After losing their top spot last weekend QPR will begin the process of trying to win it back from Cardiff City when Reading visit Loftus Road this Saturday.
Npower Championship >>> Saturday, November 6 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Loftus Road, London, W12
To chase or to lead? It’s the question on everybody’s lips in West London and South Wales this week and strangely the issue seems a little confused.
Dave Jones, a Championship Victor Meldrew whose mood seems to darken still further with every passing victory his Cardiff side achieves, was adamant a fortnight ago that it is better to chase, with the pressure off, than go out in front and be a target for everybody else. Considering this it was somewhat bizarre that he delighted in taking the top spot from QPR for the first time this season with a victory against Norwich last weekend.
Back in the Bush Clint Hill has been quick to state that QPR will relish the chase having been disposed of a top spot they have held since the very first week of the season following a draw with Burnley last Saturday. There was a little hint of a three-year-old boy taking his ball home muttering something about “didn’t want to play your stupid game anyway” about it all but hopefully he’s right.
It seems ridiculous, and in my opinion it is just that, to be talking about a loss of form or a dip when QPR are still actually unbeaten in the league this season – 14 teams tried, and 14 teams have failed so far. Losses of form and dips in seasons have tended to last for months rather than weeks at QPR. Nine months ago we had won one of 15 matches and the Mythical Figure of Death was standing on the touchline preparing to send another holding midfield player on from the bench. Fourth in the league down as low as 19th at one stage, three managers removed from their positions and the worst first half performance of any QPR side in living memory against Ipswich at Loftus Road – that’s what a loss of form looks like. We’ve been so bloody good by comparison this season you’d be forgiven for forgetting.
Whatever Dave Jones or Clint Hill or anybody else says there is only one place to be if you can manage it – first. For all their pontificating about this being a marathon and top spot making you a target and other teams raising their games, if offered the chance teams want to start at the top, stay at the top for the entire season, and finish on top in May. Newcastle did it last season and it looked like tremendous fun. As amusing as the idea that Reading will try a little less to win this Saturday because we’re only second and therefore less of a scalp it is, essentially, complete bollocks.
One thing that being top does bring however is raised expectations. Had QPR spaced their recent run of five draws from six matches out a little – maybe a point instead of three at Sheff Utd and Ipswich and wins instead of draws against Norwich and Burnley – then we’d have the same amount of points, and be in the same position, but everybody would be delighted. Having swept all comers aside early on and built up a six point lead the expectation was placed upon the team to continue that. The relaxed and joyful Loftus Road atmosphere of August and September has now been replaced by no atmosphere at all and a string of supporters wait by their computers for 5pm to tick round and the moaning about another two dropped points to commence. Few seem willing to accept that draws against Burnley, Norwich and Swansea are good results even when presented with a league table. A draw against Reading will be a good result too – but I may take a couple of days off from the message board should we only take one point on Saturday, such is the reaction on there whenever we don’t beat a side 3-0.
Last week against Burnley the QPR players betrayed their nervousness at the situation by doing what all footballers at this level do when they’re slightly unsure of themselves – they went long. Faced with a choice between a difficult pass that would lead to groans and moans if it went astray, or a long high ball towards Rob Hulse of which responsibility is abdicated almost as soon as it leaves the players’ foot they chose the latter. And no matter how often Clarke Carlisle headed it back at them they kept doing it until Tommy Smith rose from the bench brimming with a vitality and purpose that has been sadly lacking in recent weeks from the rest of the team and Rangers went close to scoring four times in the last ten minutes having barely threatened in the previous 80. Warnock says Smith will start as sub again this weekend, and I cannot for the life of me understand why.
So maybe it is better to chase. Maybe the players, and the supporters, will now relax a little bit and play and support as they did in August when we expected nothing and revelled in the surprise. We’ve made a fabulous start to this season and whether you’d prefer to lead or to chase it’s worth, before you prepare to moan, comparing your own pre-season expectations to our current performance. If you expected us to win the division with 100 points and 100 goals then do feel free to continue wailing about how awful this run of draws is. If you didn’t, then just try and relax a little bit, and let’s hope the players do the same.
Recent History: Reading have stared down a dark path well warn by many team like them before and decided it’s not for them. Norwich, Southampton, Nottingham Forest, QPR, Leeds and others have all crashed into the third tier, usually in a financial mess, after living the Premiership dream and then rather making a pig’s ear of it and it seemed that Reading were heading the same way as they languished in the bottom three this time last season.
Wind the tap back five years or so and they were doing that 100 points and 100 goals thing I was just talking about. Storming away at the top of the Championship with an attractive team in which, thanks to QPR’s ineptitude and a generous late penalty decision on the final day of the campaign, every outfield player managed to score during the season. Manager Steve Coppell was lauded as a tremendous manager and John Madejski finally got to see his Reading side in the Premiership after the thick end of two decades spent trying.
Coppell, typically, added almost nothing to his squad for the top flight mumbling under his breath about this and that. But the former Palace (three times) boss was right to have faith in the likes of Kevin Doyle, Stephen Hunt and Dave Kitson who he’d already snaffled up while nobody else was watching. Reading were excellent in their first season and finished eighth.
Very much like Ipswich before them though a fine first season against the odds could not be followed up second time around. Again, few additions we made, but although Reading hung onto the likes of Doyle and Hunt they looked like a team that had been found out and a disastrous run of four wins from 21 games after Christmas saw them relegated in second bottom spot – saved from the wooden spoon by Paul Jewell’s ridiculous Derby side that even they hammered 4-0 at Pride Park (a less apt name for a ground you would have struggled to find) on the final day of the season.
Coppell rarely looks or sounds or tries to give the impression of a man happy in his work. He reminds me of myself at about three minutes past nine on a Monday morning when my computer won’t log me onto the work system and I wonder whether or not anybody would miss me, and whether I’d actually be a lot happier, if I stopped on the way to the office and flung myself under a passing train on the Midland Mainline. He seemed all set to resign after that relegation, lacking the stomach for starting all over again and seeing his side dismantled. Initially he stayed on, and Reading looked good for an immediate return, but that dark mood of Coppell’s summer permeated his team that slipped out of the top two in the second half of the campaign and went into the play offs with no momentum whatsoever – an inevitable two legged spanking by Burnley, bang in form and brimming with confidence, followed.
The dismantling of the team then took place with Hunt, Doyle, Kitson, Nickey Shorey, Ibrahima Sonko and others all sold. Coppell finally did call it a day at that point – retreating to his garden where he would spend days staring into his fish pond breaking the tension only by shaking his head every hour or so and uttering “dear me” under his breath. Or so I imagine. He briefly pitched up at Bristol City and that depressed him even more, as pitching up at Bristol City would do to anybody, and God knows where he is now.
Reading looked to be a team in need of serious rebuilding. Shorn of its major talent and about to lose its Premiership parachute payments a long term project was waiting to be tackled and in Brendan Rodgers, former Reading coach and bright young manager who had impressed in his first post at Watford, they seemed to have the ideal man. A long term appointment for a long term job. Previously I’ve written on here that to therefore sack Rodgers after six months in the position was madness – but I think you’ve only got to look at how Reading have done since, and indeed how he is doing at Swansea immediately after taking over, that it was just one of those marriages that was doomed to failure right from the start. Brian McDermott’s fine performance since taking over from him has vindicated Majeski’s swift action and Reading are now one of eight or nine teams in this league with very realistic promotions hopes – and if you’d told me that would be the case a year ago when Jim Magilton’s QPR side absolutely annihilated them at Loftus Road with just ten men then I would have assumed you were talking about League One.
The Manager: I do always fear for sides a little bit when the appoint an unknown ‘good club man’ from within to lead the first team. I shouldn’t, because I imagine the success rate is about equal to, if not better, than bringing in an unknown from outside but I always seem to recall disasters like Steve Wiggley at Southampton and Bryan Gunn at Norwich rather than the great Liverpool boot room of the 1970s and 1980s. Perhaps that’s more a reflection on me.
So I cannot say my hopes were high for the future of Reading when they appointed Brian McDermott, an almost complete unknown, to replace Brendan Rodgers midway through last season. I really rate Rodgers as a manager. I thought he did a terrific job at Watford and is now doing so again at Swansea. Having coached at the Madejski Stadium prior to his appointment he seemed like the ideal bright young manager the club needed after stagnating under Steve Coppell’s charge. He turned out to be a walking disaster zone.
By contrast McDermott looked to be little more than the last man standing when he was appointed as caretaker manager. He’d been scouting for the club, and previously managed with little success at Woking and Slough, but having failed to win any of his five league games in temporary charge, a run that included a 4-1 thrashing by eventually relegated Plymouth, it seemed madness (or tight) when John Madejski gave him the job on a full time basis. But McDermott had shown some sparks of promise – under his guidance Reading knocked Premiership sides Liverpool and Burnley out of the FA Cup. Ultimately the former Arsenal trainee who built a playing career as a lower league journeyman with Exeter, Yeovil, Cardiff and Oxford as done a tremendous job, winning 22 and drawing 13 of his 47 matches in charge and leading Readng to ninth last season having taken over with them in the bottom three.
I wondered I pre-season whether that success was based simply on the fact that he wasn’t Brendan Rodgers. There’s no doubt his predecessor was unpopular with a group of players that underperformed badly under his guidance and they seemed to relish every game under the new man once Rodgers left. Whether that would continue this season, particularly after a summer in which they lost star man Gylfi Sigurdsson and brought in two left full backs and nothing else, seemed doubtful and an opening day defeat at home to Scunthorpe did not bode well.
But McDermott and Reading seem to be the perfect fit. One of those unlikely appointments that just seems to work. Eight goals and two wins in their last two matches, including an ominous 4-0 win against a Burnley side that outplayed us last week, has propelled them to sixth and they could well be the side that brings our long unbeaten run to an end.
Three to Watch: One name that could have been listed on the opposite side this Saturday, if the newspapers are to be believed, is Reading winger Jobi McAnuff. QPR were persistently linked with the former Wimbledon and Watford winger during the summer but as soon as the story appeared Brian McDermott dismissed it – only for it to appear again a fortnight or so later. In the end nothing ever came of it, or our much talked about chase for Ipswich’s Jon Walters, so we bought Tommy Smith instead.
McAnuff is another Jon Stead in that most of the time he’s little more than an average Championship player, but for some unknown reason the sight of a QPR shirt is like the smell of spinach to Popeye. He has persistently ripped into QPR sides down the years regardless of who we have marking him or how well we play. Unsurprisingly then he’s a player I like and would have liked us to sign - I like a winger that can go past people at the best of times and I’m sick of seeing him do it to us – but over the course of a whole season he has struggled in the past to make a persistent impact. Like so many of Reading’s players Brian McDermott seems to be able to get the best out of him.
While the traffic was flowing almost exclusively out of the Madejski Stadium last summer one eye catching incoming name was that of midfielder Brian Howard. A combative and skilful attacking midfielder who caught the eye at Swindon after coming through the ranks at Chelsea and then made his name on the national stage by scoring at Anfield during Barnsley’s memorable FA Cup run. He was hot property after that but ultimately elected to stay in the Championship with Sheffield United, presumably with the intention of climbing into the top flight with the Blades as soon as possible. That didn’t happen, despite Howard scoring in the play off semi final against Preston, and United were beaten at Wembley by Burnley.
Howard then became the latest in a long line of players to criticise the methods and tactics employed by United manager Kevin Blackwell and promptly up and left for Reading less than a year after moving to The Blades. Initially that looked rather foolish as Howard struggled for form and Reading struggled full stop under Brendan Rodger – Howard was part of the Reading team trounced in this fixture last season and has spoken this week about putting right the wrongs of 12 months ago. He’s always been a good player in this league with a propensity to score goals from midfield regularly but after his exploits in the cup for Barnsley he has never really kicked on to be the player he threatened to be.
Jimmy Kebe was originally my pick at number three, a lanky winger who is difficult to shrug off the ball and causes problems with his direct approach to running at defences, but McDermott’s comments on striker Shane Long interested me so much I thought I’d go for him. QPR fans love a scapegoat – it was Taarabt after Bristol City, Ephraim after Burnley and could be somebody totally different this week. It seems Reading may be the same with the manager lambasting Long’s critics after the striker signed a contract extension this week.
At the Madejski Stadium last season defender Matt Mills made an offensive gesture towards his own supporters when they jeered him with the score still 0-0, and it seems Long came in for some of that treatment against Doncaster last weekend. McDermott told the Reading Chronicle: “All I know is Shane gave his all for the shirt. If he didn’t get a decent ovation when I took him off it’s disappointing to say the least. I’m telling you, Shane did well, he won all his headers and put his body on the line. What fans don’t know is that he was ill before the game and ill at half time. “He was throwing up everywhere and obviously wasn’t feeling great but he still went out there and gave everything for the shirt. People don’t see that side of Shane so it’s time they knew.
£Shane is 23 and still learning but the last thing I’m going to do is defend him,” said McDermott. “I have great players at this club who give me everything they have. But over the years fans do sometimes give players a tough time. Jimmy Kebe is a prime example. He had a difficult time but now the fans love him. Shane had a difficult period with injuries but I know once he gets a few more goals the fans will be right on his side. The fact is we need fans to help him rather than go the other way. Confidence is a major factor in football and every player is affected by it. When fans have a go it doesn’t really help.”
Advice we’d do well to heed ourselves.
Links >>> Reading official website >>> Reading Message Board
Recent Meetings: QPR didn’t get the best of luck with refereeing decisions in the two meetings with Reading last season. The last time these sides met they were both enjoying resurgences under new management with Neil Warnock and Brian McDermott leading their sides up the table after winter relegation fights. Young referee Gavin Ward, who will take charge of us at Portsmouth on Tuesday incidentally, took centre stage by sending Damion Stewart off just before half time under heavy duress from the Reading players and then awarding the Royals a late penalty which was converted by Sigudsson for a 1-0 win.
Reading: Federici, Griffin, Mills, Ingimarsson, Bertrand, Kebe,Tabb, Sigurdsson, Howard (Rasiak 61), McAnuff, Long (Church 67)
Subs Not Used: Hamer, Gunnarsson, Matejovsky, Robson-Kanu, Khizanishvili
Booked: Rasiak (diving)
Goals: Sigurdsson 85 (penalty)
QPR: Ikeme 7, Connolly 7, Stewart 6, Gorkss 8, Hill 7, Faurlin 7, Leigertwood 6, Priskin 6 (German 87), Taarabt 7 (Ramage 80, -), Ephraim 6 (Cook 90, -), Simpson 7
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Cook, Vine, Buzsaky, Borrowdale
Booked: Faurlin (foul), Leigertwood (repetitive fouling), Hill (foul), Connolly (dissent)
Sent Off: Stewart (two bookings – foul, obstructing goalkeeper)
It had been a very different story, though equally badly refereed, at Loftus Road in October. QPR, then managed by Jim Magilton, were running hot while Reading were struggling in the bottom three with Brendan Rodgers in charge. The R’s ran in four for the second time in four days, the first time they’d done that at home since beating title chasers Man City and Leeds back to back in the last year of the old First Division, and then repeated the trick at Derby the following weekend. Things didn’t start well for the R’s when our old foe Andy Hall sent off Ben Watson for the heinous crime of taking his own free kick too quickly. With the crowd in the lynching mode traditional whenever Hall is in town Buzsaky distracted everybody’s attention by then taking the free kick himself and curling it home. The numerical disadvantage didn’t seem to affect the R’s unduly and they scored a magical goal to double the lead before half time – a flowing passing move starting with Gorkss and Cerny in their own six yard box ended with a glorious cross from Routledge that was hammered in by Jay Simpson. In the second half Hall immediately evened the numbers by sending off Ivar Ingimarsson within seconds of the restart and subs Rowan Vine and Patrick Agyemang both embarrassed keeper Federici to double the lead while Reading only had a late consolation from Brian Howard to show for their efforts.
QPR: Cerny 8, Ramage 8, Stewart 9, Gorkss 9, Borrowdale 8, Buzsaky 9 (Mahon 66, 8), Watson 6, Faurlin 8, Taarabt 9 (Agyemang 75, 8), Routledge 8, Simpson 8 (Vine 53, 7)
Subs Not Used: Heaton, Hall, Alberti, Ainsworth
Sent Off: Watson (two bookings)
Booked: Watson (foul), Watson (taking quick free kick), Borrowdale (foul), Faurlin (foul)
Goals: Buzsaky 31 (unassisted), Simpson 39 (assisted Routledge), Vine 71 (assisted Borrowdale), Agyemang 83 (assisted Mahon)
Reading: Federici 3, Cisse 3 (Sigurdsson 46, 6), Mills 5, Ingimarsson 4, O'Dea 5, Tabb 3 (Howard 46, 7), Gunnarsson 5, Kebe 6, McAnuff 7, Long 5, Church 5 (Robson-Kanu 59, 5)
Subs Not Used: Hamer, Karacan, Rasiak, Pearce
Sent Off: Ingmarsson (two bookings)
Booked: Ingimarsson (repetitive fouling), Ingimarsson (foul)
Goals: Howard 86 (assisted McAnuff)
Head to Head >>> QPR wins 25 >>> Draws 17 >>> Reading wins 36
Previous Results:
2009/10 Reading 1 QPR 0
2009/10 QPR 4 Reading 1 (Buzsaky, Simpson, Vine, Agyemang)
2008/09 QPR 0 Reading 0
2008/09 Reading 0 QPR 0
2005/06 Reading 2 QPR 1 (Furlong)
2005/06 QPR 1 Reading 2 (Cook)
2004/05 QPR 0 Reading 0
2004/05 Reading 1 QPR 0
2001/02 Reading 1 QPR 0
2001/02 QPR 0 Reading 0
1997/98 QPR 1 Reading 1 (Spencer)
1997/98 Reading 1 QPR 2 (Spencer, Swales og)
1996/97 QPR 0 Reading 2
1996/97 Reading 2 QPR 1 (Spencer)
Played for both clubs – Michael Meaker
QPR 1990-95 >>> Reading 1995-98
Although born in Greenford, Michael Meaker would go on to fulfil a footballing career as a Welsh U21 international and was still playing recently in the Welsh leagues. Meaker came through the ranks at Rangers and made his debut as a 19 year-old in December 1990 in a 2-1 defeat to Manchester City. He would then go on to play for Rangers for five of their most successful seasons in seasons. Although never really a first-teamer with the R’s, and often a target for the boo-boys, Meaker was part of the squad that finished top London side in 1993, and two more top half finishes in the Premier League earning Welsh U21 and B international caps along way. In 1995 after never cementing a permanent place in the R’s first team he made the switch to Jimmy Quinn’s Reading. Again at Reading Meaker was never a first team player and as the team became marooned at the bottom of the First Division Jimmy Quinn was sacked and replaced by Terry Bullivant and Meaker found himself surplus to requirements at Elm Park. He later turned out for Bristol Rovers and Plymouth before entering non-league football with Northwich Victoria. Now plays in the Welsh Western Leagues with Bitton and the QPR Masters team and runs a football academy at his local gym. –AR
Links >>> Reading 1 QPR 0 Match Report >>> QPR 4 Reading 1 Match Report >>> Connections and Memories
Team News: QPR have been dealt a blow in the lead up to this game with the news that Akos Buzsaky will be sidelined for a further five weeks fllowing knee surgery. Buzsaky, who has persistently struggled with knee injuries since arriving at Rangers from Plymouth, left the field early in the recent draw at home to Norwich and it has now been confirmed that he has torn his knee cartilage.
Physio Nigel Cox told the club’s official website: “Unfortunately Akos has got a small tear in a knee cartilage. We hoped he would be able to get away without the need for surgery but, in order to ascertain whether that could happen, we needed to give the knee time to settle down. As we have progressed through function, it has become apparent that he is in too much discomfort. The only option now is surgery to clean up the knee. Unfortunately, where the injury is in his knee means the surgeon wants him to take his recovery very carefully, so we are looking at four to five weeks of rehab."
So Buzsaky joins Lee Cook on the long term absent list. Elsewhere Heidar Helguson has had a steroid injection in his neck (nasty) and is fit to play, Gavin Mahon has a slight hamstring issue so Martin Rowlands is likely to provide the midfield cover on the bench again. Georgas Tofas also has a hamstring injury so must wait for his debut. Tommy Smith is likely to be used only as a sub despite impressive recent cameos and a loss of form by Hogan Ephraim.
Elsewhere: The big game this weekend is on Sunday with table toppers Cardiff hosting South Wales rivals Swansea, third, live on the BBC. That’s a win win situation for QPR really because it means one of the clubs either side of them in the table will be dropping points this weekend. Norwich hosting Burnley is another eye catching battle of the early promotion contenders at Carrow Road. The Saturday tea-time game on Sky features two of the in form teams chasing the top six after slow starts to the season – Derby host Portsmouth. Hull v Scunthorpe is always a keenly fought derby game and Bristol City v Preston looks like a relegation six pointer. That said the league is tightening up all the time with just three points separating Reading in sixth from Doncaster in 15th.
Referee: Steve Tanner, a man dropped from the Premiership list in 2008, is in charge of this game. Tanner has refereed QPR on several occasions before, most notably the 2-0 home win against Sheffield United when guns were allegedly drawn in the boardroom while the action took place on the pitch. He also once booked ten, mostly QPR, players in a match between the R’s and Plymouth Argyle. Click here for more details.
QPR: Only QPR could not be top of the table after starting the season with a 14 match unbeaten run. It may be a club record, but the more recent form of five draws from the last six matches has enabled Swansea to close the gap and Cardiff to overtake – this is the first time since the second week of the season that QPR will approach a game not top of the league and even then, at Sheff Utd, it was only the alphabet keeping us below Millwall. Burnley’s hotly disputed penalty was the first goal Paddy Kenny has conceded at Loftus Road in seven matches but was the third spot kick conceded by Rangers in their last four games – the previous two had been missed. Overall this season there have been nine penalties in 14 QPR league games - six for, all scored, three against, two missed.
Reading: The Royals moved into the play off places with a hard fought 4-3 win against Doncaster at the Madejski Stadium last weekend and they seem to be coming into some good goalscoring form approaching this match – eight goals scored in their last two games. Reading’s away form has been very inconsistent this season – they’ve won 4-0 at Burnley, but lost at lowly Middlesbrough and Bristol City. Overall they have won two, lost two and drawn three on their travels.
Prediction: Reading are very hard to predict at the moment but seem to be in good form. QPR are disappointingly easy to second guess – stick a draw on the coupon and you won’t go far wrong. I’m going for a draw again here, 1-1, because with Smith set to start on the bench again I fear a repeat of the Burnley game where we had to wait until he was brought on late in the game to really get going.
1-1 is 6/1 with Sky Bet