QPR and Barnsley drew a blank in a dire, wind affected encounter at Oakwell on Tuesday night.

When message board regular Swiss Cottage produced a book from his inside pocket to read at half time I couldn’t help but wonder why on earth he hadn’t fished it out sooner. It looked a whole lot more interesting than the turgid excuse for football served up on a blustery night in South Yorkshire.

On a pitch seemingly only recently cleared of a large amount of livestock and in a wind only the drunkest of airline pilots would attempt a landing in QPR and Barnsley contrived to serve up one of the worst games of football it’s ever been my misfortune to see – gleefully smashing the ball backwards and forwards between themselves for what seemed like hours with no apparent pattern to the play, desire to keep possession or drive to win the match. An advert for the Championship this most certainly was not.

At least with twenty minutes to go Barnsley gave up on the pretence of trying to play any kind of football, bunged Odejayi on up front and started launching long balls down the field with purpose rather than the aimless punts they’d been half heartedly sending up there to that point. Rangers continued to try and keep up the illusion of being a proper football team – with Hall, Connolly, Rowlands and Balanta they had just enough quality to pose a threat and stay in the game, but with Leigertwood at the heart of the midfield, Buzsaky criminally wasted on the wing again and Blackstock up front there were just too many passengers in the side for us to ever seriously look like winning the game.

Ultimately both sides, with one outstanding player each, settled for a bore draw.

After a lacklustre performance against Sheff Utd on Saturday De Canio made changes to his line up again. Out went Rowan Vine who looked very out of touch against the Blades and in came Dexter Blackstock alongside Agyemang up front. In midfield Buzsaky was back from his ban, but again played wide on the flank, Balanta kept his place ahead of Ephraim who dropped to the bench, Leigertwood and Rowlands continued in the middle with Mahon not fit enough to travel. At the back Mancienne, Connolly, Hall and Delaney lined up for the second game running in front of Camp which was good to see.

Barnsley, fresh from beating Liverpool 2-1 at Anfield in the FA Cup, were without Danny Nardiello who wasn’t allowed to play against QPR under the terms of his loan agreement. Simon Davey’s men lost 1-0 at Norwich at the weekend and he made three changes to the side as a result – Campbell Ryce, Van Homoet and Nyatanga came in for Kozluk, De Silva and Leon. Those three were probably Barnsley’s best players on the night so it could be said that the changes worked, however Leon was excellent at Loftus Road, and when he came on in the second half so I’m quite pleased he didn’t start the game.

The Tykes were terrible in the first fixture between these two this season - one of the worst teams to visit Loftus Road so far - but with only two defeats at home all season, and a win against high flying West Brom a fresh notch on the Oakwell bed post, they’re a difficult outfit to beat on their own soil.

The teams emerged into the bitingly cold wind to the sound of the 1980s electro keyboard number that Barnsley have used, hysterically, for a number of years now. Nothing revs you up for a match quite like a bit of camp techno in a half empty, half finished, wind lashed northern hole in the ground. Still QPR started pretty brightly forcing two corners in the opening couple of minutes; sadly they were both cleared easily by the man at the front post. Barnsley’s first chance came in the sixth minute when Howard sprung a creaky looking offside trap only to see a low drive saved by Camp. From the resulting corner Howard whipped the ball in right under the cross bar and Camp did well to claw it away from the goal under huge pressure from Ferenczi in the swirling wind.

The Hungarian striker is very good at his job when it comes to bullying the goalkeeper from corners. With referee Eddie Ilderton choosing to stand 30 yards away from the goal and peer through the gloom to try and catch a glimpse of things going on as corners were delivered he was pretty much allowed free reign to do what he liked to Camp as the ball was whipped in. It’s to our keeper’s credit that they didn’t score from one of these situations because it’s when they looked most threatening.

Ferenczi isn’t so hot when it comes to finishing though it seems. He missed one of the chances of the match a little over ten minutes in when Lee Camp came right to the edge of his area to try and pick up a through ball only to see it toed out of his grasp by the Barnsley man. With the goal gaping Ferenczi took an eternity to get a shot away which allowed Fitz Hall to make it back and rescue Rangers with a composed slide and goal line clearance.

If the home fans thought that was a sitter they couldn’t believe their eyes on the half hour as he missed an even better chance. From a QPR corner Damien Delaney somehow got caught down field in the right wing position and with nobody thinking to cover the left back slot Jamal Campbell-Ryce had all the time and space he needed to pick out the perfect cross to the back post where Ferenczi inexplicably headed against the post from close range. It seemed easier to score.

While QPR were restricted to long range shots in a poor first half display Barnsley continued to threaten and only more superb defending from Matt Connolly denied Jon Macken a clear run on the goal after 20 minutes. At the moment the back four is a real case of four individuals rather than a team. There doesn’t seem to be a leader out there or anybody talking, and they struggle to put together an offside trap together – luckily, as on this occasions, they’re good enough to get back and correct the error. Hopefully the understanding and communication will come with game time together which this four has had precious little of. Their individual, man on man defending is excellent, and Connolly in particular impresses me more and more every time I see him, but when organisation is required for a set piece or an offside trap there doesn't seem to be an understanding or anybody taking charge and leading just at the moment.

QPR’s best chance of the half came five minutes before the break when Angelo Balanta raced onto a through ball from Blackstock, won his foot race with keeper Luke Steele but saw the loan stopper just stretch tall enough to reach up and palm his attempted first time lob away to safety. A less confident, less decisive keeper would have been stranded and the R’s would have been one nil up. That apart, Steele didn’t look quite as a confident and solid as he had done in the big cup upset at Anfield, particularly with his kicking which really suffered in the conditions while Camp’s was almost faultless.

The first half came to a close with Barnsley forcing a free kick and two corners after the allotted two minutes has been played. Now since Bristol City scored against Crystal Palace in the fifth minute of three added I’ve been wondering just when the rule was brought in that you add on stoppage time but you keep playing beyond that if one of the team’s has a corner. You can talk about neutral positions, how much more neutral do you want than a dead ball situation? And how long does it continue for? I mean if Barnsley had just kept winning corners would we still be there now waiting for half time? You play 45 minutes, you add on time for stoppages, and when that’s elapsed you blow the bloody whistle. You don’t just keep playing because one of the teams is attacking. It summed up a pretty dire performance from the match officials who seemed to base the majority of their decisions, particularly with throw ins, on complete guesswork.

Barnsley had been the better team in the first 45 minutes but there was more purpose and direction about QPR right from the off in the second. Within two minutes Martin Rowlands had continued his all action display with a run from midfield and shot from 25 yards that Steele should have held but spilled back out into the penalty area. Blackstock won the race to the loose ball but lifted his shot over the bar into the sparsely populated away end under heavy pressure from two defenders. Steele did better with a similar shot from Rowlands five minutes later as he easily gathered another low drive.

An even better chance was only just around the corner though. Next it was Angelo Balanta’s turn to reflect on what might have been as he rounded Steele after running onto an assist from Patrick Agyemang. His low shot was cleared from the line by Nyatanga in almost identical circumstances to Hall’s goal saving effort in the first half. Balanta looked neat and tidy all night, keeping the ball a lot better than some of his more experienced team mates, and he continues to impress.

As Rangers continued to press the front two could hardly moan about poor service as first Rowlands skipped to the byline and drilled the perfect cross past Steele and all the way through the six yard box with nobody able to touch it a yard forward into the open net. Then Delaney reached the byline and stood a cross up in the six yard box which Agyemang contrived to miss altogether and Blackstock headed over the top. Two superb pieces of play in wide areas not followed up with the killer touch in the penalty area.

It would be fair to say that Dexter Blackstock was not having his best game, a continuation of recent poor form, but I had to laugh at the QPR fans chanting for Rowan Vine’s introduction. Would this be the same Rowan Vine everybody was moaning about not three days ago at Loftus Road? Nothing quite as fickle as football fans sometimes. The other striker we used on the night, Patrick Agyemang, was anonymous in the first half but worked a lot harder in the second and came back into the game. He didn’t get much of a sight of goal on the night but was wrestled back by the throat in the penalty area midway through the half – Ilderton too far away and poorly positioned so didn’t see it. As we’d come to expect of our match official by this stage.

When the R’s did make a change it was Ephraim introduced for Balanta – the former West Ham youngster’s first task was to orchestrate a counter attack down the right culminating in a pass across the face of the penalty area to Akos Buzsaky who, despite being totally unmarked and with two or three options ahead of him, decided to cut back inside and blast a hopeless shot into the away end. Several team mates let him know what they thought of that and it summed up a poor night overall for the Hungarian – wasted wide right in the first half and moved wide left to no effect whatsoever in the second.

Barnsley made a change of their own around the same time – sending on Odejayi for Ferenczi. They’d been playing a lot of long ball to this point anyway but once the former Cheltenham man had joined the attack the hoofing down field was merciless. Only Campbell Ryce actually tried to play in football in the Barnsley side. Odejayi’s best moment came when he controlled a cross field pass wide on the left, eluded Michael Mancienne who foolishly dived in on him instead of staying on his feet, and then bustled into the penalty area only to be held off by the excellent Matt Connolly as Camp claimed low at his feet.

As well as Odejayi Tykes’ manager Simon Davey sent Diego Leon on to play wide left. Leon had been one of only two Barnsley players to stand out at Loftus Road and I was surprised to see him on the bench when the team sheet came in before this match. That surprise only grew as Leon involved himself in the final quarter of an hour with blinding pieces of skill and outrageous play acting in equal measure. After a foul by Martin Rowlands on Leon, which he was lucky to escape a yellow card for, a twenty five yard free kick over the wall brought a fabulous one handed save out of Lee Camp as time continued to tick away in a match increasingly dominated by Barnsley again. Leon should have done better after skipping past Mancienne into the area in the 80th minute but his dipping shot didn’t quite dip enough and flew just too high.

When Rowan Vine did finally come on for Blackstock the tactical changes that accompanied him destroyed QPR as an attacking force. It was good to see Buzsaky move in field but nobody seemed quite sure who was filling in for him wide left and in the end Vine, Agyemang and Buzsaky seemed to share the duties, ultimately getting into a frightful and ineffective mess. Luke Steele could have enjoyed first use of the bath water for all the action he saw in the last ten minutes of the game.

The game looked to be up as we neared stoppage time when Jon Macken got in behind Fitz Hall and raced through on goal – as much as a man with the acceleration of a bulldozer can race anywhere - but Hall got back at him and bundled the ball out of play with a last ditch tackle. The homes fans screamed for a penalty, Ilderton waved the appeals away and awarded a corner. If he did get anything on the ball then Hall deserves a pat on the back for saving a point, if he didn’t then we can chalk one up in the ‘goes around’ column. Seconds later Leon was chopped down in the box for a certain spot kick – thankfully for QPR the flag had already been raised as Leon was offside.

To be honest I’d have taken a point before the game, and I’m happy to have one now, but I do worry about our tactics at the moment – particularly away from home. I was enjoying watching us, and thought we looked very threatening, with Vine wide, Agyemang up front and Buzsaky playing off him down the middle. Now that may not work at home but on the road I thought it was a good way to play. Buzsaky certainly looked a lot better than he ever does out wide. With that formation we got annihilated at Cardiff and afterwards there was apparently this “clear the air meeting” with De Canio, the players and the board. Now some more in the know than myself said after this meeting that we wouldn’t be seeing “any more of this 4-4-1-1 business” for the rest of the season and sure enough Buzsaky has played wide in a 4-4-2 formation ever since.

This has been trumpeted as a great thing. None of this foreign rubbish, good old 4-4-2 for us. From what I can see the only person to have benefited from it is Rowan Vine who doesn’t like playing wide and now plays up front. Rowan is hardly scoring goals and playing well at the moment and we have our best and most influential player stuck out of position and, for long periods, out of the game altogether on the wing while we give the ball away, fail to create chances and look disjointed in attack. With Vine left out tonight I thought it would have made more sense to have Buzsaky and Agyemang through the middle. Instead we had Blackstock playing badly and Buzsaky playing awfully on the flank. It makes no sense to me.

Of course 4-4-2 with Buzsaky wide would work a lot better with Mahon in midfield. Leigertwood is a shadow of the player he was before Christmas and was offender in chief when it came to giving the ball away. The pitch was awful, the conditions were poor, but at the end of the day our ball retention was abysmal at times and you don’t win anything without possession of the ball.

Except for 20 minutes at the start of the second half we were pretty poor tonight and when the subs came on we only got worse because while clearly wanting Buzsaky to come more central De Canio didn’t seem to know who he wanted, or be able to get the man he wanted, to stand on the left flank. In the final ten minutes Rangers looked like a hotch potch mess including a bit of what the manager wanted, a bit of what the fans wanted, a bit of what the players wanted and all sorts of other factors besides. With two Barnsley penalty appeals and numerous shots blocked away by our defence in that last ten minutes it was a period of play that could have cost us a point we just about deserved. Both Hall and Delaney picked up cards, and Rowlands was lucky not to join them, as the defending grew increasingly desperate.

On now to Sunday and a live television game against league leaders Stoke who’ll be looking to bounce back from a surprise defeat at Preston tonight. Can’t wait.

Barnsley: Steele 7, Foster 6, Nyatanga 7, Souza 7, Van Homoet 7, Campbell-Ryce 8, Hassell, 7, Howard 7, Devaney 6 (Leon 68, 7), Macken 6, Ferenczi 4 (Odejayi 60, 6)
Subs Not Used: Togwell, Ricketts, Potter

QPR: Camp 7, Delaney 6, Hall 7, Mancienne 7, Connolly 7, Buzsaky 5 (Stewart 90, -), Rowlands 8, Leigertwood 4, Balanta 7 (Ephraim 62, 6), Blackstock 5 (Vine 78, 5), Agyemang 6
Subs Not Used: Pickens, Lee
Booked: Hall (foul), Delaney (foul)

QPR Star Man – Martin Rowlands 8 - Him and Campbell Ryce were the best players on the pitch by a country mile. Superb challenges and tackles in defence, and better distribution of the ball than anybody else. My God we’d be in trouble without him.

Referee: Eddie Ilderton (Tyne & Wear) 4 - Positioning was consistently awful and was therefore always a long, long, long way away from any incident that took place. Compare him to Steve Bennett, not a particularly good elite official himself, at the weekend when he was right on the spot of any foul with a quick blast of the whistle and away we went again and the difference was stark. I lost count of the amount of times neither he nor his linesman, one of which showed no signs of life whatsoever throughout the game, looked blankly at each other and then guessed a decision. Missed Patrick Agyemang being pulled back by the neck after turning his full back, missed countless shirt pulling offences, accused a player of diving and then awarded another a free kick for the same thing seconds later and so it goes on. Also apparently turned up with a sun dial to keep time only to find that it gets dark in Barnsley about 6pm at the moment – hence a first half that he said he would extend by two minutes ended up running to 50. Either that or he wanted to see what happened with their corners, bless him.

Attendance: 9,019 (300 QPR fans approx) As always at Oakwell the game was played out in almost complete silence giving the appearance of a reserve match. The QPR fans that were singing called for Rowan Vine’s introduction for most of the second half – be interesting to know how many of them were slagging the same player off on Saturday.

Photo: Action Images

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