QPR, top of the league despite a series of unimpressive performances, are back at Loftus Road on Saturday to face Middlesbrough, a club who’d testify to results mattering more than performances for the R’s.
Championship >>> Saturday September 27, 2013 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Loftus Road, London, W12
After the latest instalment of Sky’s latest Super, Duper, Ãœber, Megatron Sunday (Norwich v Stoke followed, exclusively live, by Tottenham v Hull or some such nonsense) it would be easy to believe that nothing in sport, or in fact life, matters as much as the Premier League.
And I’m starting to wonder if, in fact, that’s right. Perhaps Jim White is right. Perhaps Richard Keys was right all along. Perhaps it’s totally justified to air a 20 second clip of David Beckham in Malaysia saying "ahhh well obviously I’ve got to say I think United will win” as a piece of straight-faced build up to an early season league match between the two Manchester sides. Perhaps the world really does stop turning at 16.00 on a Sunday as Fulham and Sunderland take to the field.
Because, now QPR have been there for a couple of years, this just doesn’t feel quite the same any more does it? I mean, wind it back three years when Rangers were unbeaten and top of the league, just as they are now, and remember the excitement. There was a week at about this point of the season where QPR won 3-0 at Ipswich on Tuesday and 2-0 at Leicester on the Saturday and I ruptured my oesophagus celebrating one of the goals while falling down a flight of steps. It felt like a big deal. QPR, our QPR, winning. Actually winning.
There’s a picture on my wall at home made up of all the photographs taken in that final week of the 2010/11 season at Watford, the Player of the Year Dinner (including the one of drunk, lost and emotional Matt Connolly using LFW betting columnist Andy Hillman as a leaning post) and then the Leeds game. Everybody looks not only ecstatically happy, but also completely surprised. For a whole generation of QPR fans that week was the moment they’d waited their lives for, and judging by the way that amazing seven days went they were all very sure to make the absolute most of the opportunity for fear of it never coming around again.
But it could quite easily come around again, we could be in the midst of it now. QPR have, by common consent, the best team and squad in the league on paper and the rhetoric from the rest of the division when the Super Hoops went out in the last second of the transfer window and slung Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Tom Carroll and Niko Kranjcar onto the pile as well was that it was bordering on being unfair. Managers up and down the Championship, working on a fraction of the QPR budget which is boosted by parachute payments and dodgy Chris Samba deals while their own is held back by new Financial Fair Play rules, shrugged and hit the drink. How can they possibly compete? Wave QPR goodbye and play for second place.
Rangers are unbeaten as we prepare to enter October. They’re top of the league with six wins and two draws from eight matches. The defensive record is starting to border on the miraculous: just two goals conceded and six clean sheets in a row in the league. Neil Warnock’s QPR side was a good deal more entertaining three years ago — they scored 23 goals in the first eight matches compared to the eight QPR have managed this season — but I don’t imagine that the palpable sense of excitement would have been any less at the time if QPR had gone top by winning 1-0 every week, as they are doing this term. And yet now it almost seems dull. It’s like two years in the Premier League, even though most of it was spent on the end of a good hiding each week, has spoilt it.
Saturday’s visitors to Loftus Road, Middlesbrough, would tell the QPR fans grumbling about quality of matches, lack of entertainment value, poor football and boredom to count their blessings. They’re now entering that dangerous period for a recent Premier League team where it’s far more likely they’ll end up in League One than back in the big time. The parachute payments handed to relegated clubs, that most of QPR’s opponents this season have been keen to flag up in the media around matches with Harry Redknapp’s side, give a clear advantage initially but if you spend them on players to help you bounce back, rather than using them to keep debt at bay and pay the salaries you inflated while in the top division, and then fail, it’s a world of pain that awaits. It's a time bomb that starts ticking the second you're relegated and woe betide you if you're still clinging to it in the Championship when it expires.
While some clubs — West Brom, Crystal Palace — have been able to turn themselves into successful yo-yo outfits there are far more examples of clubs that came down, spent the parachute money on trying to get back, failed, and then found the sand shifting beneath their feet. Sheffield United are the current high profile victim but Norwich, Southampton, Leeds, Forest, QPR and others have all gone down to the third tier after failing to make a swift return while the hand outs were still being made.
Middlesbrough let Gordon Strachan spend theirs on an ill-judged campaign to assemble an SPL dream team on Teeside with predictable consequences. Any fantasy assembly of SPL players is a nightmare compared to almost every other league in Europe — like a sex dream that ends in an ectopic pregnancy — and Boro have been killed by it, using the rest of their parachute money to try and pay the players Strachan signed while fighting fires.
Offer the Boro fans that remain in the sparsely populated Riverside Stadium a season of drab 1-0 wins with a promotion at the end of it and they’d no doubt snap your hands off. Gary Megson’s West Bromwich Albion side was a turgid watch in 2001/02 when it won promotion into the Premier league on the back of 17 1-0 wins — ten at home, seven away — but it paved the way for a few yo-yo years between the top two divisions that have solidified the club and made it a model for others to follow in recent times.
Needs must, don’t be so ungrateful etc. Although, as the bloke at the urinal after the recent dire performance and fortunate 1-0 win against Birmingham exclaimed to nobody in particular: "A 2-0 would be nice.”
Links >>> http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/32937/a-crucial-cro Focus >>>http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/32927/andy-sinton%E >>> http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/32914/inbetween-rs- >>> http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/32913/deadman-walks >>> Betting
Heidar Helguson calmly rolls in a penalty at the Loft End as a second half blitz of goals handed QPR a comfortable 3-0 win the last time these sides met on this ground in September 2010. Rangers won seven and drew one of their first eight games that season and put together an unbeaten run that eventually stretched to 19 matches.
Team News: QPR have doubts over both their wingers. Matt Phillips, one good game and two bad so far, is still struggling with the elbow injury he arrived at the club with and will be checked on late. Junior Hoilett is still struggling with the hamstring injury he emerged from the womb nursing and will therefore almost certainly start, look lively, start limping around after about a quarter of an hour, look less lively, and then head for a bath between minutes 36 and 45.
Veteran Uruguayan international Javier Chevanton is the latest waif and stray who it turns out has been training with QPR — it’s like we’re running a sort of Battersea Dog’s Home for footballers and coaches without clubs — and having signed a contract for the next three months earlier this week he may feature from the bench if things are going particularly badly. Nedum Onuoha, Bobby Zamora and Andy Johnson are long term absentees — although there has been some suggestion the latter may be able to return this week.
The QPR faithful are denied a chance to roll out their club issued commemorative Emmanuel Ledesma t-shirt, released after he scored a hat trick against mighty Carlisle in an early League Cup round during his brief spell with the club, by a three game ban picked up for a straight red card last week. Rhys Williams is also out which will mean either George Friend fills in at centre back and a new left back is called for, or youngster Ben Gibson steps up. Probably the latter. Joszef Varga is available again after a hip injury, which is wonderful news for the Varga family.
Elsewhere: Strap yourselves in and prepare for the extreme g-force that can only be experienced by exposing yourself to the sheer drama and majesty of round seven hundred and a ninety two of the 2013/14 Championship.
The army are on standby in the city of Nottingham this Friday evening and shops and businesses in the city have spent the day boarding up windows and loading antique firearms in preparation for the game of the weekend at The City Ground on Saturday lunchtime. That’s right, it’s the bi-annual argument over who Brian Clough liked the best between the Derby Rams and Nottingham Trees.
No football fan should be exposed to such raw passion without a warm up of some sorts, and Soccer AM just isn’t cutting it these days since time started to take its toll on Helen Chamberlain, so ease yourself in with the latest in a series of titanic struggles between Blackpool and Huddersfield on Friday night.
Then it’s a veritable smorgasbord of quality and tension at 15.00 on Saturday. Can Bolton, weighed down considerably by being LFW’s tip for the title this year, finally get that first win of the season with fellow strugglers Yeovil in town? Expect Dougie Freedman to be on the first train out of Horwich Parkway with a one way ticket if not — remember Dougie, it can be cheaper to go north to Preston and change rather than into Manchester and out again.
Burnley’s surprise ascent to second has made headlines around the world and a global audience of billions will be glued to their sets this weekend to see if Sean Dyche’s remarkable run can continue at home to Charlton, who are a bit shit really and should be little more than cannon fodder for Danny Ings and co. Leicester, level on points and with a banker three points at home to Barnsley, await a slip, as do Udinese a further two points back and with a game against a Wigan side that already looks to be feeling the effects of playing five matches a week.
When asked if he thought Sheffield Wednesday’s dreadful start to the season was a reason to change the manager, Sheffield Wednesday manager Dave Jones asked tersely: "which manager.” He always was a card was Old Dave. Lose at home to Doncaster this weekend and he’s highly likely to find out and be left with little more to do with his time than shag Welsh netball players behind his wife’s back — could be worse ways to spend your time admittedly, including being the manager of Sheffield Wednesday. Plenty of smoke and fire here this time Dave, a win keeps you the job for another week.
Then there’s the bi-annual daisy chain assembly parade and bake sale between Millwall and Leeds down at The Den. Take the kids to that one why don’t you? Fun for all the family. In all seriousness, how many hints does the rest of the sport have to drop before they just shut the door on that one and release the hounds?
Bournemouth v Blackburn, Ipswich v Brighton and Reading v Birmingham are also football matches taking place this weekend.
And, if you can stand it, there’s another round of fixtures on Tuesday.
The Championship. Roar.
Referee: Darren Deadman, an official with a history of sending QPR players off, is the man in the middle at Loftus Road this weekend. It’s his first QPR appointment since the promotion campaign of 2010/11 when he was in charge of a 3-1 home defeat by Watford and a 0-0 draw with Derby in W12 towards the back end of the campaign. This is the referee who sent off Emmanuel Ledesma at Bristol City a few years ago — the Argentinean is now at Middlesbrough and ironically out with a three match ban for his first red card since then on these shores. For Deadman’s full QPR case file please http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/32913/deadman-walks here.
QPR: Rangers have six wins and two draws from eight games — they had seven wins and a draw at this stage of the 2010/11 promotion season. That year the R’s had scored 23 goals at this stage, compared to just eight now, and had conceded the same amount — just two. But there was never a sense that the R’s were relying on their defence as much as they clearly are this term. Last weekend’s 1-0 win at Yeovil, achieved totally against the run of play, was a sixth clean sheet in a row and a fifth 1-0 success in the last six matches. Richard Dunne has been magnificent — Harry Redknapp’s side are yet to concede a goal in the seven matches he’s been on the pitch for — but when Yeovil became the first team to regularly find a way to pick apart the QPR back four last week they then found Rob Green in fine form in goal. @QPR_Stats on the Twitter informs us that the world record for clean sheets at club level is held by Edwin Van der Sar at Manchester United and stands at 1,311 minutes. Green is currently on 595 minutes which means he needs to get to the 87th minute of the Charlton game on November 23 to beat it. Jinx, jinx, jinx.
Middlesbrough: Middlesbrough score goals — If QPR make it seven clean sheets in a row they’ll be the first team to prevent Boro scoring in nine attempts this season. Middlesbrough also concede goals — they’ve kept one clean sheet in nine attempts this season and shipped eight in the last three matches. That, predictably, has made for a lot of draws — five of the last six Boro games have finished level. It also hasn’t made for many points, because with three defeats to their name as well it means Tony Mowbray’s side have only a single victory on the board so far this campaign. In fact they’ve only won four times in 2013. The win did come away from home though, at Charlton, and on the road this term their record is decent with draws at much fancied Wigan and Forest and just a lone defeat at Ipswich.
Betting: Professional odds compiler Owen Goulding tells us…
"Another less than convincing display by QPR yielded yet another 1-0 win away from home last week at Yeovil, and Rangers will look to extend their lead at the top of the table as draw specialists Middlesbrough come to Loftus Road.
"Boro have drawn five of their last six games and are struggling in mid-table at present. All those games have been score draws however, and in fact every game Boro have played in this season bar one — Charlton away - has resulted in both teams scoring. In this game you can get 5/6 for both teams to score, a price that might appeal to some.
"However, as we know, QPR are proving very difficult to break down and haven't conceded in the League since Huddersfield back at the beginning of August. Therefore, I am leaning towards looking for some value in the goalscorer market for Rangers players. It’s not easy to predict the team that will play with a few injury concerns here and there. With Boro missing Rhys Williams through suspension, I expect George Friend to move into a centre half role - a change QPR will look to exploit.
"A rested Joey Barton should return to the Rangers line-up and with him going close on a number of occasions this season- especially at home, I think the price of 4/1 anytime for him to open his seasons account looks overpriced and that will be my recommended bet for this game.
"Wait for team news before parting with your money of course....Joey Barton to score at any time vs Middlesbrough - 4/1 (William Hill, Paddy Power, Betfred, Skybet).”
Prediction: Fresh from a correct score and scorer call at Yeovil last week our reigning Prediction League champion Mase is back and tells us…
"When I first started watching football 'properly' as a child in the mid-90's, which coincided with the break up of our successful Premiership (as was) team, Middlesbrough were one of the sides I thought had it all. They had attracted the likes of Juninho and Ravanelli to the North East and were fielding them alongside the last generation of not-quite-superstar-attitude players the likes of whom you seldom see in the top flight any more; British and Irish players like John Hendrie, Graham Kavanagh and Craig Hignett. If only we could have been like them, I thought.
"The Championship seems to be chock full of players who would have been top-flight had they been born 20 years earlier, and Middlesbrough of 2013 can boast a few such names in their squad today. Justin Hoyte is a good right back for this league, and we have seen Dean Whitehead and Grant Leadbitter hurt us in the colours of other teams earlier in their careers. These days, though, there is an air of "last years' model" about most of the squad - theirs and ours - which Clive has alluded to in his opposition focus piece. Jonathan Woodgate, for one, is surely just circling the drain: once a very reliable player (so much so that Madrid paid money for him even after his escapades at Majestyk while at Leeds), now turning out for the second season in front of banks of empty seats up and down the country. I can't see the attraction, personally.
"On Saturday we 'bump up', to borrow Clive's term, against a side similar to many we've encountered this season, seemingly going nowhere fast and in up-and-down form. I hope (probably in vain) for a more entertaining match than I have seen thus far this season, and I must admit I can't see the Red'n'White Sox returning north with anything other than a decreased goal difference. We are doing just enough to get through games, and while that will undoubtedly come to an end, I don't think it will be this weekend that it does. If Chevanton plays a significant role we may even score more than once.”
Mase’s Prediction: QPR 2-0 Middlesbrough. First Scorer: Austin
LFW Prediction: QPR 1 Middlesbrough 1. Scorer Dunne.
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