QPR are fast building another run of defeats – four in a row and seven in the last nine – after a Tuesday night setback at injury hit Middlesbrough, where even a slightly higher intensity would surely have brought home a better result for the visitors.

We knew this period of fixtures heading into and through March was going to be tough, and tough it is definitely proving. Queens Park Rangers have now lost seven of their last nine and four in a row.

Given how well Coventry are playing (our loss there one of their nine wins from ten games), how formidable Portsmouth are at home (league leaders Leeds the latest victims in a sequence of eight wins and two draws from 11 games at Fratton Park), Sheff Utd’s promotion push and away record (no side has won as many as their 11 on the road), and the league positions and logistics around a double away week at West Brom and Middlesbrough… it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Rangers are wobbling once more. In 16 games against the current top ten in the division the R’s have won once, at home to ninth placed Blackburn.

They’ve been very close to snatching far better results from treks to The Hawthorns and The Riverside this week. Koki Saito missed a terrific chance to equalise at the weekend and had that gone in, against ten men with half an hour left to play, who knows what it might have led to. At least a point, you'd assume. At Middlesbrough on Tuesday, Kenneth Paal somehow contrived to miss the target altogether, albeit on his weaker right foot, at the end of a flowing first half move. Kieran Morgan thrashed over the bar when he had time and space on the edge of the box to do better. Late in the game Lucas Andersen thought he’d scored with a low, whipped shot which Mark Travers did brilliantly to claw out of the bottom corner when I think most Championship goalkeepers would concede. In the very final throes of stoppage time a Paul Smyth long throw was flicked up and over the crowd by Jimmy Dunne and headed firmly towards goal by French keeper Paul Nardi who come forward in desperation. Either side of Travers and it was in, wild celebrations among the tiny away following, a long night back at the Travelodge bar (if only they’d open the bloody thing).

It is very possible to talk fine margins and could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. These were difficult away games that Rangers have lost, as they were expected to do so, by very slim scorelines while missing several presentable opportunities and carrying numerous injuries to key players. Paul Smyth’s second half cross for Michi Frey looked plum, but the Swiss forward couldn’t generate enough lift from the ground and ended up skimming a header out for a throw on the far side of the field.

If you’ve travelled the hard yards with the team this week, however, it hasn’t felt really like that.

West Brom on Saturday was the third time this season Marti Cifuentes’ team has had essentially the whole second half to attack ten men, and they’re yet to score a goal over those two plus hours. We’ve been educated/trained/browbeaten/demoralised into having very meagre expectations for our team, put together on our budget, in this league where we once were the haves and are very much now the have nots. What we hope for, the best we hope for, is steady, incremental improvement over time. A sign the team and its manager are learning from mistakes and getting better. Marginal gains and all that. To watch us try the same thing repeatedly, despite it all ending up square on the bonce of a delighted Kyle Bartley, for a whole half at The Hawthorns would have been frustrating enough on its own. When you’ve done that exact thing against ten-man Plymouth and Sunderland previously for similarly dire results, even the most ardent among the faithful can be forgiven for getting a little aggy.

Middlesbrough on Tuesday was worse. It was worse for a couple of reasons.

The first is that, unforgivably, QPR really didn’t look that arsed. Arsed about the game, about the result, about our performance. Just going through the motions. Giving the ball away repeatedly. Simple balls. Losing out in the tackle far too often. Plain desire.

Cifuentes backed his players afterwards. “This is a very honest group. We kept pushing and the reality is that this group never gives up. We are all angry with the result but I cannot be angry with this team, they are trying everything.” I don’t think he’s being very honest with us there. If this was maximum effort, I’d hate to see what minimum looked like.

The performance was summed up perfectly by the two goals conceded. Yang Min-Hyeok, a teenage boy from the other side of the world sent by Tottenham to learn his trade and make his naïve mistakes on our time while players we own and will be here next season sit on the bench, made exactly the same error for the first goal here as he had for Sheff Utd’s opener last week. Initially a nice turn into space down the wing, but then too much pisballing about when the situation required lines to be cleared into the channel and the team to get back up the pitch. He lost out in a challenge so crunching it left him rather staggering around as if the game had been stopped – a boy lost in a man’s world. Boro calmly exposed Jimmy Dunne and slung over a cross for Tommy Conway to tap in unmarked.

None of that is good enough really, and it wasn’t even the worst goal Rangers conceded on the night. Anfernee Dijksteel picking the ball up wide on the flank and setting sail on a longitudinal journey from right to left, that should have seen him opposed and tackled on three or four different occasions, ended with him rolling the ball into the corner of the net completely unchallenged. Paal, for the second game in a row, pretty atrocious defending that side of the field. If you could put the first down to naivety it was difficult to make any excuse for the second. That’s just piss weak. That’s just you can’t be bothered.

The second reason Middlesbrough was worse than West Brom is the home side really looked there for the taking. They’ve been on their own similar run of poor form of late – seven defeats from eight snapped briefly by narrow wins against poor Stoke and Derby sides, but woeful once again in defeat to managerless Swansea at the weekend. They came into this match with all of the centre backs from their first team, reserve and U21 sides injured. Midfielder Jonny Howson played in there with left back Neto Borges, loaned Villa kid Samuel Iling-Junior made just a second start for the club at left back.

They were still far better than QPR for the most part, no doubt. Conway had a shot deflected marginally over after three minutes – referee David Webb erroneously awarded a goal kick because he was too busy charging over to see the fourth official about something vitally important. Iling-Junior shot just wide from range after six minutes. Azaz curled wide after Ronnie Edwards gave the ball away and had to recover with a big sliding challenge on the edge of the box. Burgzorg shot over a minute later when he should have found the target after Rangers ceded possession again. Paul Nardi made a terrific save from Hayden Hackney three minutes later when Ilias Chair had taken a turn in passing the ball straight to an opponent in a lethal area – Chair bowed out second half with what looked like a potential season-ending hamstring injury. Jack Colback had a nightmare minute in which he gave the ball away and then, in an attempt to recover, deflected a cross away from Edwards who would have cleared with ease –Nardi gathered eventually. A throw in by the corner flag at the far end should have presented Rangers with a chance to load the box, but Jimmy Dunne took it quickly, threw it straight away, and Conway had another deflection go wide on the subsequent counterattack.

Giving. The. Ball. Away. Giving the ball away all of the time. Boro didn’t have to try to get in at us in the final third, we invited them in and laid the table. The monotonous, slow, predictable play out from the back was in full session, and worked once all night – for the chance Paal missed.

However, when QPR did start to play with a modicum of intensity, the fragile confidence of the home side was there for all to see. Smyth and Andersen were both big upgrades on Chair and Min-Hyeok from the bench. Andersen had that shot well saved by Travers and then delivered the subsequent corner to the back post for Jimmy Dunne to head down and Steve Cook to slide in his first of the season – a club record 22nd different scorer for the R’s including own goals. Smyth’s long throw, Dunne’s flick and Nardi’s miss was one of those oh-so-nearly moments we’d have talked about for years. Akin to Seny Dieng’s club-first goal from a goalkeeper to snatch a 2-2 at nearby Sunderland a couple of years back, it would have been daylight robbery, but incredibly funny and one of those moments that reaffirm why you spend so much of your life traipsing round to games like this.

More relevant to the point I’m making here, though, is it showed just what was there for us last night if we’d played properly, with a modicum of intent and intensity. Boro tore into Rangers at Loftus Road, the best opposition performance we’ve faced, but they’re ravaged by absenteeism and only four starters survived from that game. It’s a different Michael Carrick side we faced here, one without a recognised defence, playing a style that really should have suited us. For 80 minutes it looked like we couldn’t really be bothered with the whole thing and then as soon as we were we scored one and could easily have had a second. They looked extremely nervous, if not completely panicked, through the closing stages and the crowd begged Webb to blow the final whistle through stoppage time. We looked better in a back three with Edwards pushed forward, we looked better with Smyth out wide instead of a kid on loan from Spurs. Rangers almost took a point with what was a fairly insipid, uninterested performance. Imagine what they could have done if they’d even managed to go at 70/80% of their true selves for the majority of this game.

That’s difficult to take for those of us who do these long slogs to the Middlesbroughs and Hulls of this world on Tuesday nights. Nobody makes us do it, nobody forces us, and QPR have shown multiple times over decades now that it’s largely a waste of time football wise so to start clutching pearls and acting all shocked and talking about deserving better can come across a bit self-righteous sometimes – though that is definitely how I felt this morning.

In general though, even if you weren’t mad enough to make this journey, or even watch it on TV back home, but care about QPR and want the club to progress, then there have been concerning signs for the future direction of the club this week. A team and manager happy to just bang away trying the same thing that hasn’t worked multiple times before at West Brom, and then feeling emboldened and empowered enough to just toss one off at Middlesbrough on the Tuesday.

I get the challenging budget we’re working on - I write about it all the time. I’m not blind to the injuries and absentees Cifuentes is having to cope with, which once again seem to be striking all at one in the same position – centre backs at Christmas, strikers now. I’m aware we’re not engaged in a fair fight in these away games against one side that loaned in Adam Armstrong in January and another that brought £7m January acquisition Morgan Whittaker off the bench second half. I said March would be difficult, and it is. Sometimes in searching for reasons and analysing these games and results to death you ignore the most obvious answer which is QPR aren’t very good, and are currently losing to better sides. It’s important not to overreact – end of season, little to play for, lots of players out of contract. Yadda yadda, etc etc, mitigation all over the place. But we have to aspire to and expect better of ourselves as a club and a team if we’re ever to get anywhere. It’s about standards.

Too often, under too many managers, with too many different groups of players, we have phoned in performances like this. Nobody has been able to cure this club of its propensity to just chuck out a six-game losing streak: this season already we’ve had a sequence of 13 games with no win; last season we had separate spells of 12 and eight without a win which included six losses in a row at one stage; the season before we had separate spells where we went six, eight and 13 games without a win; in 21/22 a run of five defeats in six and seven in eight; in 20/21 separate winless runs of seven and ten; in 19/20 two separate losing spells that lasted seven games including one straight out of lockdown when in touch with the play-offs; Steve McClaren had losing runs of seven and nine the year before; Ian Holloway had a seven match winless run followed by one of six in his last season here and in the one before three different spells where the team lost six in a row.

Far too often we put a good run of results together, we climb the table to the dizzying heights of 11thish, we dare to look up and start wondering about play-off potential, and then they put the cue on the rack, clock off, and lose every game for six weeks. It’s part of the culture of this team and this club. And it was writ large across them for most of last night.

We face many logistical challenges competing at this level, but sometimes it’s about mentality. And for a really thick hour on Tuesday night the mentality was nowhere near where it needed to be.

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

Boro: Travers 7; Dijksteel 7, Howson 6, Borges 7, Iling-Junior 6; Morris 6, Hackney 7; Burgzorg 6 (Barlaser 89, -), Conway 7 (Forss 77, 6), Azaz 7 (Giles 90+1, -); Iheanacho 5 (Whittaker 77, 6)

Subs not used: Glover, McCabe, McCormick, Palmer, Woolston

Goals: Conway 11 (assisted Azaz), Dijksteel 58 (assisted Morris)

QPR: Nardi 5; Dunne 5, Cook 5, Edwards 5, Paal 4; Morgan 4, Colback 4 (Andersen 66, 6); Min-Hyeok 4 (Smyth 46, 6), Chair 5 (Dembele 55, 5), Saito 5 (Madsen 78, 5); Frey 4 (Fox 66, 6)

Subs not used: Ashby, Dembele, Bennie, Walsh

Goals: Cook 80 (assisted Dunne)

QPR Star Man – Lucas Andersen 6 Hit a shot on target requiring the goalkeeper to make a save. Delivered a corner that didn’t hit the defender at the near post. In the land of the bald the Dane with the flaxen hair is king.

Referee – David Webb (Durham) 5 A game so wholly uncompetitive all he really had to do was adjudicate whose throw it was, or whether this is a goal kick or a corner. Made heavy weather of these tasks.

Attendance 22,177 (391 QPR) You thought the grown man with the drum at West Brom was bad, this lot of have got somebody with a genuine, bona fide megaphone. Intervention required.

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Pictures - Reuters Connect

QPR_Hibs added 19:14 - Mar 12 Lucas is back! Well, maybe.
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stowmarketrange added 19:44 - Mar 12 One day we might put in a performance to shut up the fat kids with drums and their adolescent f@ckwit friends.Last night was another opportunity wasted,and the 10 singers became at least 100 once they scored their 2nd goal. You should’ve joined me and Declen in the spoons if you wanted to drown your sorrows until closing time. Unfortunately most of our fans could see what was coming after the 1st goal and lost interest in supporting the team until the 80th minute.

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Burnleyhoop added 21:14 - Mar 12 Marti keeps banging on about instilling a winning mentality into this group of players. I think he needs to bang a bit harder and a lot faster as it clearly isn’t sinking in. Anderson, Dembele and Smyth to replace the current incumbents supporting whoever might be available to “lead” our line up front, would be my shout for the not so infamous sixth loss in a row on Saturday. This wheels falling off the wagon malarkey really needs sorting out once and for all, as it is becoming seriously tiresome.

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derbyhoop added 21:16 - Mar 12 Spot on. If we'd shown as much intensity in the first 75 as we did in the last 10, we'd have come away with a point. Or three.
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062259 added 22:10 - Mar 12 slumping
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LazyFan added 01:45 - Mar 13 Marogan should get a 5, as he had to run around after Colback a lot. Yang should get a 3, did nothing but help Boro score by making the same mistake as before. So, he's not learned. Frey held the ball up well, despite being on his own. To the extent that sometimes he had to turn and try and run at them. He should get a 5. Chair should get a 4 for hanging onto the ball deep when they only had 10 men; that's really poor. Madesn was worse than plodding about, he actually hid in the last third, despite being bought as a creative player against 10 men, he should get a 3.

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Northernr added 08:32 - Mar 13 Ah yes, the ratings. Always the ratings.
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gazza1 added 09:47 - Mar 13 1 - Whilst our loan player lost the ball (tried hard to win it back), our hero Dunne was so far out of position he did not get anywhere near the winger. Dunne should hold his hands up - his error 100% 2 - Our non hero Paal, was watching his winger and therefore should not be put to blame for the 2nd. Go for the man with the ball and leave his winger he would have been at fault if the ball was played to the winger and hit the goal line.

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