QPR head to the unhappiest of unhappy hunting grounds, Nottingham Forest’s City Ground, nursing a record of 32 visits without a win.
Mercantile Credit Trophy >>> Saturday November 5, 2016 >>> Kick Off 15.00 !!!! >>> Weather — Bright but cold >>> City Ground, Nottingham
Back in the good old days it used to be four headless horsemen who signalled a coming apocalypse, in modern day football it's just one headless chicken.
Armand Traore - the footballer who can't play football, the defender who can't defend, the professional athlete never physically fit enough to take the field. If, despite this, your club has been tricked by his miracle working agent into parting with tens of thousands of pounds a week to add him to your squad — in the process adding a total liability to the team, and badly behaved influence to the training ground — then it's time to pack up and run for the hills because the clouds are gathering and the vultures will surely soon be circling overhead.
Signing Traore is a sure sign your club is being run badly. For a start it shows they're not scouting the players they're signing, because Traore didn't make a single first team appearance at all between April 7 2015 and August 9 2016 and the ones he played before that were mostly terrible — this a defender twice relegated in QPR teams that specialised in conceding six goals away from home, and beaten 8-2 at Old Trafford in his final game with Arsenal before that. Secondly, it shows they're not doing proper medical examinations, because the extras in Casualty stay healthier longer than he does. And finally it shows they're not doing due diligence on players' character and behaviour, or if they are they don't care about the results, because he's a poorly behaved, unmotivated and lazy.
We know all about what QPR have been up to over the past five years, for which Traore has been an ever present — even getting his bloody contract extended at one point. This summer, after 18 months of total inaction at Loftus Road, Nottingham Forest offered him an implausibly generous three year deal. He responded by turning up late to his first appearance for the club, a pre-season friendly at Alfreton, meaning he could only appear as a substitute for the second half, during which he scored an own goal in a 3-3 draw against the Conference North giants. He's managed four starts for the first team since (he hasn't managed to start 15 games in a season since 2012/13) and could be found down by his own corner flag against Cardiff City a fortnight ago, turning a non-threatening situation and routine clearance down the line into a goal for the opposition in seven horrifying seconds.
Forest fans will soon be wishing it had been death, famine, war and conquest that turned up to notify them this was going to shit instead. In truth, theirs has been a club going awry for some time, even before that pillock pitched up to play (well, occasionally stand in the vague vicinity of) left back.
This is another Leeds, Cardiff, Hull City and Blackburn Rovers case. While the lofty superiority and sense of entitlement that lingers basically because Forest had a brilliant stint through the 1980s under a miraculous, once-in-a-lifetime manager can wear a little thin they are a globally recognised name, part of the culture and fabric of English football, a club that helps make the sport what it is in this country. There’s a Spanish animation producer based in Madrid called Nottingham Forest Media. This is also a community asset of tremendous value to its city.
And we, as a sport, stand idly by while such things are handed lock stock over to whoever turns up from wherever in the world whether they have any idea what they’re doing or not. Championship clubs, particularly ones with big support bases, are ripe for this sort of thing because with the Premier League television deal as it is foreign businessmen know they’re only one promotion away from £150m pouring in through the letterbox and all the global exposure, prestige and marketing power that goes with it.
These people are, almost exclusively, chancers here to make money. Totally unqualified for the job they’re taking on, almost always with no experience of such a role before. And yet we let them take custody of our football clubs no questions asked — like smiling and saying ‘of course’ when a teenage lad you’ve never seen before in your life comes to the door and asks to take your car out for a spin.
It’s a Kuwaiti in Forest’s case, Fawaz Al Hasawi, and the pattern has been a very familiar one. Grand promises and talk of a long family history of Forest support initially, followed by a big expenditure on all manner of random players done with no forward planning whatsoever. The fans lap all this up, they always do, failing to recognise these people for the chancers they are. You get ridiculous situations like we had last week, honouring a two minute silence at a Championship match between Sheffield Wednesday and QPR because the king of bloody Thailand has died in this early fawning period.
Having been attracted by the tradition that is the backbone of English football, and keeps generations of the same family coming back to grounds week after week regardless of results, they try and change things — kit colours, team names. The signings don’t work, the money runs out, a transfer embargo is imposed, winding up orders start to surface, local businesses go unpaid. Managers come and go with increasing frequency — Forest have made some wild appointments, falling for Shteve’s patter, Alex fucking McLeish, Billy Davies’ one man revenge mission. There’s talk of learning lessons and increasingly wild social media activity, threatening newspapers and supporters who speak out, as the whole thing goes down the tubes at which point they vow to do what’s best for the club they love and sell it, but not at a loss of course, despite their ruinous spell in charge devaluing the whole club dramatically. It was revealed last week that Al Hasawi’s attempts to sell the club came with caveats including a fee just to have a look at the books, him retaining a 2-% stake and a salaried chairman position, and him taking 20% of any earnings from any potential promotion to the Premier League should it occur.
Now of course this should all be music to QPR’s ears. As we know, the City Ground does strange things to those in Hoops and the R’s have failed to win here on any of their 32 previous visits. No better time to make it 33rd time lucky with Forest circling the drain in 20th, sporting a nine-man injury list, with the worst defensive record in the league bar Rotherham, on a run of three straight defeats and one win in 11, with talk of player revolt over unpaid bonuses, and our old mate Armband on the other team as well — although he is, brace yourselves, injured this weekend.
But QPR aren’t exactly darkening the door of Hooters in any kind of state themselves are they? Two straight defeats without scoring a goal, including a proper humbling at the hands of Brentford last Friday who subsequently got outplayed and lost to Fulham tonight, have the knives out for Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink once more.
The clocks moving often signals time up for QPR managers in recent times. Chris Ramsey (November 4), Mark Hughes (November 23), Jim Magilton (December 9), Iain Dowie (October 24) and John Gregory (October 1) have all been sacked around this time of year, while Neil Warnock’s January demise came after a run of bad results in November and December. Transfer window coming up, season ticket renewals going in the post eight weeks from now, it’s the witching hour in W12.
The Sun, via regular QPR writer Wally Downes Jr, has Tim Sherwood in line to replace Hasselbaink should Rangers go a 33rd game on the banks of the Trent without a win this weekend. There’s a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that QPR often push out a Sherwood link when the current manager is under pressure just to buy him some more time, as even the most frustrated fan balks at the idea of being led by that gobshite until next November.
If there is anything serious in it, that really would be director of football Les Ferdinand taking all his chips and plonking them on red. Sherwood is a manager who has point blank refused to drop down levels and learn his trade, even turning down the Crystal Palace job because he wasn’t the first choice for it. Instead he has relied on outrageous bravado and bullshit, based almost exclusively around an oft-touted win percentage at Spurs where he had half a season with the basis of the excellent Tottenham team we see before us today and won 14 out of 28 games, losing 4-0 to Chelsea, 4-0 to Liverpool and 5-1 to Man City en route. He subsequently pitched up at Aston Villa where he reached the cup final (lost 4-0) and subsequently spent £51.2m on 11 new players which he said would "show you what a Tim Sherwood team really looks like”. When pushed on what exactly he meant, he simply said "winners”. Villa won one of their first 20 games (Sherwood was sacked after 10 without a win) and remain in free fall to this day, now in the Championship.
QPR wouldn’t be able to spin such an appointment any other way than the director of football turning to a mate he’s worked with before — to excellent success in the Spurs youth set up. There could be no talk of interview process, best man for the job etc, it would have to be called exactly what it is and it would have to work for Ferdinand’s position to remain tenable.
For those hoping for calmness and stability, or simply dreading listening to Tactical Tim’s shtick every week — which seems to be based around deliberately making himself sound like your estate’s friendly coke dealer — a win in Nottingham would be a welcome relief. But it’s telling that treasured local journo Dave McIntyre, who has his finger on QPR’s pulse more than anybody else who commits words to page for money, is in favour of a change at Rangers.
Been arguing along these lines for years and got plenty stick for it. However, this particular case different IMO. Sometimes change needed. https://t.co/ZbRDigypDc– David McIntyre (@davidmcintyre76) November 3, 2016
@Mashwoody hi Mark. Have seen various managers be hostages to various factors.This time manager's decisions direct cause of outcome on pitch– David McIntyre (@davidmcintyre76) November 3, 2016
Partly on basis the overall medium-term project is critical & in danger of being fatally undermined, with no relish at all I have to say yes https://t.co/HbJ4IsHkVU– David McIntyre (@davidmcintyre76) November 3, 2016
Dave has often, justifiably, been first in line to mock the club’s fire ‘em, fire ‘em, flavour of the month approach to managerial appointments and tenures but has openly said this week he’d favour changing Hasselbaink. The prevailing feeling on the message board, that QPR are currently wasting good players like Massimo Luongo, Jordan Cousins and Conor Washington in Hasselbaink’s ever rotating, often extremely negative systems, and running the legs off the entire team in general, is shared by Dave. Far from this being a lost dressing room, with players not trying, the current crop are a good bunch who are backing their manager and trying to execute his plan to the letter. Ergo it’s the manager, and the plan, that’s the problem and needs to be changed. Or so the argument goes.
It could, of course, be that QPR actually aren’t very good, and a change of manager will (once again) bring no benefits — not even a short term bounce, which has been sadly lacking following the last four permanent appointments at Loftus Road. I’m tempted to say we’ll know more this time tomorrow, when any team with half a clue what it’s doing should stand a very good chance of beating a beleaguered Forest side with all manner of off-field carnage distracting them and a clutch of players out injured.
But then, even the genuinely brilliant QPR sides never won here, so it seems an odd game to hang a manager’s future on, if that is indeed what’s happening.
Links >>> Stop me if you’ve heard this — Interview >>> Unhappy hunting ground — History >>> Such a lovely chap — Podcast >>> Stroud again — Referee
It’s usually at this point that we include a video of a classic QPR victory from this fixture in a previous year — Stan Bowles taking the piss, Les Ferdinand rampaging through, Roy Wegerle making somebody look a tit, that sort of thing. But, yeh, 32 cracks at it and we haven’t managed one of those yet, so here’s an old episode of Air Crash Investigation in lieu of your regular scheduled programming.
Team News: Jake Bidwell and Jamie Mackie are the long term absentees for QPR while Yeni Ngbakoto has been injured since the 6-0 thrashing by Newcastle at the start of September. Mide Shodipo missed both last weekend’s defeat to Brentford and the U23 game with Charlton on Monday. Joel Lynch, as always, is a doubt.
In the least shocking development since Friday followed Thursday, Armand Traore limped out of Forest’s loss at Reading last week with some non-descript knee injury and is therefore likely to miss this first possible meeting against his former club. More’s the pity.
Although Forest welcome Thomas Lam and Hildeberto Pereira back from their respective groundings for stealing sweets, Traore is one of nine players currently struggling for fitness at the City Ground. The others are (deep breath)… Nicklas Bendtner (excessive banter), Michael Mancienne (seasonal affective disorder), Jack Hobbs (plague), Mustapha Carayol (brain ache), David Vaughan (appointment at the Belgravia Centre), Matty Cash (knee knack), Matty Fryatt (mouth ulcer) and Daniel Pinillos (Weil’s disease).
Elsewhere: Here it comes, another round of Championship action, sweeping across the country like an Ebola outbreak. No escape, horribly widespread, some eyeball bleeding.
Tarquin and Rupert enjoyed their night at Brentford tonight, making QPR’s comprehensive conquerors of last week look decidedly average in a 2-0 away win. Mind you, Rangers won at Craven Cottage a couple of weeks back so not much makes sense in West London at the moment. Well, West London, South West London, and Middlesex.
That leaves 11 matches for Saturday with Wolves, about to appoint Paul Lambert, facing the Second Coming of Shteve at 12.30, then the Wurzels hosting Brighton in the evening televised game — chosen by Sky purely because there was no Waitrose v QPR for them to show.
That’s because the fake hoops are busy at Wigan Warriors at 15.00, one of nine matches at that time along with Villa v The Mad Indian Chicken Farmers, Sheffield Owls v Ipswich and Relegated Rotherham against Preston.
Champions Newcastle is this week’s destination for the Seventh Annual Neil Warnock Farewell Tour while the Champions of Europe are at Norwich, who sit fourth but were beaten 5-0 at Brighton last week and are having a serious issue with conceding goals at the moment. No doubt they’ll tighten that up nicely in time for their visit to Shepherd’s Bush in a fortnight.
Burton v Barnsley is this weekend’s exciting fixture between two sides beginning with B and that leaves just Borussia Huddersfield v Brum which will be preceded by a minute of applause in memory of Huddersfield season ticket holder John Naylor’s mum’s neighbour’s friend Pat who sadly passed away this week.
Referee: Keith Stroud was once something of a lucky official for QPR with the R’s unbeaten in their first ten appointments with him. But it’s no wins in five now, and several of those defeats have featured controversial decisions against Rangers. That includes two penalties awarded to MK Dons, and a blatant handball at the other end waved away, in our 2-0 loss at Ikea last season, and a goal awarded in this fixture at Christmas 2013 despite initially being flagged offside. Extensive details of all this can be found here.
Forest: The story of Forest’s season so far on the pitch can be found in the ‘for’ and ‘against’ columns. Despite them sitting 20th, only three teams have scored more than their 24 goals (league leaders Newcastle have 32, fourth-placed Norwich have 26, and midtable Barnsley have 27). They’ve scored 17 of those goals at home including four against Burton and Wigan and three against Birmingham, Leeds. But all those goals have only been enough for four wins from 15 played (all of them at home) and they’ve only secured one maximum points haul in their last 11 games, coming into this game on a three match losing streak. That’s because they’ve conceded 29 goals — only bottom-placed Rotherham, (35) have shipped more. They await their first clean sheet of the season.
QPR: As we’ve mentioned a time or two already, QPR have never won a game on this ground despite trying 32 times. The full list of results for QPR’s visits to the City Ground reads… L,D,L,L,D,D,L,D,D,L,L,L,L,L,L,D,D,D,D,L,L,L,L,D,D,L,D,L,D,L,L,D. The latest two opportunities to snap that run came in January, first in the FA Cup and then immediately after in a league game rearranged because of the cup tie. The 1-0 Forest win in the cup and 0-0 draw in the league not only stretched the winless streak, they also made it five matches here without even scoring a goal — Matteo Alberti’s brace in a 2-2 draw here in February 2009 the last time the R’s found the City ground net. Might not be the best time to try and snap any of this with QPR losing their last two (at Sheff Wed and at home to Brentford) without scoring a goal. They have won three away matches from seven played so far this season though — although two of those, Cardiff and Wigan, were back in August and it’s November now.
Not only have @QPRFC failed to beat @NFFC away in any of 32 games played, haven't scored there for nearly 5 and half matches or 492 minutes– QPR Stats (@QPR_Stats) November 3, 2016
QPR after 15 Championship games:
2016/17 (Hasselbaink) - W5 D4 L6 (GD -5)
2015/16 (Ramsey) - W5 D4 L6 (GD -2)– Jack Supple (@JTSupple) November 2, 2016
12 of @QPRFC’s 16 CH goals this season have been scored in 2nd half (75%) — only 3 CH sides have a higher proportion of 2nd half goals– Sky Sports Statto (@SkySportsStatto) October 28, 2016
Prediction: We’ve seen this one before haven’t we, particularly on this ground. Forest snap losing run, keep first clean sheet into the bargain, chalk up a 33rd notch on the QPR bedpost and leave Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink who knows where?
LFW’s Prediction: Forest 1-0 QPR. No Scorer.
The Twitter @loftforwords
Pictures — Action Images