QPR and Stoke drew 0-0 at Loftus Road for the third time in five seasons, but this absorbing and entertaining match up of two well-coached and set up teams was a world away from that we'd suffered through before.
It’s been a tough few years to be a Stoke City supporter. At Queens Park Rangers they know only too well how long and painful the trip to the toilet can be the morning after Mark Hughes and Kia Joorabchian have been left in charge of your recipe for success, and their recovery attempts have been undermined by handing chunky parachute payments to first Gary Rowett and then Nathan Jones. Financial losses of £88.4m and £56m have been recorded, rescued from FFP purgatory only by one of those Shaun Harvey-endorsed ground sales which have universally gone really well for every club that's done one to date. Their team, much like those two managerial appointments, looks good on paper, with a collection of strikers QPR would kill for, but has proven flawed — for the last two seasons largely by a succession of season ending injuries to key players. They are, nevertheless, proving an awkward opponent for Rangers.
The Potters built their success of the previous decade on an unashamed Tony Pulis blueprint of wheeled cannons and wind machines. They’ve departed from that to a certain extent, though there’s still a Delap on their team sheet and it’s astonishing to me that Aden Flint hadn’t played for them prior to this season. They’re big, they’re physical, and they’ve hung their hat on picking up experienced, round-the-block 30-somethings over the past few years (did somebody mention injury list?) which this year includes Dwight Gayle who has ‘Championship’ written through him like a stick of rock. They can, on occasions, make QPR’s excellent young boys look terribly naïve — Rangers lost twice to nil against this opponent last season and have failed to score in four of the last five games against them on this ground, with three of those matches finishing nil nil. The one success, in 2019/20, like the away win that same year, was won purely and simply because Ebere Eze was on the field in hoops being all beautiful and stuff.
Mick Beale’s side did, however, come into this latest meeting with confidence. Bar an afternoon of slop at Swansea, the R’s have played very well indeed in recent weeks and climbed into the upper echleons of the nascent league table with wins against Watford, Hull and most recently Millwall. This improvement is tempered somewhat by Watford and Hull’s results since, and Wawll were absolutely rotten in the week too, so this always looked like quite the different kettle of fish, and so it was to prove — in the first half at least.
Gayle took two minutes to get the ball in the net, only to have it ruled out for offside — in scenes reminiscent of Shaun Wright-Phillips’ start to life at Loftus Road, Gayle awaits his first Stoke goal after ten outings but has now had five ruled out for different reasons. Somebody needs to get the salt and pepper pots out again me thinks. Jimmy Dunne got his now weekly dragging of his studs over the top of the ball in his own penalty area out of the way early in this game — six minute, lucky to escape with just a corner conceded. Later Delap The Younger collapsed pathetically looking for a penalty and was lucky not to be booked for a dive by referee Matt Donohue — even Sam Field, a boy for whom the chunky knit cardigan was invented, decided a spraying was in order for that one and rightly bloody so too. Tart. Field’s subsequent foul on the impressive Will Smallbone (grow up) on the edge of the area was worth two though, and certainly should have been a booking — Gayle hit the top of the bar with the free kick from 20 yards. A moment prior a busted defence had been rescued by its new dad Balogun on the cover — his arrival has taken QPR from no clean sheets in ten to two in a week and you could see why here, though he probably got a little bit too cocky five before half time when he should have belted the ball into the stand and asked questions later but instead gave the ball away and Gayle was in to drag another shot wide.
It took until two before the break for the hosts to pose a significant threat. Tyler Roberts, a car being driven with the handbreak on, had broken clear on the quarter hour with options to pass to and a passage to shoot, but spent so long deciding the options were gone by the time he did release the ball. If you want something doing at the moment it’s best to get Ethan Laird to do it. I’d queue 18 hours to see him no problem at all, and the reward for doing so today was an insane bit of attacking play down the right side on the stroke of half time that took him past three players who all looked to have robbed him of the ball at one time or another and a prolonged spell of pressure in the Stoke box eventually ended with Johansen shooting and Bursik chucking out one for the cameras. What a shame we overhit and wasted the subsequent corner.
Alex Neil has already had one crack at Beale’s QPR this year with Sunderland, although it was Kakay and Trävelmän at full back that day which is a whole different ball game to Kenneth Paal and Laird. A quick view of our recent tapes will tell you that’s where Rangers can cause you problems though and the way he pinned them back and pulled QPR’s defence wide with aggressive play from his wing backs first half was annoyingly impressive. I suspect it might have gone worse still for the R’s in the first 45 minutes had Stoke not been forced to put a square Ben Wilmot in their round right wing back hole as well.
Second half, different story, Beale’s turn to flex some tactical muscle and attack the game for a winner. A brilliant, strong, purposeful start from the home team yielded a corner within two minutes, superbly worked with the whole team charging the near post panicking Stoke into going with them leaving Paal to arrive late and alone at the back post — his first time shot was struck well enough, Bursik’s save with his legs was terrific. Crowd into it, Rangers starting to play, ice hockey power plays around the box the order of the day, Chair stood one up for Dunne to meet at the back post and Bursik saved well again — a flag had been raised mind and it wouldn’t have counted.
Lyndon Dykes had been brought on at half time to stop Flint dominating quite as much as he had, provide a focal point to the attack, and add a bit of presence to Rangers. The system flipped from 4-3-3 to more of a 4-2-3-1, with Chair and Willock starting to get themselves going in wide areas which meant Wilmot and Fosu-Henry couldn’t pile on from wing back as much as they had, and Laird and Paal were able to prosper in the space that then created. Faced with this challenge, Stoke surrendered the wide areas altogether, and focused on defending the spaces in front of their back three and penalty box from where this group of talented Rangers have already scored seven goals from outside the area this season. The question was now whether a cross could be found that avoided the giant centre backs, or a cut back could be played right to an onrushing attacker. Dykes’ approach work and physicality was good, but typically his touch and finish was not when Willock’s centre on the hour deflected his way in the box.
Rangers pressed, pressed and pressed again around the Stoke penalty area. I could watch this all day, really good football from a talented team. We’ll beat most Championship sides playing this way. Stoke brought Nick Powell and Tyrese Campbell on from the bench (just imagine) and it made little impact. Willock curled just wide after another spell of possession close to goal. Chair was all set to line up a free kick from the spot he scored against Neil’s Sunderland back in August only for Donohue to rule that being booted in the head is now an indirect free kick rather than direct — Chair was incredulous, and hadn’t regained his composure by taking time, which allowed a charger from the wall to block away. Answers on a postcard from our refereeing fraternity for that one please.
Incessant pressure. Beautiful football. What will Mick Beale’s QPR be? Hopefully they’ll be this. Clever win of a free kick by the corner flag on 75, swung over to the back post, Chair unmarked, probably not who you want in that situation, a poor header. No matter, playing well now, Laird mugs a geezer and sets off towards goal again, unloading a shot to the far corner which Bursik saved again. Adam Davies was the star man in goal in this fixture last season, and City had brought a talented keeper with them again today. We can’t play Bialkowski every week sadly. Chair’s humiliation of Flint and Taylor on 86 was complete and total — either could have been booked for chopping him down, Taylor accepted the speeding fine on his mate’s behalf, like a Liberal Democrat MP.
The two prior nil nil draws between these two here have been among the worst things I’ve ever seen in my life — including motorway pile ups and my own father’s funeral. No need for an ‘In Prague’ piece today though. The scoreline may have been the same, but everything else was different. Two well coached teams, a fascinating afternoon of tactical switches and ploys, and a thoroughly watchable game that deserved goals. If QPR can play like they did in the second half here, they’ll trouble most of this division. I thought we were excellent, and I enjoyed watching us. A better striker than Roberts and Dykes and we probably get the win, a more attacking option than Wilmot at right wing back in the first half and we’d probably have been chasing the game. Round of applause and off we go home.
Except, no. I’d had referee Donohue on a seven to this point. One or two niggles and moments of strangeness — Stoke rightly stewing that when play was stopped for an injury with the ball bobbling round our penalty box it was restarted with an uncontested drop ball in our favour — but overall very good control of the game and few cards. There then commenced something of a bed shitting, that began with the adding of just three minutes to the end of the game. This for a half with several injuries, five subs made in three batches, a goalkeeper booked for time wasting (itself the biggest waste of time in football when it comes as late in the game as it did), and a minute’s pause and applause for the queen. That could, should, have been enough for Stoke to win the game with impressive substitute Tyrese Campbell banging a shot through a crowd, past Dieng, and agonisingly past the far bottom corner by an inch or two. There was still time after it for Paal, tired and wrong side, to come crashing through the back Wilmot in the penalty area for one of the more obvious spot kicks you’ll ever see not given. Donohue had waved it away even before Wilmot reached the turf, and was really rather giving the impression of somebody who was in the mood to get out of there promptly for his train back to Manchester — which given the shambles Avanti West Coast are currently operating he probably was.
One of the more enjoyable and watchable nil nils you’ll see, and Rangers go into the international break sitting sixth.
Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread
QPR: Dieng 6; Laird 7, Balogun 7, Dunne 6, Paal 6; Dozzell 5 (Dykes 46, 6), Field 6, Johansen 7 (Iroegbunam 78, 6); Willock 6, Roberts 5 (Adomah 78, 6), Chair 7
Subs not used: Kakay, Archer, Bonne, Masterson,
Bookings; Balogun 90 (foul)
Stoke: Bursik 8; Taylor 6, Flint 7, Fox 6; Wilmot 6, Baker 7, Thompson 6 (Laurent 75, 6), Smallbone 7, Fosu-Henry 6; Delap 5 (Powell 67, 6), Gayle 6 (Campbell 67, 7)
Subs not used: Wright-Phillips, Fielding, Sparrow
Bookings: Taylor 87 (foul), Bursik 90+1 (time wasting)
QPR Star Man — Ethan Laird 7 A cut above the level. Balogun the best of the rest.
Referee — Matt Donohue (Manchester) 5 Very difficult mark to give because I thought he was very decent for 88 minutes, and then got a whole clutch of stuff wrong in the remaining time — pathetic amount of added time, a yellow card to the keeper for time wasting when it makes no difference at all, and the Stoke penalty appeal which is the big decision in the game and is wrong. I suspect if I was writing as a Stoke fan I’d probably have given him half that.
Attendance 14,174 (1,262 Stoke) Looked, but unfortunately didn’t sound, like a few more to me. Place still looks great when it’s full like this.
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