Rangers crashed out of the League Cup at the first hurdle, losing 3-0 to Northampton. X-rated match report.

We shouldn't have bothered really, we should have seen this coming. Rangers recent record in cup competitions, the first round of this one in particular, is pathetic and embarrassing as it is but last night we faced a Northampton side we just can't beat under any circumstances, containing one of our worst post war players who you just knew would score, in a match refereed by a man with a chip on his shoulder almost as big as his gut when it comes to QPR. The chances of us winning, even before a severely weakened team was announced, were slim at best.

Purely by chance I arrived at the ground at the same time as the team and watched them get off the bus. There was a good squad there, Paul Furlong, Kevin Gallen, Marc Bircham, Matthew Rose and Marcus Bignot all present. Sure we had injuries but we looked like we could still field a half decent, experienced line up. Not so. By the time the team emerged from the tunnel it had "experimental" written all over it. New players, in a bizarre new formation, and none of them seemed to give a toss whether they stayed in the cup or not.

Royce was in goal behind a new look back four of Ukah, Evatt, Shimmin and Milanese. Just one full appearance for Rangers and two subs between them. The midfield was a hotch potch mess. Marcus Bean and Marc Bircham seemed to be playing a holding role with Gallen, Brown and Miller playing as attacking midfielders behind the lone striker Stefan Moore. There were so many issues with this I don't know where to begin. Why, against a team from two division's lower who've made a crap start to their season do we need four defenders and two defensive midfielders? And why was Stefan Moore, who is a quick, pacey lad who enjoys feeding off a target man, played up front by himself? Former Watford man Sean Dyche beat him black and blue from first to last. The poor kid didn't stand a chance.

Rangers forced the first half chance after ten minutes. Ukah up from the back headed Millanese's well flighted free kick across goal but Mark Bunn the Northampton keeper claimed comfortably. Soon Rangers were being pegged back at the other end. Dominic Shimmin collected the ball and used some tremendous skill to glide past McGleish, only to then pass the ball 10 yards straight to the nearest Northampton player, the ball was immediately planted back into the penalty area where McGliesh headed against the post. Luckily the flag had long been raised for offside but it was still an alarming passage of play.

Andy Hall, the man who sent off both Clarke Carlisle and Stephen Kelly against Crewe at Loftus Road in 2003, and awarded Preston 2 penalties in thirty seconds at Deepdale last season, was quickly into his anti-QPR groove once again. A superb challenge from Miller, the only decent ball winning effort any of the midfielders put in all night, was bizarrely penalised and even more ridiculously booked by the pug faced idiot from the West Midlands. Miller went for the ball, from the front, with one foot and won it cleanly. The decision was a pathetic one.

Rangers inexperienced back line were suffering from communication problems right from the kick off. Countless times Ukah and Shimmin played a to me, to you routine with the midfield, which often resulted in a Northampton player with the whiff of a cup upset in his nostrils pinching the ball from between two dallying QPR players.

The chaos wasn't helped by Simon Royce who seemed wholly uncomfortable with the boundaries of his penalty area, rushing out to head the ball when the defender had it covered, or staying at home and doing nothing when he was really struggling.

This all came to a head in the twenty ninth minute. A hopeful long ball over the top by David Hunt tried to set Andy Kirk away behind the Rangers defence. Ukah looked over his shoulder and, apparently happy with the flight of the ball, continued to run alongside Kirk. For reasons known only to himself Royce decided to come charging out of his box so when the ball hit Ukah on the back of the head Kirk was left with a simple task of just lifting the ball into the empty net. The defending for this was nothing short of shambolic.

Rangers seemed to adapt to a more orthodox four, four, two thereafter but the attack still offered all the penetration of a blunt wooden spoon.

Kirk came racing through on goal again three minutes later, the defence miles away from anybody. Royce successfully cleared with a header this time.

Marcus Bean found himself entering Mr Hall's infamous notebook after an innocuous shoulder charge sent Kirk sprawling to the ground on halfway. It was a free kick at worst, not a booking. This is a contact sport for heaven's sake.

Finally, thirty four minutes into the contest, Rangers created their first real genuine chance. After a succession of crosses straight to Bunn in the Northampton goal Shimmin managed to put in a decent one which found Gallen on the edge of the six yard box. He controlled the ball superbly and turned to shoot only to find his route to goal blocked by Dyche. The ball bobbled loose and after an intense scramble in the goal mouth Bunn was able to dive on the loose ball and neutralise the danger. It was a let off for Northampton, but had Rangers scored it would have been harsh on their hosts.

Rangers were buoyed by this though and started to come into the cup tie for the first time. The first corner of the evening was headed goalwards by the unmarked Milanese at the back post, his effort though was comfortably headed off the line. Gallen saw another speculative effort blocked and a flicker of hope that perhaps Rangers did want to win the game after all emerged among the sizable Rangers support.

That was quickly extinguished again. Just as the curse of Northampton seemed to be fading, and with Eric Sabin keeping his "old boy always scores against us" jinx on the substitutes bench the third of Rangers' old enemies reared his ugly head to kill off all hope of a comeback. After advertising two minutes of stoppage time Mr Hall saw fit to play four and this allowed another long ball from the back to cause confusion in the Rangers defence. Ukah and Evatt were being pressured by Kirk but they seemed content to let the ball drift back to the dithering Royce.

Kirk had other ideas though, grabbing hold of Evatt's shirt and yanking the defender back. There followed a brief wrestling match between the two and with that they both crashed to the ground. Mr Hall, being the fat, useless, unfit, lazy piece of dog turd that he is, was a good forty or fifty yards behind the play - it's understandable really, running with that belly flopping around must be seriously difficult. He looked to his linesman for guidance who fortunately seemed to shake his head and signal play on. That's not what Mr Hall saw though, he immediately blew up for a foul and quick as a flash Evatt was off.

The linesman, realising that the sour faced chump of a referee was about to make him look incompetent then raised the flag (after the whistle had gone) in a pathetic attempt to make it look like he was in agreement. Hall couldn't get the red card out quick enough. He brandished it triumphantly in Evatt's face as if it was something he'd waited his whole miserable life to do. Kevin Gallen's protests were met with a beaming smile and as the QPR fans who'd paid good money to come to the game saw their night ruined by this tosser for the third time in as many seasons; you just knew their anguished cries of "cheat, cheat, cheat" were music to Hall's ears.

The free kick came to nothing and finally, after two minutes and thirty seconds of extra injury time on top of the advertised two minutes, Mr Hall triumphantly signalled half time. Northampton 1 QPR 0, QPR up by three yellow cards to nil, Rangers forced to play the whole second half a man light. Job done as far as he was concerned. I'm sure the pleasure of it all meant he had to go have a lie down at half time.

Holloway introduced Marcus Bignot at half time, withdrawing the ineffective Aaron Brown and shifting Ukah to centre half alongside Shimmin. Evatt had been one of our best players up to the sending off, and the defence still looked awful, so there was a certain sense of dread in the away end as to what would happen now he'd been forced from the field.

The start to the second half was scrappy at best. Rangers created absolutely nothing with their ten men, but Northampton were struggling for chances too. As I had to stay to the end regardless of what happened, so I could write this report today, I just sat there and hoped that Northampton wouldn't get a second and kill the game off totally!

Holloway introduced youngster Shabazz Baidoo in an effort to force an equaliser, he replaced Marc Bircham. The problem was the attack still had no focal point. We cannot play without one of Furlong of Nygaard up there, especially away from home. Baidoo ran around a lot, showed some terrific skill and tried his best but he was constantly overpowered by a strong Cobblers' backline and often lacked support from anybody but Stefan Moore when he got into the killer position.

This was highlighted when a world class cross from Marcus Bignot zipped along the six yard box, cutting the defenders and keeper out of the equation totally. Baidoo made a desperate dive to try and convert the chance but he was the only Rangers player in the box and the chance passed.

An hour in and the home side did get that dreaded, but thoroughly deserved, second goal. Former Oldham man Josh Low swung the ball over from the right flank after picking it up from a throw in. Scott McGliesh was left totally unmarked in the area and could have brought it down had he wanted to. Instead he set about executing an ambitious overhead kick. He miscued the effort badly, and the Northampton fans groaned and settled back into their seats. Agonisingly however the ball bounced twice and nestled into the bottom corner with Royce just standing and watching. I'll never know how the jammy sod managed to score that one! A real striker's effort you could say!

The away end was starting to empty out already as Northampton cranked up the heat. Josh Low scrambled the ball in off the post with another mishit bicycle kick but he'd already been flagged offside and the goal was ruled out.

Northampton boss Colin Calderwood increased Rangers torment by introducing Eric Sabin, who spent a brief and unhappy spell at QPR the season before last. Sabin was quick, but nothing else. In fact he was utterly useless during his six months at Loftus Road. A long standing joke.

Typically he came on to face his former team mates for the first time and looked like a bloody world beater. A header at the back post from another Josh Low cross was heading straight for the net but struck his team mate and stayed out. He then headed narrowly wide from a corner and Royce had to be alert to claim Dyche's header from a corner under his cross bar.

Sabin even had the temerity to rattle the inside of Royce's post with an effort from the edge of the penalty area. At QPR he couldn't find his arse with both hands and yet here he was launching dangerous twenty yard efforts on goal!

In stoppage time at the end of the game Sabin finally got his goal. The Frenchman danced his way into the penalty area and then fell dramatically under meagre contact from Ukah. Hall, who'd had a quiet second half by his atrocious standard., seized his moment with glee and pointed straight to the spot. Hell I'm sure it crossed his mind whether he'd be allowed to take the penalty himself and really fulfil a twisted fantasy. True to his comic stylings though hall only gave Ukah a yellow card despite him being the last man. Nothing like a bit on consistency.

It was left to Sabin to wait patiently while Royce dived out of his way and then roll the ball gently into the back of the net.

At the end of the match only Marcus Bignot even acknowledged the Rangers support, or what was left of it. Not only had we paid a hell of a lot of money to be embarrassed by our team, we'd stayed to the end and those that had at least deserved something more than one substitute full back thanking us for our support. Gallen, Miller, Shimmin and others couldn't get down the tunnel quick enough. For shame.

Northampton: Bunn 7, Crowe 7, Chambers 7, Taylor 7, Kirk 9 (Dudfield 80, 7) McGliesh 9 (Sabin 72, 8) Low 8 (Gilligan 84, - ) Jess 8, Hunt 8, Dyche 9, Bojic 8.
Subs not used: Harper Galbraith.

Scorers - Kirk 29, McGliesh 63, Sabin (pen) 90 +1

Booked - You're joking right?

Rangers: Royce 3, Ukah 2, Millanese 5, Shimmin 4, Evatt 6, Bircham 6, (Baidoo 58, 6) Bean 4 , Miller 3, Brown 4 (Bignot 46, 6) Gallen 6, Moore 6.
Subs not used: Cole, Hislop, Bailey.

Scorers - *tumbleweed drift by for the sixth successive away game.

Booked - Miller, Bean, Moore, Ukah.

Sent Off - Evatt

Attendance - 4537 (1164 QPR supporters the team didn't deserve.)

Referee - Andy Hall - 2 - A miserable, ugly, poor excuse for a human being who needs to be banned from coming near a competitive sporting fixture of any kind. I take salvation in the fact that his gross obesity will cause him enough health problems to hopefully retire him early from the game.

Man of the Match - Andy Kirk - 9 - I know normally we have to nominate a QPR player for this, being a QPR website at all, but after 90 minutes of watching their can't be arsed attitude, and then not even being thanked for my support at the end, they can go to hell. Well done to a dominant Northampton side and their lively forward line. If they get a big money spinning home game with a Premiership side in this competition later on it will serve us right.

Photo: Action Images

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