 Friday, 11th Apr 2008 09:47 QPR face another tough test on the road this Saturday as they travel to title hopefuls Hull City Hull City (4th) v Queens Park Rangers (14th) QPR are so unrecognisable now compared to where they were 12 months ago it’s sometimes difficult to remember it’s the same club. Skint and heading for admin, now backed by three of the wealthiest men in the world, a poor ageing side fighting off relegation now a promising young group of players already being tipped as favourites for the title next season, a set of fans used to panic and nail biting come this time of the season now relaxing on 54 points with 12 still to play for – Loftus Road is certainly a nicer place to be these days. Yet there’s still a fair bit of déjà vu floating around the place. A year ago I remember hanging over the advertising hoardings at the front of the South Africa Road upper tier going absolutely mental at a superb goal from Dexter Blackstock against Preston North End. Last Saturday I was doing exactly the same. Now last season Dexter’s goal was a crucial one in our fight for survival hence the delight, this year there was little at stake but it’s hard to contain yourself when you go into stoppage time two goals down and come out the other side with a draw. Hull City have made great progress in the last year as well – from relegation candidates to the brink of the Premiership. The last time we were at the KC Stadium it was one of four consecutive six pointer relegation matches on the road that we found a way not to win and when you remember the set backs we suffered against Phil Brown’s side, Barnsley, Southend and Leeds it’s a miracle we survived really. This fixture couldn’t be more different this weekend with us safely positioned in mid table and Hull now looking good for the Premiership rather than League One, but I would still draw comparisons with events this time last year. Remember travelling up the East Coast Mainline to face Premiership bound Sunderland 12 months ago? Everybody thought we were lambs to the slaughter at the Stadium of Light, and the bookies seem to believe we are again this weekend, but we went up there and played our hearts out ultimately beaten very narrowly courtesy of a fine long range strike from Grant Leadbitter. Contrary to the odds makers’ beliefs I’m anticipating a tight game here, although it’s hard to see Hull not finding a way to beat us as the division’s form side. In a Championship league that’s made a mug out of even the most experienced and successful punters this season it would be fitting for a team tipped by many for relegation back in August to sneak up on the blind side and nick the title from under the noses of the four or five teams that have been there all season. With the previous bad blood between these two clubs still evident in many message board posts from both sets of fans this week few things would give the Hull fans more pleasure than steam rollering QPR on their way to the Premiership, and 1300 Rangers fans will travel north on Saturday hoping to be present at a serious spanner in the works number from our new look side. Five minutes on Hull City Still this lack of recognition seems to be playing into Hull’s hands. While Stoke are in relegation form and on Sky more than Georgie Thompson, Aidy Boothroyd is soiling our screens with his wacky, irritating and increasingly nonsensical interviews after Watford’s latest defeat, and we’re sitting through one ‘Gary Johnson miracle worker’ feature after another everybody has almost forgotten who Hull City are. Hull 5 Southampton 0, blink and you missed it. Hull 3 Wat.… sorry got to go for a commercial break. Nobody’s paying any attention to them, but they’re the team in form and I would say just about nailed on for automatic promotion. Who would have predicted that in August? Surely not even the most ardent of Hull City fan could see them going from relegation strugglers to the Premier League in 12 months. A play off push maybe, if they steered clear of injuries and strengthened their hand considerably, but automatic promotion? Just over a year after Ipswich went to the KC Stadium and taught the home side a footballing lesson the likes of which I struggle to recall seeing in a league game before? Most on Humberside are pinching themselves. Phil Brown stumbled into the job that looks set to make his name as a manager by accident. He started life after playing as a coach at Bolton under Sam Allardyce and his reputation there was good enough to earn him a wonderful first opportunity in management at Derby County. The Rams had made the play offs the season before with George Burley in charge and were tipped for the same again in 2005/06 with Brown in charge. In the end he nearly relegated them, and was sacked before the end of his first campaign. That didn’t bode well - if you’re being kind you could call it a steep learning curve, but on the face of it Brown messed it up and would only have been given another top job by the most foolhardy of chairmen. Derby though isn’t the stable ship it appears. Brown appeared to tie himself up with loan signings at Pride Park, at one stage having three too many to name in a match day squad, but behind the scenes Murdo McKay was flexing his muscles, the finances were not what they should have been and Brown was being denied the chance to bring players in permanently. The Rams are now led by the man who brought Hull up from the bottom division, Adam Pearson, and Paul ‘tell me how much I’m sweating’ Jewell but the fall out and court cases from Brown's time at the club continue to this day. Brown cut his losses and went to Hull as an assistant to Phil Parkinson. When the former Colchester boss did his own version of choking on the bigger stage that left Brown to step into the breach as caretaker and he’s never looked back. An initial good run of results got him the job permanently and although they slipped back into difficulty and many Hull fans started to doubt he was the man for the job he was allowed to start this season with a number of big name signings under his belt. While the fans’ imagination was captured by the likes of Jay Jay Okocha, Henrik Pederson and Fraizer Campbell arriving at the KC Stadium perhaps the most important signings Brown made were behind the scenes where he added Brian Horton and Steve Parkin to his coaching staff. Neither have ever been my favourite people in the game I have to say but with more than 1500 games as a manager between them they bring a wealth of experience to the dressing room and Brown admitted on Sky during the Stoke match last week that the pair of them often reign him back in when he may make hot headed changes to his team. Given the chance to make his own signings, and with the Derby experience behind him, Brown looks all set to lead Hull City into the top flight for the first time in their history. The stadium is right, the finances are right, the fan base is there and I can’t see past them for the automatic promotion places now. West Brom and Hull City top two for me. Who to watch out for Alongside Campbell in attack is his exact polar opposite. Dean Windass is 19 years older than his striking partner but he’s still going strong and has made the shortlist for the PFA Player of the Year award in this division. Windass got 57 goals in 176 appearances for the Tigers in the mid 1990s but there were some eyebrows raised when Phil Brown plucked him from Bradford City on loan as they battled relegation last season. Eight goals in 15 starts on loan at the end of last term persuaded City to make it a permanent arrangement and he’s bagged another 12 in 26 starts and eight sub appearances this term. A fantastic achievement from him and it’s Hull’s ability to score goals that has propelled them towards the Premier League – 26 between Campbell and Windass contributing to 69 team goals, ten more than Bristol City have scored, five more than Stoke, nine more than Watford and so on. They’ve got excellent strength in depth as well with Craig Fagan returning to Hull from Derby, Caleb Folan signing earlier in the season from Wigan and Henrik Pederson the bustling, left footed forward from Bolton. Brown can also select Richard Garcia, an impressive cog in the successful Colchester machine last season, although he’s more of a wide player. Compare those central striking options to ours this weekend – essentially Agyemang and Blackstock – and it’s easy to see how far we have to go to be challenging in this league next season. Further back all the talk early on was about Jay Jay Okocha but while he’s proved to be little more than an injury prone show pony Hull have made hay with some unfancied names. Henrik Pederson and Richard Garcia I’ve already mentioned and when you add former Charlton man Bryan Hughes to Dean Marney, Okocha and Nick Barmby it’s clear that the Tigers go to attack whenever possible. The defensive aspect to the midfield is provided by Ian Ashbee. Now the thought of Ashbee playing in the Championship regularly cracks me up laughing and the idea that a team with him at the heart of the midfield could actually make it to the Premiership is hysterical. I’ve always said Ashbee is little more than a glorified pub player, promoted from his truer level of League Two on the shoulders of more talented players around him but it’s looking like I’m going to have to do a Jon Walters style U-turn here. Ashbee is playing out of his skin at the moment and on the verge of a third promotion with Hull City. His job is to protect the back four and he must be doing something right. I’ll watch him closely this weekend but clearly I’m wrong about him because he’s the first name on the team sheet at a club I think will win promotion this season. At the back Hull have made great strides. In that Ipswich game last season I referred to earlier they had Danny Coles at centre half and quite frankly I was embarrassed for the lad to be so completely and utterly out of his depth. He was replaced last summer by Wayne Brown who’s a player I’ve always liked and though we should have tried harder to sign when he came to us on loan from Ipswich seven years ago. He was a massive part of the successful Colchester side of last season and it’s no surprise to see the progress Hull have made with him while the U’s have regressed in his absence. He’s partnered by former Brentford man Michael Turner and watch out for left back Andy Dawson’s free kicks round the edge of the area. In goal I rated Boaz Myhill as the division’s best in Hull’s first year at this level and while he hasn’t quite progressed as I thought he might, and has been overtaken by the likes of Basso at Bristol City, he’s still an impressive player and commands his area well. Past Meetings QPR: Camp 7, Mancienne 7, Cranie 8, Stewart 7, Barker 7, Rowlands 7, Ephraim 8, Leigertwood 8, Buzsaky 7 (Ainsworth 86, -),Vine 7 (Nardiello 90, -), Nygaard 7 (Bolder 81, -) Hull: Myhill 5, Ricketts 5, Turner 6, Brown 7, Delaney 4, Garcia 5 (McPhee 58, 6), Ashbee 4, Marney 7, Okocha 4 (Featherstone 71, 6), Windass 7, Campbell 6 Last season we visited the KC Stadium in somewhat different circumstances to this weekend. Both Hull and QPR were in serious relegation trouble at the time and with the R’s developing a worrying habit of losing away games to the teams around them at the bottom of the table things were starting to look a little bleak. Everything seemed to be going well when Lee Cook skipped to the byline and hammered an undefendable cross into the six yard box that eventually found its way into the net off Dexter Blackstock just before half time. Slowly but surely though the game descended into a farce - refereed abysmally by Nigel Miller. Rangers kept Pat Kanyuka on the pitch when he should have been sent off for a thigh high lunge on Forster but lost Lee Cook to a red card for dissent after a blatant penalty was waved away. As time started to run down it looked like we’d hold on for at least a point but sub Stuart Elliott cracked one in from low range after good work from Dean Marney and then in injury time the same man headed home a corner to lift the roof off the KC Stadium. Rangers followed this result up with defeats at lowly Barnsley and Southend but somehow recovered some form to survive along with Hull. Hull: Myhill 6, Ricketts 6, Turner 7, Delaney 8, Dawson 7, Marney 8, Ashbee 8, Livermore 7 (Elliott 80, 9), McPhee 7 (Duffy 67, 8), Parkin 7, Barmby 7 (Forster 46, 8) QPR: Royce 5, Bignot 6 (Timoska 31, 5), Stewart 6, Mancienne 6, Kanyuka 5, Cook 6, Lomas 6, Smith 5, Bircham 6 (Baidoo 61, 5), Ray Jones 6, Blackstock 6 (Furlong 76, 5) Head to Head: Previous Hull v QPR Results: Rangers’ impressive 5-1 win at Boothferry Park in the League Cup in 1985 is this week’s featured match in the ‘Memories’ section, click here for more details of that match and player connections between the two clubs (Warning – may contain references to Mark Hateley) Team News Hull have a doubt over former Colchester centre half Wayne Brown who picked up a calf injury in the 3-0 win against Watford last time out. Brown returned to training on Wednesday and is expected to declare himself fit for the game this Saturday. Ian Ashbee, Andy Dawson and Michael Turner all picked up knocks in the win against the Hornets but with a two week recovery period coming into this game they’ve all returned to fitness and are available for selection. Hull trained with 24 players on the pitch on Wednesday, the only one missing was Jay Jay Okocha and he is their only serious doubt for this game. Referee What’s happening elsewhere? Form This late assault on the top of the table has come courtesy of a run of seven wins from their last nine games, including maximum point hauls from their last four. Hull have lost just four of their last 21 matches taking them from 14th on December 8, when they lost 4-0 at Southampton and sat 12 points off the top of the league, to 4th going into this one and potentially top by the end of the weekend. At the KC Stadium this season Hull have been beaten only three times in the league, by Plymouth, Charlton and West Brom. They are unbeaten at home in the last seven matches and have scored 16 goals in that time. A big ask then for QPR who come into this game comfortable in mid table, 14th position on 54 points. With the frantic activity above and below us perhaps we should be grateful to have a relatively relaxing end to the season. Our run from bottom of the table on December 12 when we had just 17 points from 20 games and were already four points away from safety to 14th with 54 points and four games still left has been based largely on home form. We still have just four away wins to our name from 21 games on the road, the victories coming at Charlton, Burnley, Southampton and Watford. We are scoring goals though, only Man Utd have got more since Christmas in the Football League and after bagging three at Southampton and again at Wolves we deserves more than the four points we ended up with. Our last four away games have resulted in three goalless draws, a 3-3 thriller at Wolves, a 3-2 win at Southampton and a 2-1 set back at Sheff Wed. Prediction Fancy the R’s for a win? Discuss this match on the Message Board Click here and be the first user to comment on this story
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