City surrender provides perfect summation of QPR's dire season - Report Tuesday, 9th May 2023 18:45 by Clive Whittingham QPR suffered a club record twelfth home defeat of a terrible season at Loftus Road on Monday, with Bristol City the latest team to profit and highlight so much of what is wrong with Rangers currently. Bristol City lying in wait at Loftus Road for the final game was the spectre of a development that has been lurking now since Queens Park Rangers lost at Birmingham City on October 28. Top of the league then, Rangers sank into the bottom three for moments of their Easter fixtures with West Brom and Norwich, and after two wins in 28 matches over five months just needed somebody to give them the final shove over the edge. What better man to do that than Nahki Wells? A player QPR had on loan twice, didn’t sign permanently, who would now be the best player in this team by a mile and already has six goals against Rangers in 11 games for Bristol City and Huddersfield including two in his last three. His lack of a goal in 13 appearances only made the outcome more likely, if you know your R’s history. Actually, though, not signing Wells was one of the more grown up decisions taken by the Loftus Road hierarchy, regardless of the stick they got for it at the time and since. Not committing to an expensive three-and-a-half-year contract for a player who blew hot and cold and was heading into his 30s was sensible, although of course a year down the line we just blew all of that careful planning and fiscal responsibility out of the window anyway to get the likes of Charlie Austin and Stefan Johansen through the door snookering us back behind a financial eight ball the size of a moon of Jupiter. With the surprise wins at Burnley and Stoke turning this final game into a dead rubber, thankfully removing the possibility of The Nahki Wells Moment, in many ways this game panning out the way it did and the season ending in this manner was far more apt. Apt, certainly, that it ended in a comfortable home defeat. QPR have now lost 12 games at Loftus Road - an unwanted new club record — and if ever a group of people deserved to have that record against their names it’s the group of people who have put us through this. They have won just one of the last 15 matches in W12 and have failed to score in 10 of their 23 matches on this ground over the campaign. They have scored in the second half on just three occasions, and only managed four goals at the Loft End in front of the core of their most loyal support. If you've got an adult season ticket in the Upper Loft, you've paid in excess of £100 per goal at your end. The last one of those was a consolation against Millwall, eight games ago, and two of the others have been penalties.
Rangers thought they might have had a chance to add another spot kick to that here when Rob Dickie was fairly obviously pushed into the City keeper Max O’Leary by a defender caught wrong side under a late free kick. Referee Andy Woolmer, mercifully in charge of a professional game for the final time after 29 years of chucklesome chaos on the league list, recognised Something Has Happened immediately and blew his whistle right away. The game, crowd and players stopped and turned to this odd little gnome character awaiting guidance, but his ability to process and specify exactly what the Something might be deserted him. Hello, my name is Mr Woolmer, I believe you have a letter for me. Ok Mr Woolmer, what’s your first name? … After an imponderable time spent ambling around in the goal mouth, he restarted play with… a Bristol City free kick. A whip round in the Crown for his carriage clock later raised 13p. Apt, also, that it played out in front of a near capacity crowd in Shepherd’s Bush. The support has held up in number and volume remarkably given the outright disrespect shown to the fans by the people paid to represent the club. When Birmingham lost 6-1 at Blackpool last season they tried to burn the place down, when QPR did it in March some stayed to the end to applaud the players and beg shirts from them. Despite everything, the two biggest attendances at Loftus Road have come in the final six games — this one, and Watford’s visit. Right down to the very final game we have turned up, and they have not.
Apt, too, that it was done with this team selection. To a certain extent we know why Gareth Ainsworth has gone about things the way he has and said what he’s said since he got through the door, certainly when taken in the context of the response Neil Critchley got when he publicly questioned the mentality of the squad he’d inherited. But his constant “the boys have given me everything, the boys deserve all the credit, the boys do care” schtick has been a flagrant gaslighting of supporters who can see with their own two eyes that this plainly isn’t true. To then spend a week hinting at some changes, some chances for players to play for deals next year, some opportunities to look at some of the younger lads, only to just chuck out a 4-4-2 with all the same faces - two 34-year-olds, Man Utd’s Ethan Laird at right back, only Elijah Dixon-Bonner as an unused sub by any way of young prospect — and only out of contract Luke Amos turning in a woeful pitch for a new deal in the middle of the park anything close to any of that, felt like an insult to us Ainsworth can ill afford at the moment. Adomah rewarded his manager by attempting a bicycle kick in his own penalty area — Beavis must be starting to wonder where he's got to — with the predictably disastrous outcome of Pring crossing for Sykes to score City’s simplistic opener. Don’t suppose that’ll be making the fucking Instagram reel.
Surely ten minutes for a Rayan Kolli type couldn’t have hurt? Sinclair Armstrong was, it should be said, injured when he would certainly have seen some action here. And the B Team’s subsequent 5-1 defeat to Wigan — imagine how bad that might have got had Wigan been paid — suggests Ainsworth is right to conclude, just as his predecessors (particularly Mark Warburton) did, there is nothing coming through here even worthy of ten minutes in an end of term dead rubber with Bristol City. Still, as far as hope and excitement went, with season tickets on sale next week (roll up, roll up), the selection, a parade of all-too-predictable second half subs that included the torturous swapping of Amos for Andre the Friendly Ghost and half an hour of nothingness from the painfully disinterested Chris Willock, and the performance it produced, was bleak. Rangers would finish the game without registering a single shot on target. Like hosting a birthday party for a five-year-old and sticking on that episode of Chernobyl where they go around shooting all the dogs. And apt, finally, because it was against Bristol City. QPR did an hour here with Chris Martin up front, and only took him off when they did because if a land mass this vast stays this sedentary for this long you run the risk of somebody colonising it and holding elections. He has, to be fair, done the job he came here to do, and his goal at Burnley (scored when being used in the more appropriate role of eightieth minute substitute) will go down in something approaching Rangers folklore. But City released him in January, essentially into retirement, because of where he is in his career and all the talent they have coming through the ranks behind him. QPR not only had to pick him up because they didn’t have a single person anywhere in the building who could do Lyndon Dykes’ job for a dozen games while he was poorly, but found his standards of professionalism and leadership so way in advance of anything else here that within a fortnight he’d been made fucking captain. Martin ended up openly questioning the players’ dedication off the pitch on the club’s own official website. To have this scenario end here in the way it did, against City, was in many ways so absolutely perfect.
Nigel Pearson - without his two first choice centre backs long term injured by the way - named a starting 11 with six youth academy graduates and no loan players. A seventh, Antoine Semenyo, has already been sold for a tidy £10m which will furnish a summer of strengthening while QPR are burning everything down and starting again. There was a goal from one of those former juniors (Sam Bell) and an assist for another (Cameron Pring). Two of them, Bell and Tommy Conway, played in attack with Joe Williams, Matty James and Mark Sykes further back. The five of them were stationed around the centre-piece star boy Alex Scott, a 19-year-old kid so far and above the standard of this match that he didn’t even have to pad up and pull his socks up to play in it. City played into, off, through and around him with mesmeric, comfortable ease in something crunching between second and third gear. A beautiful footballer, so obviously destined for bigger and better things, I could have happily sat and watched him glide around all afternoon and, such was QPR’s pathetically impassive approach to dealing with him and his team mates, that’s essentially what I got to do. And this lot are only fourteenth. I certainly know which of these teams I’d be more excited about going to watch next season. Only one development club involved in this game. Streets ahead. Scott pulling the strings on 11 minutes almost had a queue of admirers in at the far post for the opener, but Paal scrambled well to deny Conway. A big three v two break on 24 minutes was seen off by Rob Dickie holding his position well and intercepting. After conceding one, Seny Dieng was lucky to get away with needless dallying over a pass back, and Paal’s similar inertia ten from half time saw Sykes whip a ball the Dutchman thought was going out for a goalkick back into the red zone for what could so easily have been a second goal. Conway later drilled one wide after Dunne, really rather hopelessly, gave the ball away in midfield. During what, relatively speaking, was a half reasonable opening quarter hour from Ainsworth’s team, one drive at the keeper’s legs at the near post from paal, and a big scramble in which Dykes and Adomah might have scored but had long since been flagged offside, was as close as the Hoops came to a goal all afternoon. Martin did at least glance one Paal corner wide at the start of the second half, but what corners QPR did win after half time seemed to spark enormous confusion and debate about who was even supposed to be taking them, never mind what they were to do with the delivery, which rather calls into question this pride the management team supposedly has about set piece play.
On a similar theme, the second goal was as inevitable as the manner it was scored in. No team has conceded more from dead balls than QPR and with two separate chances to clear rejected they then stood around and watched as Williams clipped one up for Bell to gently bounce into the net from six yards out unmarked. That’s 71 goals shipped overall now, the fourth season in six Rangers have breached 70 in a Championship campaign, and as with every single one of the previous 70 the pathetic, mass arm-raised appeal for a linesman’s flag to rescue for them from their own ineptitude began the moment the ball hit the net. The game, already playing out like some weirdly mismatched cup tie, descended into pre-season friendly territory from there. City got needlessly sloppy, it never looked like it might matter. A prolonged period of pissing about with the ball unchallenged brought the first hint of dissent from the crowd, and Sam Field steaming in with a tackle brought the biggest cheer of the day. It really doesn’t take much, and this QPR team isn’t even capable of delivering that. All the talk and excuses of the boys feeling the pressure, losing confidence, having to cope with different managers, losing key players to injuries… here was an absolutely free hit, in a nothing game, to go out, relax, play with some freedom, give these poor fans something resembling reward, and they did this with it. A “lap of appreciation” featuring all the stars of the year gone by saw Taylor Richards’ mum surpass her son’s pitch time at Loftus Road this season.
Vanity Fair, as Hugh Grant would say, all of life is here. Or, at least all of what has been life at QPR for the last six months. And the thing is, on the basis of everything there was on display, this feels like it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Links >>> Photo Gallery >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread QPR: Dieng 5; Laird 4, Dickie 4, Dunne 4 (Clarke-Salter 61, 4), Paal 5; Adomah 3 (Lowe 60, 4), Amos 3 (Dozzell 76, 4), Field 5 (Johansen 82, -), Chair 5; Dykes 5, Martin 4 (Willock 61, 3) Subs not used: Archer, Dixon-Bonner Bristol City: O’Leary N/A; Tanner 6, Vyner 7, Naismith 6 (Kalas 64, 6), Pring 7; Williams 7 (Weimann 63, 6), James 7 (King 85, -); Sykes 7, Scott 8, Bell 7 (Mehmeti 63, 6); Conway 6 (Wells 64, 6) Subs not used: Cornick, King, Wiles-Richards Goals: Sykes 28 (assisted Pring), Bell 55 (assisted Williams) Bookings: Vyner 15 (foul) QPR Star Man — N/A Referee — Andy Woolmer (Northants) 5 Not sure who’ll enjoy his retirement more, him or me. Attendance 17,335 (1,700 Bristol City approx.) Every single QPR supporter in that ground deserves better than this. This was an opportunity for any one of these players, or indeed this manager, to show they might be the one capable of providing it. If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via our PayPal account loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk. Pictures — Ian Randall Photography The Twitter @loftforwords Ian Randall Photography Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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