match Report >>> Connections and Memories

This Saturday

Team News: QPR have a selection headache upfront with Heidar Helguson substituted early against Coventry with a groin problem and his replacement on Sunday Ishmael Miller laid low with a virus. Rob Hulse will start if neither is fit to travel. Akos Buzsaky will return to full training on Monday but Jamie Mackie (broken leg), Patrick Agyemang (stress fracture) and Peter Ramage (cruciate knee ligaments) are out for the season. Pascal Chimbonda didn’t even make the bench last week after signing from Blackburn prior to the Coventry game, both he and Thursday’s new signing Danny Shittu are available to travel although the former lacks match fitness and the latter has a hamstring injury.

Hull sent Jimmy Bullard to Ipswich on loan on Thursday, but brought in Tunisian international Tijani Belaid who is available to play this Saturday. Belaid was unattached, but has played for Inter Milan, PSV and Slavia Prague in the past.

Elsewhere: There are just the three Championship games this weekend including our own with the rest of the league either taking the day off, or playing in the FA Cup fourth round. QPR haven’t won an FA Cup game of any sorts for 11 years now so you’d be forgiven for forgetting the cup had a fourth round at all. At the top only Norwich are in action, they travel to Crystal Palace in a match postponed from Boxing Day. The Canaries will be favourites on a run of six league games without defeat including four wins, but Palace are fighting for their lives at the bottom of the table. Elsewhere it’s a relegation six pointer between Scunthorpe and Preston at Glanford Park.

Referee: Speaking of Damien Delaney, the man who sent him off for felling Grant Holt in the Norwich v Ipswich grudge match last month is in charge of our game this Saturday. Keith Hill is a little card happy at the moment, averaging four yellows a game, and sent two QPR players off the last time he had a game of ours at Swansea last season. For full details of his history with QPR please click here.

Form

Hull City: The Tigers had won just two of their previous 11 prior to the original meeting, they have won four of eight league games since then with three draws from the other four games for good measure. At home this season they have been vulnerable — eight teams have come here and taken points, four of them winning and four drawing. Hull have scored just 11 goals at home all season, only the bottom two get close to that with Scunthorpe bagging nine at Glanford Park and Preston 14 at Deepdale. Everybody else has at least 15 or more. Their defensive record props it up though — just six conceded at home is a record bettered only by Swansea with five. Scunthorpe are one of the teams to win here, along with Sheff Utd, Portsmouth and more recently Leicester. They have won three, lost three and drawn one of their last seven games highlighting an inconsistent streak.

QPR: Rangers’ away form does not befit a side top of the league by five points and Neil Warnock has moved to add strength and speed to his team this January to address that. The R’s have just one away win in nine attempts since a late win at Crystal Palace in October. Since then they have drawn with Forest, Portsmouth and Burnley, lost to Blackburn, Norwich and Leeds and won at Coventry. Goals have been the problem — they have bagged just three in those games, and two of them came in the win at the Ricoh Arena. QPR have scored goals against Hull in the past though — in 1985/86 on the way to the League Cup final they beat the Tigers 3-0 and 5-1 in the second round over two legs, then miraculously repeated that feat in 1991/92 although on that occasion the bigger scoreline came in the home leg.

Prediction: I’ve got us down for four points this week — drawing here, beating Portsmouth and losing at Reading. Hopefully that will be a pessimistic viewpoint and we’ll get more, certainly the additions we’ve made in January will help and our hopes here could depend on how many are fit to play. If Miller shakes off his virus and plays a part I fancy us for at least a draw, if we’re reduced to Hulse and Clarke then I fear the worst against an improving Hull. Overall a draw is probably the best bet here, and as QPR have 32 second half goals compared to 14 in the first half, and 14 in the final 15 minutes of games, you may find value in the Hull half time, draw full time market.

Hull half time, draw full time, 14/1 with all major outlets, 15/1 with Unibet

Photo: Action Images



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hoops_legend added 00:37 - Jan 28
Thanks Clive... I'm hoping Jay doesn't start to be honest. He is a lethal player when as you say 'On song' and he will be up for this one...

I wonder who will start upfront for us!
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Rs4life added 06:34 - Jan 28
I think the loss to reading is a bit pessimistic, I see us getting a draw at hull, win against pompey and draw or better against reading
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MrSheen added 08:02 - Jan 28
Is Bostock still there?
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NorwayRanger16 added 10:18 - Jan 28
Thanks for the preview, love your love for Phil Brown :-)
Six points this week would be good, hoping for one win in the two away games instead of two draws.
Have been a fun week reading all the Coventry blogs full of anger towards you Clive, some have even tried to belittle our squad and management in the process.
You're certainly pushing the "right" buttons based on the reactions you've been getting, love it!

Keep up the good work :-)
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Monahoop added 13:57 - Jan 28
With the chance to extend our top slot tomorrow, Rangers are going to have to be at their best. Hull as already mentioned have improved considerably since late autumn, but that said I think we could tough this one out with a 1-0 win. Just hope Koren isn't shown too much respect otherwise we could be in for a hard 90 minutes.
Great write up again Clive.
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headhoops added 16:35 - Jan 28
Thanks Clive, great review, not so keen on the mental image conjured up by the fat man in the curry house.

A draw at Hull would be a decent result, 3 points from Pompey and then...who will we have sent of this time at the madstad? Won't matter as we owe them for last season - Stewpeas sending off and a gift penalty. 7 points yes please setting us nicely for the class with Forest.
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DesertBoot added 17:22 - Jan 28
I can see seven points in the bag too but I'm not sure which of the three games will end in a draw.
Bring on Forest! Sure they're on a good run but have beaten teams you would expect them to beat.
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Myke added 21:01 - Jan 28
At least we no now it wont be Clarke leading the line as he has found a more suitable club for his talents. Imagine being given the chance to play even a cameo role for the championship leaders after being relegated last season and still not to be arsed - strange guy indeed
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