Manchester City and QPR, once everybody’s second favourite teams, meet at Eastlands on Saturday night in the face of increasing public animosity. Should they care?

Man City (5th) v QPR (18th)

Premier League >>> Saturday September 1, 2012 >>> Kick Off 5.30pm >>> Eastlands, Manchester >>> Live on ESPN

How important, in football, is being liked? Or perhaps a better way of phrasing it is how much does it matter if you’re disliked?

Manchester City face Queens Park Rangers live on ESPN on Saturday evening in a repeat of the first ever Premier League Monday Night Football way back in 1992. Back then, when goals from City’s David White and Rangers’ Andy Sinton sealed a draw, those watching probably did so with a good deal of affection for both teams.

City and QPR have always sort of had that reputation as many peoples’ second team. Loveable clubs both prone to putting together swashbuckling teams with characters like Rodney Marsh, Stan Bowles, Francis Lee and Malcolm Allison involved. Clubs that play football in the right way, enjoy snatching defeat from the jaws of glorious victory, live in the shadow of more illustrious neighbours and, most importantly of all, rarely win any trophies.

City are the team who spent a six figure sum on Marsh from QPR when four points clear at the top of the league to seal the title only to find themselves overtaken in the remaining six weeks of the campaign. They’re also the ones who kept the ball in the corner to waste time when drawing a final home match of the season against Liverpool, mistakenly believing a point was enough to save them from relegation. It wasn’t. And then there’s that Jamie Pollock own goal.

QPR are the team that got taken over by billionaires and got worse. They’re the subject of the outstanding and disturbing Four Year Plan documentary, they achieved promotion in spite of a slate of third party ownership charges relating to one of their best players, they’re the team that sold Les Ferdinand and replaced him with Mark Hateley. They’re the team that had Les Ferdinand and covered for him when injured with Devon White – an immobile 6ft 4in electrician from Nottingham.

People liked QPR and City because they were funny. Like kids who couldn’t be left alone to their own devices for more than ten minutes without something catastrophic going wrong. That is very quickly changing.

Both clubs are now being accused of buying success. QPR’s acquisition of Julio Cesar earlier this week brought a tidal wave of negative comment pieces flooding onto the internet and into newspapers – jibes about Mark Hughes playing an old copy of Championship Manager are starting to wear thin. QPR are a long way from the top spenders in the Premiership this window – and indeed chairman Tony Fernandes says that by getting rid of 14 players and brining in nine the wage bill has actually dropped – but nevertheless people outside the club don’t like QPR, they don’t like Mark Hughes, and they don’t like the way we’re going about this.

Similarly with City, British people don’t like success that isn’t perceived to have been earned. You’ll now find people supporting Manchester United in pubs because of this idea that City are unfairly buying their way to the top. Manchester United – who’ve been financially bullying their way to trophies for 20 years – are now seen by some airheads as the good guys in all of this. Surely a team winning the league each year that isn’t either that bunch of scumbags and their “not arrogant, just better” flags and “official Man Utd songbooks – all the lyrics to all the songs” or our dearly beloved neighbours Chelsea should be a dream ticket.

The question is do we care? Should we care?

For City it’s fair to say that teams liked them when they used to be good for four points a season minimum and now they don’t because it’s an almost certain pair of defeats before the season has even begun. For QPR though, this is slightly different. For all the investment Rangers are still losing to the likes of Swansea 5-0 and scraping through games with Norwich. There are no results related reasons to dislike Rangers yet – but people do anyway.

City fans, rightly, respond loudly to the classic “where were you when you were shit?” chant by saying, truthfully, that they were there watching their shit team. They were – 30,000 of them turned up for an opening day game with Blackpool in the old Second Division after the Pollock goal had relegated them the previous year. QPR fans will no doubt face similar repeated queries should the team ever start performing.

The answer is it shouldn’t matter, and we shouldn’t care, and yet somehow I still do. I never, ever want to see one of those song books on sale outside Loftus Road, or flags and banners proclaiming us as some kind of superior club. I never want to hear QPR fans return “we support our local team” with “we support a winning team” at matches. I want QPR to still remain QPR through all of this, but it seems in the eyes of some that we’ve already failed in that.

A fine line to tread.

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This Saturday

Team News: QPR have announced today that Samba Diakite will be taking a leave of absence from the club to deal with personal problems. Whatever the nature of those, we wish him all the best and hope to see him back maiming the Premier League’s finest as quickly as possible. Fellow midfielder Alejandro Faurlin completed 90 minutes against Walsall in the week on his way back from a nine month injury lay off but he is unlikely to be anything more than a substitute here. Any potential transfer deals must be completed by midday on Friday to play – Julio Cesar was well inside that but it’s unlikely he will be dropped straight into the team which means a final chance for Rob Green to find some form and confidence before his inevitable benching.

Man City dropped David Silva for last weekend’s trip to Liverpool and switched a 3-4-1-2 set up but were lucky not to lose. Roberto Mancini must decide whether to persevere with both of those policies here in the continuing absence of Sergio Aguero who was the hero the last time these teams met – in case you needed reminding.

Elsewhere: West Ham gave little evidence to support Sky’s assertion that they’re worth televising on seven occasions in the first three months of the season with a rank performance and 3-0 defeat at Swansea last Saturday in front of the TV cameras, but it’s round two this weekend all the same as the Hammers host Fulham in the 12.45 kick off which begins the Premier League weekend.

Swansea are flying of course and their home clash with Sunderland is the most intriguing of the 3pm knock offs – Martin O’Neill has been splashing the cash since their opening day draw at Arsenal of course. The Mackems were due to face Reading last weekend before the weather intervened and the Royals have another free weekend after their match with Chelsea was pulled forward to last week owing to the host’s European commitments. Arsenal meanwhile are still hunting their first goal of the season and will try to break that duck at the third time of asking at Liverpool in the early Sunday match. Two of the other early pace setters – West Brom and Everton – meet at The Hawthorns. That was a dire match last season, an early Sunday televised game that literally sent me off to sleep, but is unlikely to be so again on the evidence of the season so far.

The Liverpool game will be followed on Sky by Southampton, winning plenty of plaudits but no points so far after promotion, hosting Manchester United. Newcastle and Villa also kicks off at 4pm on Sunday owing to Thursday night European commitment – Paul Lambert has lost both his league games in charge so far and couldn’t have asked for a much tougher location to test the third time lucky theory.

In the games not mentioned so far Spurs must take a break from their frantic transfer dealings to face Norwich at White Hart Lane while Wigan host Stoke City.

Referee: Considering that the Premier League were happy to return Michael Oliver, Mark Clattenburg and Mike Dean to QPR fixtures on multiple occasions last season despite them all making serious errors that counted against the Super Hoops, it seems somewhat off and unfair that Chris Foy should only have had one subsequent outing with the R’s since the infamous league game between Rangers and Chelsea at Loftus Road last October. Foy booked nine that day, sent off two Chelsea players and awarded Rangers a game winning penalty while turning down two spot kick shouts from the visitors. He subsequently took charge of our 1-0 defeat at Newcastle in January but this is his first appointment since. Man City have bad recent memories of the St Helens based official oweing to his handling of an FA Cup tie between themselves and cross city rivals Man Utd last season. For a full case file click here.

Form

Man City: QPR came closer than most to winning at Eastlands last season, but City still finished the campaign with a record of 18 home wins and a draw. Southampton had them worried on the opening day of this season, but they’re one for one all the same. This City team finds a way to win games – and having conceded two in each of their three competitive games so far this season but still claimed two wins and a draw they’ve needed to work hard already this campaign. The last team to win a league game on this ground was Everton in December 2010. City conceded 29 goals in the league last season which was the Premier League’s lowest total – they’ve already shipped four in two league matches this year.

QPR: The defeat at City, narrow and glorious though it was, formed part of a 14 match run of away games without a victory. That has carried on into the new season with an undeserved draw at Norwich last week. It’s now 15 league and cup games and almost ten months since QPR last won an away game – at Stoke City last November. The draw at Norwich was only the second point Mark Hughes has won away from home since taking over at QPR at the beginning of January. Only Blackburn (45) conceded more goals on their travels last season than Rangers (41) although the Hoops’ total was skewed slightly by two six goal defeats in West London derbies. They lost more away games (14 out of 19) than any other team in the division last season - bottom placed Wolves lost just ten.

Betting: Professional adds compiler Alex Rowe says…

With the week dominated by transfer talk and ‘that Sunday in May’ I’ve been tempted to cancel my Sky subscription and delete Twitter from my phone. All I’m craving at the minute isn’t my beloved side signing a Brazilian or Spanish international… its football, punting and watching QPR which is something I’ll do regardless of the division or signings. I for one was excited when Andy Thomson arrived in 2001.

As it stands I’m lead to believe Cesar won’t be available this weekend which means Green should carry on between the sticks. Whether you rated Green or not prior to the arrival of Julio Cesar you have to admit he looked low on confidence and was a mistake waiting to happen which is why I’m fearing the worst for Saturday. Clint Hill lost his battle with Grant Holt last weekend, Ferdinand is far from the commanding centre back needed and Onuoha never looks comfortable in the heart of defence. Unfortunately I can’t see anything other than a comfortable home win which is why it’s no surprise to see City as short as 1/6 to take all three points.

Punters are creatures of habit so the bookies will no doubt see plenty of business about the 3-2 City win (28/1 Betfred) personally I’d want a much bigger price about us scoring twice.

With the flappable Green and unsure centre backs to protect we could be especially vulnerable from set pieces so I’ll be taking a chance the excellent Vincent Kompany can capitalise in our area at 33/1 first goal (Coral) & 10/1 to score at any time (Ladbrokes).

Prediction: The winner of last season’s LFW Prediction league Nathan McAllister says…

"If you needed a reminder about just how daunting this weekend's fixture is, how about this: City scored three goals or more in 14 of their 19 Premier League home games last season. Only Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton and Bolton left the Etihad having conceded fewer than three goals, and none of those left with a clean sheet. On the other hand City managed to shut out their opponents 12 times. Rangers will need to show every single ounce of the spirit and desire they showed on that incredible day in May just to hang on to the champions' coat-tails - and let's face it, if we give City anything like the amount of time and space between the lines that we gave Norwich last Saturday, then the likes of Toure, Nasri and Silva will wreak absolute havoc.

Defensively, however, City have given opponents a few scraps of encouragement recently. They have conceded two goals in each of their last three competitive games - four if you count the Community Shield. This little run started, of course, against QPR - although I imagine City will be warier of Rangers' counter-attacking qualities this time around. With this game coming one day after the transfer window closes it seems likely that Rangers will have added defensive reinforcements by the time it kicks off, but with little time available for any new players selected to build up an understanding with their new colleagues, I imagine it will take some time for Rangers to start reaping the benefits of any new additions. One massive plus in the midweek cup win was the triumphant return of Alejandro Faurlin, but again it seems unlikely that he is ready for a fixture as demanding as this one just yet.

All in all, it's difficult to forecast anything other than a convincing win for the champions.

Prediction: Manchester City 3 QPR 0

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Pictures – Action Images

Photo: Action Images

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