For the second season running QPR are threatening to string an unlikely set of results together and escape from relegation trouble. Perhaps they just get off on the danger?
Premier League >>> Saturday March 16, 2013 >>> Kick Off 3pm >>> Villa Park, Birmingham
When QPR were last relegated from the Premier League in 1996 it was perennial survivors Coventry and Southampton who escaped and lived to fight another day.
The Saints and the Sky Blues were five points ahead of the beleaguered R's, but only above Man City on goal difference and pretty grateful that Alan Ball's accident-prone bunch of cretins had kept the ball in the corner wasting time at 2-2 in their final match believing a draw was enough to secure their own safety. A similar disaster befell Birmingham 18 months ago when they ended up needing a win on the final day at Spurs but spent all but the four minutes of stoppage time at the end of the game playing for a draw against a team that had nothing to play for – still, with Alex McLeish as manager you'd expect nothing less than a heady cocktail of negativity and incompetence.
There's a knack to being a serial survivor that Man City , QPR and Birmingham simply didn't have. Southampton avoided relegation from the inaugural Premier League in 1992/93 by a single point and then stayed up by the same margin or less in three of the next four campaigns. Coventry were three points away from the drop in that first season and five points away in 1994/95. Thereafter they survived by a point or less for two consecutive seasons.
These days it's Wigan that seem to have mastered the art. A run of seven wins and two defeats from their final nine games last season was remarkable, and meant they survived despite nine straight defeats through the autumn and another nine without a win over Christmas and January. But it was just the most extreme example in a growing trend – they've been within four points of the bottom three for four of the past five seasons and only scraped up in 2007 on goal difference from Sheff Utd who they beat, away from home, on the final day of the campaign.
For QPR the theme of the season has been motivation. Mark Hughes took Tony Fernandes' cheque book out to play last summer and came back with big name players from big clubs on big pay packets who have since spent most of the year gently wiling away the time, fiddling with their gloves and refusing to sit on the bench, while one team after another has beaten them without too much of a fuss. How do you motivate the millionaires who've achieved everything there is to achieve in the game to run with the same vigour as a more limited but up and coming footballer like Jamie Mackie? Hughes couldn't find a way, and paid with his job.
Perhaps what's been missing all along is the edge, the sense of danger, the realisation that it really is now or never. At the end of last season QPR won their last five home games to survive, and literally nothing less than that would have done. At the start of this season, with a long fixture list stretching out before them, they started with a 5-0 defeat in W12. Perhaps they're settling into that serial survivor technique pioneered by Southampton and Coventry and used more recently by Wigan of only really starting to play when it's really desperate. Maybe they get off on the danger? The motivation is there now and the wins are combining with the experience of last season to breed a confidence that this is indeed possible.
Compare the upbeat, high tempo, adventurous display against Sunderland a week ago with some of the staid rubbish served up at Loftus Road earlier in the season. Similarly, look how limp and careless teams like the Mackems, Stoke and West Brom get at this time of year with midtable mediocrity secured and honours all out of reach. The hope is Sunderland may have clocked off early, but Stoke seem safe despite mentally heading for their summer holidays in early February.
Wigan are down there again of course, but were in fine form at Everton in the cup last week suggesting they may be coming home with a wet sail once more. If the Latics and QPR are both going to string an improbably run of results together, just as they did 12 months ago, then it's bad news for Reading, Southampton and QPR's opponents this weekend Aston Villa.
A decent January has given way to four straight defeats and a managerial sacking at the Madejski Stadium ahead of games with Man Utd and Arsenal. Short of some serious new manager bounce they now look to be in a lot of trouble, and in truth have rarely looked up to their first season back in the Premier League. Southampton were poor in defeat against QPR and a penalty miss away from another defeat at Norwich last week. They too lack recent experience of fighting this sort of fight and could well rue the decision to remove Nigel Adkins just at the point that he was achieving decent results and replacing him with a little-known foreign coach who struggles to speak English.
Villa meanwhile, with their youthful team and error-prone defence, don't have much experience of anything really. Recent performances have been better but confidence looks fragile. Defeat at home to QPR this weekend could be psychologically harmful, with Rangers in form and roaring up to just a point behind them. Victory puts seven points between them and the Londoners and that, for this QPR team, would look to be a tall order to overhaul in the time remaining. It's a game where the ramifications could go far beyond the three points.
I wonder if both teams would take a point and not bother with the match given the option?
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Team News: Harry Redknapp has two of the three players who sat out the Sunderland game injured back this weekend with Julio Cesar and Adel Taarabt back in training, but both face a tall order to get back into the team after impressive performances by their replacements. Armand Traore is still troubled by a calf problem and is unlikely to feature. This week Bobby Zamora has a sickness bug to add to his damaged ankle ligaments long standing hip problem but is still likely to start.
Fabian Delph is suspended for Villa – the second match of a two game absence for the impressive accumulation of ten yellow cards. Darren Bent and Chris Herd are long term absentees while Karim El Ahmadi sits out with a knee problem.
Elsewhere: Well, one can only marvel at the decisions made by the Premier League broadcasters this weekend. Somehow they’ve managed to end up with three matches where next to nothing is at stake while the key games remained untouched. Sky start with Everton at home to Man City on Saturday lunch time and that leads into a snoozefest of Norwich v Sunderland and Chelsea v West Ham. No accounting for taste I guess.
At the bottom of the table there are four key games this weekend with Villa v QPR topping the bill. Regardless of the outcome at Villa Park both teams will hope for favours from Newcastle, who go to Wigan on Sunday, Man Utd who host Reading on Saturday evening and in form Liverpool who travel to the south coast to play Southampton.
In the race for Champions League places Arsenal go first on Saturday with a trip to Swansea while Spurs must recover from a Europa League game with Inter Milan that they made needlessly difficult on Thursday ahead of a Sunday trip to Fulham whose manager Martin Jol will no doubt be keen to put one over his former employers. Stoke v West Brom may as well not happen at all.
Referee: Kevin Friend is the listed official for this key relegation six pointer at Villa Park, although as he’s also down to referee Leeds v Huddersfield at 12.30 either somebody has something wrong somewhere or he’s going to be very tired on Saturday night. Rangers must hope it’s more Goodison Park last season – where Friend refereed a 1-0 away win for the Super Hoops – than St James’ Park this term when he was in charge of a meek surrender by Harry Redknapp’s side. For a full QPR case file on this referee please click here.
Villa: Much has been made of QPR’s lack of ability to put together back to back wins, but Villa haven’t managed it in the Premier League since May 2011 either. They’ll be aiming to break that run this weekend following last week’s 2-1 win at fellow strugglers Reading. That victory at the Madejski Stadium was their third on the road this season which, with five draws, is half-respectable. It’s at home where Paul Lambert’s young side seem to be struggling to meet expectations – they’ve won three and drawn four of 14 and just one of the last seven of which they’ve lost five. Their second half record of 13 scored and 36 conceded is the worst in the league on both counts.
QPR: The victory against Sunderland made it back to back wins in the Premier League for the first time since 1995 for Rangers – and back then it was Aston Villa, along with Bolton, who they defeated. It means that if the season had started when Harry Redknapp took over the R’s would now be tenth, and if had started at the turn of the year they’d be even higher still. There has never been a 0-0 draw between these two in 41 league meetings but the last three have all been drawn since QPR were promoted. The R’s haven’t won a Premier League game on this ground but did triumph 1-0 in the final year of the old First Division, and in the League Cup during Iain Dowie’s brief reign as manager. Goals had been a problem for the R’s who’d managed just eight at home and 11 away a fortnight ago but have now scored five in two. Here’s one for you as we approach an away game with Kevin Friend – only Man Utd and QPR are yet to concede a penalty away from home this season. I think I’ve read this book before…
Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion Nathan McAllister says…
“In the preview for the Southampton game I wrote that Rangers’ improvement under Redknapp had been modest, and that if the season had started the day Harry took complete control over team affairs then they would still be in the bottom three. Well two wins have changed the complexion of that massively: Rangers would now be tenth in the ‘Redknapp-era Premier League table’. It’s a jump that seems to reflect the improvement in performance levels over those two games. Suddenly QPR look like a team that have goals in them. The return of Loic Remy has been the main, but by no means only, reason for that. Junior Hoilett is finally looking like the player Rangers thought they were signing and Andros Townsend has been a revelation. Additionally there has been the very welcome and very unexpected return to form of the much maligned Champions League winning duo, Ji-Sung Park and Jose Bosingwa. Rangers now have a situation where the player who looked pretty much their only real creative outlet this time last month can’t get back into the team. There are suddenly real signs for optimism that suggest – dare I say it - that this is not merely another false dawn.
“If that is indeed the case then Rangers need to ensure that their momentum isn’t halted in its tracks this Saturday by a Villa side enjoying something of a resurgence themselves. They played quite well despite losing in the last game I saw them play against Manchester City, and got a vital away win at Reading last weekend. Rangers will need to find a way to deal with Villa’s chief threat Christian Benteke: the 22 year old Belgian international has 16 goals from 29 starts this season, and the £7m Villa paid Genk for his services back in August looks an absolute steal now. They’ll also need to be wary of the goal threat from wider areas: Gabriel Agbonlahor has three goals from his last six games and Andreas Weimann has bagged ten goals in all competitions this season. At the back Villa have looked abject at times this season, but their direst defensive displays have generally been when Dutch international Ron Vlaar has been absent, and he returned to action last weekend at Reading.
“While this is undeniably a massive game for both teams, it is possible to overstate the importance of these so-called ‘six-pointers’. Over the second half of last season, when the scrap for Premier League survival was essentially between five teams, Rangers ended up beating the team that stayed up with them (Wigan) and losing against all three of the sides who would eventually be relegated (Wolves, Blackburn and Bolton). Whatever the result, QPR’s fate will be far from decided this weekend. That said, the incentive for Rangers to win this game is huge. Regardless of other results, a third successive win for Rangers would move them to within a point of seventeenth for the first time since October seventh. Villa also know that a win would be another massive boost to their survival hopes, and could put them 6 points clear of trouble.
“However, with so much at stake, I have a feeling that the will to win for both sides will be trumped by the fear of losing. A draw would not be disastrous for either side by any means, and despite the attacking threats that both sides possess, this game could be a much cagier affair than many might predict. Since Rangers were promoted back to the Premier League, they have drawn all three of their games with Villa, and I’m tipping that pattern to continue.”
Prediction: Aston Villa 1 QPR 1
First Scorer: Remy (it’s worked for the last two matches so I’m sticking with it!)
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