Teams surrounding QPR at the bottom of the Premier League are twisting rather than sticking. Harry Redknapp must do likewise, and not just in the transfer market, if the R's are to keep pace.
A year ago, the Queens Park Rangers supporters were recovering from a coma induced by a 0-0 draw at Watford - a football game so terrible, those in attendance actually left less intelligent than when they arrived. Whole IQ points were lost as Harry Redknapp pitched for a new striker in the January transfer window by making out like he had no forwards at all to select for the game, and played a flat midfield six instead.
He got his way: Mobido Maiga, Will Keane and Kevin Doyle were all shipped in. With hindsight, QPR would have been better off signing the men from the Rice Krispies advert.
Now 12 months on QPR are fifteenth in the Premier League at the turn of the year. If you’d suggested that outcome to any of the travelling faithful as they pushed aside a police barricade in their desperation to flee the horror laid before them at Vicarage Road early, like braindead X Factor disciples shoving perfect strangers to the ground in Asda because 50 notes have been knocked off a technically unsound Korean television set, they’d have laughed so hard they’d have struggled to hold their bladders. Two big fingers from Harry to all doubters. Once they’d finished laughing they’d have ripped your arm off and licked the shoulder joint clean for the current position.
What Harry would like to be doing now, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, is signing some more strikers. Charlie Austin has made the step up to the top flight in much the same way he did from non-league to League One, and then to the Championship i.e. with consummate ease. But Rangers have been embarrassingly reliant on their talismanic front man for the best part of 18 months now. The R’s have scored 21 goals this year and Austin has 12 of them. They scored 53 goals last year and he got 19. Redknapp’s logic that QPR can’t rely on him this much moving forwards, and risk being totally finished if he picks up an injury as he did at this point last season, is hard to argue with.
Mauro Zarate, a temperamental but skilful Argentinean, is set to arrive on loan from West Ham, but Redknapp and QPR have always been the footballing equivalent of an epileptic fit during the filming of Supermarket Sweep at this time of year and it’s unlikely that he will be the only one through an entry and exit door at Loftus Road that revolves so much it may as well just be a hole in the wall. Tony Fernandes, enduring a horrible time in his other businesses and no doubt wary of QPR’s extensive losses and to-be-confirmed Financial Fair Play breaches, would like additions to be loans. Redknapp, naturally, would like those purse strings loosened up a little, if his demeanour and answers in today’s pre-match press conference are anything to go by.
"Football is about good players. If you can buy the best players you'll be the best team,” Redknapp said, before saying his wish for 2015 was for "a peaceful year in the world, and good health to all families.” It’s a line he’s proffered plenty of times before: football games aren’t won by systems, tactics, or anything else; they’re won by football players. Therefore the way to improve your football team is simply to buy better football players. Systems, diet, sports psychology, youth academies, facilities, formations, substitutions - all irrelevant. You have better players than an opponent, you beat them. Little wonder Redknapp and Fernandes have got on so well since the former Spurs boss arrived at Loftus Road 100 games ago.
QPR fans better hope their manager is correct again, because several of the sides currently in the running to be relegated have decided that, sometimes, managers win football matches as well. Or, rather, a different manager may win more football matches then the current incumbent. Bringing a shuddering halt to a steady flow of articles about how much more patient Premier League chairman are being this season, three clubs have changed manager this week and two more may follow shortly.
Crystal Palace have dismissed Neil Warnock and brought in Alan Pardew from Newcastle leaving the Magpies searching for a replacement. That may possible be Steve Bruce from Hull City, a boyhood Newcastle fan, who is on shaky ground in East Yorkshire anyway after a string of defeats. When you’re chairman believes the club cannot appeal to the Asian market unless it’s called Hull Tigers, he’s unlikely to tolerate the possibility of being called Hull City and playing league games against Rotherham. West Brom have also dismissed Alan Irvine and Leicester’s win at Hull over Christmas will only solidify Nigel Pearson’s position so much.
In the world of Redknapp, this sudden burst of managerial changes makes no sense.
"I thought Neil was doing a good job, and Alan Irvine is a great lad doing a great job,” he said. "Where are these clubs supposed to be? People get carried away. All the good judges at the start of the year would have had West Brom on 37 or 38 points, QPR on 35 points, Palace on 36 or 37 points - all the teams are where they should be. Nobody is underachieving - that's where we are, where Palace are, where West Brom are, they've given everything they have. It's about good players.”
By which logic, QPR have little to fear from Pardew’s arrival at Palace, who were always likely to struggle after missing their top summer transfer targets and losing their inspirational manager from last season on the eve of the first game, but have suffered from Neil Warnock’s continued ignorance of his own admission that it’s probably about time he retired to Cornwall now. Nor West Brom, who may be about to appoint said inspirational manager themselves if terms can be agreed. Tony Pulis’ accession from footballing dinosaur dressed as the old man who stands at the bus stop and shouts at the car, to the Premier League’s hottest managerial property is remarkable, but he’s never been relegated in his career and you’d fancy him to rescue the Baggies given the chance. Pulis, needless to say, also heavily linked with Newcastle and Leicester.
In truth, QPR need a reinvention similar to the one that rescued the season between the West Ham and Liverpool games again now. Crystal Palace perfectly nullified the more direct approach that has brought such decent results at home, by dropping tall, physical midfielders deep in their formation to prevent Bobby Zamora collecting long balls and pinning centre halves. As a result, Charlie Austin saw no football. Don’t expect that to have gone unnoticed.
Redknapp isn’t helped by the persistently poor form of Matt Phillips and Junior Hoilett. Crystal Palace’s revival last year was based around the pacey wing pair of Jason Puncheon and Yannick Bolasie running at teams, and Redknapp has tried on several occasions - most recently at Everton and the last half an hour against the Eagles - to replicate that, only for Phillips and Hoilett to play poorly.
QPR need a plan B at home, and a plan of any sorts away, if they’re to avoid becoming predictable and easy to shut out of matches. And they need to find that with or without the addition of new players.
Links >>> A test case in ambition - opposition focus >>> Third time lucky with Taylor? Referee >>> Adel Taarabt's Christmas nutmeg - history >>> Pre-match Presser
Jamie Mackie celebrates the opening goal in QPR's 4-0 home win against Swansea on Boxing Day 2010. Both sides were promoted at the end of the season.
Good news and bad news from Swansea who will be without Jonjo Shelvey after his latest brain-fart at Liverpool resulted in a guilty plea and four game ban, and Jefferson Montero who tore QPR a new arse at the Liberty Stadium but is out with a hamstring problem. However, the game has come too soon for the international call ups of Wilfried Bony to the African Cup of Nations and Ki Sung-yeung to the Asia Cup - both will feature here before flying out.
Elsewhere: I’ll level with you… This is the bit that always gets written last. Usually on a Friday night, usually after light ales have been taken, usually after 10,000 words of other match preview bollocks that nobody reads have been diligently kicked out. On this occasion, it’s 20.16 on New Year’s Eve and I want to go to the home of LFW’s official photographer (not a salaried position) Neil Dejyothin and play that game where we try and name any of the people we see on Jools’ annual Hootenanny.
HOOTENANNY.
I also, as you may have noticed, don’t have a lot of time for the modern day Premier League. I like QPR being in it, because it’s eight fewer fixtures for me to write about, and seeing QPR front up Manchester City as they did in November is preferable to anything I saw in the Championship last season apart from Bobby Zamora’s goal and that Wigan semi-final. But the money, the wild kick off times, the ticket prices, the lack of competitiveness, the fact that a draw away from home is always a good result, the fact we never get a draw away from home, the fact that 14 of the 20 teams exist solely to stay in the division on nothing more, the fact that they all exit the cups early in order to achieve that…. Sigh.
Perhaps it’s just those fucking Thierry Henry adverts that are getting me down. "It’s impossible to talk about my career without talking about Sky, because it’s where I performed.” No, Thierry, you performed on the grass football pitch in front of the football supporters who paid their ticket money to go and watch you. "He’s going to add so much to what we’re doing here.” Really Jamie Redknapp? What are you doing here? Talking bland bollocks for the bits of time when there’s neither football nor adverts on?
I don’t know what’s more annoying... The festering turd of Aston Villa v Leicedster being shined up as a "Super Sunday” - about as Super as the Sunday I accidentally reversed over the neighbour’s pure bred cat - or the latest in a long line of Liverpool v Chelsea fixtures being billed as some sort of inter-galactic war to end all wars and bring peace to the universe. The deliberately bland interviews of Nigel Pearson and Paul Lambert, designed specifically to create no attention or coverage whatsoever, or the snide rudeness of Brendan Rodgers and Jose Mourinho being exploded for days, billed as some sort of terribly interesting "war of wards” that we’re all meant to follow and hang on and talk about at work and on the tube and in our sleep. "Oh Jose, have you seen what he’s said now? Have you? Have you though? He’s a card isn’t he, old Jose. Cor. Jose. Eh? Did you hear what he said? Did you? Jose.”
I hate the way the transfer window is billed as the most important thing, more important than the games themselves in fact, and yet it’s approached with such slapdash reporting standards - because it’s only football at the end of the day - that newspapers and television stations send out information they know to be false, often peddled by a single source trying to get his client a move. And I hate the way people lap it up... "Oooooh Saido Berahino’s going to Liverpool” you may say to me, if you wanted me to rip out your throat and show it to you. No he’s not, Saido Berahino’s agent is pitching for a better contract is what’s happening you fucking mouth breathing melt.
So, anyway, Chelsea are playing Spurs, which is all any of the bloody stay-at-home, non-attending, lard-arse, new-age football "fans” of this country give a shiny shite about this weekend. There are other games taking place, Louis Van Gaal v Mark Hughes for example if they can fit their bloody egos in the same ground at the same time, but frankly if you’re that desperate to know who’s playing who you won’t be looking for it here and I’d like to step away from my desk now so there it is.
Happy New Year LFW readers - we’re the sane ones you know.
Referee: For the third time already this season, QPR have referee Anthony Taylor in charge of one of their games as the R’s welcome Swansea to Loftus Road. Taylor has previously officiated the 4-0 loss at Spurs and 2-0 surrender at West Ham so QPR will be hoping for a change of luck with this official, and a repeat of the result in his last Swansea fixture when they were beaten 1-0 by Southampton. For extensive QPR case file and latest stats please click here.
Swansea: Despite a healthy league position of eighth, and an eye-catching victory against Louis Van Gaal on the opening day, Swansea’s away form has not been good this season. The 4-1 surrender at Liverpool on Monday night was their sixth defeat on the road in nine matches and they’ve only won one of the other two - at Hull over Christmas. That said, like QPR, their away games have been difficult, with trips to Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool twice, Stoke, Everton and high-flying West Ham all completed. Only at Sunderland, where they drew 0-0, could you accuse them of failing to par the course. Of late they’ve won three and lost three of the last six, starting with a 2-0 win against QPR at the Liberty Stadium at the start of the month. Swansea have scored in each of their last nine matches. But Garry Monk’s side have lost 16 points from winning positions this year, the most in the division.
Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion WestonSuperR tells us…
"I've been concerned for a while that our dire away form could begin to creep into our home matches and the awful performance v Palace seemed to indicate this may be the case.
"Swansea totally dominated the match at The Liberty against us and deserved the 2-0 win. The prospect of them turning up with a five man midfield with plenty of movement and pace on the wings is frightening and I think this is the Home game where we could finally come unstuck - certainly a massively improved performance in comparison to Palace is required. If you break down the last 180 minutes of our football, 170 of them have been pretty dreadful. This, combined with an aggregate score of QPR 1-11 Swansea in our last three meetings means I'm going to predict a narrow Swansea win.”
John’s Prediction: QPR 0-1 Swansea. No scorer.
LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 Swansea. Scorer: Charlie Austin
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