You're either winning or you're learning, or so we're told, and on Saturday in rainy Swansea QPR most definitely were not winning.
In trendy modern football parlance you’re either winning or your learning. Say that to 903 people who’ve just spent time and money going to Swansea and back to sit through 94 minutes (and never a second longer) of abysmally refereed footballing sadness and I’m not sure it would go down terribly well, but I sense Mick Beale probably took quite a lot about his new team from Saturday’s set back in South Wales.
The Championship is a difficult league to play in. We’re told this often by the people employed to hype it, and occasionally by those looking to make excuses for their underperformance in it. But you have to run your finger down the list of reasons that make it so quite a way before you reach the quality of the teams within it. Occasionally you’ll get somebody with such stark financial advantages they can’t help but steamroller the thing (Rafa Benitez’s Newcastle), rarer than that a team will come along doing something a bit different that others can’t cope with (Jean Tigana’s Fulham, Steve Coppell’s Reading), and every now and again a player like Adel Taarabt moves a team from ‘decent’ to ‘unplayable’. These are exceptions. You’ll hear the word "competitive” banded around a lot in this division, occasionally "the most competitive league in the world” if the host broadcaster’s main commentator is in one of his "these people, this town, this place, this team, these players, they will not go gentle into that good night, they do not know when they are beaten, they are the miracle men” hyperbolic horseshit sort of a mood. "Competitive” is the PR man’s solution to selling a product where everybody is basically as shit as everybody else.
What makes the Championship difficult, besides the fact that you’d get better refereeing standards in it at this point if you just threw a fucking chimp out there with a whistle around its neck, is the logistics of it. There are too many games, spread over too wide a geographic area, in too short a period of time. You’re asking squads mostly too small for the task to play three times a week, with absolutely no consideration given to the actual physical business of doing so — QPR can have, for example, a Wednesday night game in Middlesbrough followed by a Saturday morning home game against Barnsley. Sheffield United is deemed a fair and reasonable trip for a Tuesday night, and then the host broadcaster brings your Saturday home game with Reading forwards to a Friday. Rather than training and recovering, the players are often travelling and travelling. The result is an already poor product goes further south still — injuries stack up, players play on the needle, and while tired and as the weather turns and the pitches start to cut up you end up with, frankly, a footballing slop, difficult to sit through for 90 minutes even if you care about and are invested in the outcome.
I suspect, in my completely unlearned opinion, as somebody who stresses to both regular readers most weeks that I know nothing about the thing I’m dedicating my life to writing about, that Beale’s big takeaway from Saturday’s turgid defeat at Swansea will centre around the challenge of managing this aspect of Championship football. QPR were brilliant at Watford last week, giving a team with grotesque financial and sister-club related advantages over us a real chasing, winning a game we had no right to do on paper, and really could have scored a couple more goals into the bargain. They then backed that up against Hull on Tuesday, flying out of the traps at Loftus Road to absolutely steamroller their opponent — game over by half time. As a result, not without logic, and while obviously not blessed with a great deal of alternatives in reserve, Beale named an unchanged team for a third game in a row — the first time any QPR manager has been able to do this since November last year when we won three in a row against Luton, Huddersfield and Derby, and those games were played Friday-Tuesday-Monday.
This, for me, and actually not just for me judging by Beale’s post match interview where he held his hands up that this may have been a mistake, was a key element to this defeat. One of the best bits of the wins last week was the high press, the energy, the work rate, the hassling of opponents, the winning back of the ball high up the field. Stefan Johansen was early 2021 Stefan Johansen again, Andre Dozzell played like we hadn’t seen him before, Sam Field backed the whole thing up, Ilias Chair looked like he might require a night in an iron lung. We looked a bloody nightmare to play against, absolutely ceaseless. Exactly what you want your team to be. Even if you’re not very good, you can run about. And my how QPR ran about last week. Six goals scored, six points won, and some genuine joy and enjoyment among the support base for the first time in months. The energy expended to do it, however, made Saturday at Swansea a big ask. To a man, everybody looked slower, leggier, more laboured than they had in the games prior. Like I say, we have a good starting eleven, and not a lot beyond that by way of depth, and with Tim Iroegbunam only arriving on loan from Villa very late on the deadline day Beale was not flush with options. His arrival, along with the return from injury of Jake Clarke-Salter, Luke Amos and Taylor Richards, will improve that situation, and I wonder in future, if we are going to play that high intensity, high press, rush football we saw and enjoyed so much last week, whether we may say two or possibly all three of the midfielders changed for game three in the three game weeks. Take out Johansen, Field and Dozzell for Amos, Iroegbunam and Richards here I think you have a different game. Of course if that goes wrong you anger the "never change a winning team” sorts, but we live in the age of the meltdown, where literally everything you do other than winning the game is going to upset somebody, so that shouldn’t be in consideration.
The first half here, from a QPR point of view, was a real mess. Swansea, yet to win a home game this season, beaten soundly here by Luton and Blackburn, were the better team by some considerable distance, as QPR’s high line and offside trap bent, bowed and frequently broke. The Swans went in behind us with no flag for the first of umpteen occasions on eight minutes — only a terrific block by Rob Dickie denied Joel Piroe the opening goal on the turn 12 yards out. Two minutes later, same side, same ball, same forlorn appeals to the linesman, same result — Sorinola this time got the ball wrong and Ethan Laird chased back to kill Piroe before he could strike. On the quarter hour Oli Cooper, a youth team product here and for me in the first half at least the best player on the pitch, was in on goal and denied only by a desperate recovery tackle from Jimmy Dunne. When Sam Field then sloppily gave the ball away on the edge of his own box immediately afterwards, Piroe was never going to turn down another opportunity and that was the long overdue opening goal and 1-0 to the home side.
This fixture was the final game of last season, and Russell Martin’s team spent the entirety of it trying to execute a weird goal kick routine where the keeper played a one-two with a defender and then carried the ball off out of the area himself. On the very rare occasions they got it right, the net gain was the goalkeeper had the ball on the 18-yard line instead of the six. It was thoroughly bizarre to watch, intensely boring to be a part of. QPR won 1-0 — it was only the third win they managed in the final 19 matches of the campaign. This time, it was Rangers doing preposterous things in their own penalty area — Dunne, Dickie and Dieng getting themselves in ever decreasing messy circles as Swansea came after them in a high press. Rangers’ passing was laboured — balls consistently undercooked, extra touches taken where not required, zero momentum and pace in the play, Swansea allowed to comfortably file back into goalside position while we’re fannying about. Another cheap give away, another chance for Cooper, another desperate late block. Soon Ben Cabango was somehow being allowed free passage to the back post unaccompanied at a corner — only he will know how he didn’t score with the free header, that actually went backwards further away from the goal than where it started, and Dieng then made a great save with his legs as the rebound was returned with interest.
It could, probably should have been several more at the break. QPR’s pretty wild and ragged efforts compounded further by the performance of referee Oliver Langford, usually one of the calmer and more reliable referees in this division, but here turning in a day of work so utterly inept that, even with Ryan Manning around, I can’t actually imagine this game going much worse if they’d just left it to take place without a referee at all. In literally the first minute star boy Chris Willock was into and onto a loose back header behind the Swansea defence where he was obviously fouled by the last man Cabango. Willock didn’t go down. This shouldn’t have to matter. Langford waved play on. Play on. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is a bloke without the bollocks to make a big decision like that when it needs to be made early in a game. Pathetic.
Among Swansea’s multiple first half chances was, also, a penalty kick. This was awarded for handball by Jimmy Dunne, despite the ball hitting him in the stomach, and Swansea having the chance to play on with a clear shot at the goal anyway. Dunne was apoplectic, and things didn’t look good when last season’s 24-goal top scorer Piroe stepped up to take the kick against Seny Dieng who, for all the good things he does have in his arsenal, is pretty lousy with penalties. He’s saved one in normal play in his whole QPR career, and Cardiff immediately netted the rebound from that, so it was a mixture of delight and surprise when he dived left and made a strong save to, at that point, maintain the deadlock. Rangers though, instead of heeding that warning and taking advantage of the let off, maybe having five minutes where they just go deep and tight and narrow and try to regain a foothold in the game, remained wild and wide open and conceded from Piroe in any case within minutes. Game smarts.
Later Dieng was very fortunate that his walkabout in left back land didn’t result in a second goal when Swansea robbed him of possession and chipped the ball back towards a crowded goalmouth missing its goalkeeper — but Lyndon Dykes had surely, surely been fouled on the edge of the box at the other end after a terrific bit of persistence to win the ball back tight to the touchline and power towards the goal with support arriving. Oliver Langford, own arse, both hands, etc. etc.
Let’s do a little bit on Swansea here because I do find them an intriguing project under Russell Martin. I couldn’t watch this every week any more than I could a Tony Pulis team. They went through 180 minutes against us last season without scoring, or ever looking like doing so, and the whole experience was like sucking wallpaper paste through a straw. They took this dominant, attacking and enterprising first half performance, which as said should have yielded a far greater lead than it did, and decided to abandon the whole thing in the second half in favour of a ‘what we have we hold’ mission that invited QPR onto them. They’ve already lost four points to three goals conceded in injury time this season and it was clear to see why here — stoppage time was spent with the ball bouncing and bobbling around the home penalty box, one run in a slightly different direction away from providing the Londoners with a wholly underserved equaliser. Why? Why do that? Why be like that? He mystifies me as a manager to be honest, but there’s plenty of credit to give where it’s due here. Chris Willock and Ilias Chair have torn apart Boro, Watford and Hull already this season, and here they were very effectively crowded and frustrated out of the contest. Quite often that was through tactical fouls — Matt Grimes saw yellow for a particularly brutal take out of Chair ten before half time — but Willock’s first minute moment that should have brought the red card for Cabango, and a delightful bit of skill that carried him around two tacklers and right into the heart of the box where he smashed a cross shot right through the goal without a touch being applied a minute before the break, were rare examples of him getting the sort of freedom he’ revelled in in other games. When you think of who our best performers were in the wins earlier this week — Laird, Chair, Willock, Johansen, Dozzell — all of them were effectively shut out of this game. Grimes, yellow card not withstanding, was terrific in the home midfield, beasting all three of his opposite numbers comprehensively. I’ve got to put my hands up and say that tactically, with their set up, Swansea were superb on Saturday — it wouldn’t be right to just go ‘well QPR were tired’, the home side played us really well after two long away trips of their own last week.
In the end though, having decided to sit back rather than press home their advantage, they won the game in part thanks to keeper Steven Benda (grow up). He’d made a big, strong-armed save to keep Ilias Chair out at the end of the first half when he finally worked some space in the area, and did so again in the second when sub Tyler Roberts hit a deflected shot that changed direction but stayed just about within the keeper’s reach to make a good block. Later another sub, Albert Adomah, couldn’t get a touch to a dangerous Chair free kick awarded for a hack by Liam Cundle that somehow wasn’t deemed worthy of a yellow card by our hapless host in black. None of that backs to the wall stuff should have been necessary — on the rare occasions the Swans did go forwards they were able to bust QPR’s defence with ease, and only a brilliant recovery tackle from arguably QPR’s best player Kenneth Paal denied Cooper when he ran clear on goal but took too long. Rangers started the half with a throw level with the edge of their own penalty box which they lazily tossed back bouncing to a centre back who in turn clipped a bobbly ball back to Dieng who in turn mishit a pass into a midfielder under pressure, who himself then gave the ball away resulting in a corner from which Swansea should have scored with another header — five moments of sloppiness, one after the other, rather summing up our performance on the day. It wasn’t the first or last time Swansea had a free header from a wide set piece without scoring either — we still look ropey as hell from those. With the Swans sitting back and QPR playing like this — Dunne and Dickie’s efforts at playing out from the back so atrocious all day that Beale had to spend a sub getting Leon Balogun on for a debut to try and tidy things up — it really did descend into an attritional watch. Put less kindly, it was absolute sludge.
There were ten substitutions made in the second half in six sperate batches — 60, 61, 64, 70, 74 and 82. One of those was to replace Liam Cullen, who’d only just come on but suffered a really nasty looking shoulder injury and had to be helped from the field in agony after prolonged treatment. Benda was warned on several occasions, though of course not booked, for his time wasting. Piroe did see yellow for his own clock running — booting the ball away into the stand after missing a presentable chance. For it all, Langford added the obligatory four minutes. "Clampdown” on time wasting in the Championship going really well then. I honestly believe you could have a fucking space ship land on the pitch, dispatch a whole load of large-headed aliens into the proceedings, and have them restage the opening scene from Mars Attacks in the middle of a Championship fixture, and the referee would still only add four minutes to the end. There was further time watsing during the four — a fact Ilias Chair angrily pointed out to the referee, and received a big, exaggerated, pointing at the watch assurance that it would all be going on as additional time. He blew the whistle on 3.59. Honestly, fuck me sideways, he should be embarrassed. If they make him watch this back in some sort of review (difficult to believe they bother when you look at the standards of officiating in this division now) there really ought to be a little voice at the back of his head somewhere wondering whether it might be time to call last orders on the career and do something else with his Saturdays from now on. Not the performance of anybody with any sort of firm grasp of what’s going on.
Not the reason QPR lost though. I’ve talked about, and Beale has said himself, that the unchanged team may be a factor. We’ve praised Swansea’s tactical set up and dark arts to nullify our threats — not just Willock and Chair, compare Laird’s performance here to the one on Tuesday. Maybe it’s not that deep. Secret option number three, QPR are a midtable team. Midtable teams in finishing midtable win, draw and lose in equal amounts. Sometimes they go to Watford and win when they shouldn’t, sometimes they have Blackpool at home and lose when they shouldn’t. They don’t tend to win three matches in a week very often. Perhaps this was just a midtable team doing midtable things. Thirty-eight games to go.
Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread
Swansea: Benda 7; Naughton 6, Wood 6, Cabango 6; Sorinola 6 (Oko-Flex 60, 6), Allen 7 (Cundle 74, 6), Grimes 8, Paterson 7 (Cullen 60, -(Stevens 64, 6)), Manning 6; Piroe 7, Cooper 8 (Fulton 74, 6)
Subs not used: Fisher, Darling
Goals: Piroe 21 (assisted Cooper)
Bookings: Grimes 34 (foul), Paterson 39 (foul), Piroe 77 (time wasting)
QPR: Dieng 6; Laird 5, Dickie 5 (Balogun 82, -), Dunne 5, Paal 6; Johansen 5, Field 4 (Iroegbunam 70, 6), Dozzell 5 (Adomah 70, 5); Willock 6 (Armstrong 81, -), Dykes 6 (Roberts 61, 6), Chair 6
Subs not used: Kakay, Archer
QPR Star Man — Kenneth Paal 6 One of the few able to recreate something like his levels of the last two games, saved a certain goal with a tremendous back tracking tackle in the second half.
Referee — Oliver Langford (West Midlands) 3 Jesus Christ. I mean, just copy and paste what we’re saying every week at the moment. On a weekend of shambolic nonsense across the board, Match of the Day highlights an absolute shuttle disaster, Langford more than contributed with some total nonsense here. The standard of refereeing in this country at the moment, especially in our division but not exclusively, given the money that is sloshing around in football which could be used for better recruitment, training and management of match officials, is a shame, quite literally a shame.
Attendance — 15,935 (903 QPR) QPR following oddly subdued compared to what it has been this season, probably in keeping with what we were served on the pitch. Mild terror five from time when half the floodlights went out and we feared they’d make us come back midweek and sit through the whole dirge again.
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