QPR are back in action on Wednesday night with Swindon Town the latest lower league side hoping to inflict the R’s annual, humiliating early round League Cup exit.

Queens Park Rangers Reserves v Swindon Town Reserves

League Cup First Round >>> Wednesday August 9, 2016 >>> Kick Off 19.45 >>> Weather — Cloudy but warm and dry >>> Loftus Road, London, W12

The plan to allow Premier League B Teams admittance to this season’s Football League Trophy is probably the worst idea since Gianni Paladini put together Patrick Agyemang’s four year contract at Loftus Road, which in turn was the worst idea since Hitler’s dad and Hitler’s mum thought it might be nice to have an heir to the family fortune.

This should have been quite obvious from the start. I mean, the clue’s in the name isn’t it? Football League Trophy. Whoever looked at clubs getting a rare opportunity for a day out at Wembley — a first ever trip to the national stadium in the club’s history for Walsall recently — and thought the presence of Stoke City’s juniors and 800 die hards from the Potteries would add to the occasion needs to be taken outside for what former Ukrainian national manager Oleg Blokhin would describe as a ‘man conversation’.

Anybody working at the Football League who thinks the average fan of Hartlepool, Crawley, Grimsby or Luton gives a single airborne fuck about competitive action for the sheltered excellent young boys of Premier League academies, who are mostly only hoarded there to stop anybody else having them rather than any intention to ever develop them into a first team player, is so sadly out of touch with the people they’re meant to be working for it’s a wonder they even knew the competition existed in the first place. Any suggestion from the Premier League that this may somehow help the England team in the future, by freeing the English talent from endless academy games against the same opposition into the wilds of a midweek match against Morecambe in front of 300 people, is risible at a time when the top division is fast heading towards 20 foreign-owned clubs fielding 20 entirely foreign starting 11s.

But it actually turned out to be even more stupid than it ever possibly seemed in the first place. After all, one would have thought somebody might have asked the Premier League teams whether they were actually interested in taking part before pissing everybody off, completely botching the format of an already unloved competition, and making the Football League look even more like Richard Scudamore’s anal gimp. Turns out not many of them did, and now we’re stuck with such nonsense as Fleetwood v Blackburn U23s, and a “northern section” that includes such local derbies as Cambridge v Middlesbrough U23s.

You see, as it turns out, the Premier League already has a horribly devalued knock-out competition to shove their hoarded boys and “cup goalkeepers” out in. It’s the shadow of the League Cup we see before us on Wednesday night.

Now it would be easy to land this all at the doors of the biggest clubs. They led the influx of managers and players from all over Europe, where the domestic cup competitions are held in similar regard as that drug-resistant strain of super gonorrhoea. Arsenal turning out teams of 17-year-olds to destroy Coventry City or Sheffield United was actually celebrated as a positive thing when actually it trampled over many decades of carefully nurtured cup tradition in this country. Man Utd losing 4-0 at MK Dons…

It does strike me as odd that it’s the history, tradition, famous names of the clubs, and the culture around generations of the same family all going to support their team that attracts people from foreign shores to the sport in this country and yet when they get here they do little but try to change all of that by trying to rename the teams, fielding scratchy sides in the cup, moaning about the lack of a winter break, and carting the players off to the Middle East and Asia to play games instead. A debate for another time.

But, actually, it’s not the fault of Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool and the likes for the increasingly sad state of the League Cup. They do at least have the excuse of a league title to compete for, European football to fit into the fixture list and so on. It can be forgiven to prioritise one competition over another when you’re actually in with a chance of winning said competition — after all, Neil Warnock’s 2010/11 promotion winning QPR side lost one of its outstanding players from the first six months to a leg break in an FA Cup game at Blackburn Rovers.

No, it’s the teams that stand no chance of winning anything, but still insist on putting weakened teams out and getting out of the League Cup at the first possible opportunity that are causing the problems here. Villa, Sunderland and Newcastle are particular swines for this — three clubs you could all imagine having a decent run to Wembley one year with a bit of luck, tossing aside their chances by the middle of September by picking a load of kids to play Shrewsbury Town, presumably so they can fully concentrate on the important business of not winning anything else.

It’s even more unforgiveable in the Championship. Fulham may have won at Leyton Orient on Tuesday, but 11 changes to the starting side from their first match? What exactly do Fulham think they’re going to be doing this season that the League Cup will be such a hindrance to? QPR fans know, after the first five months of 2016, that this division can be a very long, very drawn out, very dull affair if you’re not in contention from January onwards. How wonderful would a cup run have been in the second half of last season? Instead, reserve QPR teams went out to Carlisle in the second round of the League Cup and Forest at the first stage of the FA Cup, presumably so we didn’t have too many injuries for the 15 or so almost completely pointless matches through to the end of 2015/16.

Managers get less and less time at their clubs every year, the pressure starting earlier and earlier every season. Why they’re so keen to get a humiliating, headline-grabbing loss to a lower division team on their CV nice and early in the season isn’t quite clear. Observe the reaction to Chris Ramsey’s team of kids losing at home to Carlisle last season — over the top it may have been but a coach already under pressure might have considered taking that game a bit more seriously, if only so as to deprive the critics of another stick to beat him with.

Bradford, Tranmere, Swansea, Leicester have all shown what is possible in this cup these days. Birmingham City got a run in Europe out of it — imagine a run of QPR fixtures in Europe.

It’s clubs like us that have devalued this trophy more than most. It’s not right. While there have been some valid excuses when relegation or promotion was being fought for, overall it’s a lamentable attitude to the only trophy the club has won in its history.

Would it really kill us, or whatever hopes we have for this season, to have a bit of a dig at it and try and go through a few rounds? We could at least not lose to Swindon bloody Town again surely?

Links >>> Wilkins v Hoddle — History >>> A tough season ahead — Interview >>> Harrington’s first QPR game — Referee

Gerry Francis’ Premier League QPR beat Glenn Hoddle’s First Division Swindon 3-0 at Loftus Road in the FA Cup in January 1993 with two Les Ferdinand goals and another from Gary Penrice.

Wednesday

Team News: Polish midfielder riel Borysiuk has returned to training this week ahead of schedule on his ankle injury, but this game comes too soon for him. New signing Yeni Ngbakoto could get his first minutes in a QPR shirt after signing from Metz at the end of last week. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, needless to say, has promised to make changes here, so expect an outing for Conor Washington among others.

Swindon may give a debut to strike Luke Norris following his arrival from Gillingham while loaned Liverpool player Lloyd Jones may also feature. One would presume we’ve remembered to slip a clause into Michael Doughty’s loan deal ruling him out right? Right? Hello?

Elsewhere: The bulk of the games were played last night with the “shocks”, such as they are at this stage of the competition, in their usual plentiful supply.

Northampton Reserves won 2-1 at Barnsley Reserves having initially trailed while Oxford Reserves won 1-0 at Birmingham Reserves in extra time. Sheffield Wednesday Reserves looked all set for safe progression at Cambridge Reserves before conceding an outstanding goal in injury time and then another in the extra 30 minutes to crash out — Cambridge’s first League Cup win since 2002.

Brentford Reserves became the latest victim of Exeter Reserves while Ipswich Reserves were beaten at home by Stevenage Reserves. Wigan Reserves lost 2-1 at nearby Oldham Reserves after having new signing Jake Buxton sent off in the first half.

The game of the night came in South Yorkshire where Rotherham Reserves and Morecambe Reserves fought out a ding dong battle with the lead swapping this way and that before eventually finishing 5-4 to the League Two side.

Three games this evening in addition to our own, with Aston Villa Reserves travelling to Luton Reserves an obvious stand out. Leeds Reserves are at Fleetwood Reserves while Burton Reserves host Bury Reserves.

Sky desperately want to show Cardiff Reserves’ trip to Bristol Rovers Reserves tomorrow night which means our date with the Red Dragons this weekend has been moved from Saturday to Sunday, which in turn means next week’s trip to Barnsley has bounced from Tuesday to Wednesday. It means that QPR’s first four matches have all moved in one way or another for television, despite only one of them being screened live, and it’s not until our fifth outing of the season against Preston that we get to kick off at 15.00 on a Saturday.

Referee: Tony Harrington from Cleveland may have been on the league list since 2012, but this is his first QPR appointment. He awarded Swindon a penalty in a 2-1 win at Doncaster the season before last when he was last in charge of one of their games. Brief details and a couple of stats available here.

Form

QPR: Rangers last escaped from the first couple of rounds of this competition in 2009 when Jim Magilton’s side beat Exeter 5-0 and Accrington 2-1 before losing narrowly at Chelsea in round three. There had been many early round disasters before that and there have been several since with Port Vale winning 3-1 at Loftus Road in 2010, Rochdale winning 2-0 here in 2011, and Reading coming to W12 and leaving with a 3-2 victory in 2012 after Walsall had been beaten in the earlier round. Swindon won a second round tie here in 2013 after a 2-0 win at Exeter in round one but Rangers were beaten 1-0 at Burton first time out in 2014 and lost at home to Carlisle last year after initially beating Yeovil.

Swindon: Swindon started their season with a 1-0 home win against Coventry at the weekend thanks to a late goal from Yaser Kasim. They were dumped out of this competition at the first hurdle last season by Exeter City but have fared rather better than QPR in it of late — hard to do any worse of course. The Second Round win against QPR in 2013 set them up for a narrow loss at home to Chelsea in Round Three while the year before they got rid of Brighton, Stoke and Burnley from higher divisions before losing 3-2 at home to then Premier League Villa.

Prediction: I should just admit defeat now and stick Swindon to win 2-0 down shouldn’t I? Not sure I can bring myself to do it. Herein madness lies…

LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-0 Swindon. Scorer — Conor Washington

The Twitter @loftforwords

Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images

DesertBoot added 11:41 - Aug 10 Eight Championship clubs crashed out last night. Despite previous humiliating experiences, I can't see JFH forfeiting this one. A rare cup win for us!
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pedrosqpr added 12:11 - Aug 10 Not usually one for cup predictions since we are so hapless in any cup no matter ever they call it. however JFH has players that no they have to work hard to get in the starting 11 , so another 3-0 for me
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TacticalR added 18:12 - Aug 10 Thanks for your preview. Agree that the Football League Trophy is looking another absurd mess. What do clubs that spend £100 million on a player want with such a trophy? Or is it considered outrageous and immoral that there could be a trophy that Manchester United couldn't get its name on? If so wouldn't it be easier just to tell Dyke to ban the competition outright? On the League and FA Cups, we seem to be so far down the road of these competitions being devalued that there does not seem to be a way back. As regards Hitler, the parents have a lot to answer for.

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