The best laid schemes of mice, men and football clubs — preview Friday, 31st Jan 2014 23:17 by Clive Whittingham QPR, reeling from the loss of their two most consistent players to nasty injuries, have been frantically scrambling for solutions in the final throws of the January transfer window ahead of Saturday’s game with Burnley. Queens Park Rangers (2nd) v Burnley (3rd)Old First Division, Old Old Second Division >>> Saturday February 1, 2014 >>> Kick Off 12.15 >>> Loftus Road, London, W12 >>> Live on Sky Sports 1 Not that any right thinking person would ever wish injury on any footballer — Ashley Young obviously not included — but it’s never the ones you want to get hurt that do is it? Place the current QPR squad in ascending order of those you’d least like to lose and you’d find the names of Ale Faurlin, Danny Simpson, Nedum Onuoha and, most of all, Charlie Austin at the key end of that list. This week the impeccably consistent Simpson and talismanic driving force Austin — back and shoulder problems respectively — followed Onuoha with his ruptured hamstring and Faurlin with his wrecked knee onto the long term injury list at Loftus Road. Sometimes you wonder what Rangers have done to offend. It’s the loss of Austin that will be most keenly felt. The stats paint the picture clearly — he has 15 goals this season, the next top scorer at Rangers is Matt Phillips on three. For a team that struggles to score goals as much as Rangers have this season — 33 easily the lowest total in the top six and the same as Sheffield Wednesday in twentieth — to lose Austin at this stage is potentially catastrophic to the team’s hopes of winning promotion this season. The club say he’ll be out for a “prolonged period”, Harry Redknapp said in his press conference this morning that he’s done for the rest of the season. Neither scenario inspires a deal of confidence with Leicester in fine fettle up ahead and Nottingham Forest leading a clutch of clubs in decent nick further back. And so, once again, we find ourselves at the breathless mercy of Jim White and his “trademark” (quote Sky Sports themselves) yellow tie, which you can actually enter a competition to win tonight if you’re a mentally deficient, mouth breathing fucktard who gets off on the sight of 20 spotty scumbags massing behind a no-nothing work experience child clutching a microphone in the car park of Stoke City’s training ground waiting to hear whether one of the signs of a coming apocalypse has been realised and the Potters have indeed paid £5m for Lee Cattermole. What’s easy to forget, because of the carefree way QPR approach the spending of money and the buying of players, is that Rangers already have a vast amount of money tied up in strikers. Not only did Charlie Austin cost £4m to buy in the first place, and has no doubt substantially increased his brick yard salary in the process, but the R’s are also carrying — and that is definitely the word — Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora who, despite advancing years and declining health, will both be earning a substantial packet to flop about not scoring and rarely playing. To most other clubs in this league the loss of Austin would be tough luck — the budget is already committed, and it’s not HSBC’s fault that it’s going on three players who have two working knees, two dodgy shoulders and an aversion to the sport itself between them. But Rangers do not operate in the same world as the rest of the clubs in this division, or indeed the real world at all, and so not only are they able to rush out on the final day of the transfer window and secure the loan signings of Kevin Doyle from Wolves and Man Utd youngster Will Keane, but also — at the eleventh hour — West Ham’s Mobido Maiga. Three more salaries to toss onto the pile, and in the case of the latter it’s being paid to a player who has shown absolutely nothing in his time at Upton Park to suggest that he can play successfully in England, or indeed that he’s ever actually tried to play the sport anywhere in the world before. Car window down, pants down, here we go again. The signing of Doyle, however, looks shrewd. Comparisons to Austin are unfair, because unless you go and spend £8m on Jordan Rhodes you’re not going to get the Austin equivalent on the final day of the transfer window. Rangers had been heavily linked with Inter Milan’s Ishak Belfodil this window but, without wishing to get all Daily Mail on you, the idea of signing a 22 year old Algerian whose ownership agreement between Inter and Parma fills several sides of A4 and is a good deal longer and more impressive than his goal scoring record in Italy, totally unproven in the UK, struck me as exactly the kind of stupid signing that QPR have made their trademark in recent times. Like hiring Ian Huntley as your babysitter — might be ok, probably won’t be. Doyle’s recent record rings alarm bells. Three goals in 29 appearances for Wolves in League One this season, and a dressing room and club largely turned against him because of the lack of return for the high wages paid. But he’s a known quantity, at a decent age for what QPR need right now. He can play the lone striker role well, which is crucial given the way Rangers have lined up so far this season, and given the timing of Austin’s injury, and its proximity to the end of the window, I think he’s about as good as you can get at this stage. Likewise Aaron Hughes, a model of consistency and versatility and exactly what Rangers needed to add to a settled back four that’s slightly short at right back while Danny Simpson injured. Hard to feel sorry for this QPR set up, and Harry Redknapp, but to be fair to them had Austin and Simpson stayed fit they’d probably have been quiet today. They didn’t, and the signings of Keane, Doyle and Hughes are sensible reactions to that. But they can’t help themselves, and so Maiga comes in as well taking Rangers up to six loans — Kranjcar, Assou Ekotto, Carroll, Maiga, Keane, Doyle — in a league when you can only select five in a matchday squad. Of course, QPR have an outstanding prospect at right back already in Michael Harriman — who has done everything asked of him throughout his time in the Rangers youth sides and impressed while out on loan. Any other Championship club would — for financial reasons and because it’s the right thing to do — replace Simpson with Harriman, but QPR would rather send him to Gillingham with no break clause in his loan deal and then sign a 34-year-old utility back from Fulham as well. And while Rangers sign West Ham’s worst player for want of something better to do with their time, and give a Man Utd youth teamer the chance to come and develop his game in W12, Tom Hitchcock has been loaned out again to Rotherham. The insatiable desire for more players lives on. Keane, Doyle and Hughes would have represented a good deadline day, but there’s an unknown Brazilian to throw into the mix as well and the gratuitous late addition of Maiga. Five deadline day signings today on what most people with QPR connections would deem a quiet afternoon. Short term, short term, short term. Every problem solved with another signing. For now the merits of the signings can be debated — and Hughes and Doyle look sensible given the injury problems at a team that, financially, is desperate to get back up to the Premier League - but it’s this sort of short term thrashing about at the end of transfer windows that has created that desperation and so it all becomes a rather self-fulfilling prophecy. Twelve paragraphs previewing a key encounter between second and third in the Championship without actually mentioning the game between second and third in the Championship. Such is the importance of this ridiculous bi-annual scramble to the way the modern day QPR operates. If indeed you can call it “operates” at all. Fear not, the loan window opens again in a fortnight. More blood. Links >>> Betting >>> History >>> Opposition Profile >>> Referee SaturdayTeam News: Of course the big news is the absence of former Burnley striker, and QPR’s 15-goal top scorer, Charlie Austin. The shoulder injuries he battled gamely on with on Tuesday night against Bolton now require surgery and although the club is only willing to go as far as saying he faces a “prolonged period” on the sidelines, Harry Redknapp said in his Friday press conference: “It's not been a good week, we've lost Charlie Austin for the season which is a big blow." So believe what you like/don’t like. Rangers subsequently rushed to bring Wolves forward Kevin Doyle in on loan and he was registered in time to make his debut here. Not so Man Utd youngster Will Keane. Aaron Hughes could also make his debut after arriving from Fulham with Nedum Onuoha struggling and Danny Simpson definitely out — though Redknapp may be tempted to maintain the back four he picked on Tuesday with Benoit Assou-Ekotto at right back and Armand Traore on the left. Ale Faurlin is a long term absentee — sob. Burnley did their business early in the window, adding striker Ashley Barnes as back up to in-form duo Danny Ings and Sam Vokes. Therefore the big news for them this weekend is not the debut of a new signing, rather the return of a long term injury absentee — Ross Wallace has not played a league game since August but played for the reserves during the week and may make the bench. Midfielder Keith Treacy (neck) and defender Daniel Lafferty (thigh) both face late tests. Elsewhere: If Sky had their way, transfer deadline day would probably be declared a bank holiday. If it was, the Championship would probably ram another round of fixtures into it. As it is, the Championship have rammed another round of fixtures into it, and it all begins with QPR’s home match with Burnley in the early kick off on Saturday. Half a million fixtures taking place at 15.00 is headlined by Leeds’ home match with Huddersfield which looked a tasty Yorkshire encounter to begin with but has been given added significance by the abrupt sacking of Brian McDermott tonight, and the bizarre spectacle of captain and leading scorer Ross McCormack seemingly trying to engineer his own exit via the medium of Sky Sports News. One-hundred-point Leicester are winning at Bournemouth and Champions Elect Bolton Wanderers are at Ipswich. The Globetrotters host Charlton and Sheffield Wednesday against Barnsley will undoubtedly descend into a bloody, cannibalistic battle to the death with players from both sides tearing each other apart and feasting on the ripped flesh in the name of South Yorkshire honour and pride. Andre Marriner is your referee there. What else? Christ there’s more. Blackburn v Blackpool meet in the Michael Appleton derby of two teams with the word black in their names — racial. Birmingham v Derby and Doncaster v Middlesbrough are also taking place this weekend, to give the peasants in those assorted hell holes something to talk about in the dole queue on Monday morning — said a registered Tory voter. Games on Sunday too — Nottingham Trees v Yeovil, Udines hosting Brighton — and you only have to wait about 25 minutes after that for the next round of Championship action/irrelevant crap. What a time to be alive. Referee: Occasional Premier League referee Roger East drops down to the Championship this weekend for this top of the table clash, although given that he’s only done four games in the top flight this season - his second on the elite list — whether you can term it ‘dropping down’ or not is open to debate. He was in the Premier League on Tuesday night having said that, upsetting Steve Bruce with his handling of Hull’s 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace when visiting goalkeeper Alan McGregor was sent off in the dying stages. For his full QPR case history — his last Rangers match was a 3-2 League Cup defeat at home to Reading last season — and his recent stats please click here. FormQPR: Rangers have now won four straight league matches for the first time since the end of August — victories against Doncaster, Ipswich, Huddersfield and Bolton matching a run of wins against Ipswich, Bolton, Leeds and Birmingham back in the summer. Back then the defence was watertight — they kept a club record eight consecutive clean sheets earlier in the season — but now it’s leaking a goal a game, with all four wins coming despite conceding a goal. Nevertheless the six goals conceded at home, 17 shipped altogether, and 14 clean sheets are all league leading records. The R’s have won 11 and drawn two of 14 of their home matches this season. Burnley: At the moment the Clarets’ comfortable 2-0 win against QPR at Turf Moor in October looks like being a turning point for their campaign for all the wrong reasons. That victory was the eighth straight success for Sean Dyche’s men and took them top of the table with ten wins, two draws and a single defeat from their first 13 matches. However they immediately embarked on a run of six games without a win thereafter and have only won four of 16 matches since to drop to third. Their record away from home is impressive — six wins, four draws and just three defeats is title winning stuff, but they’ve won only one of their last seven road trips in the league and that was at basement side Yeovil. They’ve only lost one of the last ten though, which suggests that they’re drawing rather too many — eight of the last 15. Prediction:Reigning Prediction League champion Mase tells us… “The prospect of seeing the transfer window close just as it is announced that our chief goalscoring threat, Charlie Austin, faces a lengthy lay-off is miserable in the extreme. At the time of writing there are rumours of certain players coming in to fill in for him but the clock is ticking and time is not on our side. “The arrival into W12 of Austin's erstwhile employers comes, therefore, at an inopportune time. Devoid as we were against Bolton of the forward option that Danny Simpson gives down the right, it is likely that Benoit Assou-Ekotto will again be asked to look like the floppy one at the orgy at right back, and I can just see Ings (provided he is not sold in the next few hours) and Vokes being confident of a profitable afternoon to revive their side's automatic promotion hopes. Barton and Onuoha are also likely to miss out through injury. “An early kick off for the TV (where we've often appeared camera-shy) and the uncertainty over our forward line for this one does not inspire me to think that we will have an easy afternoon. It is normally about this stage of the season that Burnley, who are somewhat notorious for good early-season runs, start to drop away as suspensions and injuries overwhelm their squad. Unfortunately I can see it being more likely to be Rangers that are at risk of that fate. “So - a cagey draw, and I'm going for 1-1 rather than 0-0 because of the potential for higher rewards in the Prediction League (can anyone stop WestonsuperR?). “In Harry we trust.” Mase’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 Burnley. Scorer: Johnson LFW’s Prediction: QPR 0-0 Burnley. No scorer. Tweet @loftforwords Pictures — Action Images Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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