A poor first half performance and the pointed absence of influential Jimmy Dunne from the defence saw QPR slip to defeat at Millwall on Saturday.

In the land of the Millwall message board you’ll occasionally find Queens Park Rangers referred to as The Stripey Nigels. Or is that Crystal Palace? Anyway, it's late, it works for this intro and, in the pantheon of footballing mega bantz, is really quite funny. You’ve got to give them that. With all due respect to any Nigels watching (hey, try doing secondary schooling in the north of England as Clive), it’s also very apt for Rangers’ typical performances at The Den.

Everybody knows what they’re going to get when they come here. You’re going to be pressed aggressively. They’re going to foul you, a lot. They’re going to crunch into tackles early to see if you fancy that. They’re going to push all your buttons to see who’s up for fight and who’s up for flight. There will be set pieces, there will be corners, there will be long throws, there will be Jake Cooper lumbering about the gaff. They’re going to put it in on you, they’re going to turn you around, they’re going to shout “MIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL” and you’re going to have to deal with that.

My frustration and irritation comes not from Millwall’s spit-on-it-and-call-it-foreplay approach to the beautiful game. They’re dealing with all the same logistical and monetary challenges we are in trying to compete in this financially doped division. Chris Wilder, the manager of Sheffield United, in receipt of parachute payments, blamed a recent 3-0 hammering at home to Hull on the paucity of options available to him – this a game in which he brought Tyrese Campbell, Jesurun Rak Sakyi, Vinicius Souza and Rhian Brewster off the bench all at once. Millwall have scrambled in divisional waif Aaron Connolly on a free transfer to try and pep up their attack after one win in 13 games. QPR are trying to do a season with Michi Frey and Zan Celar up front covered by a couple of kids. Now Wilder’s decided an injury to Harry Souttar means he needs Jimmy Dunne from Rangers because he can’t possibly cope with only Anel Ahmedhodzic, Jack Robinson and Chelsea’s Alfie Gilchrist (himself stolen from QPR’s academy under the malignant EPPP regulations). Dunne was left out of this game. The Championship is not a fair fight. The Lions play to their strengths and are a good deal more exciting and exhilarating to watch than sitting through Russell Martin’s death by a thousand passes.

No, my problem comes with QPR’s cowed, meek inability to cope with it. Every year the same. We talk all week about understanding the “unique challenges” the fixture presents, we vow to be ready for that, we promise the supporters it will be different this time. The, sure enough, when Millwall roll their kick off back one and forward 50 feet in the air we shit the bed immediately. Morgan Fox and Paul Nardi out for the same ball not communicating, a panicked clearance, a throw in put back in on us immediately, unmarked players, the first cross of the day, missed interceptions, keeper flops over to the right, Connolly slides an unchallenged shot to his left, 40 seconds in, one goal down, lettum all come daggggggggggggggggggghn to The Den.

This isn’t The Old Den. The Terry Hurlock autographed hatchet has long been consigned to a museum. Alex Neil’s a bit of a fucker, with a taste for the dark arts, but he’s a good football manager who produced strong, attractive winning teams at Norwich and Sunderland and spent years effectively fighting the rising tides at Preston Knob End. Millwall, under director of football Steve Gallen no less, have played the transfer market well this year. Japhet Tanganga is a terrific pick up at centre back and will swiftly make this club a handsome profit. Luke Cundle was excellent at this level in Plymouth colours and, like Neil, shouldn’t have a bad spell at Stoke held against him because, well, it’s Stoke, what do you expect? Good footballers, not troglodytes. The days of being held in a cage for an hour and pelted with coins as you pass down “Coward’s Way” are long gone – they even let you mix on the platform at the station now, like grown-ups. With all this talk of Cold Blow Lane and The Dockers stand, all these testosterone-fuelled men cosplaying Peaky Blinders in their matching flat hats, it’s more camp than intimidating these days. And yet, QPR time and again seem frightened to death of it.

The second goal was pathetic. QPR were lopsided to the right and wide open to the left throughout the first half, with Kenneth Paal detailed (presumably) to step inside and pick up Bangura-Williams leaving that whole flank free for combinations of Crama, Savile, Cundle and Ivanovic to roam free with only a patently unfit off the pace Ilias Chair to deal plug the gap. Even so, you’d expect more effort to stop the cross from Crama, a better attempt at winning the first contact with George Saville in the box, and Morgan Fox’s reaction speed as the ball dropped back to him off the cross bar was abject. First, second and third favourite for that ball, Fox allowed Cundle to steal in ahead of him for a debut goal. You’ve got to want it more than that. You’ve got to compete better than this. In any game. But particularly this one.

Be aggressive, be assertive, be a Ben, or a Jack. A strong boy’s name. Don’t be, sigh, the stripey Nigels. Were it not for Paul Nardi’s fingertip save onto the post from Bangura-Williams when QPR had again played up to Lloyd and not got it to stick, then played ‘after you Claude’ all the way back down the spine of their team, this would have been done and dusted during a chaotic first period of the game.

Rangers were, of course, not helped by that Dunne absence, nor inspirational manager Marti Cifuentes staying home with flu. His replacement Xavi Calm said Dunne had tweaked a groin in training. Why football clubs in general, and QPR in particular, do this to their supporters is just beyond me. We all know the situation and why he’s been left out, just say “we all know the situation and why he’s been left out”. Again, this a sport run, administered and played by enormous man children.

If you could pick a fixture for Dunne to be absent for, Millwall away would not be it. Handsome Ronnie Edwards was chosen at right back, and I do wonder whether a ball playing centre half will be their preferred go-to if Dunne is gone by Tuesday’s game with Blackburn given how important his height has been out there as an outlet for a team that plays out from the back like I play along with University Challenge, but he didn’t have the same impact bar a first half howitzer that fizzed just too high over the bar. Harrison Ashby, sadly, once again, did not push his case as an alternative from the bench either – why play that simple pass in field to a team mate when I can show how good I am by Cruyff turning my way into touch and give Millwall a throw in?

They were also not aided by the performance of referee John Busby who, as he refereed the first meeting at Loftus Road, somebody somewhere has decided is a safe pair of hands for this fixture. In his fifth Millwall appointment out of 21 already this season, the Oxfordshire official had clearly come for an easy afternoon. You get that on this ground by giving Millwall lots of benefit of the doubt, while refereeing the away team by the book. Paul Smyth, trying to get a quick throw in away, first obstructed, then thrown to the ground. A quick talking to will suffice, apparently. Alfie Lloyd, sprinting to join a counter attack, clocked in the head off the ball by Cooper. Boys will be boys. When he wasn’t shafting Rangers up to his balls, Busby busied himself by getting in the way of our attacks. How many times have you seen a game restarted with a drop-ball this season? How many times did that happen on Saturday? Poor.

The one time Lloyd was allowed to proceed with his work without being chopped down and having play-on waved, he scored. A surprise choice as the starting striker in a game that felt made for Michi Frey, Lloyd equalised immediately after Connolly’s goal by striding onto the final pass in a flowing move from back to front that featured excellent approach work by Chair and Smyth before a perfect assist by Morgan and powerful finish off the far post. Lloyd struggled to affect the game thereafter, partly because he wouldn’t have been awarded a free kick had somebody shot him in the back but mainly because QPR kept playing up to his feet to hold up when, as he repeatedly pointed, he wanted a ball knocked beyond the leaden footed Cooper for him to turn and chase – presumably the whole point of his selection and the source of the goal but too often ignored by team mates.

That goal showed just how easy it could be to get in on Millwall. Wawll had won just one of their last seven games here with defeats to Oxford, Hull, Sheff Utd and Coventry and draws with Cardiff and Sunderland. Their overall home record stands at 6-3-6 – only Cardiff and Hull (both seven) have lost more games on their own patch. If QPR could take a breath, compose themselves, stop giving the ball away and play their game… That certainly didn’t happen in a first half in which we passed to Millwall more than the Millwall players did.

The second half was a vast, vast improvement.

Potentially that’s because Millwall, as Alex Neil has always been wont to do, decided good and early that they would be sitting off and holding what they had. Ambition to seek a third goal similar to my ambition to attend a recording of Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. QPR would get a free run to attack the box in front of their own fans.

Credit where it’s due though, Rangers played properly after half time. They got incrementally better for each substitution made. Koki Saito, as he’d done at Hull in the R’s last away game, really got going down a left side that had been horrendous with and without the ball prior to his arrival – Fox, Paal and Chair all miles off it. Suddenly Wawll’s piratical right back Tristan Crama had something to worry about, and the Japanese winger continuously found him wanting at the byline, tricking his way past and cutting a ball back. Sam Field’s shot, deflected, brought an improvised save from Jensen in the home goal with the nearest of the misses from that source.

On the other side Spurs’ 18-year-old South Korean Yang Min-Hyeok also impressed on his QPR debut. One particular cut in and shot on the angle towards the top corner called Jensen into action again and raised hopes and eyebrows among the travelling following. Look, I remember Javier Chevanton snapping the crossbar in two here one afternoon and we never saw that roidy twat again so let’s wait and see, but I did like what I saw of the South Korean in this cameo. You have selected POWER DRIVE.

Jensen also dived full length to get a vital finger on Alfie Lloyd’s skimmed header from an inswinging Saito cross. The absence of Dunne was keenly felt once more at attacking set pieces, where Paal could have built a new wing on Great Ormond Street Hospital if he’d been sponsored to hit the defender at the near post with his deliveries. When the Surinamese full back did get one right Morgan Fox must have thought he’d atoned for earlier incompetence with a fierce, firm, free header which bulleted towards goal and was really quite brilliantly saved by Jensen once more. We’ve had a few of these from opposition goalkeepers this season. Plymouth home, Hull home, Plymouth away… I’m starting to think even the Venus de Milo would have a great game in goal against us. Jensen, though, was the outstanding League One goalkeeper at Lincoln last year and represents another shrewd pick up by Gallen’s recruitment team in Bermondsey. The match sponsors’ decision to award Connolly man of the match can only have been driven by a desire to compare sleeve tattoos. It was clearly the goalkeeper. Superb.

Those saves rather broke the back of the Rangers resistance. The Fox one, in particular, seemed to sap a lot of belief. Michi Frey’s attempt to juggle a bouncing ball between two defender while simultaneously volleying it in from 20 yards out fits very firmly into the category of We’ve All Had A Drink. Steve Cook, looking horribly leggy on an early return from injury, almost presented a third goal with a horrifying first touch on the edge of his own box – Kieran Morgan took one for the team with a yellow card challenge on the edge of the box. Although, of course, when George Honeyman took one for the team with a yellow card challenge on Saito on the corner of his box with a minute remaining he was punished with… a very strong telling off. Fucking knob head. Wawll will of course point to a prior penalty appeal which… wasn’t a penalty.

A second defeat on the run then after only one in the prior 13 games. A very different loss to the one against Sheff Wed a week ago – this could easily have been a draw or better for Rangers with improved finishing and less adept goalkeeping in the second half, whereas we wouldn’t have scored against Danny Rohl’s side if we were still playing them now. Millwall have turned their own terrible run around with three victories in a week. Last month it was QPR and Oxford setting the lower half of this division blaze, this month it’s Millwall and Coventry. It’s just the way of things in this part of the Championship before everybody regresses to mean and finishes about where they were expected to i.e. in order of wage bill from 1-24.

Nothing to get too wound up about yet. A good game, engaging and enthralling in a blustering Championship sort of way. I thought Millwall were much the better side at Loftus Road and deserved to win, here QPR were probably good value for a point on their second half performance, so maybe things have evened themselves out.

Still, there was a lot to fix up with this QPR performance, particularly in the first half. The problems on both sides of possession that will be caused by Dunne’s seemingly inevitable departure were evident. It doesn’t look a particularly threatening fixture list until we get to March, but we must beware the perfect storm of a couple of injuries becoming half a dozen injuries, a couple of defeats becoming another six game sequence without a win, the Dunne departure, a decline in confidence, a loss of momentum… these things quickly spiral at QPR. We’ve seen it so many times before.

In fact, we saw it in exactly this run of fixtures in the autumn.

Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread

Millwall: Jensen 8; Crama 5, Tanganga 7, Cooper 6, Bryan 6; Saville 6, De Norre 5 (Wintle 80, -); Bangura-Williams 6 (Mitchell 89, -), Cundle 7 (Watmore 80, -), Connolly 7 (Honeyman 89, -); Ivanovic 6 (Langstaff 89, -)

Subs not used: Harding, Kelly, Roberts, Wallace

Goals: Connolly 1 (assisted Crama), Cundle 25 (unassisted)

Yellow Cards: Saville 75 (foul)

QPR: Nardi 5; Edwards 5, Cook 5 (Ashby 64, 5), Fox 4, Paal 4; Varane 6, Field 5, Morgan 5 (Saito 64, 7); Chair 4 (Yang 76, 7), Smyth 6 (Frey 76, 5), Lloyd 6 (Kolli 83, -)

Subs not used: Colback, Madsen, Morrison, Walsh

Goals: Lloyd 3 (assisted Morgan)

Yellow Cards: Morgan 59 (foul), Lloyd 74 (foul)

QPR Star Man – Koki Saito 7 Big impact from the bench again, deserved better finishing on the end of his service.

Referee – John Busby (Oxfordshire) 5 One-eyed. But then, so am I.

Attendance 17,941 (2,016 QPR) Interesting that although QPR’s allocation for this sold out in little more than a day, long before Yang Min-Hyeok signed on loan, there was still a Korean presence in the away end filming the new lad’s every movement on GoPro cameras.

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 - Reuters Connect

DonnyNienow added 02:12 - Feb 3 Millwall's aggressive style overwhelmed QPR, leading to a disappointing 2-1 defeat. The absence of key defender Jimmy Dunne highlighted Rangers' struggles, reminiscent of navigating Geometry Dash's tricky levels-one misstep, and you’re back to square one. Despite their promises to tackle Millwall's unique challenges, QPR faltered again, showcasing a lack of resilience. Fans are left wondering if their team can ever conquer this recurring hurdle. https://geometrydashgame.lol/

0

062259 added 02:13 - Feb 3 Done
0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Queens Park Rangers Polls