QPR round out this latest wallop of fixtures in the Lancashire and District Senior League with a visit from Stoke, who they lost to twice without scoring last season.

QPR (4-2-3 LDWWLW 8th) v Stoke (3-2-4 DLWDLW 13th)

Lancashire and District Senior League >>> Saturday September 17, 2022 >>> Kick off 15.00 >>> Weather — Bright with a slight chill >>> Loftus Road, London, W12

If you’re looking at league tables at this time of year, you’re an idiot. I’m just getting that out there now before I start doing exactly that over a dozen paragraphs under the get-out clause of these bloody previews not writing themselves. At the end of January if you looked at the form and the league table you’d have had QPR best placed of the chasers trying to challenge Bournemouth, and in the end we struggled to even finish in the top half at the end of the sport’s most traumatic finding your own arse with both hands failure of sometime.

Nevertheless… The midweek win at Millwall means that we’re now tracking ahead of where we were at the same point last season. This “thin” squad that’s “miles short” and “needs three or four more at least” and “could get sucked in if we’re not careful” and “sign a fucking striker” has two more points after nine games than it did a year ago when we were all poncing around at the seaside singing “two one down, who gives a fuck, we’re QPR and we’re going up”. What does this mean? Well, nothing at all. This time last year the only reason winless Nottingham Forest weren’t bottom is because Derby had a bazillion points deducted, and look how that ended up going for them. Lose to Stoke tomorrow and we’re tracking behind again. I do find it interesting though, comparing my own mood and expectation of 12 months ago, and that of the support base as a whole, with how we’re all feeling about life and QPR now.

Mick Beale says his QPR is still working out what sort of a team it wants to be, and that remains the case after the impressive performance and result at The Den. Look, we played very well on Wednesday night, certainly the most complete performance across 90 minutes under this manager — an old school QPR fan I sit near caught me on the stairs at the end and described it as a “proper performance” and it absolutely was. Millwall were rotten though. Beale also talks about the perils of being “result happy” and prior to Wednesday we’d lost 1-0 to an equally dire Swansea side and had as many 1-0 defeats to our name as we did high scoring wins. Lose tomorrow and we’re all back down in the dumps again with Bristol City A, Sheff Utd A and Luton A waiting for us on the other side of the break. It’s important not to get carried away and start reaching judgements one way or the other about this team or manager for, literally, months yet.

The team has changed system and manager, but much of it remains the same. Seny Dieng, Rob Dickie, Jimmy Dunne, Stefan Johansen, Sam Field, Andre Dozzell, Chris Willock, Ilias Chair and Lyndon Dykes were the team last year, and have been again so far this — nine of 11 players. Jake Clarke-Salter will be the first name on the team sheet when he’s fit again, Beale has made that much clear. Luke Amos will play when fit more often than not. Tyler Roberts started in front of Dykes during the week, Taylor Richards still has to regain fitness. So there is more tinkering to be done. For now though it’s the bulk of the same team. I much prefer this front foot style we’ve adopted and the way we’re attacking, as opposed to the dirge of the back half of last season, but Mark Warburton’s team played like that when he first arrived too — Chair, Eze and Bright playing off Wells and Hugill in some games, a frightening prospect.

There are two key differences, one for and one against, at this point. The huge positive is the impact our full backs are making. Adam Thornton, the Glasgow Rangers fan whose book on the Gerrard/Beale revolution at his club is out this week and might be worth a score of your money, told our Patreon in the summer the wide players in the back four would be pivotal to our play and laughed when I said “we don’t have any of those” after the release of Lee Wallace and Moses Odubajo. I think, at Watford and again during the week, we’re really starting to see what he meant. Paal, after a nervous start, is excelling. Ethan Laird is off the charts good, I can’t believe he’s here — with all my usual caveats about dead money and kicking the can down the road that comes with loan signings. That’s a huge improvement on the team previously, which was always better when Wallace or Sam McCallum were fit but neither of them were very often.

We are weaker in the striker position. Both regular readers will know I wasn’t a fan of Andre Gray, partly because of some of the bits I heard about what was going on off field around him, but mainly because his impressive goals-per-minute ratio rather masked the amount of really important, really easy chances he missed for us at key points when, even with everything falling apart, the season could still have been rescued — he should have put us 2-0 up at home to both Cardiff and Peterborough for example. All very well banging one in at Swansea on the last day when you’ve done that. Charlie Austin’s signing didn’t work out as any of us wanted. All the same, Dykes, Austin and Gray is undoubtedly stronger than Dykes, Dykes, and perhaps Tyler Roberts. The former Leeds man missed most of pre-season, and just can’t shrug off niggling injuries since he’s been here so I’m giving him a pass, but that new signing bounce has rubbed off in his recent displays — a weirdly aggy and temperamental outing in a free hit off the bench in a game we’d already won v Hull, and then Wednesday where I really wanted him to put himself about a bit more — so I want to see improvements there. Dykes, meanwhile, did quite a useful job of battering people while protecting a lead at The Den, but looks shot to shit rags in front of goal. So I think we’re almost certainly weaker there.

One solution to that is spreading the goals around. I’ve always said the 20-goal-a-season striker everybody craves is a bit of a myth. Swansea had one last season and finished bottom half. QPR have won three promotions in my time following them and didn’t have one in any of those teams — Taarabt got to 19, Austin went past 20 with two in the play-off semi-finals, so I’m being a bit obtuse but it’s Friday night and I’m going with it. The last time a striker got 20 goals in a season for us it was Andy Thomson and the team fell well short of the top six. Spreading the goals around — Gallen, Furlong, Rowlands, Ainsworth all made double figures in 2003/04 — is much more effective, because it stops a player being marked out of the game, and protects you against injury. Eight players have scored for us so far, the best total in the division, and with Johansen’s goal at The Den we now have that precious goal from a central midfielder. That has to improve on last year, where Amos got six but Field, Dozzell, Johansen and Ball managed a pathetic two between them, so the second on Wednesday is a really good sign. Johansen’s all round performances of late are much more like his loan spell than his permanent one to date too.

I’m intrigued to see how we go tomorrow. We lost twice to nil against a Stoke side that finished fourteenth in 2021/22. The away game was right at the sorry end of our complete collapse, but the home match was won rather easily by the Potters at a time when we were meant to be good. That afternoon was the first time a bit of the sheen started coming off the team in my mind — a pathetic missed penalty from QPR’s king of the goals Charlie Austin a bit of a microcosm of the whole afternoon for me. Stoke winning 2-0 at a canter. Maybe, maybe, we’re not as good as we thought? It turned out to be so.

Three of the more difficult away games on the calendar this year await on the other side of an international break, so starting to string decent performances and results together in a sequence rather than just producing them randomly every now and again would be very welcome in W12 tomorrow afternoon.

Links >>> Neil bedding in — Interview >>> Back in 75 — History >>> Donohue in charge — Referee >>> Stoke City official website >>> Stoke Sentinel — Local press >>> The Oatcake — Message Board >>> The Wizards of Drivel — Podcast >>> Every Step Along The Way — Podcast

Below the fold

Team News: After a 2-0 away win, and three wins from four games, an unchanged team would probably be the order of the day for QPR, particularly with a fortnight break coming up immediately after this game. However, a swift turnaround from a Wednesday game and issues like Leon Balogun doing 90 minutes on what was his first game since May and after no formal pre-season might affect that thinking. Beale was critical of himself for not rotating a little bit at Swansea away after a good result in the midweek there, and he has Luke Amos and Son of Beale Jake Clarke-Salter back in some sort of contention for the Stoke visit. Tyler Roberts starting as the lone striker and Lyndon Dykes going to the bench saw Sinclair Armstrong drop out altogether, and the thinking seems to be he’s going to get some more U21 and B Team action under his belt after his initial impact off the bench waned very slightly in South Wales. Rob Dickie is still lost in the woods. Taylor Richards is a figment of your imagination.

Josh Tymon was meant to be out for up to ten weeks after picking up an injury in the defeat at Huddersfield on August 13, but made a surprise and unbilled return to the starting line-up at Hull exactly a month later during the week and did 72 minutes. After a 3-0 win there Alex Neil would like to name an unchanged team for this match — Nick Powell only got 11 minutes from the bench on his latest injury comeback, and Tyrese Campbell is sidelined — but that presumably depends on how Tymon pulled up after the midweeker.

Elsewhere: All 12 games on a Saturday. My word. It’s sent Sky into such convulsions that they’ve gone out of their way to be as cruel as they can and given Hullspor a 12.30 kick off at Swanselona, and they’re making Boro host Rotherham at 19.45 on a Saturday night.

Interesting games those. Russell Martin’s laudable attempts to win games by completing passes inside your own penalty box suffered another heartbreaking injury time defeat to Sheffield Red Stripe during the week — the fourth goal the Swans have conceded in stoppage time already this season at a loss of five points. Hull, meanwhile, seemed to have put together a very handy side on a summer splurge, but are already carrying a dozen injuries and having capitulated at Loftus Road last week then did so again against Stoke on Tuesday evening. Boro, meanwhile, are really labouring under the annual millstone of being LFW’s tip for the title, 3-0 down before they got going against Cardiff during the week just as they had been in W12, while Rotherham, who we tipped for the drop, are going absolutely great guns with a big midweek win over Blackpool has lifted them to the dizzying heights of ninth. I wonder about that game, you know. I’d avoid it on your coupon.

Ten games sandwiched inbetween so let’s rattle through these shall we. Steve Bruce. My God man. How is he still in that job at West Brom. A Scott Hogan hat trick saw them beaten at home by Birmingham in the week, far more comfortably than the 3-2 scoreline suggests with the second Baggies goal only courtesy of a late penalty, and they’re now rocking around in twentieth on the fledgling league table. It is, of course, unfair of the fans to be getting on his back quite as much as it is, apparently — just like it was at Sunderland, and Newcastle, and Villa. Every single pre-season preview, while overrating West Brom’s chances purely because they’d signed Swift and Wallace, said the caveat was a Steve Bruce tax on their points totals. And still he’s there. Norwich away tomorrow doesn’t look like yielding a terrific amount of improvement on their prospects.

Pressure, too, probably starting to crank up a little bit on Gary Rowett after the Marxist Hunters’ woeful no-show against our good selves at The Den on Wednesday — Blackpool at home about as kind a fixture as you could wish for in the circumstances but they’ll have to be ten million times better than they were against us to make it pay. Watford Rich who does the oppo previews for us when we play them said, with a straight face, at work this week that a defeat this weekend at home to Sunderland could see Rob Edwards bulleted from Vicarage Road already, which would be about the most Watford thing they’ve done since the last time they did it. Wouldn’t want to be playing Sunderland at the moment in the mood they were in at Reading in the week — third goal a work of outstanding natural beauty. They’ve actually kicked on post Alex Neil rather than wallowing, and look a really dangerous side at the moment.

Lutown are still without a home win after five attempts, though Kyle McFadzean being allowed to dive full length and make a two handed save from a goal bound shot in their midweek draw with Cov was perhaps a bit much even for Championship referees. Nathan Jones took it all in good spirits as you would expect. They try again against Blackburn, who are showing how far you can get in this cesspit by never drawing a match, while Preston, who are doing the opposite, host Sheffield Red Stripe. Cov meanwhile go looking for their first win, again, at Birmingham. Huddersfield’s caretaker manager Narcissistic Pelach starts life at home to Cardiff, Burnley v Bristol City is this week’s exciting fixture between two teams beginning with B, and please Dear God Almighty are Reading finally starting to be found out a bit after 4-0 and 3-0 losses — prayers to be answered, pretty please, by Wigan Warriors.

That’s it isn’t it? I think. Yes. Good. Two weeks off.

Referee: Matt Donohue from Manchester is in the middle for this one, hist first QPR game since our 2-1 win at Birmingham at the turn of the year. Details.

Form

QPR: Rangers have won three of their last four games having only won three of the previous 16. The clean sheet at The Den on Wednesday night was their first in 10 games this season, and only the third shut out they’ve managed in 29 matches going back to the 4-0 win against Reading at the end of January. Chris Willock’s goal was his fifth in six starts in the league, putting him joint third in the Championship goalscoring stakes. And yes QPR have still never lost on any of the 15 occasions he's scored for us — W12 D3. It was also the seventh goal Rangers have scored from outside the box so far, more than any of the clubs across all our divisions. Six of Ilias Chair’s last eight goals have come from outside the box. Stefan Johansen is the eighth different player to score for the R’s this season, more than any other team in the division (who needs strikers?). Stoke only won two of their first 15 trips to Loftus Road but have fared rather better here of late — they won both fixtures between the two last season to nil and have W2 D3 L1 of their last six visits to W12.

Stoke: DLWDLW. Stoke’s form is like knitting fog. They’ve won three games so far in the Championship, but that includes two of their last three away from home at Blackburn and Hull either side of a 2-1 setback at Reading. They’ve lost one of four games since Alex Neil was appointed manager. What is consistent, and has been since he arrived, is Lewis Baker scoring goals from midfield. Four in nine league games this season after a brace at Hull on Tuesday night, 12 in 29 league games since he arrived on a perm from Chelsea in January. Jon Walters’ three goals against QPR in a 3-1 Premier League win in January 2015 is the last hat trick scored by a Stoke player in a league game — 321 games and 2786 days ago. Nick Powell has failed to score in nine games against QPR, and has lost to them more than any other club in his career (six) - hat tip to the Every Step Along The Way Podcast (enjoyed the episode this week lads) for those two. Morgan Fox has only scored six goals in his entire career (264 games) but two of those are against QPR. He hasn’t scored for Stoke yet in 40 appearances so far.

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 full of confidence after Millwall. First goal scorer is getting easier now. Its either going to be Willock or Chair. (Can't bring myself to say Illy and Willy).”

Cheesy’s Prediction: QPR 2-0 Stoke. Scorer — Chris Willock

LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 Stoke. Scorer — Chris Willock

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Andybrat added 19:53 - Sep 16 Superstitious prediction Clive?
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TacticalR added 22:29 - Sep 16 Thanks for your preview. That's an interesting point that the team hasn't changed as much as we think it has. In terms of expectations, one big difference between this time last year and now, is that we went into the beginning of last season on a good run of half a season, whereas we went into this season on a bad run of half a season. Yes, our striking options look very limited. Normally if goals don't come from the strikers they have to come from midfield. When Smith and Washington weren't scoring we had to rely on goals from Scowen, Luongo, Robinson, Smyth and Manning. This is still true, although in Willock we now have much more reliable scorer from midfield. However, the full backs have given us something extra - an alternative method of attack. If they provide decent balls cut back into the box that means anyone can score. If Dykes could get going that would be a big bonus. Sounds like Baker is the danger man for Stoke.

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