With one win from 20 home games dating back a year, and now right in the bottom three where they surely belong, it's fight or flight for QPR and their manager at home to Blackburn on Saturday.
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I’m intrigued by the general reaction to Wednesday night’s defeat at Leeds. I’ll offer a few thoughts and theories here but comments, message board and Twitter are open and would welcome a few of your own once I’m done rambling.
We were meant to lose at Leeds on Wednesday. They have a better defence made up of better defenders with far greater strength through the ranks than we have. It’s the same in midfield where that partnership of 17-year-old Archie Gray and 23-year-old Ethan Ampadu looks depressingly lovely for such a detestable club. Up front it’s actually ridiculous that these two strike forces are in the same league – although, let’s be fair, they’re not really, it’s same league by name only. QPR have Lyndon Dykes and Sinclair Armstrong covered by Charlie Kelman and Rayan Kolli. Leeds started £25m Georginio Rutter ahead of £12m Joel Piroe, supported by Jaidon Anthony and Crysencio Summerville, with Bamford The Cheat (c Nick London/Alan Partridge) on the bench alongside Joe Gelhardt and Dan James. Genuinely, everybody on that Leeds bench would be our best player. There’s a clip here of Daniel Farke talking today about whether he’s using Piroe in his correct position, which I include partly because I dearly crave this sort of openness and insight from managers in press conferences, partly to compare and contrast the stuff we’re fed from similar interviews, but also just to highlight the options that guy has got at his disposal that he’s trying to juggle while we employ Ilias Chair to punt channel balls to Sinclair Armstrong.
It’s a mismatch, and we’re not even winning the games we should at the moment. What, exactly, did we expect? What, really, do you want Gareth Ainsworth to do in that circumstance? There was a lot of thinking and conversation time on the seven-hour slog up the travesty of failed government policy that is the M1’s vast swathe of "smart motorway” (leaving little old ladies broken down amongst four lanes of tired truck drivers pissing about on their radios without a hard shoulder could only be considered ‘smart’ in this country) and if you’d passed some of that time by offering everybody in the car a 1-0 deficit with ten minutes left, in the game and a ball dropping in the six-yard box for Lyndon Dykes, we’d all have taken that. All of us would. Had Dykes scored that chance, snatched the point, then the whole mood of the away end, post match interviews, match report, this preview, would have been very different indeed. I’d have been flouncing about jazzing all over the page about a guide to dope roping, and how different this team is to last season’s team; Ainsworth would have been all sweaty and greasy, three buttons long since perished; the boys would have been in front of the away end giving it large; that fat middle aged nonse who stood with four teenage boys and spent the entire match with his back to the game staring straight into the away end would have been dispatched with our best wishes. We’d be talking about it as one of the great nights on the road. And literally the only difference it needed was Dykes showing a modicum of composure and steering a very good chance around the keeper rather than belting it straight into his chest.
So why, after everything we’ve endured over the past two years, is it a tight 1-0 defeat at a parachute payment team, which could have been drawn and included another scandalous refereeing decision against us, got even the normals in QPR internet world checking out with Gareth Ainsworth and the groundswell starting to mass over the Neil Warnock button?
Firstly, most obviously, it’s cumulative. Ainsworth’s had 23 games now, we’ve won five. We’re conceding at not far short of two a game, and scoring at a rate of one every full moon. We certainly don’t need the circumstances he’s inherited explaining to us because we’re living them, and everything that happens should be set in the context of that inheritance, but if you’re just losing and losing over and over again people are going to get tired of that regardless of the context, and however fondly you were remembered as a player. Leeds away, as our latest example, was 16 hours of car travel through a broken motorway system because of train strikes, somewhere in the region of £120 of petrol, that again for a hotel room, a £45 match ticket, £100 on food and drink, two days of work holiday… People keep doing that stuff week after week, you keep serving them defeats, even the reasonably sane who understand the situation will get pissed off.
Secondly, while I often say we’re the smallest big club and the biggest small club, it does sometimes feel like the manager’s fondness for the underdog status and the club’s desperate attempts to try and explain FFP headroom to its supporters (nobody made them overspend in 21/22 and work us into this corner by the way, CEOs and boards at QPR have had grief for far less) are straying into making out like we’re Wycombe MkII, just lucky to even be on the pitch at wonderful (ahem, decaying) arenas like Elland Road. For QPR fans who’ve watched Roy Wegerle, Ray Wilkins, Trevor Sinclair, Clint Hill and others do big things on that ground, it’s very difficult to swallow that it’s basically like a cup tie for us now. Worse still, if you’d just walked in off the street for your first ever game and didn’t know anything about either side, Leeds were fairly crap on Wednesday. They’d lost at the weekend, three teams (including Sheff Wed) had already held them to a draw at home, they were nervous, the crowd was quiet, the mood was downbeat... they gave you every opportunity and every invitation. This was no mismatch the way it played out. And yet we still just felt a bit grateful to be there. We’re not a small club, and it sits uncomfortably with us when we play like that, lose, and the manager is talking afterwards about how proud he was of the boys. Leeds were there for the taking, we weren’t brave enough to do so.
Thirdly, Gareth has been promising something big is coming. The team is going to bed in, the fitness is going to increase, something is building, something is coming. Ilias Chair is in the programme tomorrow saying what QPR are about to unleash on this division will "blow your mind”. You can’t keep saying this, and then nothing happens. We’ll elect you for 13 years of government, but we won’t take it from our football managers. After Cardiff and Middlesbrough you could well believe them, but we caught the former out with a total shift in style, system, formation, selection, approach and outlook, rendering their opposition scouting completely irrelevant (other teams have since got wise and just gone for the Smyth-Kakay right side on attack), and we caught Boro at a lovely time. We wouldn’t be winning 2-0 there tomorrow. Actually, our direction of travel has been heading the opposite way: the performance against Sunderland was worse than Middlesbrough; Swansea was worse than Sunderland; Birmingham wasn’t too bad, though still required some Begovic heroics to get a point from an injury hit and out of form team; Coventry was worse than all of it and then Leeds. Rather than getting fitter, the senior players we’ve hung so much hope, hype and PR on are now predictably already breaking down – Fox, Colback and Cook could well all be missing tomorrow. I also wonder about all this "buy in” Ainsworth says he’s got. Players will only buy in to something for so long. You keep losing and they cash out pretty damn quickly. Watching them shrugging at each other, falling out with each other, the exasperated sighs, as we spend an evening with Chair dropping deep, and Dykes on the right wing, punting balls and flicking them on to try and get Armstrong away into the channel, I wondered how much of that buy in was still there, and whether some of the sitting down and checking out was linked to that.
Fourthly, where I do get a little exasperated is when we don’t look like the bare minimum of what I thought a Gareth Ainsworth team would be. You can debate the merits of his Wycombe approach, whether it would translate here, whether he only did it because he had Akinfenwa up front, whether he’s trying to recreate it or depart from it… Fine, you do that. The least I expected was we’d be a tough to play against. That people wouldn’t be getting free headers in our box. That our set pieces would be brutal to defend against. At the moment our Xg against from their set pieces, and in favour from ours, are both about as bad as it gets in this league bar Sheff Wed and Rotherham. You thought at least an Ainsworth team would be physical, would get the ball wide and get it over, would pack penalty boxes, would rough people up. Gareth Ainsworth teams aren’t meant to be just happy to be there, they’re meant to smash their way in through the front door and start knocking people about. When you see that insipid, unthreatening, bereft rubbish of last Saturday and again on Wednesday, we’re not even reaching up to our already rock bottom expectations. And there’s never any excuse for a professional football team at this level not being able to take throw ins correctly, nor being able to complete an accurate ten yard pass to each other.
Which leads me to, fithly, the abiding moment from the night for me. The insistence, late in the second half, that our throw ins would go long into the opposition box, and the centre backs would journey all the way up the field to meet them, whether we had somebody who could throw it that far or not. Late in the game Ziyad Larkeche was pleading with people to come closer, because he couldn’t throw it that far, and nobody responded. Prior to that we had the Albert Adomah’s Mr Burns bowling ball humiliation. Kenneth Paal already penalised for two foul throws of his own by this point.
You take the time off work, you spend the money, you negotiate 16 hours of driving, you book the hotel, you eat the food, you drink the beer, you pay the £45 match ticket to be repeatedly searched and patted down and sniffed by the drug dog and told to sit in your allocated seat, and you expect to lose. You do it all in good grace, because it’s what you do, it’s what you enjoy doing, it’s part of your identity and part of you, me, us… But, when you’re surrounded by 30,000 people literally laughing at you because your professional football team can’t even take a throw in properly, that stuff starts to cut deep. We’ve put up with a lot, we’d have put up with a defeat at Elland Road if we’d have at least done the basics, but come on now, don’t take the piss out of us.
You can start a war, you can lie, you can cheat, you can bankrupt the country, but you can't fuck the interns. They'll get you for that.
Tomorrow is absolutely enormous, for Ainsworth and for us.
Links >>> Niece’s nativity play – Interview >>> A rare victory – History >>> Smith in charge – Referee >>> Rovers official website >>> Official website >>> Lancashire Telegraph — Local Paper >>> BRFCS message board and podcast >>> Rovers Chat — Blog
90s Footballer Conspiracy Theories No.9 In The Series - Georgi Kinkladze insists Frank Clark once shape-shifted into a lizard during a team talk, and to this day refuses to return to the UK until "that cold blooded fuck is arrested".
Team News: Asmir Begovic’s red card at Elland Road on Wednesday was certainly one in the eye for "the referee can only give what he sees” apologists – David Webb, not for the first time, making stuff up as he went along with a so-called ‘key match incident’. No surprise to see that nonsense tossed on appeal and Asmir available for selection this weekend. Whether Bamford takes the standard two-game ban for deceiving the referee or not remains to be seen, or perhaps somebody might like to belt that chinless cheat round the back the noggin with his violin and give him something to actually roll around on the floor for.
Good news elsewhere is thin on the ground. Sam Field’s lazy, needless first half booking was his sixth of the season already and five of those in the Championship means a one game ban. It brings to an end a run of 82 consecutive appearances in all comps and 77 in the league. Gareth Ainsworth’s strategy of relying on a collection of players at the end of their careers and a fancy new fitness regime was always going to be sternly examined by a long Championship winter, and with the temperatures still in the mid 20s and the second international break only just upon us we’ve now lost Morgan Fox, Steve Cook and Jack Colback within the space of four days. Jimmy Dunne will likely replace Cook but what on earth you do with the centre of our midfield if Colback and Field are both out doesn’t really bear thinking about. Paal moves forwards and Larkeche comes in? Stephen Duke-McKenna? Elijah-Dixon-Bonner? You win a Championship game with a midfield combination made up from that and they should genuinely produce a commemorative DVD.
You really couldn’t pick a better time to play Blackburn. They’ve lost four Championship games in a row and head to London with an absentee list significantly longer than an Albert Adomah long throw. Goalkeeper Aynsley Pears rolled his ankle against Leicester and was replaced by debutant Leo Wahlstadt for the midweek loss to Coventry. Impressive 19-year-old midfielder Adam Wharton limped out of that match and although his groin injury is not as bad as first feared he hasn’t travelled. Sam Gallagher has scored five goals in 12 career appearances against us for Blackburn and Birmingham, but he’s a medium term absentee. Rovers hoped prolific youth team graduate Harry Leonard might help them paper some cracks without a financial outlay in the summer and he scored on the opening day against West Brom but was injured at Ipswich on September 23 and is also out. Niall Ennis, a summer recruit to the attack from Plymouth, was only fit enough to come off the bench at Coventry, and even that was a bit too much too soon according to his manager. Sammy Szmodics is having to do some heavy lifting in attack – six goals in 11 is already only one shy of the seven he got in each of the previous two Championship seasons.
Elsewhere: The final weekend before the break in the Mercantile Credit Trophy begins tonight when Birmingham host West Brom live on the tellybox, and if you want to watch that then that’s up to you.
From our point of view the big game elsewhere tomorrow is Sheff Wed v Huddersfield at Hillsborough – two of the three prime candidates for the Three Teams Worse Then Us shortlist. Managerial sacking season is well underway and it’s no surprise to see Xisco Munoz’s joke of a reign in the Steel City brought to an end first. There seems to be some genuine belief that staunch Blade Neil Warnock may genuinely fancy a Seventeenth Annual Farewell Tour on the other side of town, and though you may say stranger things have happened I’m not sure they have. Looking back at our own situation, if Amit Bhatia was minded to reenact a reunion with his only successful manager of the last ten years would interest from elsewhere hasten that decision? All very ironic that it’s the Huddersfield team Warnock just left, now with Darren Moore who left Wednesday after winning them a promotion, lying in wait tomorrow. QPR could do with both of them losing.
With just one win from ten and a late collapse from a leading position at home to Bristol City in the week, Rotherham’s Matt Taylor might not be far behind Munoz through the South Yorkshire exit doors. Taylor publicly admitted himself this week that he’s aware he cannot keep posting these results and keep his job, and you wouldn’t fancy them to break a year-long run of 20 away games without a win at Southampton. Gareth Ainsworth’s tip for the title Watford are currently fourth bottom, with just one win from nine since they thrashed us on day one, and they’re at Cardiff.
In the gaggle just above that are two upwardly mobile teams with three consecutive league wins, and another couple who are coming the other way. Boro start tomorrow with the early kick off against Sunderland while Swansea go to Plymouth who have now won one of five games. Stoke are away to Champions Leicester.
At the irrelevant end of the table Ipswich have won 23 of their last 27 league matches. They’re at home to Preston Knob End. Leeds climbed back into the top six beating our rabble during the week and now host Bristol City. Coventry and Borussia Norwich are still mulling over whether they’re going to be any good or not ahead of their clash. Millwall are at home to Hull.
Referee: After another midweek spent suffering at the hands of David Webb and our now one win in 12 games with him, we return home to find Josh Smith waiting for us with whom we’re unbeaten in five appointments. Referee.
QPR: Coventry’s victory last Saturday means they’ve won more games at Loftus Road in 2023 than QPR have. The same can also be said of Sunderland, and if Blackburn win tomorrow then that will make three after their 3-1 win on this ground in February. If Bristol City win here the game after next then that will be four. These results all contribute to a nearly year-long run of one win from 20 home matches, the worst in the history of the club. Ten without a win in W12 coming into this has also equalled a club record which will be broken with another defeat tomorrow.
The forthcoming international break brings up the one-year anniversary of QPR going top of the Championship after consecutive home wins against Cardiff (3-0) and Wigan (2-1). The Cardiff match is the last time Rangers scored three goals in any game – 42 fixtures since. Wigan is the last time we scored more than one goal in a home game – 20 played since. In those 20 home games we’ve won once, drawn four and lost 15. We’ve scored only ten goals (0.5 a game) at home in a year and conceded 37 (1.85) with just the one clean sheet. We’ve failed to score at all in ten of those.
Gareth Ainsworth started his reign with a 3-1 loss in this fixture. Since then QPR have won five of 23 fixtures, and one of 12 at home. They’ve scored 18 goals and conceded 42, at home it’s six scored and 21 conceded – the Coventry game was the fourth time in 12 home games under this manager we’ve conceded three goals. Leeds away during the week was the fifth time in 11 matches this season we’ve failed to score, the tenth time in 23 since Ainsworth took over, and the 19th time in 42 since that Cardiff-Wigan double a year ago. Eight goals in ten games is the Championship’s worst scoring record bar bottom placed Sheff Wed.
Blackburn Robers lost star men Thomas Kaminski and Ben Brereton-Diaz over the summer without significant replacement, and have since suffered a number of injuries to key players. It has shown in their league results of three wins and six defeats from ten played to sit twentieth. They arrive in W12 on a run of four consecutive league defeats. Unlike us, there’s no real shortage of goals – 13 scored is a better total than eight other teams and only two shy of Leeds in sixth – but at the other end they’re leaking like a sieve with 21 conceded the joint worst record along with Rotherham. They’ve conceded four to Ipswich and Leicester in their last three games, and shipped three to Sunderland and Plymouth just before that. Away from home they’ve won one of five – 1-0 at Watford in August – their only league clean sheet.
This is all in rather stark contrast to their cup record where they’ve beaten Walsall, Harrogate and Cardiff scoring 17 goals in the process including 8-0 in the middle fixture, and 5-2 in the one against their Championship rivals. Since Jon Dahl Tomasson took over Rovers have won eight, drawn two and lost two in cup competitions, scoring a ridiculous 34 goals at a rate of 2.83 a game, and conceded 18.
It’s not traditionally a productive fixture for QPR this one. Mark Warburton won all three of his home games against Rovers (1-0, 1-0, 4-2) but they’re the only victories we’ve had in this fixture in 14 games going back to 1993/94. At Ewood we’ve lost our last six visits and won none of 12 going back to a 2-0 win in 1999/00. Overall we’ve won five of our last 33 meetings.
Prediction: We’re once again indebted to The Art of Football for agreeing to sponsor our Prediction League and provide prizes. You can get involved by lodging your prediction here or sample the merch from our sponsor’s QPR collection here. What’s our reigning champion Aston got for us this week…
"We are not looking particularly good at the moment but luckily neither are Blackburn. While we could look at this as a good time to play them, they'll also be looking at this as a good time to play us. I have a really bad feeling things are about to get worse and a comfortable 2-0 Blackburn win do just that.”
Aston’s Prediction: QPR 0-2 Blackburn. No scorer.
LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-3 Blackburn. Scorer – Ilias Chair
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