Defensive incompetence in the first half, and a tactical shambles in the second, saw QPR hand over three points to relegation rivals Burnley at Turf Moor on Saturday - an eleventh straight away defeat.
You’d think QPR might have won one away game by now this season, even by accident, after 11 attempts and 11 defeats. Indeed, it seems the R’s are having to come up with new and inventive ways to ensure they don’t. This week: self-immolation.
Harry Redknapp’s justification for his repeated application for a hall pass on the away results this season has been the toughness of the fixtures - QPR have played ten of the league’s better teams on the road to start with, and will now travel to all of the bottom seven before May. The results, in theory, should start to catch up with the team’s very decent home form.
That so called ‘easier’ run of away matches started on Saturday at Burnley, second bottom at the start of the day after spending just £4m on strengthening their team following promotion alongside QPR last term.
The Clarets are a magnet for patronising pundits this season. "Little old Burnley, giving it a go, spending no money, manger doing a great job, footballing miracle,” they’ll say, after a 30 second highlight reel of their game at the end of the programme. "Still probably going to go down though.”
Sean Dyche is doing more than a great job, he’s doing a magnificent job, but he and his team pay scant regard to what’s said or written about them. When they were written off after failing to win any of their first ten games they ignored it and kept playing the way they always play, when individuals are singled out they credit the team and move on, and when the media fell over themselves to praise them for roaring back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 at champions Man City Dyche calmly pointed out that it was still only one point for the league total. While others complain about a hectic Christmas fixture list, Dyche picked the same starting 11 for six matches in a row.
The upshot is you know what you’re getting with Burnley. Whether they won 4-0 or lost 4-0 last week, whether they’ve played a dozen times in the last fortnight or not had a game for a month, whether they’re in good form or bad, the ethos, the plan, the style and the message remains the same. This is a basic set up - two banks of four, two out and out strikers - and it achieves its success through discipline and harder work than you’ve seen from a football team. They’re relentless, but apart from striker Danny Ings - out of contract in the summer and attracting interest - and the full backs Trippier and Mee it’s little more than a good Championship side on paper. George Boyd, outstanding on Saturday and all season to this point, couldn’t get in the Hull team last year.
Apart from away defeats, you don’t know what you’re getting from QPR from one week to the next, either the formation or the personnel. Harry Redknapp is collecting ‘number 10s’ best suited to playing in the withdrawn role off a central striker, and added another this week with Mauro Zarate on loan from West Ham. It means Eduardo Vargas and Leroy Fer are routinely used out of position on the wings, while Niko Kranjcar and Jordon Mutch can’t get a game at all. Zarate, too, was benched on Saturday because Adel Taarabt was suddenly recalled for his first start since August having previously been labelled "three stone overweight” by his manager and, apparently, participating in almost none of the training.
Redknapp’s team selections are wild at the moment. After laying out £58m on 21 players since arriving at the club he still doesn’t have a winger for either side of his 4-4-2 formation, a partner for his main striker Charlie Austin, or any kind of strength in either full back position.
But you’d have thought, given the relative resources and outlay, that QPR should have had enough about them to trouble a Burnley side that had scored only seven times at Turf Moor all season prior to this match. And you’d have been right.
A quarter of an hour in, a combination that worked in the previous meeting between these two sides - Vargas and Mauricio Isla down the right feeding Charlie Austin in the penalty box - almost produced a goal but the former Burnley striker struck the post with a shot he did well to dig out from behind him. Later Vargas tried his own luck, striking a sweet volley from 25 yards that home keeper Tom Heaton had to fling himself full length to his right to reach with one hand.
Taarabt, despite a lack of action, looked good; showing for the ball and using it wisely and creatively. No sign of his ball-hogging or selfish tendencies, no hint of tiredness through lack of action, no real indication he’d ever been anywhere other than the QPR first team. He linked the play beautifully, not only maintaining possession but passing it forwards and wide, into dangerous areas, with a real purpose. It was a fine ball from the Moroccan to Vargas who in turn fed Austin just after the half hour for QPR’s opening goal. Dean Marney couldn’t resist hanging out a leg which tripped Austin providing him with a chance to beat Heaton with a powerful shot into the bottom corner from the penalty spot. Perhaps today would be the day to remove that awayday monkey.
Problem was, that was only an equaliser. Richard Dunne and, in particular, Steven Caulker had decided that this was the time to take their previously solid-looking partnership and turn it into an accident-prone farce. Burnley don’t do anything particularly clever or creative with their formation or their attacking play - and at times looked quite ordinary - but they were able to open up their visitors time and time again with little more than proficiently executed basics.
There had been signs - Ings in space and running towards goal with the ball at his feet twice in the first minute and 30 seconds - but even that didn’t really give fair warning of a truly shambolic first goal after 12 minutes. Scott Arfield collected the ball from a throw in down the Burnley left with no hooped player within six or seven yards of him. He was allowed to turn, drift past a non-existent tackle from Joey Barton, ride a pathetic attempt at retrieving the ball from Mauricio Isla, and ghost past Richard Dunne who was committed to running in one direction and hadn’t received coastguard clearance to begin the process of turning around. The little sojourn had carried him right into the heart of the QPR penalty box without the need to really break a sweat and from there a low curled shot, under no challenge, around Robert Green and into the far corner was relatively simple.
No matter, Austin drew the sides level and with Vargas’ volley bringing 1,600 travelling fans to their feet in renewed hope, the momentum seemed to be with Rangers. Then… well… if you thought the first goal was shambolic…
Just five minutes after equalising, with their fans in full voice, and Burnley seemingly on the rack, QPR contrived to fall behind once again with another goal owed entirely to their own feckless incompetence. First Mauricio Isla gave the ball away with a header in the right back slot, but that needn’t have necessarily mattered as the home team simply hooked a hopeful ball forward that centre halves as commanding as Dunne and Caulker should have eaten alive. In actual fact Caulker allowed the ball to bounce and was then ushered away from the action with embarrassing ease by Ings who subsequently turned Dunne and rolled a gentle left footed effort past Green and oh, so, agonisingly, slowly across the line.
I’ve seen some nonsense from QPR in my time but my goodness me.
But, again, no matter. One nervous claim by Green under heavy pressure at the back post, which he needed two attempts to complete, and a low daisy cutter from the tireless George Boyd that rolled straight to the keeper apart, there hadn’t been much serious threat on the QPR goal in the first 45 minutes. Neither team was defending well and of all the possible second half scenarios, the score staying at 2-1 seemed the least likely. Queens Park Rangers were still well in the contest.
The respective second half strategies were poles apart. Burnley, pretty set in the ways that have brought them continuous success for the last 18 months, decided to continue to do pretty much everything they’d done in the first half. QPR decided to take everything good they’d done in the first 45 and stop it, replacing it with much more of everything bad they’d done before half time and some new rubbish as well.
Having created good goal scoring chances reasonably regularly before the break, the attack now had the cutting edge of a wooden spoon. The defensive incompetence actually increased incrementally with the desperation for an equaliser, and really Burnley could and should have scored a lot more. The ball retention was poor, then it was awful, then it was abysmal, and in the end it seemed as though QPR couldn’t hand the ball back to their hosts quick enough - Clint Hill was particularly culpable, and Joey Barton so careless that his rare successful passes were actually met with ironic cheers from an exasperated away end.
Redknapp made three substitutions, each one deteriorating the shape of the team further and reducing the effectiveness of his side and the performance of his players. Any hope that the first half display had provided that there may be something in this for the London side had been carried away on the spiteful northern wind long before full time.
Within five minutes of the restart QPR had once again fallen fast asleep while defending a throw in, allowing Ashley Barnes to stand totally unmarked in the penalty area and receive the ball to his feet - Green made a fine save to deny him as he turned and struck a first time volley towards goal. Later, with Caulker caught downfield protesting to referee Andre Marriner that he should have been awarded a corner, Barnes was able to find more space around the penalty area and this time fired a shot high over the bar. Within six minutes Green had allowed another shot from the former Brighton forward to bounce out for a corner via a heavy deflection when it looked like the keeper could have easily caught the ball on the full.
Redknapp’s first move was to take off Karl Henry and introduce centre forward Bobby Zamora, but the play-off final hero looked so far off the pace here it was untrue. He moved with the speed and ease of the minutes taker at an Arthritis Care meeting. Simple passes played within a yard or two of him were allowed to roll past and back to Burnley. Essentially he was only any use if QPR could get the ball directly to his head for him to flick on, and Burnley centre back Jason Shackell was happy to deal with that one all night long.
Zamora’s first act was to give the ball away cheaply resulting in an attack from which Burnley won a corner. This marked the start of QPR’s apparent determination to concede at least once from a header at the back post. In this instance, they left Ben Mee unmarked and his downward header was bundled over the line by Barnes only for Marriner to rule that he’d fouled Green in the process of doing so. He definitely had, but Hill had plenty of Barnes as well.
QPR, who’d earlier rightly felt aggrieved that Marriner had shown Joey Barton a yellow card for his first foul of the match while Marney was allowed to pull Vargas down deliberately and interrupt a promising counter attack without so much as a word on the run, were grateful to the official for his generosity there.
But they didn’t heed the warning. Dyche sent on Sam Vokes, hero of Monday night’s home draw with Spurs in the FA Cup, for Barnes and the home team continued to find joy with simple, well delivered balls to the far post. Had Isla not headed a cross from Trippier behind, Vokes and Arfield were both standing unattended waiting to convert. From the resulting corner Keane was left free at the far stick and Green made a wonderful save to deny him. Later Keane was allowed to roam free on the far side of the penalty area again and should have done more than guide a header back across the face of the goal.
It was mind blowing. Same every time: deep cross, queue of unmarked Burnley players at the far post. Perhaps Dyche had picked up on the problem with constantly signing ‘number tens’ - it means you often have players out of position on the wing. Neither Fer nor Vargas are natural wide players, and it shows in their defensive work. What little shape the R’s had fell apart completely in the second period with the substitutions leaving the full backs even more exposed than they were before.
Redknapp responded by sending on Armand Traore for Clint Hill who’d had a particularly poor game. Traore, typically, brought an element of comedy and circus to the proceedings - yellow carded after 15 seconds for a bad foul on Boyd he later set off with a dribble in a straight line that took him almost immediately out of play and into the main stand still with the ball at his feet.
Zarate came on for his debut instead of Vargas as well but by this point the only player in the visiting side who seemed to have a set position was lone striker Bobby Zamora, and possibly that was only set because he was physically incapable of moving out of it. Zarate, Austin, Fer and Taarabt all milled around behind him, getting in each other’s way, trying to do similar things, nobody with any idea or inclination to play wide or central, left or right. It was as if Redknapp had just collected up all the attacking players he had left, slung them on and told them to stand at the far end of the field and see what happens.
Burnley stayed in shape and system - two banks of four, high tempo, high work rate. George Boyd was perpetual motion. There was nothing more complex on offer than that from the home team. Had they been better, they’d have buried the game long before full time. On half a dozen occasions ball concession from Rangers set away counter attacks with big numbers involved - Joey Barton particularly culpable in a dismal personal 45 minutes - but they couldn’t get the execution right and so it remained 2-1.
Consequently, an injury time corner, met powerfully by Steven Caulker, could have provided a late equaliser - fully deserved on the first half showing, total daylight robbery on the second. Heaton pushed it over the bar one handed.
The points were Burnley’s, and so they should be after a calamitous second half display from the not-so-Super Hoops. Harry Redknapp showed a turn of pace that belied his chronic knee problem at full time, moving across the field and down the tunnel double quick, with only the briefest of glances, and no applause, towards an away end that, contrary to morning headlines, was more resigned and depressed than angry and confrontational. Rarely has the veteran QPR manager’s persistent assertion that buying the best players wins you football matches, rather than the systems and tactics that Burnley are relying on, looked so utterly stupid.
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Burnley: Heaton 7; Trippier 7, Keane 7, Shackell 6, Mee 6; Boyd 8, Marney 6, Jones 6, Arfield 6; Ings 7, Barnes 6 (Vokes 73, 6)
Subs not used: Duff, Wallace, Kightly, Reid, Gilks, Jutkiewicz
Goals: Arfield 12 (unassisted), Ings 38 (assisted Barnes)
Bookings: Marney 45+1 (foul), Barnes 52 (foul)
QPR: Green 6; Isla 5, Caulker 4, Dunne 5, Hill 4 (Traore 75, 4); Fer 6, Henry 6 (Zamora 69, 4), Barton 5, Vargas 6 (Zarate 76, 5); Taarabt 7, Austin 6
Subs not used: Phillips, McCarthy, Onuoha, Mutch
Goals: Austin 32 (penalty, won Austin)
Bookings: Barton 44 (foul), Traore 75 (foul)
QPR Star Man - Adel Taarabt 7 I was surprised he looked as fit as he did, and played 90 minutes. He showed for the ball well, peeling off Charlie Austin to receive it from the midfield with his back to goal before looking to turn and feed Vargas, Fer and his strike partner. His link play, particularly in the first half, was excellent and exactly what Austin has been missing. No doubt this was either a stunt to get him in the shop window, or loosen the purse strings for the transfer window, and Taarabt will either disappear again, or not be as keen to work this hard for QPR in future games once he realised nobody wants him. But here, he looked a far better option as a second striker than Bobby Zamora, and helped Austin no end.
Referee - Andre Marriner (West Midlands) 7 Difficult week for Marriner with his old boss Keith Hackett publicly saying he should be struck off the Premier League list, but he did reasonably well here. The penalty decision was correct, as was the disallowed Burnley goal. I thought he was inconsistent with his yellow cards though. The one handed to Barton was purely because of his reputation - it was debatable whether the challenge even warranted a free kick and was his first foul of the day. Earlier Marney had hauled Vargas to the floor cynically as the Chilean ran clear on a counter attack - blatant yellow, but Marriner only awarded a free kick.
Attendance - 17,523 (1,600 QPR approx) Much has been made of an apparent altercation between QPR players and fans at the end of the game, with the Daily Mail and others showing pictures of Clint Hill apparently angrily remonstrating with fans. In fact, on a wide shot, it’s two fans, out of 1,600, and the exchange is frank but certainly not angry, with Hill seemingly more bothered about the children nearby. Actually, the reaction from a very decent travelling support at full time, was much more restrained than I thought it would be. The atmosphere was decent and positive in the away end for most of the game. The thick end of 1,600 people, going all the way up to Burnley, to watch a team lose its eleventh away game on the spin. Heroes every one of them.
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