What you could have won - Preview Friday, 4th Nov 2022 18:56 by Clive Whittingham For all of our talk of parachute payment advantages, QPR face the bottom two teams in the league at home this week who are both in receipt of them, starting with West Brom tomorrow. QPR (9-4-5 WLWWLD 5th) v West Brom (3-8-7 DWLLLW 23rd)Lancashire and District Senior League >>> Saturday November 5, 2022 >>> Kick off 15.00 >>> Weather — Damp >>> Loftus Road, London, W12 Watching Norwich slog through the motions against us Wednesday night was like being confronted with a particularly mortifying home video of me as a child. As a tribute act to QPR’s class of 2013/14 you’d struggle for better, right down to the disinterested manager who took the job on a rebound, and the striker so good it’s difficult for them to fail regardless. Aston Villa-supporter Dean Smith wants to still be the Villains’ manager almost as much as ‘Arry wanted to be England boss, but we can’t all have what we want however hard Martin Samuel goes out shilling for it on our behalf and so both ended up settling for something else instead - QPR and Norwich, proud clubs, well-supported clubs, recently Premier League clubs, were that ‘something else’. The resources for a freshly relegated team make it difficult to fuck up - though Norwich, like us, look like they’re going to give that a bloody good go. I found them a dreary watch, and judging by the empty seats and reaction of the home fans at full time I’m not alone in that. Typically for Smith none of it was/is his fault, and they should have had a penalty apparently. I had to double check the team sheet to make sure Javier Chevanton wasn’t sitting over there with him. Even with the restless natives and uninspiring team, it’s hard to see past the Canaries as a significant challenger this year. Burnley are already shaping up as a runaway, and the advantages the relegated teams have compared to the rest, particularly post-pandemic and with the market for selling Championship players for profit collapsed, mean even the mediocre ones will often be able to flop over the line. Watford did just that with an entirely unremarkable team that worked through two no-mark managers in 2020/21, and Sheff Utd almost did the same last season. In the last three seasons two of the three promotion spots have been taken by teams with parachute payments, in the three seasons immediately before that two of the three promotion spots were won by teams without them. Fulham and Norwich account for five of the last 15 promotions won from this league between them. These advantages are, however, no guarantee — even now. Fulham, Norwich, yes. Watford, Bournemouth, yes. But the way parachute payments work you have a choice: plan A, you either spend them on more footballers and their wages and go back straight away; or plan B, you clean house and use them as they were originally intended (to stabilise clubs relegated from the Premier League riches into EFL poverty so relegation didn’t always immediately mean bankruptcy). Critics of Les Ferdinand and QPR will say we wasted the best chance we’ll ever have of going back to the top flight by using up our parachute payment years with Chris Ramsey and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, spending money on Jay Emmanuel Thomas and Paul Konchesky waster types. Some of that criticism is legitimate — there were undoubtedly some poor decisions made and a lot of money wasted. Our club still loses money hand-over-fist to the tune of £1.8m a month, but it’s within the FFP boundaries, we have stabilised, and now punch above our weight budget wise in this league rather than underperforming for the spend as we did previously. And had we chucked more money we didn’t have chasing our losses into a third Premier League stint and made all those same mistakes a third time over, what would remain of the club now if it had come back down once again? Whatever your happy memories of Bobby Zamora at Wembley, that approach was killing us season by season. Worse still, is trying to do plan A and ending up stuck in the Championship regardless, without any of the clean up from plan B. Then you have got a problem. Spend to go back up and don’t manage it, certainly within the first two years, then all of your control rods are removed and it’s nearly graphite on the roof time. Sunderland are the prime example but Stoke and Huddersfield are not far behind and our opposition this weekend, West Brom, are now in mortal danger too. Like Sunderland before them, they’ve now got a higher probability of playing League One football than Premier League in 2023/24. All the elements of a disaster are here. A Chinese owner who bought a Premier League club when the going was good, now owner of a loss making Championship one when it’s not. He’s desperate to offload the thing, but in the meantime is using it to loan money into his other ailing businesses post Covid-19. Running the outfit day-to-day is Ron Gourlay, a chief executive last spotted overseeing an identical financial collapse and grotesque mismanagement under Chinese ownership at Reading. They’re currently rattling through a manager a year, and each one is so different to the last it requires complete resets of the team and squad with no money to do it. Valerian Ismael was, at least, fifth choice when he got this gig last summer, but having done that you had to go in eyes open with the knowledge that the style was unusual, abrasive, and would take time. Anybody doing their homework would also have noted how effective he was in utilising the five substitute system at Barnsley, running three strikers into the ground in a ludicrous high press with everybody doing so full in the knowledge all three would be coming off on 60 minutes leaving two changes still in the bag. That, of course, was not in place in this league last year. He was replaced by Steve Bruce, a mate of the CEO, who didn’t even know they were bringing the five subs thing back this season. A monkey with the Rothman’s Football Yearbook would produce less haphazard recruitment. Alex Mowatt, the best midfielder in this league two seasons back, is now on loan at Middlesbrough so Jake Livermore can play with Jayson Molumby. Daryl Dike has still only clocked in one start and two sub appearances for his £8m arrival last January — a desperate attempt to arrest a listing season. Jed Wallace and John Swift had the pundits purring in the summer - and they both absolutely love playing against QPR - but these are just good Championship players, and West Brom now have them on wages and contract length that prices them entirely out of that market which means they’ll just sit here, earning, playing reasonably well at this level, into their 30s at which point they’ll leave on frees. While budget was being spent there, Sam Johnstone departed for nothing, and has been replaced by David Button who currently concedes one of every two shots he faces. West Brom’s stats, at both ends of the pitch, so far this season are ludicrous. Every other shot they face is a goal, while only two teams in the division average more shots on target than this side which currently sits second bottom. This is an ageing squad, with very few sellable assets, and the one exception to that in the recent arrivals, Salford’s Brandon Thomas-Asante, is only here because our former charge Matt Smith played with him at Salford and is married to Steve Bruce’s daughter. Erik Pieters, 34, got a deal here this summer because he lives on Bruce’s road. This is a club where Dan Ashworth used to publish six-page programme tomes about the philosophy and strategy of building a sustainable football club. And it could so easily have been us, which is always worth bearing in mind when making your criticisms — legitimate or otherwise — of Ferdinand, Lee Hoos et al. Whether that means we’ll beat them tomorrow or not I’m not so sure. Carlos Corberan is a good appointment on paper, though once again a complete departure from what was there previously and this group of players will now have to learn a fifth completely different style in as many seasons. That World Cup break could be perfect for him and them, and hopefully they’ll continue to be complete crap for one more week at least — they certainly looked it in an insipid showing against Sheff Utd when I saw them last week, but were apparently a good deal better in victory against Blackpool midweek. Playing yourself into fifth while playing the whole top half of the league away from home, then bollocksing up the last week before the break when you play three of the bottom five including the bottom two at home does feel a very QPR thing to do, even with Chris Willock back. Still, I looked at Norwich and listened to their crowd on Wednesday, and I’m sitting here assessing the wreckage at The Hawthorns, and for all of the criticism we level at QPR it is an opportune moment to take a bit of stock. I’m glad we’re us in this form, trying to do it this way, for better or worse. Links >>> Shambles — Interview >>> 1967 — History >>> Bramall is back — Referee >>> Official Website >>> Independent West Brom forum — Message Board >>> Boing — Blog >>> Express and Star — Local Paper >>> Birmingham Mail — Local Paper Below the foldTeam News: One would imagine Chris Willock will be back from the start against a team he had a brief and unsuccessful loan spell with after his impactful appearance from the bench at Norwich. Sinclair Armstrong and Taylor Richards were absent from the substitutes alongside him during the week but will be involved this week according to Mick Beale. Jake Clarke-Salter, Stefan Johansen and Tyler Roberts are out — the latter two until after the World Cup - but Jimmy Dunne is back. West Brom have lost striker Karlan Grant until after the World Cup. Daryl Dike is back in training and they’ll take a check on what part he can play on a ground where he should have been red carded last season. An already accident prone outfit has struggled particularly badly since centre back Semi Ajayi was injured in the final match of August. Elsewhere: If you’re intending to watch Reading v Preston tonight then please seek help, mental health is important, there’s always somebody out there listening who cares, we can put you touch with people, give you some numbers. Don’t do this to yourself. You’re a great person who deserves better in life. There are 11 games on Saturday including our own, starting with the EFL game of the weekend between promotion contenders Sheffield Red Stripe and Burnley. Another new manager gets his feet under the desk for the first time as Liam Rosenior starts work at Hull away at Millwall. Those who’ve already taken the plunge and changed gaffer haven’t found enormous improvement on the other side of the change: Stoke have climbed from 21st to 17th for ditching Michael O’Neill ahead of a tricky home game with Birmingham; Boro have gone from 22 to 19 since sacking Chris Wilder and now host Bristol City; Huddersfield have slumped to dead last under Mark Fotheringham and his technicoloured accent ahead of their north-off at Blackburn; Watford have at least moved from just outside the play-offs to just inside under Slaven Bilic and they host Coventry this weekend; Cardiff were eighteenth when Steve Morison and all his great ideas was binned off, and remain there ahead of a trip to Sunderland. The weekend list is rounded out by Norwich heading to Rotherham, Swanselona hosting struggling Wigan, and Lutown heading to Blackpool. Nathan reckons Luton should have had a penalty against Reading in the week, so at least that’s the theme for the next nine weeks of post match interviews set. Referee: I don’t want to suggest the depth of numbers and quality in EFL refereeing isn’t all that, but this week’s referee is the same as last week’s referee and this is already his third QPR game of the season. Details. FormQPR: QPR’s home form to begin the season was a little iffy — two wins, two draws and a defeat from the first five. Away from home, however, they lost only one of seven games and put four quickfire wins on the board at Watford, Millwall, Bristol City and Sheff Utd. Of late, that has rather spun around. The R’s come into this game unbeaten in six in W12, with four wins, including each of the last three. On the road they’ve taken one point from nine, haven’t scored in the last two, and have only managed one goal in the last three — that a consolation own goal at the end of the Luton loss. Mick Beale’s side actually haven’t scored a goal for more than two and half games now with blanks at Birmingham and Norwich and the second half against Wigan. The R’s have picked up their away results despite playing seven of the top ten teams in the league away from home (Preston, Burnley and ourselves are the remaining three) but now face three of the bottom five this week, including the teams currently 24th and 23rd at home.
West Brom: The Baggies are second bottom of the division, but have only lost seven games. Ten teams in the Championship have lost more, remarkably including second placed Blackburn and eleventh placed Reading who’ve both been beaten on eight occasions already. There problem has been too many draws — eight so far, the most in the league level with, again, a couple of highflyers Burnley (first) and Luton (tenth). A 2-0 win at Reading in October is their only away win in eight road trips so far (1-4-3) - only bottom placed Huddersfield have won fewer away games and they’re due here on Tuesday. Birmingham’s opening goal at St Andrew’s after four minutes last week was the first time all season QPR have conceded in the first 15 minutes of a game — that’s in stark contrast to the Baggies who have conceded eight times in the first quarter hour of matches so far, the highest total in the league. John Swift and Jed Wallace were generally considered scourges of QPR at their previous clubs, and indeed they have seven goals between them in 14 appearances against the R's (four for Swift, including a hat trick at Reading last season, and three for Wallace) - but their WDL records against us are identical and not as scary as you might imagine 2-4-4. 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. Let’s see what last year’s champion Cheesy thinks this week… “I’m not sure about WBA. They are bound to get going soon, with the players they’ve got, and Carlos Corberan now in place. Typical banana skin for us this one, though I’m still going for a marginal Rangers win.” Cheesy’s Prediction: QPR 2-1 West Brom. Scorer — Lyndon Dykes LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 West Brom. Scorer — Chris Willock If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via our PayPal account loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk. Pictures — Action Images The Twitter @loftforwords Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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