A stupid red card picked up in first half stoppage time by Jonathan Varane turned a stupefyingly boring Saturday breakfast game at Blackburn into a comfortable 2-0 defeat for QPR, who’ve now won only one of their first seven league games.
I shan’t take my coat off I’m not stopping.
We’ll do the key incident of Saturday’s trip to Blackburn first, and then work backwards and forwards from there. It happened in a minute of time added to the end of the first half because apparently we hadn’t suffered enough. Jonathan Varane was at the centre of it - bumbling through a couple of challenges with the ball never full under control and then chasing his losses with a lunging tackle on Rovers’ centre back Danny Batth. It looked high and late, and Premier League referee Craig Pawson’s red card was but a moment’s pause away.
This decision is a pretty textbook example for why VAR was always destined to be an unmitigated, farcical disaster. Put three managers, players, referees or fans on a panel to sit in judgement on that tackle and you’ll struggle to get unanimous agreement on whether it’s a yellow or a red card. This decision, like so many in our game, was a subjective call by the referee. The sport’s ongoing attempts to make this stuff binary will continue to eat it until/unless it gives up on the whole nonsense and accepts human referees are occasionally going to do things you disagree with.
I didn’t have too many problems with Pawson’s decision to go red in this instance, though I do believe he was pretty heavily influenced by a couple of things that should not have been part of his consideration. Firstly, about ten seconds before Varane changed the course of the game, stand-in right back Hevertton Santos had a brain fart of his own when he pretty obviously pulled back the excellent Tyrhys (vowel please, Carol) Dolan while already on a yellow card. Pawson, remarkably, didn’t even give a free kick (perhaps knowing he’d have to send the player off if he did) which was a lucky escape for Santos and Rangers. Instead of getting back into the dressing room as quickly as possible they decided to try the referee’s patience a second time immediately. Thick as bricks. Secondly, just watch Lewis Travis’ reaction. I’m bitter, of course I’m bitter, I’ve just spent my weekend slogging up to Blackburn and back to get beaten 2-0. But just look at him. The histrionics. Do we know if Danny Batth lived through the night? I thought we’d killed him. What a carry on. My goodness.
QPR have to control what they can control though. You’ve got a minute to go until half time, you’re away from home, you’re in the game, you’re insanely fortunate not to have had a man sent off a second before, you’re in a neutral area of the pitch, and they’re going nowhere. What are you making that tackle for? What’s the best-case scenario, even if it goes well? When they ask Roy Keane about the myriad red cards he received in his career he judges them one way or the other on whether he "gave the referee a decision to make”. Varane has given the referee a decision to make. And there was no need. No need at all. Greg Spires did tell you he would do that when we signed him.
Marti Cifuentes tried to stem the bleed with some half time coagulant in the form of Harrison Ashby for Santos at right back and Nicolas Madsen to do the job of International Year Of The Wally Brain in midfield, but QPR were absolutely pathetic in the second half. Blackburn added Todd Cantwell from their bench – about his level this, ponsing about like God’s gift to haircuts in a home game against ten men – and he absolutely ran the show. Any suggestion of "sometimes it’s hard to play against ten men” completely absent. Rangers never once looked like they even believed they could hold out for a point, never mind compete for more, once Varane had walked. I get it's difficult but put some fucking minge round it for goodness sake. Really quite forlorn and limp by the end.
Travis, because of course, struck the first from the edge of the box via a hefty deflection off Steve Cook. Batth headed the second off a Cantwell cross I’d probably like my goalkeeper to at least attempt to come for. I’m certainly not going to sit here and criticise Paul Nardi though, the only one of our summer signings really who’s really up to speed at this stage and the executor of an extraordinary quadruple save immediately half time in which he somehow acrobatically denied Cantwell three times in three seconds and Ohashi too into the bargain. Cantwell missed another late sitter off a Nardi parry. Chances came and went with frightening regularity making for a long old sit for the 613 souls on board at the far end of the ground. Really rather sporting of John Eustace to remove the impressive Ohashi just after the hour and replace him with Makhtar Gueye who seemingly won a 25-minute cameo in some sort of raffle.
Things might have been a deal different had Paul Smyth’s perfectly legitimate goal been allowed to stand ten from time. I was much more bothered by this decision than the red card. Blackburn, lulled into a false sense of security, worked the ball along their defensive line too casually, allowing Smyth to chase it down, rob Batth, and finish beyond Ainsley Pears for 2-1. Pawson, from a distance away, gave an incredibly generous free kick. He can fuck off. It’s never a foul in a million years, and the decision was in keeping with this Premier League referee’s attitude and approach all day – half arsedly breezed through the whole thing like it was a bit beneath him, with some perverse results. The amount of times he was just in the way didn’t really speak to somebody who was wholly focussed on what he was doing. We don’t want to be here either mate but pull your fist out of your arse and referee the fucking thing for a bit will you please.
At the risk of repeating myself, QPR have to control what they can control. Koki Saito flashed the first shot of the game wide of the top corner from the R’s first corner and then on five minutes got going down the left nicely to produce a cross over Michy Frey at the near post and into prime scoring territory just behind him. Paul Smyth came in from the other wing… and stuck the thing wide from six yards out. You can talk about decisions, you can blame referees, you can make excuses, but if you can’t score chances like that in the six-yard box away from home you’ll get nothing and deserve it. Smyth’s end product continues to horribly undermine his otherwise commendable endeavour.
Blackburn responded in kind: Dolan in behind a defence once more missing Jake Clark-Salter but Weimann mishit his cut back allowing Nardi to save; Ryan Hedges toppled over the French goalkeeper in the next attack and was carded for diving. Steve Cook’s brilliant cover tackle on Ohashi after Dolan teed him up with aplomb was worthy of applause, and Kenneth Paal did likewise in the second half as the floodgates started to buckle. This was not a good QPR performance, before or after the sending off.
Rangers now have seven points from seven played, exactly what they had this time a year ago under Gareth Ainsworth. They’ve also won a game fewer. Now, I’m certainly not going to sit here and pretend we’re not in a far better place than we were going into last October when friends and loved ones were confiscating my toaster/bath tub from me. And I’m going to bang on again about how inevitable this sort of start was with the profile of players we signed this summer. You don’t do your summer shopping at Westerlo, Lugano, Sporting Gijon, Gent, Perth Glory, Bayern Munich B, Estrela and Brest (giggty) and make a running start to life in the Championship. You just don’t. Even for the ones that do work out, and not all of them will of that you can be sure, will need time to get there. We were getting ourselves into a frothy lather about Karamoko Dembele after his first couple of outings and then here, selected in the ‘ten’ role we all reckon he’s much better suited to, he may as well not have bothered to get off the bus. Completely, totally anonymous. He wasn’t the only one – Nicolas Madsen’s half-speed input continues to be that of an old Sony Walkman with batteries on the way out. I want a bit more of Michy Frey’s purpose and aggression in some of the others – I thought he led the line boldly here, with next to no support or supply.
As it stands, we’re an odd watch. That’s three games in a row now where I felt the opposition were far better, far more effective than QPR. Having escaped with draws at Sheff Wed and at home to Millwall I guess we should have seen one like this coming – particularly at an unhappy hunting ground like Blackburn. I’ve stood in the back left corner of the away ends at Hillsborough and Ewood Park for 180 minutes now, I’ve spent most of those bored out of my skull, and as I glance around the faces of the people I choose to spend my time with the emotion and reaction doesn’t seem to be anger, or disappointment, or frustration. It’s more… just… puzzlement. I can’t really work out what it is we’re trying to do.
I’m certainly not wishing to go over the top here – Rangers were unbeaten since the opening day going into this game, had scored in 12 consecutive matches which was up there among the EFL’s longest sequences, and a weekend at the mercy of Avanti West Coast can do strange things to a person’s mood – but we are boring at the moment. We are.
All the chat and attention will be on Varane’s red card, but in the medium and long term the bigger problem we’re going to have with him is his outright phobia of turning around. Turn around Jonathan. Turn around bright eyes. We’re going that way, towards their goal, at least in theory. It’s actually quite mesmerising how many situations that guy can turn into a pass back to one of the centre halves. This culminated in a comedic Keystone Cops moment in the first half where Rangers did get the break of the ball and Varane found himself carrying it away from Nardi’s penalty area, with all but two of the Blackburn outfielders committed, Smyth, Saito and Frey all up in support, and the green, green grass of the Darwen hills stretching out ahead of him. Just bloody run with the thing. It was bizarre. I’ve never seen a bloke so desperate to turn a 3v2 counterattack in his favour into a pass back to Steve Cook. With the away end pointing as one he did eventually make it past the halfway line but, with the nosebleed presumably obstructing his vision at this point, he then played a hopeless pass barely into the same postcode Paul Smyth was occupying. On the list of 37 things he could have done with that chance, that was knocking around number 37. Go. Forwards.
It just typifies how QPR have played these last few games. We spent all summer speculating on whether it would be pragmatic or idealistic Cifuentes this season. This certainly isn’t the former and it’ll be interesting to see if we once again solve our sluggish form with a switch to a more direct and Championship-friendly approach as we did in the spring. But is it even the latter? Is this what Cifuentes wants? This weird, passive, stand offish, pisballing about in our own half while the opposition stand a bit mystified watching us do it? It’s all a bit weird. And, more pressingly, easy to play against. Where’s that team from West Brom and Leeds at home? I liked them, I thought that was the model. This is all just a bit… odd. And it’s a hellish long way to go to watch it in this instance.
A work in progress, but it would be quite nice to see some of that progress against Hull on Tuesday night.
Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread
Blackburn: Pears 6; Pickering 6 (Cantwell 46, 8), Hyam 6, Batth 7, Carter 6; Tronstad 6, Travis 8 (Buckley 77, 6); Hedges 6 (Rankin-Costello 77, 6), Dolan 7, Weimann 6 (Cozier-Duberry 77, 6); Ohashi 7 (Gueye 65, 4)
Subs not used: Baker, Duru, McFadzean, Toth
Goals: Travis 53 (assisted Dolan), Batth 63 (assisted Cantwell)
Yellow Cards: Hedges 8 (dive), Travis 38 (foul), Dolan 88 (foul)
QPR: Nardi 7; Santos 4 (Ashby 46, 5), Cook 5, Dunne 5, Paal 5; Varane 3, Field 5 (Bennie 81, -); Saito 5 (Andersen 70, 5), Dembele 4 (Madsen 46, 5); Smyth 5; Frey 6 (Celar 75, 5)
Subs not used: Dixon-Bonner, Lloyd, Morgan, Walsh
Red Cards: Varane 45+1 (dangerous tackle)
Yellow Cards: Santos 35 (foul), Cook 59 (foul)
QPR Star Man – Paul Nardi 7 Kept the score down.
Referee – Craig Pawson (Sheffield) 5 I’d expect better than this all round from a referee of his experience and standing in the game.
Attendance 13,789 (613 QPR) A long way to come for a ridiculous kick off at the behest of a broadcaster that wasn’t even showing the bloody game on its main channels. Subhuman scum.
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