After yet another collapse in a home game, against Coventry City on Saturday, I'm not sure Gareth Ainsworth's QPR would have picked a Wednesday night in Leeds for their next swing.
Mercantile Credit Trophy >>> Wednesday October 4, 2023 >>> Kick Off 19.45 >>> Weather – Warm but windy >>> Elland Road, Leeds, Yorkshire, Yorkshire Yorkshire
When Gareth Ainsworth returned to Queens Park Rangers as manager in February, all parties involved entered into the arrangement with eyes wide open.
It was certainly no secret by that point what a desperately poor state the QPR team was in. The club’s latest financial folly in trying to push for promotion in 2021/22 had been followed by them getting all doe-eyed over Mick Beale’s PowerPoint presentation and allowing him to drive a succession of poor signings from his own contacts book which sucked up what little money was left. What Gareth inherited was half a Mark Warburton squad scarred by the way his reign and push for the Premier League had collapsed, and another half who thought they were coming to compete for promotion under Daddy Mick and certainly weren’t interested in battling against relegation for somebody else. The squad and dressing room was split down the middle, you were forced to rely on players who had no interest in being here and/or playing, the fitness regime and durability of the players was pathetic, discipline and dedication was non-existent, and the team wasn’t very good in the first place. Even if you could get it through to May still in the Championship, the previous financial outlay meant there would be an extremely limited budget this summer to do any kind of rebuild without significant player sales.
For the club’s part, they pretty much knew what they were getting with Gareth. For all of his protestations that Wycombe Wanderers only played the way they did because he had no money to spend and Akinfenwa up front, Ainsworth was never going to morph into Russell Martin as soon as he left Adams Park and had a bit more to work with. Playing style wise, he’s not going to be Mark Warburton, Mick Beale or Neil Critchley either. The job he did with the Chairboys and his connections and status at QPR meant he was always going to be in the frame whenever our job came up and the club had held back from pushing the button precisely because they didn’t think he was a good fit stylistically. Having done their best to end a ruinous period of frequent managerial changes and hops from one approach to something completely different, Rangers basically admitted defeat and abandoned the ‘development’ coach idea when they ditched Critchley and went this way.
So when QPR aren’t particularly good to watch at the moment, or find themselves outplayed and outclassed by far better teams assembled to far more coherent plans and bigger budgets (Sunderland and Coventry most recently) I’m not particularly surprised because, well, everything I’ve just said. That righteous anger and incredulous disbelief at another three goal home defeat has long since dissipated in me, and by the look and sound of everybody else around me at Loftus Road these days I’m not alone. The QPR support base has booted off, frequently, through recent history, for far, far less than what’s going on at the moment. Everybody is either completely ground down by the drudgery of modern life in this country and the miserable existence of being a QPR fan over the last 18 months, or they’re accepting of the circumstances outlined in the first two paragraphs and happy for now to give the people who caused it with their 21/22 overspend and Mick Beale fascination a free pass. Or a bit of both. Certainly nobody seems surprised.
The positive side of appointing Ainsworth as manager was that firstly the squad was apparently completely mentally shot to pieces. You had players who were feigning injuries, players not trying, players who didn’t want to be here, players from whom all confidence and self belief had drained. With no money to work with at Wycombe, Ainsworth and his assistant Richard Dobson embraced and immersed themselves in the sports psychology and mental side of the sport looking for ways they could get more from less by looking after their players and managing them in a different way to the often medieval methods used in the sport elsewhere. Dobson, in particular, is seen as something of a pioneer in this field. Secondly, there was also a growing opinion that trying to play wonderful, progressive, passing football with the standard of player we had was starting to result in all too much aimless pisballing about among the centre backs and goalkeeper, which made us easy to play against and was every bit as boring and unwatchable as Tony Pulis wheeled cannon football would be. We didn’t want to see it punted long to Sam Vokes, but equally the idea of attacking with a few more numbers, getting the ball forwards a bit more and a bit sooner, playing with a bit of width and sticking the occasional cross in for a striker who seems to quite like it when Scotland do that for him, held a certain appeal for supporters who were tired of 80% of our possession being held by the footballing Bermuda triangle of Dickie, Dunne and Dieng.
And, so, I guess where I still am a little bit surprised, and very sadly disappointed, is when we sit through things like the second half on Saturday against Coventry.
On the mental side you’ve still - despite all this apparent holistic work we’ve done on turning the mood around, all these senior pros who’ve come here to be "culture guardians” and provide the team with some backbone, and all the chat we’ve had to sit through about what a different place it is this season – got players like Chris Willock going through the motions, got players chucking the towel in because they’re two goals down and the referee’s being a thundercunt, got the team absolutely wide open and just letting themselves take another home trouncing because the game’s gone at 2-0 and what’s the point in continuing to try any more?
And on the football and style side, we’re spending an entire afternoon crossing balls into a penalty box populated by five defenders, a goalkeeper, and one lone QPR striker. Lyndon Dykes would not only have to be a considerably good deal more talented than he is to make those maths work in his favour, he’d have to be a bloody miracle worker. Even when losing the game, and offered a chance to stick a long throw in the box during the second half, we only put four of our players in the Coventry box versus eight of their outfield players and keeper Ben Wilson. This is GCSE mathematics guys.
You’d think surely the least we could expect from a Gareth Ainsworth team is that if somebody does get going down the wing – as Paul Smyth has done frequently – that they’ll be able to look up and see a few targets in the box for the cross. That if we get a set piece it will at least be awkward for the opposition to defend. I looked at us at Cardiff in particular with Smyth and Armstrong running the channels with their pace and teammates packing the box to wait for the crosses that came, and thought it more like what I’d hoped Gareth Ainsworth’s QPR might be in the best case scenario. Then I watched us on Saturday sticking one hopeful/hopeless ball after another into an area populated only by Lyndon Dykes on his own and thought… what on earth are we doing here?
And, more to the point, what the fuck am I doing with a £45 ticket to Leeds in my pocket?
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90s Footballer Conspiracy Theories No.8 In The Series – Former Scotland international Brian McClair fears the tofu-munching wokerati’s fondness for 15 minute neighbourhoods is a plot to reduce Manchester United home attendances to 350 people.
Team News: Jimmy Dunne is back in full training but didn’t make the bench for the weekend loss to Coventry. Gareth Ainsworth has suggested he’ll get a game for the development squad before being pushed back into first team action but he wasn’t involved for the second string at Millwall on Tuesday – they conceded an injury time equaliser to draw 2-2 in a clash between the top two in that development league. Perhaps that means he’ll be travelling to Leeds and involved in some capacity after all with Morgan Fox going off injured in the first minute of the Coventry game requiring Jake Clarke-Salter to spend one of his eight appearances for the season. You’d think it unlikely that he’ll be able to go again from the start tonight and against Blackburn on Saturday which may create a need for Dunne to step back in.
Jack Colback will almost certainly return after completing his three match ban. That red card has been enormously costly to Rangers who were leading Sunderland 1-0 at Loftus Road at the time but have since lost that game 3-1 and then taken just one point from two very winnable home games, and a 0-0 at Birmingham, without their experienced midfielder. With Sinclair Armstrong impressing from the bench against Coventry, and the only one in the squad at the moment carrying any real threat to the opposition in the final third (bar our top scoring left back Ken Paal) it’ll be interesting to see who drops out from Saturday’s debacle against the Sky Blues.
Having abandoned his ill-advised attempt to force a move from Elland Road by refusing to play in the August defeat at Birmingham, Italian winger Willy Gnonto has since been sidelined by injury after a clash with Posh Scott Twine in the 0-0 draw against Hull and is expected to be out until at least November. Djed Spence, who scored spectacularly for Nottingham Forest at The City Ground when he last faced QPR, has only made one substitute appearance for the Whites since being loaned in from Spurs and the knee injury that has sidelined him thus far will continue to keep him out until after the international break. No imminent return either for Junior Firpo, while Stuart Dallas is a long term absentee with a broken leg. Patrick Bamford made his first appearance of the season off the bench for the final nine minutes of the weekend loss at Southampton.
@charlie.scales.7 # ♬ Tha dunt know thas born by mikebiddulph64 - Willy Eckerslike
Elsewhere: QPR are at least able to cling to the consolation that they won’t finish bottom this season while Sheff Wed are around. The worst start to a league season in club history was confirmed with a 1-0 loss at West Brom on Tuesday which leaves the Owls with two points from ten games. Rotherham, who sit between us and them, go tonight at home to Bristol City.
Middlesbrough, in a surprise to absolutely nobody, are starting to accelerate away from their own nightmare start, just as they did last season. They ended Cardiff’s winning streak with a 2-0 success at the Riverside last night, a third win in a row for Michael Carrick after none from the first seven. Huddersfield Town, who were our best guess for Worse Teams Than Us 3/3 when we did the season preview, are most definitely coming the other way after calling a premature end to The Fourteenth Annual Neil Warnock Farewell Tour. Darren Moore’s new side were comprehensively thumped 4-1 by Birmingham at St Andrew’s on Tuesday.
Stoke, despite all the hype and optimism around their latest summer overhaul and 17 new signings, drop to seventeenth after a home loss to Southampton while Plymouth’s inconsistencies continued with a 2-0 home defeat to Millwall that drops them to fifteenth. In what’s been a spectacular week of Championship refereeing, see if you can spot the foul in the build up to Wawll’s second.
Plymouth 0-2 Millwall - George Saville 90'+7'pic.twitter.com/mK6ehyfzlj— GoalRushHQ (@GoalRushHQ) October 3, 2023
Tuesday’s results were rounded out by the now ridiculously out of control Ipswich Town winning 3-0 at home to Hull and ascending to the top of the Championship. They’ll likely lose that spot to Champions Leicester who play Preston Knob End later, but still it’s been a remarkable return to the second tier and even our pre-season prediction of fifth is starting to look woefully under-cooked.
Apart from that fixture, there’s plenty for QPR to note in the four other games tonight in the Mercantile Credit Trophy. Rotherham, as said, host Bristol City. Gareth Ainsworth’s tip for the title Watford have sunk to fourth bottom, but in a break from tradition have decided to renew Valerian Ismael’s contract anyway. They’ve got a tough ask at Sunderland. Swanselona have started to motor a little with two wins and three goals scored in each, but they’re fifth bottom ahead of tonight’s visit from Norwich. And our visitors this Saturday, Blackburn, cannot stop conceding goals and have now lost three in a row while descending to eighteenth ahead of their trip to Coventry.
Referee: QPR have won just once in 11 matches with the often extremely pedantic David Webb – mind you one win in 11 has been about par for our course for nearly two years now. Details.
Leeds: Leeds only won five of 19 league games at Elland Road in last season’s Premier League and were relegated second bottom, above only hapless Southampton. They won only two of their last 12 on this ground, a sequence that included a 6-1 loss to Liverpool and 5-1 defeat to Crystal Palace. As you’d expect, they’ve had things a little easier back in the Championship for the first time since 2019/20 and they’re unbeaten in five home matches so far but Cardiff (2-2), West Brom (1-1) and the worst side in the league Sheff Wed (0-0) have all left here with a point so far and the 3-0 against fourth bottom Watford last time out was the Whites’ first home league win under Daniel Farke.
That victory against the Hornets suggested Farke’s side were starting to motor. They’re the only team to beat Ipswich so far, winning 4-3 at Portman Road, and followed that up with a comfortable 3-0 shellacking of Millwall. That win at The Den was the first time in nine league and cup outings Leeds had scored the first goal of the game. Unbeaten in six (W3 D3) they then went to out-of-form Southampton at the weekend and were 3-0 down before halftime before eventually losing 3-1. They’re currently twelfth with three wins from nine games.
QPR have won only one of their last ten visits to Elland Road, and have lost the last three conceding twice on each occasion.
QPR: We’ll focus more on QPR’s biblically awful home form in Friday’s preview of the Blackburn game. It’s now one win from 20 games in W12 for the R’s, and none from five on their own patch so far this season. Coventry and Sunderland have both won more games at Loftus Road than Rangers have in 2023, and Blackburn and Bristol City can both join them in that over the next three matches in Shepherd’s Bush. Away from home things are better (though they could hardly be worse). Gareth Ainsworth’s side have won four and drawn two of their last eight on the road and come into this one unbeaten in two and with two clean sheets at Boro (won 2-0) and Birmingham (0-0).
Scoring goals is the big problem for this team. Rangers have scored one goal or fewer in each of the last four games since the victory at Middlesbrough, and in eight of their ten matches so far. Following last night’s fixtures only Sheff Wed (five) have scored fewer than QPR’s total of eight league goals. The last time Rangers scored three times in a game was Wednesday October 19, almost a year ago to the day. In the 42 games they’ve played since then they have failed to score on 18 occasions, and have scored once in a further 18. That leaves just six games in which we’ve managed a whopping two goals (Boro A, Cardiff A, Burnley A, West Brom A, Reading A, Wigan H). Top scorer this season is left back Kenneth Paal with three, which is more than all of our strikers combined. Lyndon Dykes has three in his last 27 appearances for the club. We have scored 18 goals (0.78) in Ainsworth’s 23 games in charge, while conceding 41 (1.78).
The Coventry defeat was the seventh time in our ten games we’ve conceded the first goal, and we’ve recovered just the one point against Swansea from those losing positions. Since Gareth Ainsworth took over we have gone behind in 16 of our 23 games and recovered just two points (West Brom A, Swansea H) having done so. It was also the seventh time we’ve conceded three goals or more in a game under this manager – two of those against Cov.
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. What’s our reigning champion Aston got for us this week…
"Both sides come into this on the back of poor performances. But Leeds have a quality squad, a good manager and players who can score goals. I think this is going to be a really tough task for us and once the first goal goes in, we'll collapse again.”
Aston’s Prediction: Leeds 3-0 QPR. No scorer.
LFW’s Prediction: Leeds 3-0 QPR. No scorer.
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