One can’t imagine Sky will be pulling the punters in for their Friday night offering this week as tenth-placed Derby meet fifteenth-placed QPR, but this time next year Rodney…
Mercantile Credit Trophy >>> Friday March 31, 2017 >>> Kick Off 19.45 >>> Weather — Cloudy, warm >>> Pride Park, Derby
Sky have been fucking Queens Park Rangers about all season. This match is the ninth televised so far and there’s a tenth to come next week against Brighton. Several others have been moved back or forward 24 hours to accommodate opponents’ TV selections. In all, 18 of QPR’s 38 league games so far this season have taken place one a date and time other than Saturday 15.00 and come the end of the season that will be 24 out of 46 with only two of the final eight fixtures at the traditional kick off time — food for thought at this time of season ticket renewal.
Given the television companies’ fondness for QPR, born out of a mixture of above average ratings (and we’re only talking thousands on a meagre audience of about 150,000 people per live Championship game) and proximity to the yard where Sky keep their outside broadcast trucks, it should perhaps come as no surprise to see us on the box again tonight against another of the division’s bigger draws Derby County.
That said, it is patently ridiculous that a broadcast slot is being taken up at this crucial stage of the season by a meaningless match between the teams in tenth and fifteenth. As it stands, Huddersfield are still in touch with Newcastle and Brighton for automatic promotion; there are five teams competing for the final two play-off spots including one, Preston, who are bang in form and good to watch and yet have only been televised twice this season compared to QPR’s 11; at the bottom, four teams are separated by a point in a scrap over the final relegation spot, and don’t rule Birmingham City out of that shemozzle just yet with Gianfranco Zola still a good deal better at signing autographs for the chairman’s bum chums than managing the team; Ipswich, too, in a dreadful state under Mick McCarthy, could easily be drawn in by the end of this three game week.
But no, the cameras will be trained on Derby and QPR this Friday, two clubs for whom the season has long since been over. There’s no hindsight involved here either — we said this was a ridiculous pick when it was made six weeks ago, Derby mid meltdown, QPR climbing away from the trouble they’d worked themselves into over Christmas.
Perhaps, though, we’ll look back on this in 12 months as a shrewd, future-gazing pick — an early look at two of the forerunners in the 2017/18 Championship.
The recent histories of both these clubs suggest that’s fanciful, wishful thinking. QPR persistently mistake the lights of trains flying down the tunnel towards them at speed as false dawns, and did so again this year when Jimmy Floyd Hasselbainks’s super fit, "full court press” team won three league games in August, including two away.
It’s the job of a club’s media department to hype the good and downplay the bad, and as much as we try and stay as impartial as we can we get as excited as any football supporter at the merest suggestion that it might be about to go well again. QPR have only won eight promotions in their history though, so it’s never likely to be the case is it? The demon hope wins again. You only have to look at the midfield now, frequently made up of three players (Grant Hall, Luke Freeman, Ryan Manning) who weren’t anywhere to be seen in those positions under Hasselbaink, and the difference in how effective it is, to know and hold your hands up to how far away we were under the previous manager. "You were trying to play counter attacking football with a team that couldn’t run,” as Ian Holloway put it at the recent fans forum, before cracking a joke about another previous great white hope Sandro and his concrete shoes and Roger Hargreaves-penned "passport”.
Derby, meanwhile, have become to the recent Championship what Cardiff City were to this division under Dave Jones a few years back — bottle jobs, not to put too fine a point on it. Ridiculous levels of optimism, born from the spend on players and the formidable levels of home support, and yet each season they crumble under the weight of that expectation, hamstrung further by a series of odd decisions made at board level.
Whatever people thought of the pragmatic, functional football, whatever Chris Martin thought and whatever went on off the pitch, the decision to sack Paul Clement midway through last season with Derby fifth in the table looked ridiculous at the time and has proven so since. They’ve made the mistake of making Steve McClaren the manager, as opposed to a coach, not once but twice. They’ve continued to populate their dressing room with exactly the sort of Bertie Big Potatoes players — Darren Bent, Tom Ince, Bradley Johnson — who are all flash trainers and tricks and play acting when it’s going well but swiftly exit stage left when the pressure is on and you need somebody to take responsibility and muck in. They still make heroes of players — Scott Carson, Richard Keogh — who are far too accident prone to be trusted on a run in. Sure, all five of them will play tonight, and no doubt they’ll all play well, because it’s another new manager’s first game, there’s nothing at stake, the pressure is off. But this expensively assembled squad of players has blown seasons up once too often now for it to be put down solely to poor managerial appointments.
But at Loftus Road, and at Pride Park, there’s reason to think next season might well be different. As discussed pre-Leeds the Championship looks like it’s going to be a far weaker division next season. Lose Newcastle and Brighton, the best sides we’ve had at this level for years, and gain Hull and Sunderland, whose chairmen are quietly trying to slip into the life boats amidst the crowds of women and children, and that’s a far easier division already. Lose Leeds or Sheff Wed and gain a toothless Middlesbrough, keep Huddersfield and see how they get on when their four loanees (most notably Aaron Mooy) aren’t there and their manager has perhaps been poached, lose Wigan, Blackburn or Bristol City or Birmingham or Ipswich and gain a still financially stricken Bolton or Scunthorpe or Fleetwood or Bradford… you get the point.
From the current 24 teams there are precious few who look capable of significantly improving their performance next season. Derby, under Gary Rowett who should never have been sacked at Birmingham and looks a brilliant, ideal fit to sort out the nonsense that’s been going on there of late, are certainly one of them. Cardiff, under our old mate Neil Warnock, with several signings already lined up this summer (another former R Lee Camp amongst them by several accounts), are another. And maybe, perhaps, QPR could be a third.
No other Championship side would have considered Ian Holloway for their job when QPR turned to him in November. Six straight defeats to start with, including a 1-0 loss in the first meeting between these sides this season, made them right, but the improvement in Rangers since the end of January has been staggering. This is an effective, confident team now, with legs in midfield, and goals from all over the park. It’s been an incredible transformation. Holloway, of course, is just as likely to blow it all up again, fall out with everybody, tinker too much and make a complete mess of it as lead it on to fame and glory. But with two unlikely promotions from this division under his belt with Palace and Blackpool, and QPR fans to a man nodding in appreciation at just how much he’s come on as a manager since his previous stint here which ended in 2005, you never know.
April (Derby A, Villa A, Brighton H, Bristol City A, Sheff Wed H, Brentford A, Forest H) looked bloody terrifying when the relegation zone was looming large in the rear-view mirror. Now it feels like an excellent chance to follow up the recent fine show at Leeds and see just how good this team is, how much more room for improvement it’s got in it, and what Holloway needs to still add to make sure we’re playing competitive games that Sky might want to justifiably televise this time next season.
Links >>> Same old story — Interview >>> Bowles’ Baseball Ground hat trick — History >>> Eltringham in charge — Referee
A live BBC audience, a Saturday night home fixture, a free t-shirt give away, and an early 2-0 lead, but Derby’s big night was spoiled by QPR when these sides met here in 2009. The R’s, on a red hot run of form under Jim Magilton, scored four goals for the third time in seven days to move into the play-off picture with a 4-2 win. LFW hugs all round at 5.42. Shame Magilton started headbutting his own players a couple of weeks later really, it was all going so well…
Team News: That persistent problem with Massimo Luongo’s international duty on Mars has reared its head again. Even though the in form midfielder missed the second Australia game of the recent break with a minor knock that wouldn’t rule him out for this Friday, his travel arrangements mean he’s only back in London on Friday morning so won’t be considered. Ryan Manning leads a suddenly very competitive field to return to the midfield in his stead — who would have thought we’d be writing that even three months ago? Pawel Wszolek has had the shits, but the flow has abated.
Centre back Jason Shackell is out with a back injury for the rest of the season. Darren Bent and Bradley Johnson are deciding between this and the opening of a new all you can eat Thai buffet in Belper.
Elsewhere: This is round 10,786 of this season’s Mercantile Credit Trophy, always considered by the weathered scholars of the second tier to be the moment the clubs enter the final long, wide, sweeping corner before kicking for home along the final straight — just another 52 matches each to play now and the heat has increased from the sweaty intensity of an Easy Bake Oven to the fearsome burn of a March afternoon on Skegness Beach.
Now if you’re looking for some peace and tranquillity to sooth you through this stressful time why not stretch out across the vast expanses of Portman Road for Ipswich’s home game with Brum? Town have won twice in their last 15 matches and recently snapped a life-sapping run of six straight draws with a defeat at Cardiff. They’ve responded to this, and the rancid footballing AIDs served up by Mick McCarthy, by increasing next year’s season ticket prices, and moving the OAP discount from 60 to 65 which means a 64 year old faces paying double what he’s forked out for the last four years to come back next season. Brum, meanwhile, sacked a perfectly good manager who had them on the edge of the play-off zone, and replaced him with a no-nothing chump with a nice smile that the latest clueless foreign pillock to pass the Football League’s laughable fit and proper person test recognised from the television. Whoever loses here, in a half full and entirely silent stadium, is deep in the shit.
See how I made Ipswich v Birmingham sound exciting? It’s not amateur hour this you know. And wait, there’s more: not one but two matches between two sides beginning with B — Brentford v Bristol City, Brighton v The Mad Chicken Farmers — and an eagerly awaited date in Wolverhampton on the Seventh Annual Neil Warnock Farewell Tour. Mop that puddle up you dirty girl.
What else have we got? Champions Newcastle at home to Wigan Warriors who are already relegated — we’re calling it, bored of this now. Borussia Huddersfield at home to Nigel Clough’s Burton Albion. Leddersford v Norwich. Tarquin and Rupert slumming it at Relegated Rotherham.
The play off picture will be shaped still further by the early game, a Yorkshire-off between Barnsley and the Sheffield Owls, and the late Saturday fixture where the Champions of Europe at the latest side to try and resist being bored into submission by Reading.
Nobody’s died, nobody’s sick, nobody’s house has burnt down, nobody’s cat is missing and nobody’s corner shop has been broken into, but there’ll no doubt be some sort of artificial candlelit vigil or mobile phones in the air or standing ovation or stamping of feet or violin solo in a designated minute of Preston Knob End v Nottingham Trees if only because every fucker else has got one of these now and woe betide you if you don’t join in.
Make it stop. Make it all stop. I submit.
Referee: Having not refereed QPR at all in his first seven years on the league list, Geoff Eltringham is about to get his third Rangers appointment in very quick succession. Last time out the R’s were beaten 2-1 at home by Derby’s lowly neighbours Burton Albion and they lost the previous game with this official 1-0 at home to Villa as well which doesn’t bode particularly well. Details here.
Derby: Always difficult to talk about form when a club has changed manager, particularly when they’ve taken out an absolute arse like Steve McClaren and brought in a very talented guy like Gary Rowett. The only indication we’ve had in his reign so far is clouded still further by it being a massive derby match, where all sense goes out the window, against the Trees — Derby were 1-0 down, 2-1 up and drew 2-2. The bookies have them odds on to win this game despite QPR topping the Championship form table and Derby having only one win in their last 11 matches. At home it’s one win (v Barnsley 2-1) in six with Preston, Burton, Bristol City and Leicester all drawing here since the middle of January and Cardiff winning 4-3. Overall their record at Pride Park this season is won eight, drawn seven, lost four with Cardiff, Blackburn, Ipswich and Newcastle the victorious sides here in the league.
#Derby have not completed a league double over #QPR since 1989-90 when Dean Saunders scored home & away. #dcfc #dcfcfans #Rams #coyrs pic.twitter.com/88kDD6hmLF– Goodbrand Stats (@StatsChristian) March 29, 2017
QPR: A ridiculously comfortable 5-1 home win against a dire Rotherham side secured QPR’s place at the top of the Championship form table prior to the international break, but a run of five wins from seven matches has served only to close the gap on the teams (including Derby) ahead of them in the table and despite the recent run, and Derby’s poor form, this is still a game away from home against a side five places higher in the league. Away from home the R’s have won three and drawn two of the last seven, and they’ve been reasonably decent on their travels all season with six victories so far — the same as sixth-placed Sheffield Wednesday. Rangers have lost their last two visits here 1-0 but prior to that had a very decent record at Pride Park — overall they’re won three, drawn three and lost two since Derby switched from the Baseball Ground.
15 of QPR's 20 away league goals this season have been scored in the second half– QPR Stats (@QPR_Stats) March 27, 2017
Prediction: A couple of weeks ago, with Derby being all Derby about their end to the season, and the Steve McClaren hair island threatened by a rising tide once more, I was quite looking forward to this as a likely seventh away win of the season. Gary Rowett, though, is a superb appointment and I’d expect him to be the one to finally shake off this recent curse on the Rams and get them flying next season. It’s hard to see them losing his first home game but this is still the same group of players that have only won one of eleven and QPR have been playing exceptionally of late. Given that, and how little there is at stake, and Derby’s propensity to draw at home, we’re going with…
LFW’s Prediction: Derby 1-1 QPR. Scorer — Matt Smith.
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