We’ve all done the jokes about QPR’s cup upset against Swindon in Round One, what price a repeat tonight against Rochdale after Saturday’s debacle.

Queens Park Rangers v Rochdale

League Cup >>> Tuesday August 23, 2016 >>> Kick Off 19.45 >>> Weather — Scorchio >>> Loftus Road, London, W12

Re-arrange these well-known QPR results into a sentence. Barnsley 3-2 QPR, QPR 3-0 Leeds, QPR 0-2 Preston, Cardiff 0-2 QPR. See, doesn’t sound so bad like that does it. Same results, same team, same performances, same outcome. Sixth in the league heading into the end of month one. What’s not to like?

Drawing conclusions from what we’ve seen at QPR this season so far has been like knitting fog. It’s making my programme column look even more stupid than normal.

Two games, two wins, two clean sheets, a goal and at least one Man of the Match award for Steven Caulker. Maybe he’s got his head together at last. Maybe Jimmy’s made the defence air tight. Doesn’t Grant Hall look good, all those doubts about his form towards the end of last season vanquished. And then suddenly three goals at Barnsley and two shambolic ones against Preston and all that’s out the window. Even Alex Smithies has started flapping.

Coming on strong late against Leeds and Cardiff, battling on through extra time to four flawless penalties against Swindon, at least we got the pre-season right. Then, a late collapse at Barnsley, a surprisingly tired effort against PNE, and we’re wondering whether they flogged them too much.

Seven goals in the first three games, all that talk of the team having no goals in looked ridiculous. Then a blank on Saturday, that would still be a blank if the game was going on now, and people noticing that a fair few of the goals we had scored were penalties and those fears were raised again.

The mistake we’re making, is trying to draw conclusions at all. We’re four league games into a long, hard season. We could still easily finish bottom or top from here. We’re getting clues, that’s all, and we’re trying to finger Colonel Mustard with the candlestick in the drawing room way too soon.

Leeds were thrashed by us, beaten in their second match, lucky tyo draw with Fulham, then suddenly beat fancied Sheff Wed 2-0. Wednesday also lost at Burton Albion, but beat relegated Villa. Newcastle '100 points 100 goals' United lost their first two. It's the Championship stupid, it's always like this. It settles down a bit after Christmas, and even then somebody does a Derby/Cardiff and chokes to death.

My excuse is I have to write one of these, and a report, for each game. I have to try and find angles and points of interest. What everybody else’s excuse for leaping to conclusions, often negative ones, often with real relish and glee, I just don’t understand. I can’t relate to a hell of a lot of QPR fans at the moment, which is worrying. Maybe I should stop trying.

I suspect I know how tonight’s going to go as well. QPR looked knackered, for whatever reason, against Preston and will almost certainly rest anybody and everybody tonight. It’s hard enough to get going in the non-existent atmosphere of these matches anyway and Rochdale can kick start their season with a win, just as they did here a few years ago. Probably worth remembering, before we prepare the wicker man for Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink or whoever we hate this week, that the people’s champion Neil Warnock was in charge that night.

Links >>> On the Wayne — Podcast >>> Whitestone in charge — Referee

Tuesday

Team News: Rangers have Grant Hall back from suspension after his sending off at Barnsley, but Joel Lynch remains sidelined. Ariel Borysiuk has been in full training for two weeks and may be able to make a senior debut for the club here but Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink has strongly suggested he may pick a scratchy side for this one following Saturday’s tired effort against PNE.

Elsewhere: Fuck me sideways there’s some absolute belters on the list tonight. They’ll be beating the doors down in Lancashire for the Mad Chicken Farmers at home to Crewe for a start.

Upset watch — by which we mean higher division team away at lower division side — sees West Brom going to Northampton, the 13 men brave and true still available to play for Tigers Tigers Rah Rah Rah at Exeter City, and Swansea City goint to free-scoring, free-wheeling Peterborough United.

I’m sure Massimo Cellino will take the Champions of Europe getting all Aston Villad at Luton calmly while Millwall v Forest doesn’t immediately jump out from the list but when you hear Gavin Ward’s in charge you fear for those involved.

Tie of the round is tomorrow, Burnley at Accrington, local derby. Can’t go to extra time that one, as Accrington’s floodlights switch off if left on for longer than 90 minutes as we found out in the play-offs against Wimbledon last season.

Referee: Dean Whitestone, who could teach our footballers a thing or two about tiredness given the workload foisted on him by the Football League, is back in action for the sixth time already this season at Loftus Road this evening. QPR case history and recent stats available here

Form

QPR: Rangers last escaped from the first couple of rounds of this competition in 2009 when Jim Magilton’s side beat Exeter 5-0 and Accrington 2-1 before losing narrowly at Chelsea in round three. There had been many early round disasters before that and there have been several since with Port Vale winning 3-1 at Loftus Road in 2010, Rochdale winning 2-0 here in 2011, and Reading coming to W12 and leaving with a 3-2 victory in 2012 after Walsall had been beaten in the earlier round. Swindon won a second round tie here in 2013 after a 2-0 win at Exeter in round one but Rangers were beaten 1-0 at Burton first time out in 2014 and lost at home to Carlisle last year after initially beating Yeovil. QPR beat Swindon in the previous round on penalties, scoring four from four attempts after a 2-2 draw.

Rochdale Dale, famously, reached the final of this competition in 1962 but had to wait another 50 years to reach the third round again, something they’ve only done three times in the club’s history. Of course, one of those was 2011/12, when they won 2-0 at Loftus Road at this stage of the competition. We’re always good for one like that. In the league this season Keith Hill’s side have started slowly with just one point from their first four matches. They’ve failed to score in their last two, 1-0 defeats to Port Vale’s league of nations and then MK Dons.

Prediction: Given how shattered Rangers looked on Saturday, and with another match to come at Wigan this weekend, I suspect we may be about to field a Crèche XI and we’ve all been to enough early round League Cup games with Rangers in recent times to know what that usually means. Prepare the wicker man.

LFW Prediction: QPR 0-2 Rochdale. No scorer.

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Jigsore added 18:35 - Aug 23 i'm certainly not trying to finger Colonel Mustard, candlestick or otherwise
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TacticalR added 19:46 - Aug 23 Thanks for your preview. It's true, (some) people are drawing very far-reaching conclusions based on very little evidence.
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JohnMacQPR added 22:55 - Aug 23 Yeah. And when you're fingering Colonel Mustard, you really wouldn't have your eye on the ball, would you? Clive, your private life worries me, but if it helps you take your mind off the complexities, confusions and conundrums of QPR, enabling you to continue to produce highly readable analyses of our team, I'll forgive you.
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