Relieved or relegation worries by a midweek win against Oxford and results elsewhere, QPR were much improved on recent outings in the first half against Bristol City on Saturday and then repelled the visitors well through a more challenging second.
There were many contributing factors to QPR’s latest collapse in form, which mercifully came to an end at Oxford on Wednesday night with a victory that all but secures Championship status for another year after a nervous period of five defeats and two draws in seven games.
March, we’d said for a long time, looked tough on paper. You had the top two coming to Loftus Road, Leeds and the division’s best away side Sheff Utd. There were not only trips to play-off chasers West Brom and Middlesbrough, but the games formed part of logistically challenging four day turnaround – QPR statistically the worst team in the Championship when playing game three of a three-game week.
That all would have been difficult with a full squad out, and Rangers were fielding far from that. Injuries have ravaged this squad all season and joining long termers like Jake Clarke-Salter and Zan Celar have been first team mainstays like Steve Cook, Sam Field, Ilias Chair and Michi Frey. Koki Saito’s sending off and three-game ban in the last minute of the Leeds game really did ice that particularly unpleasant cake.
That exacerbated the long-standing problem Rangers now have at this level having blown up their two most recent Premier League promotions, spent the money on tat and then spaffed the parachute payments up the wall for good measure. It’s a league of haves and have nots, and our club has sadly moved in the wrong direction from one to the other. It means the team is inferior to many, and it lacks depth through the squad – a problem enhanced by the lack of serious prospects emerging from the academy.
A perfect storm, then. Not a great surprise to see a few single-goal defeats start to rack up in that period.
What has been vexing supporters, however, is just how often this happens. Just how often QPR collapse into a six-game (or more) losing streak, often when they’d been in really very good form just prior – this time it was just one defeat in 13 before the train came off the tracks. Over this decade we’ve spent in the Championship most recently these are the winless sequences the team has been on under a wide variety of different managers.
2024/25 13 games without a win at the start, seven without a win more recently.
2023/24 Two separate runs of 12 and eight games without a win.
2022/23 At various points separate sequences of six, seven and 13 without victory (one win in 20, two wins in 27 at one stage)
2021/22 Different spells of six, five and five games without a win.
2020/21 A winless run of seven, another of ten.
2019/20 Seven, and five.
2018/19 A run of five without a win, another of seven, at one point we won one of 13 games.
2017/18 Separate runs of seven and six.
2016/17 Three different spells of six without a win, including two where we lost six in a row.
2015/16 A run of eight games without a win, while in receipt of parachute payments.
It could just be, simply, that Rangers aren’t very good. That would come as no surprise to anybody who’s watched them for any length of time recently. But for these sequences to be so dramatic and pronounced and happen so often, I’ve come to wonder how much they’re self-inflicted. Or, rather, how they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Every club loses a couple of games in a row at some point, but not every club reacts with "here we go again”. Do we talk, or think, ourselves into these holes? Are the steps we take to avoid our destiny the ones that ultimately lead us to it?
Prior to Bristol City’s visit on Saturday, manager Marti Cifuentes said: "I’m aware of the feelings we’ve had over the past few weeks. My target has always been to focus on the next game and win that. We’re going into the final five games of the season which we’ve been referencing all year. That’s what I see, and it’s what I saw before Oxford as well. A lot of people are texting me ‘Marti, Luton scored in the last minute’ and this and that. But we had an opportunity to stretch the distance by another two points, instead of always looking down and expecting the worst and what a line-up against Oxford. I would like to look in a different way – how we can improve as a club and a team. Mentality as a club is extremely important. I would like to look at these five games thinking we can beat anybody, a lot of energy to try and push and get more points than we did last season, push and get as many points as we can. That should be the target.”
On Saturday, against Bristol City, many of the problems that have afflicted the side for the last six weeks were still in play. Saito was thankfully back from his ban to spice up the attack, but Michi Frey and Rayan Kolli were only fit for the bench, Sam Field was out again, Steve Cook and Ilias Chair were still missing alongside the long termers, and Harrison Ashby had to play out of position to cover Kenneth Paal. Bristol City sat fifth in the league, were unbeaten in seven visits to Loftus Road and had a fit and firing squad to choose from after two wins earlier this week.
And yet, first half at least, totally different QPR side to the one we’ve been watching. Winless run over, Oxford win in the bag, Championship status secured, weight lifted from shoulders… transformational. No serpent in Eden as passes flowed together and City’s physical but square and stodgy back three got pulled hither and thither. Karamoko Dembele’s outside of the foot pass behind that backline on the quarter hour was sumptuous, and Harris Ashby really should have finished it off with the goal it deserved at the back post.
Soon Rangers were stringing together first time passes and flicks down the right through Dunne, Madsen and Dembele. Having worked the ball into Saito and back out to Madsen, Dembele ran around the back to arrive late and attack the Dane’s cross. If you’re conceding headed goals to the shortest king in QPR’s midget army you should probably have a word, but the move that lead up to it was like something from the 1970s on this ground and the much-maligned Madsen now has two assists in two games. Three chances created in the first 45 is much more the sort of number we need to be seeing from him, and had Jimmy Dunne volleyed in and not a foot wide as he walked onto a deep cross moments later it could/should have been 2-0 and the chance to pull off into the distance was there.
Sure, there were differences and things in Rangers’ favour. Bristol City do most of their heavy lifting at home, and had won just one of 12 away games coming into this. The decision to start Yang Min-Hyeok up front worked really well, he played that position better than the other stand ins have of late. Saito made a difference, Madsen had his best 45 minutes for the club… But there was pace and energy and press and confidence and belief about QPR that simply hasn’t been there. One win against a crap Oxford side and suddenly we’re skipping through meadows and enjoying life again. It was difficult to conclude this team doesn’t over think it a bit too much at times.
Speaking of which The Rob Dickie Escape Room - can he get out of his own head? - was back in town. A second half penalty appeal from Saito was fairly vintage stuff from the former QPR centre back – frightened by pace, heading in the wrong direction, getting a bit grabby and clumsy. Referee Leigh Doughty said no to that, and a handball appeal when Dickie inadvertently stopped a ball getting through to Jack Colback with his arm. I’d have been fine with both decisions, had Doughty not spent the rest of a frustratingly inconsistent afternoon giving free kicks for sometimes the most pathetically meagre bits of contact imaginable. West Ham loanee George Earthy’s collapse next to a bemused Karamoko Dembele for an immediately awarded free kick was a low point. This was a game refereed to two different standards and two different sets of rules – one for in the penalty area, where you’d basically have to be shot in the leg for the referee to care, and one for outside, where you could find yourself penalised for farting in the general vicinity of an opponent.
QPR could have done with the help after half time. The promising first half hour had given way to a Bristol City equaliser when patient, skilful probing down our right and their left eventually saw the game’s two best players – Max Bird and George Earthy, who sounds like a gardener from Noddy – combine with a slipped through ball and slick finish into the corner. It wasn’t the first time City had spent time down that side, outnumbering Dunne and taking advantage of Dembele’s poor defence, and the goal felt like it was coming a while before it was scored.
Sometimes it’s important to praise and acknowledge a decent opponent rather than always look for faults at home. City looked a good side to me, particularly Bird and Earthy behind Wells, joined from full back by McCrorie and really clever in possession. It needed the frequent interventions of the ever-impressive Liam Morrison, now unbeaten in 12 QPR starts, and Rolls Royce Ronnie Edwards, immaculate on both sides of the ball all day, to repel their increasingly dangerous second half efforts. When sub Anis Mehmeti did get clear through on goal, City’s top scorer thankfully trod on the ball. Soon Paul Nardi was diving full length through shins to palm a low cross as far away from the goal as he could get it, and thankfully not to any onrushing opponents.
QPR became a more taxing watch than their free flowing first half efforts. They could still have won the game – Saito’s industry chasing a lost cause on the byline presented him with the same chance he’d scored himself at Hull recently but this time he tried to tee up Yang and got the pass wrong, later sub Rayan Kolli ran through with Paul Smyth and others in support right and left but his attempt to go for glory himself from long range ended only in him sending a probe up to search for Kerry Dixon’s penalty. Overall, though, they looked tired, leggy and disjointed as the game went on, harmed rather than helped by their substitutions. Jack Colback suffered through having to walk a yellow card tightrope from as early as the sixth minute when Jonathan Varane’s dreadful pass put him in the shit. Madsen’s improved first half with the ball gave way to a second where he was a defensive liability in midfield and should have been hooked much earlier.
Edwards’ big, thick, meaty block on a late shot from the edge of the box crowned his latest man of the match performance.
There were moments of real frustration. Awarded a free kick on halfway, wide right, eight minutes from time, Rangers turned down the chance to put a long ball up into a crowded box, or play a quick positive ball down the right to Paul Smyth. Instead they went sideways and backwards, through half a dozen passes, until the ball ended up with Paul Nardi who, under pressure, had to just larrup the ball away anyway, high, wide and handsome back to exactly the place the free kick had been in where City won the header and went on the attack. I fail to understand the logic of completing ten backwards and sideways passes to end up kicking it long from the goalkeeper anyway.
I didn’t mind the result though, or the performance, against a good side. Liam Manning has City settled, well coached and drilled, confident and creative with the ball. Every player knows his role in that team, while QPR are scrambling around to even put an 11 out from week to week at the moment.
There were plenty of positives, particularly in the first half, and it was an enjoyable game to watch.
Where has this been, and why, was more the point here.
Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread
QPR: Nardi 6; Dunne 7, Morrison 7, Edwards 7, Ashby 6; Varane 6, Colback 6 (Bennie 74, 5), Madsen 6 (Fox 73, 6); Saito 6 (Kolli 86, -), Min-Hyeok 7 (Andersen 87, -), Dembele 7 (Smyth 60, 5)
Subs not used: Frey, Morgan, Sutton, Walsh
Goals: Dembele 21 (assisted Madsen)
Yellow Cards: Colback 7 (foul)
Bristol City O’Leary 6; Vyner 6, Dickie 6, Pring 6; Hirakawa 5 (Mehmeti 58, 6), Williams 6, Knight 7, McCrorie 7 (Tanner 59, 6); Bird 8 (Twine 74, 6), Earthy 8 (Bell 74, 6), Wells 6 (Armstrong 84, -)
Subs not used: Bajic, McGuane, Roberts, Thomas
Goals: Earthy 30 (assisted Bird)
Yellow Cards: McCrorie 47 (foul)
QPR Star Man – Ronnie Edwards 7 Class act.
Referee – Leigh Doughty (Blackpool) 6 Usually a referee I quite like, but this not one of his better displays. Not egregiously bad, probably a 6/10, but always going to wind people up when something is a foul one minute and not the next, or a yellow card one minute and not the next. I didn't think the Saito challenge was a penalty, but not ten seconds later he gives them a free kick on halfway for a tiny piece of contact. It really didn't take much to get a free kick in open play, every bit of contact a foul, but then as soon as you were in the box you basically had to get shot in the leg to get a penalty. The game was refereed to two sets of rules, one if you were in the area and one if you weren't.
Attendance – 16,867 (1,800 Bristol City approx.) Messy configuration of the School End is back - empty seats upstairs while City fans get a block in the lower and QPR season ticket holders have to bunch up.
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