Do the early exiters at the Preston match point to trouble ahead next season? And just what can we learn from Neil Warnock?

Great Expectations
I have a confession to make. I left the Port Vale match when we were still 4-1 down. In my defence that was the 86th minute and under normal circumstances you’d expect to be able to leave Vale Park with your team three goals down with four minutes left to play and not miss too much but of course on that day Andy Impey scored as my Dad and me walked across the car park, Paul Murray scored as we got into the car and John Spencer scored as we tried to negotiate the Burslem one way system and nearly caused a massive accident in celebration. Had we crashed, it probably would have improved the place.

QPR was supposed to be the stress relief at the end of the tough week at work for my Dad but in the end the lines got blurred and it wasn’t clear what was stressing him out more. Consequently he rarely stayed to the end of QPR matches, often leaving with 20 minutes left to play, and because I was only a youngster I was forced to leave as well. I remember, before the days of internet on phones and the like, getting back to Doncaster thinking we’d beaten Man City 2-1 only to pick up a Green Un and find that Kinkladze had scored in injury time. I remember Sunderland scoring as we walked along Ellerslie Road. I hated leaving early but I sort of understood why he did. In the end he made himself ill and is sadly no longer with us.

Now it’s different seats and a different attitude to QPR games for the three Northern R's. Those that sit near the three of us in F Block may not believe me but I lose it far less than Dad ever did and we never leave a game early. We’ve sat through to the bitter end of some truly diabolical QPR games and were quite happily parked in our seats at ten to five on Saturday as QPR approached four minutes of stoppage time looking for all the world like a team that wouldn’t score a goal if it stayed there all night. Five minutes later we were hanging over the advertising hoardings at the front of the South Africa Road upper tier having one of those ‘let’s go f***ing mental’ moments in celebration of Dexter Blackstock’s surprise equaliser.

Many Rangers fans have admitted to leaving early, many have gloated about staying to the end. There’s been some gentle mickey taking between the two in some places and some sniffiness about loyalty in others that has boiled over into some pretty unsavoury arguments in other parts of the QPR message board community. We’re never more than three posts away from a diplomatic incident in this fan base.

I thought the performance was shocking on Saturday. Wrong players selected in the wrong system with the wrong changes made at the wrong time to catastrophic effect. Easily one of the worst performances we’ve put together under De Canio and the first time I’ve left a match in a really negative frame of mind since the Italian took over. Had I been booked on an earlier train I may well have joined the early exiters but I’m glad I stayed. The last four minutes were just about adequate reward for sitting through the previous 90.

Without getting into the childish argument about how those leaving early harmed the team while those who stayed and sang were responsible for the come back, neither of which is remotely true, I was surprised to see so many people willing to turn tail and walk away from our new look team at the first hint of things going badly. There has been the usual stories of avoiding the traffic, catching early trains and the like and that’s all fine, I know more than most what it’s like having an early train to catch, but all these things were the same when we were pasting Bristol City 3-0 and far, far less people left early that day.

This got me, and others on our message board, thinking about expectations next season and how they could be damaging to the team. Since Christmas our home form has been awesome, and the attitude among supporters at the game seems to be very relaxed. After the start we made to the season and the maulings we got at Loftus Road from Cardiff, Southampton and others nobody seems to really expect us to win our home games and it’s a lovely surprise when we do.

That will change next season. I’m yet to meet a QPR fan who doesn’t think we’ll be in the top six and we all seem to be just sitting back and waiting for it to happen. This kind of expectation can be dangerous. Now if people leaving early when things aren’t going well, booing the players off at half time when we’re not winning, slagging players off who aren’t playing well and the like becomes the norm well then you have a problem. Then you have an atmosphere at home games that is not conducive to the players relaxing and playing good football - I spoke last week about the negative impact the Ipswich and Wolves fans had on their teams when we played them.

We may well be favourites for promotion come August but we’re not going to walk away with this league, we’re not going to go through a season unbeaten – at some point next season things are not going to go for us. I just hope that the expectations we all have aren’t allowed to filter down onto the pitch too much when things go badly. We won’t be winning any leagues, or even making any play offs, with the squad we have now so before we let our optimism get the better of us lets see who comes in over the summer and not get straight on their backs if we’re not 3-0 up at half time of the opening home game.

Irish R’s are smiling
Well it’s about time too. Going on for four years since his last cap Martin Rowlands has finally returned to the Republic of Ireland squad this week - link.

Rowly got two caps in the summer of 2004 after superb performances wide in midfield for QPR during our promotion season. Ireland have worked their way through three managers since his last cap and he returns to the national team as a Championship midfielder, a central midfielder at that, and few players deserve it more than he does.

I do fear he tries to do too much work by himself and he’s clearly carrying numerous injuries at the moment but there’s no doubting just what a bloody good player he is for us and how much we miss him when he doesn’t play. Leigertwood and Mahon isn’t the greatest central midfield partnership around but there’s more to our horrendous goals against record when they play together than just their bumbling. When they’re playing together it normally means Rowlands isn’t and QPR just don’t function as well without him.

I only hope now he’s back there that firstly he gets another cap, secondly he doesn’t come back injured, and thirdly the niggling complaints he’s currently suffering from don’t ruin this chance for him.

Giovanni Trapattoni has named a huge 40 man training party to take to the Algarve at the end of the season as he looks to get to know the players he has at his disposal in his new job. This will then be chopped down to 28 for friendly matches against Serbia and Columbia, at Craven Cottage. Whether Rowlands makes the cut or not remains to be seen but with De Canio in charge the Italian connection and Rowlands’ form may be enough to secure him a place.

Looking through the squad the Republic of Ireland’s options certainly aren’t what they were. In midfield Rowlands is unlikely to be preferred to people like Damien Duff, Stephen Ireland, Lee Carsley, Stephen Hunt and Aiden McGeady who are playing regularly, and playing well, at a higher level than our man. But the rest of the midfield options don’t inspire me greatly – I certainly wouldn’t take any of them over Rowlands at Loftus Road.

The options in defence aren’t exactly brimming over either. Just seven of the 40 players picked are defenders and that includes Kevin Kilbane who is more of a wide midfield player. We may yet see Damien Delaney force his way into the international reckoning. Passing Hull City fans may scoff but he certainly looks a vastly different proposition to the whole hearted but ultimately bloody awful player that was forced into a regimented left back role at the KC Stadium. I can’t believe, having seen him play for Hull, just how well he’s doing for us and hopefully the Hull fans will be surprised this weekend as he returns from a two game ban on his former stomping ground. Certainly he’s a better bet for my money than Foley at Wolves, McShane at Sunderland and O’Brien at Bolton who have all made the training party.

There may yet be a third QPR option for Trapattoni as well. Hogan Ephraim qualifies through his Mum and while he’s a bit young to be making a decision yet, and not really playing well enough consistently enough to be troubling the selectors anywhere just at the moment, there may come a time where he has to decide.

Ephraim told the Ealing Gazzete: "My mother is from the Republic of Ireland, I am English. I was born in England so obviously that is the dream, but I will leave all options open. Whatever came along, I would listen to. I am just happy playing my football at the moment, my international career will sort itself out.

"The club is really on the up and next season is going to be massive for us.The owners and the manager will be expecting big things from us it is going to be a different kind of pressure. We are going to have to live up to the expectations of the fans and the management. The owners have said to us that them being rich shareholders is not going to win us games.

"We have to go out and put in the hard work, the graft and the skill to win games."

It’s a big season for Hogan next year. I think it’s a nailed on certainty that we’ll be signing another left winger this summer and since he seems to have settled on the wide positions rather than down the middle he’s going to have to add consistency to his game and strength to his upper body if he’s to feature regularly for us. He’s a player I like a lot, and have high hopes for, but he does seem a little lightweight and his inconsistency is mind blowingly frustrating at times.

Ephraim is currently 20 years old, and has just 21 starts to his name in his professional career so inconsistency is the least you'd expect from him. He has wonderful potential which he will hopefully fulfil with is. He still has a lot to learn though, as Saturday proved when although I didn’t agree with the decision to take him off he clearly wasn’t playing particularly well.

You can forgive somebody so young their inconsistency, but like I say it’s a big season for him next year. I think he could be a real asset but 21 isn't particularly young for a footballer any more and we need to see some consistently good performances from him by this time next season.

It may have taken us four years to get Rowlands in the Irish squad but with any luck he may have a couple of team mates joining him very soon.

Lessons from Warnock
Oh how we laughed. Back in October, on a cold and windy night in Preston, a good friend of mine had the pub in stitches saying that our new manager should be Neil Warnock. Mick, no not that Mick, or that one, no not that one either, look there’s a lot of Mick’s that follow QPR, was adamant that the former Sheff Utd manager was the man to lead our resurgence under the new owners.

I disagreed, most did, and even if we hadn’t the image of Flavio introducing his super models and super rich friends to Neil from Sheffield as his new manager was a difficult one to conjure up. In the end we went with De Canio and Warnock ended up with Palace and that’s worked out very nicely for everybody. De Canio has spent more than Warnock and ended up in a lower league position than him but the Palace team the man everybody loves to hate took over was far superior to the QPR side De Canio inherited, and had a higher points tally, so for us to end up about equal in ability by the end of the season is an achievement for both.

As it turned out Warnock could have been a superb appointment for us just as De Canio has been. While our Italian has been leading us from bottom of the table to middle of the road safety Warnock has taken Palace from relegation problems to the cusp of the play offs. Looking at them on Monday night against Stoke I was very impressed and while I certainly don’t regret the choice we made in taking De Canio ahead of Warnock, and wouldn’t swap now, there are a few lessons we could take from the Eagles on this evidence.

Palace played very well in the first half and took the lead through Tom Soares. The rode their luck on one occasion when Sidibe hit the inside of the post with a header but they were good value for the lead approaching half time and were the better team. Now here’s lesson one for our side; Palace kept going. They kept doing exactly what they’d been doing to get into the winning position in the first place, right though to the half time whistle. So while we would have sat back and tried to see it through to half time – as we do so often and did most recently with no success at Sheff Wed and Wolves – Palace kept playing their football, kept going forward and right on half time got their reward with a second killer goal. Oh my goodness what we would have given for a killer second goal in some of our away games this year, including the heartbreaking draw against Palace at Selhurst.

Another lesson we could have taken from Palace is how to get the best out of Scott Sinclair. A super assist for the first goal and strong running all night was a key factor in Palace’s win – and it came as he played much more centrally than we used him, often just behind Morrison in attack. Now I’ve said many times that Sinclair was clearly only interested in steering clear of injury while with us and we therefore stood little hope of getting much out of him but it was nevertheless interesting to see him turn it on at this level for the first time since he was with Plymouth in a new position.

Sinclair wasn’t the best attacking Palace player on show though. No, the most impressive and effective weapon they had against Stoke was Victor Moses on the right wing. He gave Andy Griffin a torrid time for an hour before Stoke finally managed to do what Tony Pulis’ teams always do with the game’s biggest threat and kick him out of the match. Moses is a product of the Palace youth set up, as is Tom Soares one of the goal scorers, Ben Watson an excellent midfield player, Lee Hills, John Bostock, Sean Scannell, Ashley Paul Robinson, Ben Kudjodji and Lewwis Spence who have all featured for the first team at Selhurst Park this season. Soares, Warson, Hills, Bostock and Scannell have all looked very impressive alongside Moses and the future is certainly bright at Palace.

Why do I mention that? Well here’s lesson three, Palace play their reserve games in the same farce that we do i.e. they have one game a month against somebody like Aldershot. Now I’ve often flagged up the ridiculous situation where we play our kids against Barnet for 18 months, then give them ten reserve games of a poor standard, then sling them into the first team, expect them to swim and slate them when they sink. Palace produce really high quality Championship players despite having no reserve team to try them out in first and the reason they do this so much better than we do is the academy status their youth sides enjoy. While our youths play Barnet and Orient and Colchester Palace’s play Ipswich and Villa and Chelsea every week. Lesson three - the sooner we get academy status back the better.

Palace made high flying Stoke look a very ordinary side. They coped comfortably with the terminally useless Sidibe and Ameobi, who is looking more and more like the worst signing they could possibly have made on deadline day, and although they were more stretched when Fuller came on they never once sat back deep in their own half as we do away from home and got their reward with a 2-1 win that flattered the hosts.

Stoke, once again, based their entire game plan around long throws and long balls. There was only one team on the pitch that looked capable of winning promotion and it wasn’t the home side. If you can deal with the long balls and aerial ability of Stoke you should get at least a draw because they don’t have a lot else.

To beat them though Palace may have taken a lesson from us. Remember Vine and Ephraim ripping Pulis’ men apart at Loftus Road? We sent everything down the left. And so did Palace. The weak link at the back for Stoke City is full back Andy Griffin, simply play a man with pace against him and give that man the ball to run at him. I’m sure that won’t have escaped the notice of Stoke’s future opponents or title rivals and because of that, and their one dimensional game plan, I’d be surprised if we’re not playing them again next season. I’m not so certain about Crystal Palace.

Disagree? Discuss it on the Message Board

Click here and be the first user to comment on this story

Photo: Action Images

Queens Park Rangers Polls