Another week where there has been a lot of talking coming out of Loftus Road needs to end with a victory on the field for QPR against Wigan on Saturday.
Barclays Premier League >>> Saturday January 21, 2012 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Loftus Road, London, W12
If they gave out points for talking a good game QPR could look forward to Champions League football in 2012. Phil Beard, Tony Fernandes, Neil Warnock, Joey Barton - I've heard these people talk more than my girlfriend this week. Barton's Friday afternoon Twitter assault on Neil Warnock came after his former manager had taken to the airwaves on Thursday to bemoan the affect of the social networking site on his career. The simple fact is had Warnock guided QPR to a midtable position no amount of Tweets to Tony Fernandes or agents talking about their clients doing a better job would have got him the sack.
I'm starting to view Barton's forays onto Twitter in the same way I view the clip of Fenton the Dog in Richmond Park. Barton racing off ahead as all right thinking QPR fans trail in his wake shouting "Barton, Barton, no Barton, BARTON, oh Jesus Christ" as he duly herds another ream of easy copy across the road and into the offices of the gutter press. Barton would be much better served by quietly upping his game and inspiring three or four quick fire wins for our team in the next few weeks than airing our club's dirty laundry in public. It's kids in the playground stuff this, do these people not realise that actions speak louder than words?
The same can be said of our new board, who talk a really good game and genuinely seem to be trying their best. But you can talk and talk all you like, it's results that speak loudest. The theme of the past fortnight has been ambition. If you're not ambitious you have to be happy with what you already have, and if you're neither then you're depressed and/or a Coventry City supporter.
Ambition is the first step on the road to achievement. Alex Ferguson was ambitious when he arrived at Manchester United and despite a slow start he has gone on to become the most successful manager in the history of the English game, turning round a drifting hulk of a club and wiping the floor with everything in sight for more than 20 years. I remember when I lived in Scunthorpe (bad times) a leaflet dropped through my door one day urging me to buy a season ticket at the local club which had just, by the skin of its teeth, escaped relegation to the Conference. Its ambition, said the promotional gumph, was to be a Championship club within five years. I laughed and threw it away. Five years later I found myself there with QPR, humiliated as we laboured to a two two draw against a side I'd previously considered something of a second team.
QPR talk a lot about ambition at the moment. Tony Fernandes is ambitious, Phillip Beard is ambitious, Mark Hughes is ambitious, the players are ambitious – everybody is very, very ambitious. They have to keep restating their ambition in order for Mark Hughes to look a little less foolish for turning up here seven months after he left established Premiership club Fulham citing their lack of ambition. Don't worry Mark, we're ambitious, honest.
Hughes seemed to depart the Craven Cottage scene on the understanding or belief that he was about to walk straight into the vacant managerial positions at Aston Villa or Chelsea – clubs he felt could match his ambition. The problem he found is that ambition doesn't actually exist as a physical thing. Ambition is just like a thought or a fantasy, a worry or a concern – it's entirely a mental state. I won't go into my Kelly Brook fantasy for a third week running but just because you think something doesn't make it so, even if you then verbalise that. The people at QPR can say they're ambitious until they're blue in the face but it won't change the fact that the training facilities are inadequate, the stadium is inadequate, the team is inadequate and they're spending colossal amounts more than they're bringing in.
It also won't persuade players to come to the club. It will help, as it helped Mark Hughes make up his mind, but players like money, and so does Mark Hughes if talk of his salary and bonus for staying up is anything to go by. QPR must offer ludicrous wages they cannot afford to sign the sort of players they want to sign and here is where ambition becomes a dangerous thing.
Ambition is also the first step on the road to disappointment. A cursory glance down the league tables reveals far more examples of clubs that ha d ambition, overreached themselves trying to achieve it, and continue to pay the price today than it does repeats of Alex Ferguson's success.
Leeds United had ambition and from their 40,000 Elland Road Stadium set off on a mission to topple the global super-power that is Manchester United. They wanted the Premier League, they wanted the Champions League, and they wanted everything else besides and they weren't afraid to spend money they didn't actually have to get it. The came admirably close, and then collapsed into league fixtures against Hartlepool . They're yet to fully recover.
Darlington were a club that for many years had an application for re-election to the Football League saved on file ready to mail out at the same time every year. They attracted an average 3,800 fans to their Feethams home in 1978 and 20 years later that figure hadn't moved at all in either direction. Nevertheless George Reynolds decided to build them a 25,000 seater out of town stadium, and try to sign Tino Asprilla amid promises of an ascent into the Premiership. Now barely 1,500 turn up to ride his great white elephant and watch Conference football and this week they needed a donation of £50,000 just to continue for the next three matches. Elsewhere in the Conference Kettering have had a three point deduction suspended until the end of February when the league hope the Poppies' own eccentric chairman Imraan Ladak may start paying his players and the other clubs they owe money to. Kettering 's ground in the middle of the town stands empty while the team plays to tiny crowds eight miles down the road at a ground that used to belong to Rushden and Diamonds – another club that reached for the stars, fell hard and went bust this summer. Kettering and Darlington will shortly both go the same way.
And then there's Portsmouth . The situation there is one that the footballing community as a whole agrees should never ever be allowed to happen again, and yet QPR seem to be gleefully following the Pompey model to the absolute letter. Portsmouth , playing in an outdated ground that was far too small to sustain top flight football, spent big money on big name players to secure Premiership status and an FA Cup win. Now they have a new owner each week, mounting debts, and are grateful for league games with Barnsley .
For years now QPR's solution to every problem that has come along has been to sign three more players and then if that doesn't work sack the manager immediately. It's a technique being embraced again this January apparently in the name of ambition. Meanwhile ninth placed Norwich, who were promoted alongside Rangers in the summer, quietly complete the signing of Leeds' Johnny Howson for a paltry £2m – young, talented, creative player in a key position that QPR need to strengthen. Chances are if Rangers had signed him instead some of the window lickers that seem to have invaded our home support of late, or suddenly piped up after years of blissful silence, would have said the signing wasn't ambitious enough.
All this ambition will count for little if we lose this crucial game to Wigan on Saturday. I don't believe there is such a thing as a must win game in January, but if there is then this is certainly it. I don't fancy our chances much if we lose here.
Links >>> Opposition Focus >>> History >>> Referee
Team News: QPR are still without Armand Traore and Adel Taarabt who are away at the African Nations Cup and they haven't been able to complete the protracted signings of Henrique, Taiwo, Nedum Onouha or Alex in time for this fixture. They do however have Joey Barton back from suspension. Danny Gabbidon faces a late fitness check on a hip injury picked up in the midweek cup win against MK Dons where he scored his first goal for seven years.
Wigan have problems in midfield where their star man so far this season Mohamed Diame is away in Africa with Senegal and former Wigan man David Jones has a calf strain that forced him out of their midweek defeat by Man City. Former Villa and Celtic man Shaun Maloney is a long term absentee.
Elsewhere: This weekend’s fixtures are dominated by two huge games at the top end of the table on Sunday. First up Man City host Spurs at Eastlands. City will be aiming to return to their scintillating pre-Christmas form after a slight New Year wobble and pull clear at the top of the table while third placed Spurs, who won here two season ago to claim a Champions League spot at City’s expense, will hope to further their own title ambitions with a win. Then it’s Arsenal v Man Utd with the Gunners hoping to avenge their 8-2 humiliation at Old Trafford earlier this season.
On Saturday the early TV game is Norwich v Chelsea, and the late match is Bolton v Liverpool. Of the 3pm kick offs ours stands out as the real crunch game while the teams just ahead of us, Wolves and West Brom, face Villa at home and Stoke away respectively. Blackburn take their mini revival to Everton while in form Swansea and Sunderland clash at the Stadium of Light. Fulham v Newcastle completes the weekend list before a ten day break from league action for all teams for the FA Cup.
Referee: Jon Moss was promoted into the Premiership with QPR last summer having refereed our 1-0 New Year’s Day Championship match at Norwich last term. He sent off Matt Connolly that day for fouling, wouldn’t you just guess it, Grant Holt and has seemingly done little else other than send people off since reaching the big time. This headmaster credited with turning round one of the Leeds’ most troubled schools has dismissed nine players in just 20 appointments this season, including Wigan defender Steve Gohouri in their 2-1 home defeat by Spurs back in September. For his full case file please click here.
QPR: The victory against MK Dons on Tuesday night was QPR's first in the FA Cup for 11 years, but more urgently it was only their second home win of the entire season. Four of the next six league games are at Loftus Road and with Wigan , Wolves, Everton and Fulham in town it's clear that it will be a crucial period if Mark Hughes is to rescue the side from relegation. Their last ten games are nightmarish, and they slipped into the bottom three for the first time since August with defeat at Newcastle last week, a tenth match without a win at the time. Rangers have managed just 19 goals this season and haven't scored more than one in a game since the last game before Christmas, which they still lost 3-2 to Sunderland . They have scored one goal or fewer in their last six matches. They haven't won in the league in nine attempts, and have lost seven of those. Wigan: The bottom three has become familiar ground for the Latics but you'd be foolish to write them off just yet – last season, quite out of the blue, they won three and drew two of their final six games to stage an unlikely dash to safety at the expense of West Ham and Birmingham. This year scoring goals has been the problem – they have managed just 18, one less than the next least prolific side QPR, and just eight of those have come in away matches. Five times in ten away games they've failed to score at all and on just three occasions have they scored more than one. That said they have picked up two away wins at West Brom and Sunderland . They've earned more credit for their recent performances and have taken points from West Brom, Chelsea , Liverpool and Stoke over Christmas but they have won only one of their last nine and have lost their last three games against Man City , Swindon and Sunderland . Wigan have won only twice in 18 matches since beaten QPR in August, a result that remains their only home win of the season, and they have the worst goals scored total in the entire Football League.
Betting: Professional odds compiler Owen Goulding says…
QPR enter this game after being outplayed for long periods by a League One side in midweek. I won’t go into the excuses for this as there certainly are some, but the truth of the matter is the side that played on Tuesday can only be marginally improved upon as it stands. Barton will come straight into side but barring any new signings that will be it. It seems clubs are holding us to ransom at present knowing the dire need we are in and I expect most of our transfer business to be done in the very closing stages of the window. But needs must now and we have no doubt our most important game to date in the Premiership this Saturday.
Wigan are the only side in the league to have scored less than us this year, and looking at their line-up, you can see why. Moses has undoubted pace and talent but makes the wrong decision far too often. Rodallega has gone off the boil massively- placing much pressure on the likes of Gomez and McCarthy in midfield. Wigan's problem is their midfield spend more time running towards their own goal than the opposition's. As the squads stand, this is very much a close encounter. I will be interested in where Mark Hughes chooses to play SWP. Let’s get this straight once and for all - SWP is a right winger. He is NOT a left winger. He is NOT a centre midfielder. He is NOT a striker. There is no doubt in my mind he is playing left wing for one reason only. This is to accommodate Jamie Mackie.
Warnock did it for a long time and it now seems Mark Hughes has followed suit. I put this down to the lack of alternatives but I can’t see this persisting much longer. I have also read reports on this site that Ferdinand and Gabbidon played really well in midweek. I am afraid in my opinion, watching this from a tactical point of view, that wasn't quite the case. MK strikers McDonald and Ibere were moving them around far to easy getting them into positions they shouldn't be in as experienced Premiership defenders. An Alex or a Samba is much needed in my opinion. That all said, Wigan are poor too. There is no denying it. I think in a few months the two squads will look very different, but as it stands, there is very little difference in quality and I see this ending in a result neither team wants - the draw. Recommended Bet - Draw 5/2 Bet Victor.
Elsewhere my bet of the weekend comes from London Road. Brighton were made to work very hard for their replay win in the FA Cup at Wrexham and combining extra time, the long travelling etc, I believe their recent revival could come to an abrupt end at the hands of the Posh.
Bet Of Weekend - Peterborough to beat Brighton 11/10 (general)
Prediction: To be honest I expect a re-run of Tuesday's match. A tense, drab encounter devoid of quality settled in QPR's favour by a single goal. It's not going to be pretty, but I think we'll get the job done. Just.
QPR win 1-0, best price 7/1 with Ladbrokes Tweet @loftforwords