Theo Walcott scored with the first attack of the game as Arsenal won at Loftus Road on Saturday, but the predicted cricket score failed to materialise adding weight to the theory that QPR have clocked off in other matches this season.
QPR, as ever, are talking the talk. Rarely can a relegated club have commanded as many column inches as Rangers have clocked up this week with manager Harry Redknapp and chairman Tony Fernandes both hitting the press beat in prolific fashion.
After the big boasting words of last summer the temptation at most other clubs would be to keep quiet after a humbling 2012/13 campaign and perhaps try walking the walk in the Championship next season before picking the phone up to those favoured reporters again but you’ve more chance of John Terry writing the forward for a book on the art of monogamous relationships than Redknapp and Fernandes keeping a low public profile. In that respect QPR’s current manager and chairman are made for each other, and they’re at exactly the right club – all three have a historical thirst for newspaper headlines.
Fernandes has said mostly the right things this week – although his bizarre refusal to rule out Mark Hughes one day returning to the club in a capacity other than a severed head on the end of a stick in the midst of a pitchfork wielding mob was one question he perhaps should have dealt with more astutely. But getting things right on the football pitch or the race track has proved more difficult for the Malaysian and a key difference between his point of view and Harry Redknapp’s is already emerging in the rhetoric pouring forth.
The chairman says the most disappointing aspect of the season has been a lack of heart from the players. Not enough effort on the pitch, not enough disappointment after defeats, too much focus on the post-match nightclub of choice rather than the basics of the profession which affords them such a lifestyle. He stopped fractionally short of branding the sport immoral.
Harry Redknapp on the other hand disputes this idea that the team hasn’t tried hard enough. “Start the season over again with this group of players and you’d still be relegated,” he said on Friday. The manager sees it as a badly balanced squad, lacking strength at centre half and goals in attack, further damaged by injury, and totally incapable of dealing with the rigours of top flight football.
Redknapp and Fernandes don’t talk to newspaper journalists for want of something better to do with their time. The chairman is buying time, recognising that he’s fortunate to have escaped criticism from a small but passionate QPR support base which has never been shy of turning on the club’s owners in the past. The Loftus Road faithful are happy to point fingers at individual players and the Mark Hughes/Kia Joorabchian love-in that brought them all to the club and that suits the chastened owner just fine.
Redknapp is positioning himself for next season. The hatred of Hughes means that he too has largely escaped criticism for any part in a turgid season which was already 13 games and no victories old when he arrived, but that hall pass will swiftly be withdrawn if Rangers fail to hit the ground running at a lower level. Redknapp is already playing down the chances of that happening, pointing to the apocalypse at Wolves as a more likely outcome than a West Ham-style bounce back and talking glumly about what a difficult division it is. It’s a thinly veiled attempt to buy himself time in 2013/14, and also loosen the purse strings for another summer of spending beyond the club’s means. To agree with the chairman that the main problem this season has been the attitude and application of the playing squad would be to suggest that it merely needs a summer of Redknapp’s famed motivational skills to turn the stricken vessel around. The manager wants to embark on yet another summer that’s more revolving door than transfer window and so it’s in his interest to convince Fernandes that Jose Bosingwa et al have, in fact, poured their heart and soul into the campaign and simply not been good enough, rather than half arsedly engaging with the club and their jobs before going home to sleep on a pile of money surrounded by many beautiful ladies.
The upshot is everything both men say should be taken with a pinch of salt and judgements should be formed from the actual actions on the pitch. Little more than ten seconds into Saturday’s game at home to Arsenal and it looked like Redknapp had a point – the Gunners were able, from their own kick off, to flood the QPR defensive third with unmarked players and work Theo Walcott in for the opening goal of the game. Armand Traore, starting at left back against his former club; veteran centre half Clint Hill starting alongside Nedum Onuoha in Chris Samba’s continued absence; and goalkeeper Rob Green, who is currently preferred to Julio Cesar as he’s more likely to still be at the club next season, could all be held culpable for the softest of openers. The team is, as Redknapp says, simply not good enough.
Arsenal need points to secure Champions League money for next season and had won six of their last eight coming into the fixture. QPR weren’t very good when there was something at stake and now their survival hopes have gone west they hadn’t even managed to score a goal in their previous three matches. A cricket score looked likely in the early stages.
But there was plenty to back Fernandes’ line on heart and attitude in the subsequent 89 minutes. Against the high flyers in the Premier League this season Rangers have acquitted themselves well – unlucky to lose the corresponding Arsenal fixture the R’s have also taken four points from Chelsea and performed creditably in games with Man City and Spurs. When they put their minds to it this team can play a little bit and they set about their work for the remainder of this game with rather more competence and effectiveness than they’ve managed in the games against the Premier League’s lesser lights this season. It could reasonably be argued that Arsenal got nervous, or simply took their foot off the gas after scoring and would have upped their own input into the fixture and scored again had they shipped an equaliser. What isn’t in doubt is that QPR were far better here than they have been in recent less high profile matches against Stoke, Everton and Reading – and that can only be an issue with their commitment and mindset.
Ji-Sung Park, starting wide of Stephane Mbia and Jermaine Jenas in midfield, chose to pass rather than shoot when he had a sight of goal just after the quarter hour and later lashed over when well placed to do better. At the other end bodies were flung in front of a shot from Santi Cazorla and Green tipped another Walcott shot onto his post. Remy found the top tier with an ambitious shot from distance and Walcott missed the target when Lukas Podolski sprung a rusty offside trap.
This was an even match, far more so than it ever should have been given the form book. Tal Ben Haim, not a man Portsmouth fans would associate with a positive attitude, impressed from right back and made a conscious effort in the second half to chase and harry the visiting team as they attempted to control possession in their own half. That Ben Haim was selected ahead of Jose Bosingwa rather suggested Redknapp doesn’t actually believe what he’s saying himself. Later the manager sent on Shaun Derry for Mbia at half time to try and inject more of the same and his brutal chop on Thomas Rosicky that brought the easiest yellow card of referee Jon Moss’ career to date typified the desire not to let the Gunners have an easy ride on QPR’s own patch. That sort of thing has been sadly lacking this season – as has the flowing move where the Bobby Zamora, fresh from a three match ban, fed Traore on the run wide left and his cross presented Park with a chance to hit a deflected shot wide of the target.
Andros Townsend had plenty to play for, on loan from Arsenal’s bitter local neighbours and rivals for a top four place Spurs, and he was the home team’s biggest attacking threat. As the time ticked down towards the break he curled a free kick across the face of goal and wide with goalkeeper Szczesny beaten after Park had been fouled on the corner of the box.
And the Super Hoops continued to grow into the game at the start of the second half, with Townsend at the heart of some eye catching moves. An early chance from a free kick when Aaron Ramsey was rightly penalised by Moss for a handball saw Zamora nod a back post cross down into the area but behind all his team mates who’d got a little over excited and been sucked en masse into the goal mouth when anybody showing the intelligence to hang back slightly would have been rewarded with a simple tap in. No matter, soon Townsend was standing a dangerous cross up having accelerated to the byline and Jenas and Remy both delayed shots too long in the subsequent spell of pressure. When Townsend took on the shooting duties himself Szczesny’s fumbled save betrayed his nerves.
Arsenal were getting tetchy, niggly, and perhaps even a little worried. Monreal had no choice by to cynically hack Townsend to the floor and take a yellow card after the winger had burned him for pace and Ramsey allowed himself to be dragged into prolonged spells of whinging and moaning to referee Moss, often while the game went on around him. An advert for the Premier League, or Arsenal, it most certainly was not.
It was well after the hour before the visitors posed any threat at all. When they did work up a small head of steam they found Green flying by the seat of his pants with saves from first Koscielny, then Cazorla and finally Walcott - which he had two attempts at - kindly described as unorthodox. Jenas – a ghostly presence, absent for long periods, immaculate hair - was booked for tripping Rosicky as Wenger’s team started to dominate.
QPR sent on Taarabt in an attempt to wrest back the initiative. Zamora collected possession wide on the right and sent in a cross that fell to Remy who hit a trademark first time shot on the turn that Szczesny turned around the post with the save of the game. Wenger would be a fool not to ask QPR to name their price for the French forward this summer. Zamora later tried his luck from 40 yards and, as they used to say on Family Fortunes, if that had gone in I’d have given him the money myself.
The game sadly petered out rather towards the end. Arsenal disrupted proceedings by introducing first Oxlade-Chamberlain for the fairly anonymous Podolski, then fat legged Jack Wilshere for Santi Cazorla who’d been pretty without ever being overly effective, and finally Thomas Vermaelen for Thomas Rosicky who’d stood up well to one or two meaty challenges. Meanwhile Armand Traore realised he was in danger of making it through a full 90 minutes without complaining about some pathetic twinge or other and started limping about during three minutes of injury time necessitating the introduction of Fabio Da Silva.
That QPR have been able to raise themselves for performances against the better sides in the league while folding pathetically against the rest suggests that Tony Fernandes, and the majority of the supporters, are correct in assuming that several members of this squad have not been as fully committed as they might have been for the whole campaign. That they did so again here against a team bang in form with plenty to play for at a time when everybody in W12 is just begging for the campaign to be over adds further fuel to that particular fire. That they conceded after ten seconds and lost anyway backs Harry Redknapp’s theory that the team simply isn’t good enough.
Thankfully/sadly the solution to either point of view is much the same – serious squad surgery during the forthcoming transfer window. ‘Twas ever thus. Mercifully, it’s just the two games left now.
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QPR: Green 6, Ben Haim 6, Onuoha 6, Hill 6, Traore 5 (Da Silva, 90 -), Townsend 7, Jenas 6, Mbia 5 (Derry, 46, 5), Park 5 (Taarabt 79, 6), Zamora 5, Remy 6
Subs not used: Murphy, Granero, Mackie, Bothroyd
Bookings: Derry 64 (foul), Jenas 77 (foul)
Arsenal: Szczesny 7, Sagna 6, Mertesacker 6, Koscielny 6, Monreal 5, Rosicky 6 (Vermaelen 90, -), Arteta 6, Ramsey 5, Cazorla 6 (Wilshere 89, -), Walcott 7, Podolski 5 (Oxlade-Chamberlain 85, -)
Subs not used: Mannone, Jenkinson, Coquelin, Gervinho
Goals: Walcott 1 (assisted Arteta)
Bookings: Monreal 58 (foul)
QPR Star Man – Andros Townsend 7 Quick, threatening, positive – as a Tottenham player on loan he was one of the few QPR players with something genuine to play for other than pride and it showed. Gave Monreal a torrid time and was unlucky to finish without a goal and on the losing side. He goes back to Spurs at the end of the this season as a proven talent in the Premier League, capable of demanding top level first team football either there or elsewhere.
Referee Jon Moss (Yorkshire) 8 Very little to referee and went about his business in an unfussy manner and without attracting controversy. Might have benefited from telling Ramsey to shut up and go away.
Attendance 18,178 (3,000 Arsenal approx) All the atmosphere of the International Space Station, which is understandable really.
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