QPR travel across West London to Brentford on Friday evening, looking to address their poor derby game form and banish the memories of their latest collapse at Fulham.
Championship >>> Friday October 29, 2015 >>> Kick Off 19.45 >>> Weather — Cloudy, damp, 12 degrees >>> Griffin Park, Brentford >>> Live on Sky Sports 1
They’re calling it ‘the big one’ over at Brentford, and for QPR head coach Chris Ramsey it’s certainly that.
The desire to see Ramsey removed - presumably to be replaced by some as-yet-unnamed managerial genius who can succeed where Ramsey, Harry Redknapp and Mark Hughes have all failed miserably under the current Loftus Road regime — has hardly abated despite four points and much improved defensive displays from the last two home games. If anything it’s got nastier still.
A record of five wins, four draws and four defeats for tenth place after 13 games doesn’t back the vitriol up greatly, but this is the sport we now follow. Rolling news stations and newspaper websites don’t sell advertising by waiting for stories to happen, and therefore any manager anywhere who dares to lose three on the spin is in the midst of a crisis and fears for his job — Swansea’s Gary Monk a week ago, ludicrous by even British football standards. Foreign chairmen didn’t come to this country to oversee three year rebuilding programmes while playing league games with Rotherham, they came for the Premier League whether the club is ready for it or not. Supporters don’t pay the rising ticket prices to be told that the team won’t hit its stride for another 18 months, they want a performance and a result right now or they want somebody else as manager and they’re going to bitch and moan until they get it. Agents don’t "earn” their money if the merry-go-round slows. Players know if they don’t like this manager they can stop playing for him and another will be along in a minute.
This is what Chris Ramsey, and every other manager, is facing and why he’ll do well to stay in his job at Loftus Road much longer. Even his wins now are put down to the poor quality of the opposition, or a "lucky goal”. The improvements in the defence are attributed to Neil Warnock’s arrival, even though he didn’t turn up at the training ground for the first time until last Friday, two days after that Sheff Wed game.
What would put a flag in the ground, and potentially start calming a few people down if not winning them over completely, is a positive result and performance at Brentford on Friday evening.
There’s plenty to overcome. If this were simply another run of the mill Championship eleven v eleven then QPR would be worried about bumping into Brentford at a bad time. A month ago this would have been a plum fixture but new Bees boss Lee Carsley has led his side to three straight wins going into this match, including successive successes to nil on the road in the last two games. Brentford have roared up to just two points behind QPR now having looked set for a winter relegation battle at one point and therefore have extra incentive to win this one and leapfrog their bitter rivals.
To make matters worse, Brentford’s form player of the moment plays in exactly the position that QPR have struggled to cope with quality players in all season. Alan Judge’s swashbuckling wing play threatens Rangers where they’re defensively weakest — the full back positions. Chris Ramsey’s preferred style of play this season leaves his wide defenders exposed, with neither Matt Phillips nor Tjaronn Chery ahead of them noted for their defensive ability. Paul Konchesky and James Perch have made a poor fist of the challenge so far, and although Nedum Onuoha has recently moved to right back and clean sheets have followed, he’s not a full back and will be found out by a quality winger if he’s left there sooner or later.
At Birmingham a fortnight ago Demarai Gray and Jacques Maghoma just had too much pace and ability in wide areas for Ramsey’s defence to cope with. Even against MK Dons last week it was noticeable that the few long balls they did play from back to front were exclusively angled towards the QPR right back slot. Curious, you’d think, with Onuoha a recognised centre half playing there, but our former favourite and current MK Dons scout Kevin Gallen had spotted something in his Tuesday night trip to W12 and sure enough even a team as physically inferior as MK were able to win the majority of headers and second balls there, with Phillips’ poor defensive work shown up again.
But what QPR and Chris Ramsey need to guard against more is the mental side, and a reverse repeat of what happened when Chelsea came to Loftus Road back in 2011. Andre Villas Boas’ side was completely ambushed that day, not realising after 15 years away from Shepherd’s Bush the strength of feeling Rangers held towards them. The pre-match saw lots of mocking talk of "your cup final” stretching all the way up to the Chelsea official website which published a wholly unprofessional, condescending preview to the game on the Friday, belittling QPR and the importance of the fixture. The atmosphere that day caught even the Loftus Road regulars by surprise and by the end of the match Chelsea had lost 1-0, had two men sent off, been lucky not to have Ashley Cole red carded, and plunged themselves into a racism crisis that would end up with their beloved scumbag captain in court and ending his England career. If QPR treat this Brentford rivalry as amusing or quaint, as Chelsea did with us, it will trip them up.
QPR’s record in London derbies since is atrocious. In three years in the Premier League they lost 18 and drew four of their 27 matches against other London teams and conceded 45 goals in the process. Included in there were two six goal defeats at Chelsea and Fulham. This season Rangers have been rinsed at Craven Cottage again, and lost comfortably at Charlton on day one — shipping six and scoring none in the process. That extra little bit of intensity that comes with these all London affairs has been too much for successive — vastly different — QPR teams under four different managers. Chris Ramsey needs to show that he and his players can address that and stand their ground on such occasions.
The games with Fulham have been particularly galling. On our last three visits to Craven Cottage we’ve conceded goals on 1, 2, 8, 19, 20, 22, 31, 38 and 41 minutes. It’s a pertinent example ahead of Friday. Brentford, and Fulham, hate QPR in a way that’s simply not reciprocated. If Brentford had tried to buy Loftus Road and wipe QPR off the face of the earth once, then spent the next 40 years nicking players of the quality of Andy Sinton and Martin Rowlands for a song we’d probably hate them too. If we’d had to wait 35 years for a competitive fixture with them only to then fail to win any of the six we got in a flurry in the early 2000s it would niggle us. If said quality player had turned round to us and kissed his Brentford badge after one of their wins, likewise. Perhaps if we now have a run of games against Brentford the hostility will grow, as it has in the past 20 years with clubs like Luton and Bristol City, but for now it’s rather one way.
QPR need to be ready for that intensity or they’ll fall in a hole again just as they have done every time they’ve been to Fulham recently. Do QPR have the players to win the game? Absolutely yes. Do they have the balls to stand there in the face of an early onslaught and refuse to yield, creating a platform for the quality players to go on and win the game? We shall see.
The anti-Ramsey sentiment ratcheted up several notches after the latest Craven Cottage debacle. He faces another one of those long walks across the field from dug outs to tunnel in front of the away end on Friday night if this goes the same way. Let’s hope and pray he’s punching the air in celebration as he goes.
Links >>> Benham’s sums starting to add up again — Opposition profile >>> Bircham’s stoppage time winner — history >>> Going through changes — Interview >>> Lesser spotted Chris Ramsey presser >>> Hooper appointment — referee >>> Allen Green — Podcast >>> Beware the Judge — Betting
Marc Bircham celebrates his perfectly struck injury-time winner in this fixture back in 2003. The 2-1 win, with Danny Shittu scoring before half time, helped the R’s hold Tranmere at bay in the race for the Second Division play-off spots.
Team News: Charlie Austin is training again after a month out with a hamstring problem but is likely to only be fit for the bench. Chris Ramsey said in his pre-match press conference today that Jay Emmanuel-Thomas will not be dropped for Austin having fought hard to win and then keep his place in the team. The head coach has no qualms about playing them together when both fit, apparently. Jamie Mackie is a long-term absentee but everybody else is fit and available for selection.
Midfielder John Swift has been given permission by parent club Chelsea to stay out for another half an hour as long as his maths homework is done before bed, so Brentford are likely to be unchanged following the 3-0 win at Charlton a week ago.
Elsewhere: Two televised matches from round 7,432 of the Championship on Saturday, starting with Birmingham, who continue to over achieve, hosting Wolves, who are persistently disappointing this season, from St Andrew’s. Then it’s the Lancashire derby the nation will be glued to in their tens as Preston and Bolton threaten to breath fire over the wheat fields of Saturday night television.
The Champions of Europe started the weekend off in fine style on Thursday night, taking the Sweatmeister General’s promise of a fast start, attacking performance and playing on the front foot into the first 14 seconds of the game at least before then conceding the first goal of the evening to the Mad Chicken Farmers in the fifteenth. A second goal arrived three minutes later and that was enough for the "sleeping giant” and the 20,000 empty seats at Elland Road which haven’t seen a victory there since the beginning of March.
No Sunday match this week as we’re all straight back to the pump on Tuesday so everything else is in a congealed mass at 15.00. Tarquin and Rupert will do well to watch themselves at Bristol City, whose excellent performance at the Red Dragons on Monday night deserved more than the point it got. That’s a running theme of the season so far for Steve Cotterill’s team but won’t carry on forever and teams with City among their forthcoming fixtures may come a cropper there. He says as train tickets to Bristol Temple Meads in December drop through the door.
The Dragons follow that fortunate escape up with a trip to Ipswich while the Sheffield Owls, fresh from their midweek little cup exploits, host the Nottingham Trees who have Nigel Clough waiting in the wings to succeed Dougie Freedman if that one doesn’t go well.
Game of the day is in-form Waitrose hosting league-leading Brighton, who could do with a result to keep the wolf from the door as a number of the chasing pack have banker wins this weekend. Derby Sheep host Lowly Rotherham, Big Spending Burnley have a north-off at home to Huddersfield, Boro welcome Free Falling Charlton and Tigers Tigers Rah Rah Rah go to the Franchise.
Just hook it to my veins.
Referee: Premier League new-comer Simon Hooper is the man in the middle for this one. It’s his second QPR fixture of the season following the August draw with Cardiff where he allowed one QPR goal despite an obvious handball from Charlie Austin, then allowed Robert Green to handle outside his area unpunished, but failed to award Michael Doughty the free kick he deserved in the lead up to City’s injury time equaliser. He awarded Middlesbrough a match winning penalty in his last appointment at Griffin Park, but Brentford fans remember him more fondly for presiding over an ominous 4-1 win at Fulham last season. Full case file and stats available here.
Brentford: The Bees started the season winning only two of their first 11 matches, leading to the dismissal of manager Marinus Dijkhuizen. Lee Carsley said openly he didn’t want the job when put in charge until the end of the season, which didn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence, but after extending the winless run with two defeats of his own he’s now won three on the spin including 2-0 and 3-0 successes at Wolves and Charlton in the last two road trips. Brentford, QPR and Nottingham Forest have won more points from losing positions — seven — than any other clubs in the division.
QPR: Having only kept one clean sheet in their first 11 league games, Rangers have no recorded successive shut-outs in the last two matches since the return of Clint Hill to the middle of the defence. It’s the first time two clean sheets have been registered consecutively by Rangers since December 2013. A draw with Sheff Wed and a win against MK Dons sends QPR into this tough away double header either side of the weekend with seven points from the last 12 available. The R’s have already won at Wolves and Huddersfield on their travels this season and drawn at Hull, but there were comfortable defeats at Fulham and Charlton in their only other London derbies so far this season. In fact, you have to go back to a 1-0 home win against Charlton in November 2013, some 14 matches ago, to find QPR’s last win against London opposition.
Betting: Resident professional odds compiler Owen Goulding says…
"QPR travel down the road on Friday night for another London derby. Results have been poor in such games in recent times and with Brentford having won their last three games, it’s not going to be easy to turn round that trend.
"Two of those wins have been against very poor Charlton and Rotherham sides however (Wolves being the other team defeated) and prior to their recent good run of form, the Bees had only managed two wins all season, both against promoted sides. It’s apparent to the Bees faithful that midfield maestro Alan Judge is the key to Brentford's recent good form. QPR will be looking to keep the Judge quiet and whether they do or not will be key to whether or not a result can be gained.
"It was extremely disturbing how slowly and devoid of any passion Rangers started on their last trip away in West London vs Fulham and if they start as they did that night with what appeared to be a complete lack of understanding of a local derby, then Brentford will steamroller the Hoops. Rangers’ performances and results have been a bit up and down in recent weeks and with Charlie Austin nearing a return it will be interesting to see team selections in the coming weeks.
"For this game, looking at prices, Brentford are currently slight favourites at 13/10 with the draw at 13/5 and QPR available at a best priced 9/4. These don't interest me but looking at the Both teams to score - Yes/No market, in four of Brentford’s last five games one of the sides has failed to score and the same has happened in three of QPR's last five games. That equates to 80% of Brentford's recent games and 60% of QPR's where one of the sides in the match has failed to score. Therefore the 11/8 currently available (equates to 42%) seems well below the chances of it actually happening so that’s the bet for me.”
Recommended Bet: Brentford v QPR - Both Teams to score - NO @11/8 (Bet Victor)
Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champions isawqpratwhitecity tells us…
"Our form since Fulham is reasonable, with some improvements to facets of our game that haven't necessarily translated themselves into wins. Brentford, meanwhile, are racing up the table, taking the last three. That may give them the edge, but I'm predicting a competitive game and honours even.”
Jim’s Prediction: Brentford 2-2 QPR. First Scorer - Jay-Emmanuel Thomas
LFW’s Prediction: Brentford 1-1 QPR. First Scorer — Jay Emmanuel Thomas
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