You could scarcely wish to find two more different clubs than QPR and Burnley, but their respective recipes have yielded early success in the Championship this season ahead of their meeting on Saturday.
Championship >>> Saturday October 24, 2013 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Turf Moor, Burnley
For Burnley, in recent years a visit from Queens Park Rangers has been like an eccentric old aunt coming to stay, always in the midst of some flouncy crisis or drama. The overly dramatic, waffy southerner crashing into the straight-laced northern family all flailing arms and Louis Vuitton luggage.
Of course there was nothing trivial about the trauma enveloping Rangers when they were due here in 2007 only to receive the news overnight that promising young striker Ray Jones, left at home by manager John Gregory for inconsistent performances and behaviour and about to be sold to Colchester, had ploughed his car into the side of a bus in East London killing himself and two friends.
The game was postponed at short notice and Burnley showed warmth and understanding to the Rangers fans who’d already made it that far north, inviting them into Turf Moor for an open training session. These clubs may be poles apart in every respect apart from the current league table, but a connection was formed that day unusual in the modern game and not to be forgotten quickly.
By the time the fixture was rearranged, in December, Rangers had been bought out by Flavio Briatore. The hot tempered, flamboyant Italian cut a stark figure in the director’s boxes of the Championship. Or, at least, he did when he was allowed in — Scunthorpe United famously, and fabulously, refused him access at Glanford Park after he’d parked his helicopter on the training pitch outside because he was wearing jeans. Jeans worth as much as Scunthorpe United itself, but jeans all the same.
Briatore replaced Gregory almost immediately with another Italian Luigi De Canio, who spoke no English when he arrived and seemingly even less when he left. De Canio was a popular figure, mainly because his QPR team was so outrageously entertaining to watch. A distinctly un-Italian attacking approach to the game, and a defence staffed by the likes of Zesh Rehman and Bob Malcolm, collided spectacularly to form a somewhat schizophrenic, neurotic outfit that scored three goals a game as a matter of course and loved nothing more than to concede a shambolic injury time equaliser. Later in the season De Canio pitched up to a game at Loftus Road with a face that had been worked over the night before after an incident in a London casino. They were fun, exciting times after several barren years.
What QPR fans didn’t know at the time was that Briatore was actually a bit of a nutter. I mean, a lot of the signs were there, but the swift acceleration through nine permanent and temporary managers in under three seasons hadn’t really got underway by this point. Had Rangers lost at Burnley that night, it could well have done. De Canio, who was still stuck with the bloody awful side that Gregory had kept up the previous season presumably by cashing in favours with God and a month away from the transfer window opening, had won just one of his first eight and the local press in West London heard a whisper that he’d have been fired if that had extended to one in nine at Turf Moor.
It didn’t. Damion Stewart headed in a corner in the second half and then, as Burnley launched an invading force of all 11 players for an injury time corner, Rowan Vine ran the length of the field with the ball at his feet before rolling it into an empty net in front of the jubilant QPR dozen behind the goal. One of those where, if you close your eyes and think hard enough, you can still see Vine running towards you through the mist set to a soundtrack of "don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up, don’t fuck it up”.
Rangers had fired De Canio, and his replacement Iain Dowie, by the time they returned to this corner of Lancashire in January 2009. Paulo Sousa was the man in football’s hottest seat by that point and the free-flowing, free-scoring, free-wheeling De Canio days had been well and truly consigned to the history books. Sousa’s pragmatic approach to the sport yielded eight 0-0 draws in his five months in charge, including one in an FA Cup Third Round tie with Burnley at Loftus Road that set up the least attractive and desired replay in the history of the competition. QPR actually played quite well that night in a match that attracted a smaller crowd than the adjacent Bingo hall but, typically, contrived to lose to a farcical goal with the final kick of the game at the end of extra time just as Sousa was compiling a list of potential penalty takers.
Three months later the R’s were back for a league game without the Portuguese — a second sacking of the season — and Gareth Ainsworth took temporary charge for a 1-0 defeat sealed with a Chris Eagles goal that had a pungent whiff of handball about it. Such was the exasperation with Briatore by this point the QPR supporters who did make the trip couldn’t even muster anger at the match officials that day — there was an overriding sense that their club deserved everything it got.
When they met again in 2011 — following a brief Burnley sojourn to the top flight — Neil Warnock was about to lead QPR to the Premier League. This time it was the Clarets in the midst of change, with new boss Eddie Howe taking on a watching brief before taking charge later in the week. The sides played out a dire 0-0 draw that suited both purposes.
And here they are again, separated by one place and two points at the top of the Championship — and just about everything else besides. Burnley living within their means, building a strong team steadily over time by buying promising young talent from either Premier League academies — Keiran Trippier the pick of an impressive bunch — or the lower divisions — former Bournemouth man Danny Ings has seamlessly filled Charlie Austin’s scoring boots this term — and regularly selling it on for profit. QPR chucking money about, laughably fielding a player as accomplished as Niko Kranjcar in the second tier of English football, loaning in Benoit Assou-Ekotto and, because Danny Simpson has a slight knock, quickly adding Oguchi Onyewu this week on a short term deal — a man with 68 caps for the United States. Careful where you perform Google image searches on him by the way.
The presence of Austin in the QPR attack, signed for £4m from Burnley in the summer, shows the difference between the two clubs. The old aunt is shacked up with another rich man these days but money doesn’t guarantee happiness or success in football and Burnley have assembled a formidable outfit using a different technique. They’ll pose more threat than anybody else so far this season to QPR’s unbeaten league start — the last remaining record in all four divisions.
A fascinating clash of cultures, styles and two very accomplished sides. Not to be missed.
Links >>> Opposition Profile >>> History >>> Referee >>> Travel Guide
Marcus Bignot slams in his first goal for QPR on his full debut for the club at Turf Moor in 2001. The strike cut the first half deficit to 2-1 but Rangers couldn’t fight back to take a point from the game and finished the season relegated to the Second Division.
Team News: To follow.
Elsewhere: Crucial round eight hundred and three of irrelevant life outside the Premier League and the authorities have decided to liven things up by setting aside a corner of Yorkshire for a enactment of the Battle of the Somme. Sheffield Wednesday go to Barnsley, Leeds go to Huddersfield, all at the same time on the same day. South and West Yorkshire Police have issued a joint statement encouraging everybody intending to attend either game to come "properly tooled up”. Fun times.
To get you all in the mood there’s a Friday night game between Middlesbrough and Doncaster which is barely even of interest to the people of Middlesbrough and Doncaster. A sort of footballing equivalent of having an ingrowing toe nail removed — necessary, unpleasant, a relief when it’s over.
Some colossal stuff happening at 15.00 on Saturday. The latest contest to determine who is better out of Bolton and Ipswich stands out as especially ball acheing but Derby v Birmingham and Reading v Millwall aren’t far behind. Game eight of Paul Ince’s 37 match touchline ban pits Blackpool v Blackburn and QPR would probably quite like Bournemouth to win at Leicester and Yoevil to turn over Forest — although neither seems especially likely.
Charlton face the Globetrotters on Sunday because they’ve been off gallivanting around Europe again and Udinese are at Brighton on Monday in a live Sky game — a slot Sky opened up three weeks ago specifically to shaft QPR fans with advance train tickets booked to Burnley only to then have a rather large spanner thrown in their works by Burnley winning in the League Cup. Another match had to be found, and Brighton Udinese was it.
FL72, where the fans and pretty much everything else is treated as one very grand, overblown irrelevance.
Referee: Simon Hooper’s stock continues to rise and we’ll almost certainly be seeing him promoted onto the Premier League list at the end of the season barring any Stuart Attwell-style meltdowns. He’s already been trusted with Forest v Derby this season and now takes this clash of the top two teams in the division — usually fixtures to be undertaken by a top flight referee dropping down temporarily. His last QPR appointment was a fiery 0-0 draw at Swansea during the 2010/11 promotion season which he actually handled very well indeed. For his stats and case file please click here.
Burnley: Unlike QPR, Burnley have actually lost a game this season — 2-0 at Brighton back in August. But they’re top of the Championship by two points going into this fixture as they’ve only drawn twice and played a game more than the Super Hoops. The Clarets have won their last seven, and nine of the last ten with the other drawn against Blackburn. At Turf Moor they’ve won seven and drawn two in all competitions. They’ve scored ten goals in the last four games on this ground and conceded just two.
QPR: QPR’s strong start to the season — theirs is now the only unbeaten record left in all four divisions following Orient’s thrashing at Coventry during the week — had been based on an impregnable defence until last week’s draw at Millwall. The R’s had conceded just twice in ten matches prior to the trip to The Den, and were on a club record run of eight consecutive clean sheets, but they looked rather too pleased with themselves about it against Steve Lomas’ side and conceded two shambolic goals in the second half to draw the game. It could turn out to be a positive — Rangers still have a highly creditable eight wins and three draws to their name from 11 matches so far and have had a bit of a kick up the arse in the process. Away from home Harry Redknapp’s side have been particularly formidable — with four victories and a draw in all competitions. That’s as many as they managed in the Premier League in two years. Charlie Austin has five goals in his last four games, and six in six, as he prepares for a first meeting with Burnley since he left the club in the summer.
Betting: Professional odds compiler Owen Goulding tells us…
"After Leyton Orient's defeat in midweek, QPR travel to Turf Moor looking to defend the only remaining unbeaten league record in the country. They are going to have to do it against the division's other form side though. Burnley are on a hell of a run: they have won nine of their last ten games, drawing the other against local rivals Blackburn. When Burnley sold Charlie Austin to QPR, it seemed Burnley would be fighting at the other end of the table but the excellent managerial organisation of Sean Dyche has so far seen them exceed the expectations of even the most optimistic of Burnley supporters.
"If you look at their team, it’s not a major surprise they are performing well. In defence, they have strength and steel in Jason Shackell and Michael Duff, playing alongside a player who is playing a division below he should be in my opinion, Kieran Trippier. The midfield has a hard-working core in Dean Marney and David Jones with pace and trickery on the flanks provided by Michael Kightly and Scott Arfield. Then to the ammunition that has propelled them to the top of the league: Danny Ings and Sam Vokes. There is no doubt the front pairing are performing out of their skins at the moment. An injury to either will put a big dent in the Burnley promotion challenge and keeping them fit will be key to the success of their season.
"The one thing Burnley don't appear to have however, is strength in depth. Looking beyond the starting eleven, the bench looks ordinary at best, unlike the squad Harry Redknapp has assembled. Looking at this game in depth though, it shouldn’t be a problem with only Ross Wallace missing for the home side.
"There is no getting away with the fact that these two teams have only conceded eleven goals in the twenty three games they have played. This is reflected in the betting with a quote of 4/6 for under 2.5 goals in the game. However, with it being so tight on paper, the price of 11/10 for it to be a draw at half time looks good value and this is my recommended bet for this game. I'll also be having a smaller bet on that half time score to be 0-0 at 7/4.”
RECOMMENDED BETS
Burnley V QPR - Half Time Result - DRAW @11/10 (Stan James)
Half Time Correct Score - 0-0 @7/4 (Stan James/PaddyPower/WilliamHill)
Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion Mase tells us….
"Securing a draw at Millwall in circumstances which made it feel more like a defeat was, in my view, a satisfactory result in that we probably got what we deserved. See it as a 11.30pm double espresso to stop us sleep-walking through games expecting the opposition to be content merely not to lose too heavily.
"A trip away to Turf Moor would have been many people's idea of the stark contrast between this year and a season ago: visits to the Ethiad and the Emirates (and that's just the ones sponsored by the Gulf States) substituted for more traditional earthy sounding awaydays at gritty northern outposts with Victorian-sounding stadium names. Given their start this year it may well suit us that Burnley are not likely to afford us the 'respect' other teams have done. Expect full blooded and committed play from the home team looking to preserve a wonderful start against moneybags Rangers.
"My concern is how we will react. Last week left something of a sour taste and the prospect of a visit to the form team of the division in undoubtedly the Championship's game of the day isn't exactly the sort of opportunity to hide away and lick wounds/mend broken egos one might have hoped. Having heard Matt Etherington on the radio this week detail how he lost £1.5m gambling I am perhaps overanalysing the effect being beset by misfortune may have on professional football players. Millwall probably won't make a jot of difference either way.
"This will likely be our most difficult match so far this season, I can see the first goal being critical to the outcome. I fancy us to get back with a draw if we get it, a defeat if we don't. Let's be optimistic.”
Mase’s Prediction: Burnley 1 QPR 1. Scorer: Austin (it has to be...), who won't outwardly celebrate.
LFW’s Prediction: Burnley 1 QPR 1. Scorer: Austin.
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