Fresh, or otherwise, from a thrilling win at Wolves on Wedneday, QPR find relegation-favourites Rotherham meeting them back at Loftus Road on Saturday.
One defeat, one draw, one win. Could have been three defeats. Could have been three draws. Could have been three wins.
Derby, big spending, with Paul Clement, haven’t won yet in four attempts. Clement, inexperienced, never been a manager before, can’t deal with the Championship, always had a Ronaldo or a Bale to get him out of jail, can’t find a win. But, at the same time, Clement, so experienced at the highest level, knows how to coach players and get the best out of them, knows how to grind a result out, unbeaten so far.
Charlton, second only to Rotherham in the pre-season relegation betting, haven’t lost yet.
Just three games in, nobody has nine points and nobody has zero. That’s the Championship and it feels good to be back.
Post Charlton, hysterical QPR fans could be seen fleeing the south of the city over London Bridge screaming at the city-dwellers about an approaching flood. The sky was falling, we were all doomed. Chris Ramsey and Les Ferdinand were cast in the roll of Titanic captains.
"Les Ferdinand seems like just another blood-sucking leech,” said one measured message board comment. Les Ferdinand the multi-millionaire. Les Ferdinand who owns his own helicopter. Les Ferdinand returning to the club that made all that possible for him, just to run it into the ground so he and his mate can have a job. I’ve read more likely stories in the Daily Express.
On the concourse at Wolves on Wednesday night at about quarter to ten you’d have thought QPR had just reached the semi-finals of the European Cup. People were singing, people were dancing, people were hugging. The club immediately made the full 90 minutes available to view again (and again, and again) on it’s QPR Player online channel.
In reality, if QPR had scored first at Charlton they could have won. If Jay Emmanuel-Thomas hadn’t missed a sitter in the last minute they could have beaten Cardiff. If Wolves hadn’t selected Krusty the Clown in goal on Wednesday the R’s would have lost. Any combination of zero to nine points could have been achieved so far from exactly the same games played in exactly the same way. And people are trying to make assessments and assumptions one way or the other based on this? It’s like trying to knit fog.
QPR have been in the Premier League for three of the last four seasons and it feels like we’re all a little out of practise.
By the end of this month we’ll have played five league games to the Premier League’s three. By the end of September we’ll have played nine to their six and by the end of October we’ll be on 15 while they’re on nine. In the Premier League every result feels crucial, every defeat a disaster, every win a glorious triumph. There, if you don’t win in your first six games, it means you’re without a win by the start of October. Here, if you don’t win in your first six games, relax, it’s still August.
This is a league where Millwall were top of the table on December 9 1995 and ended up relegated. It’s a league where, last season, Wolves lost seven games straight through November, conceding 16 goals in the process, and ended up missing the play-offs by just four goals. They could have lost those seven straight games conceding 12 goals and still made it. Each game is a ball, each month is an over, the whole thing is like a test match. Not an Ashes test match, one of those old style ones that used to go until Monday.
Sadly, this insistence on having a transfer window, and leaving it open while the season is starting, means we’re still getting dragged into the "ten things we learned” culture upstairs. What we learned on day one, apparently, is that West Ham are the English league equivalent of the Dutch side from the 1974 World Cup, because they won at Arsenal. What we learned on day two, it seems, is that West Ham are the English league equivalent of the Samoa team that lost 32-0 to Australia, because they lost at home to Leicester City.
So now West Ham need to buy players. They are reportedly — by the Evening Standard, which once reported that QPR were on the cusp of signing Roberto Baggio before they settled for Mark Hateley — stepping up their attempts to sign Robert Green because Adrian was sent off against Leicester and is now banned for three matches. That’s how it works - a three game ban justifies signing a whole new goalkeeper, on a multi-year contract, for many thousands of pounds a week. Three games? We punch that out in nine days down here, play the youth team goalkeeper you panicky melts.
But West Ham won’t be signing Charlie Austin. Chairman David Sullivan says they’ve signed injured strikers before — for quite a lot of money — and won’t be making that mistake again with Austin. Firstly, because he has no ligaments in his knees and, secondly, scoring 18 goals in the division’s worst team that couldn’t create chances and surrendered all its away games as a mere inconvenient "bonus” isn’t that impressive because they still went down anyway and, besides, a couple of them were penalties.
Now I’m not a fancy Harley Street doctor (crowd gasps) but if a knee had no ligaments in it could you actually bend it at all? Consideration of that, and Austin’s well-worded and fully-justified riposte to the criticism (which was all almost certainly done to drive the price down) was interrupted only by friend of the site Harry Redknapp wading in like that fat, drunk uncle at a wedding shoving into crowds of distant, nubile teenage relatives and sweating all over them while dancing to Agadoo.
Redknapp’s input was that Austin never missed a day’s training, never mind a match, conveniently forgetting that time his shoulder fell apart leaving Redknapp’s one-striker squad missing its main man and requiring a swiftly concocted loan deal for Mobido fucking Maiga — a player so bad that two thirds of the way through a comedic shambles at Bournemouth he turned to the away end, during open play, and offered a hand of apology.
Where were we? Oh yes, Rotherham, at home, on Stan Bowles day. It would appear, on the basis of when Ramsey’s team clicked last season, and what happened on Wednesday night, that he’s some sort of Kevin Keegan disciple. QPR looked wonderful with the ball at Wolves, and absolutely horrendously awful without it. There’ll never be another Stan Bowles, but in Massimo Luongo and Tjaronn Chery we do at least appear to have a couple of swashbuckling attackers to entertain us after a couple of years of punt it long to Bobby and hope that Charlie scores.
It’s a long haul flight this. Relax and enjoy what you see, sleep through and ignore the bits you don’t.
Links >>> Rotherham relish underdog tag — interview >>> Back Luongo to open his account — betting >>> West 12’s Messi — podcast >>> Whitestone in charge — referee
QPR will dedicate this Saturday’s game to their greatest ever player Stan Bowles and welcome a number of his former team mates to Loftus Road for the match. Bowles has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and the club is raising funds via the Stan Bowles Alzheimer’s Fund which you should all contribute whatever you feel able to after watching the videos above.
Danny Ward has recovered from his foot injury and is likely to replace Jordan Bowery in the Rotherham line up. Joe Mattock (dental appointment), Joe Newell (incident with a jar of mayonnaise) and Lee Frecklington (bad hair day) are all doubts. Kirk Broadfoot is 32 games into his 89 match ban for giving James McClean two barrels of Sectarian bile.
Elsewhere: A day of the week with a Y in it means another appearance for the Champions of Europe on television, and their lunchtime Yorkshire derby with Sheffield Wednesday should be enlivened further by the appointment of Mike Jones as referee — Jones, of course, known for his inability to keep control of a Girl Guides picnic.
We’ve already had Birmingham and Derby drawing this evening. Other draws tomorrow can be found at Brighton v Blackburn, Charlton v Tigers Tigers Rah Rah Rah, Preston v Ipswich and Waitrose v Franchise.
Elsewhere Bolton have made a poor start ahead of the visit of the Nottingham Trees, Big Spending Burnley welcome Abacus just as they’re about to spend £9m on their best striker, and Tarquin and Rupert have got the best hummus out for the visit of Huddersfield.
Cardiff v Wolves is the evening fixture, Middlesbrough v Bristol City is also taking place.
Referee:Dean Whitestone, last in town for a 1-0 win against Charlton back in November 2013, is the man in the middle for this one. QPR case history and stats available here.
Rotherham: The Millers have had a tough start to the season with a rude 4-1 awakening at home to MK Dons on day one contributing to two defeats and a draw from their three league games so far. On the road they were beaten 2-1 at Nottingham Forest having taken an early lead. Rotherham only won three away games out of 23 last season, but did draw nine times — Millwall, Wigan and Huddersfield the three teams beaten, two of whom ended up relegated. They finished twenty second in the Championship, although they would have been a place higher had they not had three points knocked off for fielding an ineligible player.
Betting: Professional odds compiler Owen Goulding tells us…
"I was pleasantly surprised, like so many others, to be proved wrong on Wednesday evening as QPR secured an unlikely three points at Wolves. After 30 minutes, it looked like it could be a bloodbath and all credit for Rangers to sticking to their attacking game plan, with Tjaronn Chery and Massimo Luongo in particular showing the kind of tricky, skilful and attacking display most of us have craved for in recent years.
"I read a comment on the message board this week from a poster who said something along the lines of 'it's nice to win but id prefer a better defensive display and a few one nil victories to steady the ship'. Personally I couldn't disagree more. I pay my hard earned to be entertained, and I certainly got my money's worth at Molineux on Wednesday evening. It was a pleasure to watch us have 20 efforts on target and still attacking in the 90th minute. Naive? Probably. Will it result in us losing more games than we probably should? Almost definitely. But value for money? Absolutely.
"On to Saturdays game. Rotherham are one of the poorer sides in the Championship, there is no doubt about that. A relegation battle awaits them and their opening three games show little promise. A thumping defeat by Milton Keynes on the opening day has been followed with a narrow defeat at Forest which should have been more and a goalless draw against Preston where only the woodwork stopped it being a third defeat in a row for the Millers. Rotherham have struggled to contain tricky, quick-footed attacking players on a number of occasions this season. Mickael Antonio (Forest) and Rob Hall (MK Dons) in particular have given the static Rotherham defence the run-around already, and Chery and Luongo must be licking their lips here.
"Match prices feel about right with QPR currently around the 4/5 mark, but If Luongo puts anything like the performance he put in on Wednesday, his opening goal in Rangers colours awaits at HQ on Saturday."
Recommended Bet: QPR v Rotherham - Massimo Luongo to score anytime @ 11/2 (10Bet)
Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion ISawQPRAtWhiteCity tells us…
"The Wolves result was like a big bowl of steaming, sweet, creamy porridge on a cold winter's morning: it fills you up and gives you that 'ready for anything' feeling (yes, it's winter here). Do we need that against lowly Rotherham? Well, we might. Their two defeats and a draw are all at the hands of top half teams, a postcode we have yet to crack into. Their defence is erratic, so we should able to score, but I suspect they will too. Preston kept them out, but that's what Preston do. Rotherham will come out fighting, but I can't see it being enough with our tails up. Barring significant transfer bad news, it should be a comfortable win."
Jim's Prediction: QPR 3-1 Rotherham - First scorer: Charlie Austin
LFW's Prediction: QPR 2-0 Rotherham — First scorer: Charlie Austin
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