QPR fans have never been shy of getting stuck into their own players, but have the trips to Ipswich and Wolves shown us just how stupid this is?

To boo or not to boo
As we prepare to return to Loftus Road this Saturday one of the big talking points to have come out of the two away games we’ve just played has been the reaction of supporters towards their own players.

At Wolves last Saturday the home fans were their usual selves, getting on the backs of their own players at every possible opportunity. Then at Ipswich on Saturday the only noise we heard from the home fans all afternoon was when they booed Gary Roberts as he came on as a second half substitute. There was also a lot of teeth gnashing, finger pointing and accusations of bias flying around our message board when I said that Zesh Rehman was more culpable than most in Wolves’ third equaliser at Molineux.

I really don’t understand the Wolves fans to be honest. It seems that however good or bad the Wolves side is the home fans just can’t wait to slate their own players. Who can forget the sight of a Wolves fan triumphantly hoisting a bed sheet aloft after the final home game of the season a couple of years ago saying “You’ve let us down again.” So sure was he that Wolves wouldn’t make the play offs that he actually took some time out to prepare a bed sheet slagging the players off. That seems a little extreme to me.

Last Saturday at Molineux the booing and heckling of the home players started immediately after QPR took the lead in the first half. Now I know I’m biased but QPR have improved immeasurably this season, surely going 1-0 down to us at home isn’t the humiliation it used to be? Certainly not when the goal is as good as the one Akos Buzsaky scored. Wolves had actually made a decent start to the game and should have been in front before falling behind - yet the home fans still got stuck into their players, jeering and booing whenever they passed it sideways or backwards which meant the players were scared to do anything other than try difficult, often impossible, long balls forward that either flew straight out of play or were dealt with by the QPR defence. The Wolves players looked scared and nervous because of the treatment their own fans were giving them. In the end the fans contributed more to Wolves’ downfall than the players themselves and only some questionable decisions and time keeping from the referee got them back into the game.

Wolves have won five of their last eight games for goodness sake and look all set for the play offs. Why on earth the fans are so quick to jump on their backs I don’t know. “We’ve had to put up with so much rubbish” said one local to me when I raised this issue last week. Really? Have they been outside the top two divisions in the past decade? No. Have they got a lovely new ground? Yes. Is their club struggling financially? No. Do they have a good, attacking, exciting team to watch? Yes. Have they been in the Premiership recently? Yes. So just exactly what horrendously tough times have the Wolves fans been through recently that means they’re allowed to heckle their players if they dare to concede a fine goal to Queens Park Rangers? More to the point what exactly do they think it achieves? Wolves’ performance clearly deteriorates markedly the more and more their own fans get at them so it’s not exactly helping.

There was a different kind of booing/abuse at Ipswich on Saturday. The Wolves fans seemed to just be moaning at the team in general, for everything. The Ipswich fans on the other hand had a very specific target for their angst - midfielder come makeshift striker Gary Roberts who was heckled by the Ipswich fans when he came on as a second half substitute.

Now I see a fair bit of Ipswich through dating an Ipswich supporter and while it’s fair to say Gary Roberts certainly isn’t their best player he’s a long way from being their worst - watching Gavin Williams ambling about contributing next to nothing on Saturday, and with Alex Bruce once again looking slow, light weight and indecisive at centre half without any of the Ipswich fans saying a word about either of them it struck me as strange that Roberts should cop an earful before he’d even made his way onto the pitch. Roberts almost made them look very stupid by scoring with his first touch and had it not been against us I’d have been willing him to do so because I think the treatment he gets is unfair.

Ultimately he’s not going to be good enough for a team in the top half of this league, and he may not be good enough for this league at all, but again I ask what do the Ipswich fans think they’re going to achieve by booing him like that? I understand that they’d rather see Jordan Rhodes coming on after his awesome season for their reserves and youth teams, Ipswich do after all love nothing better than a totally unproven, tippy tappy young kid from their youth team to come into the first team regardless of whether he’s good enough or ready to play at this level yet. But is booing the introduction of Roberts going to a) make Jim Magilton change his mind or b) help Roberts and Ipswich go on to win the game? I almost got the impression some Ipswich fans wanted to see 20 minutes of Roberts messing up followed by the final whistle at 0-0 just so they’d have somebody to moan about on the train home.

This sort of behaviour is familiar to the regulars down at Loftus Road as well who have on regular occasions targeted their own players for abuse. Most recently Marc Nygaard, Stefan Moore and Zesh Rehman have been the subjects - all three booed on as subs in the way Roberts was, booed during the game and abused as they left the field. Now as far as I’m concerned Stefan Moore couldn’t be bothered to put any effort in so while I never booed him before or during a game I’m not going to defend him at this point because he had a bloody lovely three year contract with us on good money and never once gave us anything in return for it.

Rehman and Nygaard though can/could never be accused of lack of effort. Lack of ability almost certainly, but never lack of application. It’s this, and Rehman’s improvement on the pitch in recent months, that lead to an outpouring of anger when I named him as being responsible for Wolves’ third goal last weekend at Molineux. For me he allowed Ebanks Blake to turn too easily, didn’t get near him for the rebound and was in no mans land when it was played past him to Keogh who scored. Some disagreed, that’s fair enough, it’s a game of opinions.

The debate ended up going further than that, at one stage touching on just how much responsibility I, and the other QPR website/fanzine owners/runners/editors have when writing about the players we watch on Saturday. It was said at one point that as the players read the message boards and websites (how about working on some attacking corner routines you slackers?) I could damage Rehman’s confidence and future performances by blaming him for a goal in the same way as the Ipswich fans affect Gary Roberts’ performances and the Wolves fans damage their team’s chances.

I think we need to draw a distinction here - there's a vast difference between booing and slagging players off at the match and then doing it afterwards down the pub or on a website.

To boo or not to boo? I would say not. We are, after all, ‘supporters’ and we should therefore ‘support’ our team at the match. If we see a player like Stefan Moore or Chris Kiwomya clearly not putting in any effort at all well then maybe it’s acceptable to have a bit of a go at him but to boo one of your own players as they come onto the pitch or their name is read out before the kick off is definitely counter productive. I don’t think the Wolves fans can accuse their team, the Ipswich fans accuse Roberts or the QPR fans accuse Rehman of not putting the effort in therefore to heckle them during a match is small minded.

I saw an Ipswich fan on their message board earlier this week describing the argument that “I’ve paid my money to get in, I’ll say what I like” as “an old chestnut”. For me it’s a perfectly reasonable argument. It cost me £26.50 to sit in the away end on Saturday and if I’d seen a QPR player not trying his best I would probably have stood up and had a bit of a go at him. But presumably those Ipswich fans that chose to have their say by booing Roberts would, like me, quite like their team to win the match and destroying players’ confidence before they’ve even got on the pitch isn’t going to help with that.

However after the match, in the pub or on the websites, I think we have every right to say what we think. If I think Rehman was bloody awful at Wolves and cost us a goal then I have every right to say that just as another QPR fan then has the right to tell me I’m talking bollocks. While booing players at the game is clearly heard by the players and affects their performance there’s no guarantee that they read this drivel or sit in the pub and overhear your conversations and if they do well then maybe they shouldn't. I'd like to think the QPR players have more pressing things to do than sitting down and reading what an idiot like me has to say about them.

We have a right to our opinions and to express them and I’m not sure we should really be taking into consideration the possibility of upsetting the poor £5k+ a week footballers.

So I’d say no to booing your own players at matches, but afterwards I think you should be allowed to say what you like and we will continue to do so on this website.

What comes around goes around
Easy to say this week isn’t it? Sure Connolly was two feet behind the line on Saturday at Ipswich when he cleared the ball, and yes he used his hand Devon White style to prevent the goal, but hey “what comes around goes around”, nice to have a bit of luck go our way for a change. The Ipswich fans haven’t quite seen it that way, quite understandably, and are also justifiably miffed that another blatant penalty wasn’t awarded to them in the first half. ‘What comes around goes around’ is an argument trotted out against introducing video technology and it’s no surprise to hear QPR fans using it this week while Ipswich post photographs of the incident on their official website and speak to the local press about the need to introduce goal line cameras to our sport.

The Tractor Boys are at the business end of what they hope will be a promotion season and two dropped points at home against us, on a day when Wolves got a late winner at Charlton, looks very costly at this stage. The decisions made by referee Paul Armstrong and his assistants will live long in the memory down in Suffolk whereas in W12 we’ve had a bit of a laugh about it, De Canio says Camp would have saved Sumulikoski’s shot anyway, and we’ve pointed at Matt Kilgallon’s similar clearance against us earlier in the season as some sort of justification for Connolly’s hand job. So to speak. The argument is that these things even themselves up over the course of a season - Ipswich will get, or have already had, some point winning luck of their own this season at some point.

It got me thinking though, and dear God I wish it hadn’t because it set me off reading through all our match reports from this season and they’re not short, does it go around and come around? Does it really even itself out? Before embarking on this little exercise I was pretty convinced that it didn’t and sure enough as I set off from the August games there were a lot of ticks going in the 'against' column and not many in the 'for'. Basically in the first few matches we hit the woodwork three times at Bristol City and had a blatant penalty turned down, we conceded a penalty to Leyton Orient when Cullip seemed to have been fouled first, we had a great shout for a spot kick turned down against Southampton and all we had to show for this in return was Lee Trundle’s cross shot hitting the post and coming out against Bristol City.

Leicester had two goals disallowed against us but from then onwards for another month or so all my marks are in the ‘against’ column. Leicester got a soft penalty against us, Nardiello and Rowlands both hit the bar against Plymouth, Leigertwood was harshly sent off against Watford, Bolder was harshly penalised at Layer Road and Colchester scored from the free kick and Sahar and Vine were both denied blatant penalties against Norwich at Loftus Road. Of course QPR were eventually awarded a penalty in that match, the softest one of the three we could have had, and from then on things seemed to start going our way a little bit.

Preston got a harsh penalty against us but missed it and we got a penalty at Charlton but missed that. We also got a goal at The Valley where Marc Nygaard appeared to foul Nicky Weaver in the build up. Sheff Wed hit the woodwork twice against us, but we returned the favour so that evened out.

There was a last minute goal against in the home game with Coventry, and injuries to three key players during the game, but Nygaard was lucky to avoid a red card and penalty at Scunthorpe, Alan Mahon hit the post and we scored in stoppage time at Burnley and Colchester were denied a late penalty at Loftus Road when it looked nailed on.

I could carry on but I won’t, I’m actually boring myself now. Basically the stats as far as I can make out are as follows:
- We have hit the woodwork seven times while we have enjoyed ten similar let offs at the other end.
- We have conceded seven goals in injury time at the end of a game and scored three.
- Four penalties have been awarded against us, four for, one of each have been missed.
- Five QPR players have been sent off this season, two opponents have seen red in games against Rangers

In the end we come back to the fact that Matt Connolly punched the ball off the line to win us a point at Ipswich, Matt Kilgallon did likewise at Sheff Utd to deny us one. What comes around goes around. Except I’m still not convinced it does. Sheff Utd also had a goal disallowed for offside that day, incorrectly as it turns out, and they hit the bar while at Ipswich Lee should have had a penalty in the first half as well. We’ve come up quite well in both games really, although we only have one point to show for it.

Ultimately Kilgallon’s and Connolly’s very best goalkeeping impressions are mutually exclusive events. One is not linked to the other, Connolly could quite easily have done that on Saturday without Kilgallon doing the same back in January – unless he picked up the technique from him I suppose.

My little, ‘sad bastard, get a life’ list reveals an increasing number of ticks in the ‘for’ column as the season has gone on culminating in the Stoke home game where they had a player harshly sent off, we had a goal incorrectly allowed when Agyemang was offside and they hit the woodwork twice but didn’t score. This better fortune post Christmas is because we’re spending more time in the opposition penalty area than we are our own – back at the start of the season when all the ticks are in the ‘against’ column we were hardly ever out of our own area. How exactly were we supposed to get a dodgy penalty for us without actually going into the penalty area?

Wolves are currently spending a lot of time in the opposition penalty area and have three goals in stoppage time and a controversial penalty in their favour in just the last two games. It’s this kind of good fortune and momentum you need going into the play offs, they look a dangerous side to me – coming good at the right time.

The better we’ve got, the luckier we’ve got because we’ve been spending more time threatening the opposition goal. Simple as. None of this going around and coming around nonsense. Consequently, although it means we would have lost on Saturday, I can’t help but feel it’s time for technology in the goal mouth.

Kieran Lee – grossly under used
I've ranted on about our propensity for conceding goals late in games often enough in this column, and analysed it to death, but it appears that with just five games remaining we've hit upon a solution to this problem. Kieran Lee.

It seems to me that the main reason we tend to ship so many goals late in the day is because we stop keeping the ball. We spend an hour or so working our way into the lead by keeping the ball, spreading it wide, and getting the ball in the penalty area. As well as being a very effective way to attack teams, as shown by the amount of goals we've scored since Christmas (34 in 18 league games), it's an excellent method of defence because when we have the ball teams struggle to score against us.

As the game nears its conclusion though we go away from this, and the hassling of opponents high up the pitch which is also very effective. We start sitting deep, we stop keeping the ball, the midfield ends up sitting right on top of the defence on the edge of the area and we basically allow the opposition to start one attack after another on the edge of our own area. This change was clearly evident at home to Blackpool when we went from 3-0 up and cruising to 3-2 up and panicking. It was also clear at Wolves where on three separate occasions we took the lead playing one way only to regress and concede three equalisers.

The final ten minutes and stoppage time at Wolves was, quite frankly, ridiculous. How on earth we expected to be able to allow the Wolves players to run completely unchallenged to the edge of our penalty area and survive with a flat back ten strung out no more than ten yards from our own goal I don't know. The defence was a mess, it didn't push out at all, but in truth the attack was just as culpable. Agyemang, Blackstock and Vine all struggled to make the ball stick up front, none of them were able to maintain possession, and that meant Wolves were coming at us relentlessly. The third equaliser, in the 96th minute, came after Rowan Vine had given the ball away on the halfway line and while you can point the finger at various culprits in the penalty area thereafter, and I certainly did, the simple fact is if Vine and Agyemang had done their job and kept possession of the ball down at the other end we would have won.

At Ipswich on Saturday the solution presented itself. With half an hour to go a familiar pattern was starting to weave its way into the game. Rangers and Ipswich had been evenly matched for an hour but with the home team desperately needing the points they started to push on. Rangers started to drop deeper, Agyemang and Blackstock started to see less of the ball, Lee Camp was coming under more and more pressure and we started to give the ball away remorselessly.

Unlike at Wolves and many other similar games this season De Canio rectified this with two good substitutions. Martin Rowlands replaced Leigertwood which improved the midfield no end as you would expect, but the big one for me was sending Kieran Lee on for Rowan Vine. Lee was superb after coming on, curing the ball retention problem with some good quality, sensible passes. When we got the ball we stopped giving it straight back to Ipswich and indeed launched some good counter attacks of our own, most of which came through Lee to Agyemang. He also showed a good work ethic when Ipswich had the ball and split up a number of their attacks with good tackles just inside the QPR half - oh if only we'd had somebody doing that at Wolves.

Lee has been used very little since joining us in January but for me he showed on Saturday that he could be an ideal man for us away from home when we start to drop very deep. His passing is excellent, as is his reading of the game, and he had a great deal to do with us hanging on for a point on Saturday. With a tough last five games promising a number of closely fought encounters I'd like to see him used more after half time, I think he could be a real asset to us and could yet be a good option next season.

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Im a Ipswich fan and its often heard by away fans coming to portman road that the home fans are negative and don't get behind the team. A large amount of fans in the north stand are supportive but since the expansion of the stand it is difficult for the noise to get very far. The Town fans were nearly as vocal as the QPR fans as far as i could hear! I do agree that portman road has lost some of the old atmosphere and noise but it is not a quite ground by any means. On the note of what goes around comes around i think town have had a lot go there way this season. We've had plenty of dodgy penalty decisions go are way and a few lucky sendings off. So for us i think we've been lucky this season. - Ian

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