QPR slipped to a tenth defeat in 11 matches on Sunday, losing to a tired Everton side at Loftus Road. Relegation now seems almost certain for Rangers.
Another defeat, the tenth in the last eleven matches, means Queens Park Rangers are now surely Championship bound. Requiring five wins from their final nine games to at least post a target for others to chase, a home loss to a tired Everton side that had been humbled in Kiev just three days previous has the writing firmly on the wall.
Similar setbacks in the next two matches, away at West Brom and Aston Villa — who Rangers once had designs on catching — and the demotion will be all but confirmed. More positive results, you feel, may only prolong the agony. It's the hope that kills you, as we've said so often on these pages, and after every single result went for Rangers on Saturday this one depressed more than most.
Of greater concern than a crucial nail going into the coffin lid was the quality of the match overall. If, as now seems certain, the R's are to be playing in the second tier next season it's a great worry that with so much riding on it, with supposed Premier League quality players who presumably won't be here next season at their disposal, they were unable to win, or even draw, a game of distinctly Championship standard.
Everton were poor. They've been poor all season. The main stand at Goodison Park, onto which the club painted a huge mural of manager Roberto Martinez back in August, now bears graffiti slating the team's performances. They were fourteenth at the start of play and they're in line for their worst league season since a seventeenth-placed finish in 2004.
Martinez has changed his style, belatedly, by introducing two big, powerful, quick centre forwards — Romelu Lukaku and Arouna Kone against Nedum Onuoha and Steven Caulker was more tag-team wrestling than professional football. That was good enough to run all over an awful Newcastle side last week but the ordeal in the Ukraine should have given QPR a chance here. Everton have won one, drawn two and lost four of their Sunday games after European matches this season. Somehow, QPR have now contrived to lose to them twice in those circumstances, albeit the first game moved back a further 24 hours to the Monday.
Here, it required just two moments of Premier League quality in a desperately awful encounter to win the match. Both came from QPR losing possession allowing Everton to counter attack, as their city rivals across Stanley Park and so many other top flight teams besides have done so effectively against this one-paced Rangers side this season.
First Seamus Coleman finished off a flowing move with a crisp finish that smacked against the far post, rebounded right across the face of the goal and nestled in the opposite side-net. Then, in the second half, with QPR pushing forward, Aaron Lennon swept home from eight yards out after a cross from Colemna was deflected into his path by Onuoha.
The last remaining optimists in a home crowd that, judging by the atmosphere and reaction here, has been resigned to relegation for some time did have wreckage to cling to.
QPR had more possession and more shots on goal. While Coleman's precise effort struck the post and went in, a similarly wonderful strike by Junior Hoilett immediately after half time dipped over visiting keeper Tim Howard, struck the underside of the bar, bounced down on the line and stayed out.
In injury time substitute Adel Taarabt also beat Howard having been played clean through in the right channel and struck the top of the crossbar. They equalised, just after the hour, when Eduardo Vargas showed why people have been calling for him to get more action by wading into a goal-mouth scramble and thrashing the ball high into the roof of the net. It seemed odd to remove Hoilett just as he was playing with confidence and although Vargas justified the decision with a goal, the Chilean was again played out of position on the wing and struggled to influence the game.
There were other chances despite that. Zamora was unlucky to see an effort bundled aside in the thirteenth minute after being expertly teed up by Charlie Austin — Everton, like many others, could do worse than pick the England hopeful off the QPR carcass this summer. Then moments later a foul on Yun Suk-Young on the left wing gave Joey Barton a chance to whip in a free kick that somehow managed to find a yard of grass between Nedum Onuoha and Tim Howard in the six yard box and bounce — straight into the keeper's arms, rather than onto the boot of the QPR man as could so easily have happened.
Everton subsequently took the lead but Rangers continued to press, led by Barton who looked like a man with a point to prove after a three match suspension and turned in his best performance of the season. Austin failed to connect with a Junior Hoilett cross when he should have done, Howard claimed another centre almost off the forehead of Zamora, then the veteran target man missed what looked like a sitter when he glanced rather than planted a header from his partner's cross. Everton resorted to blatant time-wasting tactics long before the end, watched passively by referee Jon Moss.
Moss later booked Yun when a free kick would have sufficed, and Hoilett who was late on Lennon.
But this was nowhere near good enough. The Toffees' defence has been criticised this season, the growing consensus being that advancing years at centre half are seeing them punished for a lack of pace. Here John Stones played, with 37-year-old Sylvain Distin out, and looked decent, but Phil Jagielka was also there and QPR had players on the bench to trouble him — as Adel Taarabt showed when he came on for the final ten minutes and rolled one effort a fraction wide with Howard beaten before striking the bar.
Instead Rangers went long far too often - big long punts down the centre of the field towards Bobby Zamora. Jagielka, for the most part, needn't have changed out of his club suit. He just stood and headed the ball straight back from whence it came. On the one occasion Zamora did find some space and joy, he thrashed at a chance and blazed it into the Loft End — Everton too busy appealing that Karl Henry had committed a foul in back play to bother defending. Moss waved them away, the goal would have stood, had QPR possessed somebody capable of scoring it.
At one point, around November, Zamora 's presence gave QPR a valuable outlet and an asset capable of troubling Premier League defences. Now it makes them predictable, and it makes them lazy.
Everton — tired, out of form, season effectively over, restless away support, totally new formation and unfamiliar system — simply didn't have to work hard enough for this. Well below their best they created chances in the first half regularly — you could admire Barton's superb block tackle on James McCarthy as the Irish midfielder prepared to shoot from 20 yards after seven minutes but the way Everton cut through a fresh defence right at the start of the game was alarming. They did so again, with the same result — a fabulous Barton tackle on McCarthy as he prepared to shoot — after 27 minutes with Kone showing a clean pair of heals to Nedum Onuoha. Leon Osman, the smallest man on the pitch, calmly ran to the near post unmarked to meet a Leighton Baines corner and whipped it a foot over the bar. After half time Isla repeated Barton's first half feat, executing a perfect tackle to rob Osman of a clear sight of the goal.
The Coleman and Lennon goals said it more than words ever could. How many times have QPR conceded goals like that this season? Spending the summer planning to play a back three with wing backs only to switch to a flat midfield four after just a couple of games has hamstrung Rangers all year. They simply don't possess the parts required to make that machine work: no box-to-box midfielder so crucial to 4-4-2, just one decent recognised winger, no pace. Sandro, struggling for fitness, looked hopelessly out of his depth, carried by Barton and replaced by Henry far, far too late.
It means that a back four of Isla, Onuoha, Caulker and Yun — which I personally don't think would look too bad in a better Premier League team — is exposed all too easily. Transitions of possession are lethal to QPR because it only takes one pass to get in behind that midfield four and once you're there, nobody has the pace or energy to catch you. It means you get situations like the two goals here with monotonous regularity — Premier League players bearing down on a totally exposed back four.
We're not good enough at the end of the day, so it isn't the reason we're going down, but I don't understand why we don't play 4-2-3-1. It would benefit Henry and Sandro as they wouldn't have to cover so much ground; it would protect the back four; it would suit Hoilett, Vargas, Fer, and Taarabt and would have made more use of Zarate and Mutch as there would actually be their proper positions on the field; it would provide Austin with more support and it would stop the reliance on a long ball up to Zamora.
So blame Chris Ramsey if you like, blame Harry Redknapp if you like, there's plenty to go on for both. But the reasons QPR lost here, and continue to lose, regardless of who's playing or who the manager is, remain outstanding. Those reasons need recognising and addressing for next season, regardless of the division, manager or players.
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QPR: Green 6; Isla 6, Caulker 6, Onuoha 6, Yun 6; Phillips 6, Barton 8, Sandro 5 (Henry 71, 6), Hoilett 6 (Vargas 60, 5); Zamora 5 (Taarabt 82, -), Austin 6
Subs not used: McCarthy, Hill, Ferdinand, Kranjcar
Goals: Vargas 64 (assisted Barton/Austin)
Bookings: Hoilett 39 (foul), Yun 56 (foul)
Everton: Howard 6; Coleman 6, Stones 7, Jagielka 7, Baines 6; Lennon 6, McCarthy 6, Gibson 6, Osman 6; Kone 6 (Naismith 79, 6), Lukaku 6 (Barkley 67, 5)
Subs not used: Robles, Besic, Browning, Garbutt, Alcaraz
Goals: Coleman 18 (assisted Osman), Lennon 77 (assisted Coleman)
Bookings: Naismith 90+4 (kicking ball away)
QPR Star Man — Joey Barton 8 Too little, too late from Captain Fantastic after his own stupidity meant he had to sit out three crucial games which all ended in defeat. But credit where it’s due, he couldn’t have done more to drive the team on and get a result here.
Referee — Jon Moss (West Yorkshire) 5 The stoppage time booking for Steven Naismith was the first attempt to stop the flagrant time wasting that had gone on for an hour before that. Moss watched it all, pointed at his watch, and added the standard two minutes to the first half and four or five to the second. Niggled at the game from the side, like a mouse with a bit of cheese. Booked Yun harshly, justified yellow card for Hoilett. Made sure everybody’s throw in was taken from exactly the right spot. Annoying.
Attendance — 17,706 (1,800 Everton approx) No anger, no vitriol, no disappointment really, just a general quiet acceptance and resignation.
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Pictures — Action Images