QPR have put the chastening FA Cup pasting at Leicester behind them with news of contract extensions for three of their brightest young talents – Rayan Kolli, Alfie Lloyd, Kieran Morgan.

Plymouth (4-9-13 LLDDWD 24th) v QPR (7-11-8 WLDWWL 13th)

Sky’s Super Saturday Brunch Spectacular >>> Saturday January 18, 2025 >>> Kick Off 12.30 >>> Weather – Bright, breezy, dry >>> Home Park, Plymouth, Finding It Hard To Believe, We’re In Devon

It had been, to this point, a very LFW January.

As both regular readers know, these previews don’t write themselves. As the decorations come down, the festivities die away, the hangovers linger, and the long, dark, grey days of January and February stretch out ahead of us while we wait to see daylight again, it’s quite nice to be able to put this site on autopilot for a couple of weeks.

There is, of course, “That FA Cup preview again”, which we ran last Friday, detailing all QPR’s myriad disasters in the world’s oldest knockout competition. Something about eight hours in a Mini Cooper trying to get to Fleetwood, something about how we got knocked out in the First Round three years in a row when we were in the Second Division, something about Vauxhall Motors, quick mention of the world’s worst Third Round record (now 53 defeats and counting) and jobs a good’un. Glass of wine in hand in time for Pointless.

QPR then duly go out on the Saturday and comprehensively shit the bed. Great big bloody frothy brown mountains of it hencing forth, like the Julia Hartley Brewer breakfast show. A 3-0 home defeat to a League One side, a 4-2 loss to MK Dons, eight hours in a Mini Cooper trying to get to Fleetwood. We all know the score, right down to the actual score. Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme.

Sunday it’s time for “That FA Cup match report again” where we lament the manager’s decision to change the entire team around, resting players to focus on the crucial business of QPR’s eleventh consecutive season in the Championship and the vital work of finishing 16th within it. Few paragraphs on momentum and mood kill, few lines about manager burning off credit, bit of graphic sexual imagery about Nicholas Madsen’s performance, top it all off with some emotional guff about how sad sacks of my generation crave any sort of success in that competition (quick mensch of the double replay with Blackpool perhaps) and jobs a good’un. Glass of wine in hand in time for Countryfile.

The following week’s preview, the one you’re reading now, is the sort of indignant, spiteful, silent treatment one. All week it’s been ‘What’s wrong? Are you okay? Have I done anything?’ and we’ve been ‘It’s nothing. It’s fine. I’m fine. Stop asking me.’ By Friday it’s time for the dreaded “actually” and a whole load of stories about how managers who rested players for cup ties and lost invariably then brought them all back the following week only to lose their precious bloody league game that they were so bothered about anyway. Steve McClaren’s ten changes at Blackpool followed by a three-goal hammering at Swansea perhaps the most egregious example, although Warbs Warburton resting Nahki Wells (five goals in three games) for a cup tie against Sheff Wed only for him to move to Bristol City and play against us all nice and fresh the following week (lost 1-0) runs it pretty close. “Go on then,” we challenge, “win tomorrow with your beautifully rested troops”. Stick a 2-0 defeat down as the prediction and jobs a good’un. Glass of wine in hand in the upstairs bar at Paddington well in advance of the 19.04 to Plymouth.

Thankfully for you QPR have spent the week since going out of their way to make sure I can’t just hit copy and paste and head to the pub. It’s good news as well, not like that time the star player hit a bloke in the bus queue in the head with a lump of brick. Insert a line about the green bikini jobs a good’un etc etc. The 'don't you dare lose at Plymouth now' preview is hastily replaced by the 'all the excellent young boys get new contracts' preview. Huzzah.

The ever-enthusiastic Alfie Lloyd, surprise package Kieran Morgan and rising star Rayan Kolli have all renewed their contracts at the club this week. REDACTED length, of course, because CEO Christian Nourry is still absolutely steadfast in his determination to die on that hill, but as we’ve probably banged on about that enough for now let’s park it and celebrate what is ostensibly very good news indeed.

Lloyd probably has the most work still to do of the three of them. He’s incredibly raw, does some weird and wild things when he’s on the pitch, and has a lot of technical work to brush up on. But he’s a handful. He’s quick, and God knows we lack pace in our squad. He’s filling out into an awkward, muscular presence for defenders to cope with. His recent cameo against Luton, while not resulting in a goal when it should be brought at least one, was electric, and gave the visitors a real headache. Just at a time when they would like to have been pressing and chasing the game at the opposite end of the pitch they had to deal with an epileptic gnat buzzing about the gaff.

Morgan has been a breakout star of the season having initially arrived as a development squad player following his release at Spurs. I think even his biggest champions have been surprised by how quickly he’s established himself in the first team and what light work he’s making of the Championship, but this is an excellent model for a club on our budget and with a category two academy – picking up the gems that fall out of puppy farms at Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal etc while they’re too busy looking at which Johnny Foreigner they can spend £35m on next. He’s provided legs we sorely lacked in midfield, covering ground like no other player we’ve got. With the ball he is that blessed midfielder Cifuentes has craved who can turn and progress us down the field. He’s brave, and confident and skilful. There’ll be a dip in form, he’s still growing into his body, it can’t possibly continue like this and we must be careful not to over hype and come to rely on him too much too soon. He’ll need to be sat down for a dozen games at some point. That’s all fine. It’s great that we’ve tied down such a decent prospect.

Kolli has been the one everybody has talked about for some time. He was clearly head and shoulders above everything else at development squad level, and not just because of the barnet. His performance in the FA Youth Cup against Spurs a couple of years ago was special and Jack Supple tells us he has averaged a goal involvement every 80 minutes in all competitions this season (four goals + three assists in 557 mins) which is the best record of any teenager in the EFL. That was always going to make him difficult to hang onto and if you’d asked me to bet even Monday/Tuesday this week I’d have put my house on him playing somewhere else next season. To get him tied down is a potentially significant coup.

Like Morgan though, it comes with words of caution. The hair, the looks, the skill, the personality, the video clips from development level… Kolli is box office. He’s also a 19-year-old boy. He’s got some rightly proud people around him, but also some very talkative ones. I can’t ever really remember, perhaps since Kevin Gallen was smashing records all over the place in the junior ranks, quite so much hype and chat around a lad who’s played so little first team football. Since Kevin’s day social media has taken over lives/discourse/politics/the world, and in Kolli’s case there have been reams and reams and reams of rumour, counter rumour, hype upon hype, hearsay and horseshit. His absence from the squad photograph was a ten day crisis covered live by ITN. The reason he wasn't getting picked for the first team through the first half of the season was treated like a kid who's missing from a family holiday. Hour-by-hour updates on his health and wellbeing while we’re trying to prepare for home games. Whenever Rayan's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "Where's Rayan?"

This all really needs to calm down. Now the contract is signed and those rumours are put to bed, let’s all chill out, let him breathe and develop without the pressure and scrutiny and noise. His form and fitness will be all over the place. He'll run hot and cold. He'll have periods of action and inaction. We’ve potentially got a prospect on our hands here, by gar it’s been a while. Let’s not kill it with love.

Some encouraging themes for all three is the rate of progression. For so long players have either stagnated at QPR, or worse still gone backwards. We have seen all three of these lads getting better over time, and not much time either. Credit to the coaching team there. Also their ages - Lloyd is 21 but Morgan and Kolli are both still teenagers. I liked Christian Nourry’s comment this week about needing to be in the development squad at 17 otherwise it’s not really going to work here because we want you training with the firsts by 18/19. For too long we’ve kept players like Charlie Owens, Rafferty Pedder, Nico Travelman etc hanging around here deep into their 20s on the off chance they make it when they were clearly never going to be Championship in a million years. There’s a couple of good early success stories here to boost the club’s image and potentially attract others like them to sign here and, in Kolli’s case, stick around when there’s interest from somewhere else. It’s been a very good week for that part of Nourry’s strategy here.

This sort of thing will also help with squad depth through long winters. One of the many reasons we struggle so much when we rotate the team for cups is we’ve nothing really worth rotating in. Scratch the surface of our first team and there’s mainly drek beneath. It also means we have to run the first team players on take off power, playing more minutes for more games than we would like, exacerbating muscle injury problems that have blighted our winter. A crop of even halfway decent players from the U21s helps with this and the bench options immensely.

And nobody’s talking about the bloody cup tie at Leicester any more, though you can expect that to change back again tomorrow if our attempt to put the team back together as it was again results in a defeat at Home Park. A loss there to the bottom of the league side who haven’t won in 12 league games would set us right back on the copy and paste trail. A few ‘told you so’s’, a bit of finger pointing, all the 'typical QPRs' you can handle, description of the Plymouth goals, bit of graphic sexual imagery about Nicholas Madsen’s performance, job’s a good’un. Glass of wine in hand before our long Sunday afternoon train up to Hull even reaches Bristol Temple Meads.

For now, though, happy Friday.

Links >>> Sweet, sweet Muslic – Oppo Profile >>> Fan sites meeting with Nourry – Minutes >>> Promotions and POPs – History >>> Premier League official – Referee >>> Plymouth Argyle Official Website >>> Plymouth Herald – Local Press >>> Argyle Life/Green and White Podcast >>> Pasoti – Forum >>> Cornich Janner – YouTube Vlog

Below the fold

Team News: Having rested key players for the cup game at Leicester, Marti Cifuentes is expected to recall them for the trip to Home Park and will be under a degree of pressure to get a result having subjected 4,500 travelling fans to a 6-2 defeat through the Filbert Street fog. Jimmy Dunne is a certain returned to the defence, either at centre half alongside Jake Clarke-Salter or right back instead of the hapless Harrison Ashby. Michi Frey will almost certainly lead the line despite Rayan Kolli’s cup goal and Paul Smyth will likely replace Koki Saito wide right. Karamoko Dembele and Zan Celar are long term absentees, Liam Morrison and Steve Cook medium term but are apparently ‘back on the grass’, Jack Colback could follow Clarke-Salter’s lead of a week ago and make his first start since September 14. Lucas Andersen remains injured from Norwich A.

New Plymouth boss Miron Muslic started life at Home Park with a 1-1 midweek draw against Oxford in which Argyle looked a pretty tired side following their cup heroics at Brentford. Goalkeeper Conor Hazard, who faced ten shots on target at Loftus Road in the first meeting and still escaped with a point, wasn’t in the squad at all for that one and is unlikely to feature here so out-of-form Daniel Grimshaw will continue in goal. QPR will be grateful the curse of the former player can’t strike with Andre Gray’s short term deal ended by a move to Turkey, but Ryan Hardie is fit to start up front after three games out with a shoulder complaint. Morgan Whittaker has also recently returned to action and scored at Brentford a week ago so the Pilgrims are significantly bolstered up front where new signing Michael Baidoo has filled in since joining earlier this month. Kornel Szucs and Brendan Galloway are both missing from the defence.

Elsewhere: You think we know how to fans forum, let Sheff Wed show you how to fans forum. The latest chance for the Steel City’s plebs to quiz supremo Derek Chansiri lasted in excess of six hours, going well past midnight, and among a catalogue of highlights documented on the @WTIDPOD Twitter feed was the chairmen openly telling the fans not to bother coming any more if they disagreed with him. There have been no January signings there because, surprise, surprise, he’s fallen out with the more popular Danny Rohl and manager and chairman haven’t spoken in a month – play for play how we said that would go down in our season preview back in August. His comments about Southampton’s conduct in approaching Rohl pissed the Saints off so much that they recalled Shea Charles from his loan just before the deadline – Chansiri disappearing off stage briefly to take a phone call before returning to break the news to the stunned audience just after midnight. All fine preparation for Sunday’s Yorkshire derby with Red Bull Leeds which is being shown live on ITV for some reason.

Things didn’t look to be going a lot better at West Brom, who lost influential boss Carlos Corberan to Valencia before Christmas and learned this week that Josh Maja will miss much of the rest of the season injured. A move for Young Boys coach (stop it) Raphael Wicky came to nought leaving them back where they started again. From the ashes, however, emerges a genuine feel-good story from this year’s Championship, with the improbable return of Moany Towbray back to The Hawthorns, 16 years after he led them to promotion from this league and a year on from him leaving Birmingham City on health grounds. Never before has that Ian Wright meme been so apt. They have a homer this weekend with Stoke from whom key striker Tom Cannon has been recalled from his loan spell.

Sunderland are one of the sides linked with Cannon as they look to continue an ambitious January which has already seen them loan Regis Le Bris former charge Enzo Le Fée from Roma, just six months after the Italian giants paid €20m to bring the French midfielder in from Rennes. The Mackems face a top of the table clash with Scott Parker’s thrilling Burnley side at Turf Moor on TV this evening. Waiting any slips there, Sheffield Red Stripe, who also want to sign Cannon, are at home to Norwich.

Oxford are also following up their signing-happy summer with some big January plays to try and keep them in the league. New manager Gary Rowett had already welcomed Dutch clothes horse Ole Romeny from Utrecht and Millwall striker Tom Bradshaw before today’s news that Huddersfield’s influential set piece danger Michael Helik is coming back to the Championship at the Kassam Stadium. The U’s follow their midweek draw at Plymouth with a homer against Blackburn who won their game in hand 3-0 against Pompey in the week to move back into fifth. Portsmouth, Isaac Hayden now in situ, will try and bounce back from that long journey and damaging defeat at home to 3-3 draw specialists Middlesbrough.

Luton have dipped downstairs to pick up Matt Bloomfield from high flying Wycombe as their new boss and he starts life at Kenilworth Road with an eminently winnable home game against Preston Knob End.

The Saturday schedule is headlined by the South Wales derby between Cardiff and Swansea at lunchtime, and also includes Millwall hosting Hull, Frank Lampard’s Coventry at home to Bristol City and free-falling Derby at home to patchy Udinese B. Millwall have signed a real life Frenchman Tristan Crama from Brentford - bonjour monsieur Tristian, je m'appelle Millwall, oui les pantalons?

Referee: Darren Bond’s handling of the chaotic Fulham v Ipswich game last week clearly didn’t impress as the Premier League referee is slumming it with the likes of us this weekend. Details.

Form

Plymouth Argyle’s main handicap since returning to the Championship 18 months ago is their away form. Last season it took them 15 attempts to win on the road and they finished up with just three maximums away from Home Park – at Swansea, Boro and Rotherham. The win in South Yorkshire in April remains the last time they won away in the Championship. The 1-1 draw at Loftus Road, the majority of which they played with ten men, is one of just three points taken on the road this season with draws also achieved at Derby and Stoke. They have lost 11 of 14 away games, scoring just three times and conceding 35. All of which makes their FA Cup Third Round win at Brentford the more remarkable.

That doesn’t help us much this weekend though as we travel down to Home Park for yet another 12.30 Sky special. Their home form is, needless to say, a bit better with four wins, six draws and just two defeats – only West Brom and the top four teams have lost fewer home games than Argyle so far. They drew 1-1 with Oxford here to make it one defeat in ten, and had 61% possession in that game which is a season high. Their record has been bolstered by a weirdly high amount of late goals. Plymouth have scored six injury time goals on their own patch so far for a gain of seven points without which they’d currently be ten points adrift of safety. There tend to be goals here too. Their 22 home goals scored is the highest total in the bottom half of the Championship, and also better than seven teams in the top half including top six sides Burnley, Sheff Utd, Blackburn and Middlesbrough. The 19 home goals conceded, however, is also the biggest total in the bottom half (level with our own) and only Sheff Wed (20) have conceded more home goals in the whole division. There have been two 3-3 draws on this ground, a 2-2 with Bristol City and a 3-2 victory against Sunderland – three of those four games featured an aforementioned stoppage time Plymouth goal.

Plymouth have the worst defence in English football, conceding 54 goals – ten more than any other Championship side. We kept faith with Argyle’s hopes of staying up last season regardless for the reason we backed them in the season preview – they score goals. Morgan Whittaker finished with 20 goals in all comps, Ryan Hardie added 13 of his own. A big part of the struggles this season has been down to unavailability of key players. Whitttaker played in all 46 league games last year while Hardie made 40 Championship appearances. This season Whittaker has only played 19 times and scored three goals, while Hardie has made 13 starts and scored once. Toulouse loanee Ibrahim Cissoko, who impressed at Loftus Road and scored three in his first nine appearances for the Green Army, came on for the last five minutes during the week against Oxford but hasn’t started a game since he was sent off at Cardiff in October. All three are available here for an Argyle side that hasn’t won in 12 league games, has only one win in 17, and sits bottom of the table. Gulp.

QPR: The 6-2 defeat at Leicester last Saturday was the fourth time in five seasons that Rangers have gone out of the FA Cup at the Third Round stage and extends our lead as the competition’s worst side to 53 Third Round exits. Plymouth, who beat Premier League Brentford a week ago, are next worst with 50 Third Round exits, though weirdly they haven’t gone out at that stage of the competition in eight attempts.

If we park that to the side then QPR come into this game with one defeat in 12 Championship games with six wins among them including the last two. It has lifted the R’s from five points adrift in bottom spot to nine points north of the drop zone (and nine shy of the play-offs). Plymouth have replaced them in bottom spot having not won at all in that same period of 12 Championship games. Since the beginning of December only Leeds United (18) have won more points in the Championship than QPR (17), who have won five of eight matches in that period (D2 L1), after winning just two of their first 18 league matches (D9 L7). Rangers have, however, only won one of their last ten away games (at Cardiff) and have failed to score in six of the last nine. Michael Frey has scored in his last two league appearances and could be the first QPR player to net in three straight Championship outings since Chris Willock in December 2023; five of the Swiss striker’s six Championship goals have come at home, however.

Both games with Plymouth finished level in 23/24 – 0-0 at Loftus Road when a bright start by the visitors was wrecked by Dan Scarr’s 25th minute red card, and 1-1 at Home Park where Rangers’ hard fought away win was torched by a succession of missed chances and a late howler by Asmir Begovic. The first meeting this season finished 1-1 despite QPR taking a third minute lead through Michael Frey and Plymouth having two players sent off. It extends Rangers’ fairly dire recent record against the Pilgrims – no wins in the last four and only one in the last 15 in league and cup. A 2-0 win thanks to an Adel Taarabt penalty and Damion Stewart header right at the start of Neil Warnock’s reign in 2010 is the only success Rangers have had over the Green Army since the memorable 3-2 win at Loftus Road which kept Ian Holloway in his job in September 2004. Plymouth have won five and there have been eight draws between the sides since then. Rangers are winless in nine visits to Home Park, though four of those have finished 1-1 including three of the last four. Richard Pacquette got Rangers’ last winning goal here, 1-0 in January 2003.

Prediction: In our Prediction League for 2024/25 we’ll once again be handing out prizes for being top at Christmas and overall winner from The Art of Football - sample the merch from our sponsor’s newly extended QPR collection here. For the first time last year we had joint winners so this season you’ll be hearing from one or both WestonsuperR and SimplyNico in the match previews.

Nico’s Prediction: “After the usual FA Cup debacle, next up is Plymouth. Disappointingly, but unsurprisingly, they got rid of Rooney and have had an instant new manager bounce in the FA Cup. The question is which QPR will show up – the side which has been grinding out decent results in the Championship, or the defensively profligate shambles that went to Leicester? As usual, we do not have a Saturday, 15.00 kick off, but, unlike Plymouth, will have had the benefit of a full week of training. I think this is a continuation of the recent unbeaten form in the Championship.”

Weston’s Call “Let’s hope resting half our side last Saturday, despite a 12-day break between matches, makes all the difference and we come away with a win. Not the ideal time to play Plymouth with the change of manager and a Premier League scalp taken last weekend. I really hope we can get a win but have a sneaky suspicion this will be a tough match. I’ll be there and looking forward to being part of the sell-out away end, what a brilliant effort for a televised 12.30 kick-off, credit to all travelling.”

Nico’s Prediction: Plymouth 1-2 QPR. Scorer – Michi Frey

WestonSuperR’s Prediction: Plymouth 1-1 QPR. Scorer – Michi Frey

LFW’s Prediction: Plymouth 2-0 QPR. No scorer.

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

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