Three defeats in four games now for QPR following Saturday’s tactical distasterclass and four-goal hammering at the hands of Ipswich Town at Loftus Road.

I shan’t take my coat off, I’m not stopping.

Insert the usual bit here about the myriad advantages of parachute payment teams over those without, and the traditional disclaimer that having never played, managed or coached the game to any level I’m certainly in no position to tell somebody like Julien Stéphan what they should and shouldn’t be doing with a squad of players he knows far more intimately than I do. Let's get on with the quiz.

That’s certainly what Ipswich Town did. Ball one to Johnny Damon and we are underway. Sindre Walle Egeli sets off to first, simple step around his marker and far too much space and time to deliver a cross. Sid from Toy Story left unmarked to head in the opening goal. That comes with chips or a side salad. You’re welcome, enjoy your visit to Loftus Road.

One nil and, look, for all the praise we’ll lavish on certain Ipswich players through this report, all the times we’ll mention that Egeli cost more by himself than this entire QPR team put together when Town bought him from Nordsjaelland (bless you) this summer, this was a team with the league’s joint worst away record coming into the game. Ipswich had two draws, two defeats, a 1-0 deficit at Blackburn abandoned with ten to play, just three goals scored on the road, no clean sheet in 24 going back to last season, cup exits at Bromley and Wimbledon… And this goal was pathetically easy.

I’ve learned from bitter experience not to publicly react to the team news when it’s published. Nobody wants to be the smart arse who was giving it “now tell us the real team” replies to the official club account at quarter to two when the team’s won 3-0 come five o’clock. But I was sitting next to one of LFW’s two regular readers in the Crown & Sceptre when this selection was revealed and we both looked at each other and said exactly the same thing.

Perhaps Rhys Norrington-Davies has been ill, injured, picked up a knock, hungover, whatever. We’re not privvy to these things. But if he was fit to play (and he did half an hour from the bench) then resting him here when, presumably, he can’t play next week anyway against his parent club so can have a little sit down then (with an international break beyond) it seemed a pretty obvious error to leave him out. Who are Ipswich’s best players? The wingers. Egeli on one side, persistent scourge of QPR Jaden Philogene on the other, Leif Davis charging forwards, a left back in name only. This is a club that has Jack Clarke as a substitute, from where he’s already scored four goals this year. This lot of Chieo Ogbene out on loan for goodness sake. Putting that much faith in 19-year-old Esquerdinha in just his fourth league start against this opposition I would charitably describe as touching.

It felt like one of those Harry Redknapp team selections, based on vibes. Opposition scouting? Just stick a finger in the air mate. Like asking the Teletubbies to edit the Today programme.

Esquerdinga and Egeli got on like a house on fire all afternoon. Esquerdinha was the house, and Egeli was the fire. If you’d been frightened by the Ben Doak v Hevertton Santos Hallowe’en torture porn of last year, the studio that brought you that film had another fright night chop shop horror for you here. Marti Cifuentes got away with that for half an hour, Stéphan’s error was punished inside half a minute, but in both cases it was an obvious problem allowed to persist way too long. Leaving it unchecked through half time was outright vandalism of QPR’s own chances in this game. Virtuoso work with the blowtorch there, by the manager, on his own team.

The dildo of consequence rarely arrives lubed. Sure enough, just after the hour, the young full back went charging up the line after Ilias Chair on a suicidal high press which left former R Darnell Furlong to streak off into the acres of space left behind and cross for Big Sid to head in a third. A torrid afternoon for the Brazilian summed up in first half stoppage time when a chance to return a cleared corner to a crowded penalty box was spurned in favour of a 45-yard shot last seen bouncing across the Hayes bypass. Even the stupidest people in the stadium thought that was a bad idea. One of those on the park where you make the guy who did it go and fetch it.

Look, I promise I’m not sitting here as some smarmy 40-something year old (shut it) slagging off some teenage boy new to the league/country. This was live drowning (maybe ITV would be interested?) but it was on the manager. It was unfair for him to be in that position, and to be left in it for as long as he was. It wasn’t the only misstep from Stéphan in this game, for my money.

Amadou Mbengue may well roll around the deck like a loose cannon and did indeed play poorly at Derby a week ago, but without him being able to carry the ball out of defence, or provide recovery pace in behind, the middle of the backline starts to look very slow and cumbersome indeed. I'm not sure somebody who is obviously going to be suspended as much as he is needs a rest, but if you are leaving him out you need to try and pick his physical equivalent instead. Presumably the idea of Cook and Morrison together was to combat the threat in the air of Hirst. Both played poorly – Morrison unable to compete physically, Cook looking completely spent – and Hirst scored two headers. Great plan, Bart.

It was to be a game of repeat mistakes and similar goals. Having conceded in the very first minute of the first half, QPR ambled back out after half time to face a team that had already been out there warming up for five minutes and contrived to do exactly the same thing again. A weak defensive header, Hayden sleeping the wrong side of Philogene commits a foul, Nardi does the old Tony Roberts trick of setting up a five-man wall then standing behind it, and Marcelino Nunez flashed one in on the keeper’s side from 25 yards just as he’d done for Norwich at Carrow Road last Christmas.

What have we learned from this? Well, Liam Morrison decided it might be an idea to commit himself to a ridiculous yellow card sliding tackle on Philogene in precisely the same spot again barely a quarter of an hour later. The first time was so nice, we just had to do it twice. This time a three-man wall of midgets – Poku, Saito and Burrell, more of a privet hedge really – and Nunez could scarcely believe his luck as he calmly lifted the ball into the opposite corner for 4-1. And if I rip my arm out and beat somebody to death with the soggy end of it I’m the one who “needs to get a sense of perspective”. Nice strikes, good player, but the set up for both, and particularly the second, is amateur hour. Saito, in the wall, appears to duck out of the bloody way. I’m starting to consider asking for a refund on that sodding training ground bond.

You can forgive mistakes. We’re QPR, if you’re here there’s something wrong with you. Ipswich spent the thick end of £20m on Egeli, another £20m on Philogene, £8m on Nunez (you’d expect some alright free kicks for that I think), £10m+ on McAteer who only makes the bench, £15m on Clarke who sits alongside him, £20m on Greaves in the next seat along. I get it. Context.

It’s difficult to forgive repeat mistakes, though. It’s difficult to forgive a professional football team conceding the same two goals twice over, for the same reasons. If that didn’t work before, it’s not going to work now. Stop doing it. School for the gifted.

Outnumbered and outplayed through the middle of midfield where (as predicted) teams are going to start deliberately outnumbering the Madsen+1 set up, all the pace removed from the team with Mbengue and Smyth benched, Harvey Vale playing like a complete tart and Richard Kone mostly falling over his own feet, there was a lot to be irritated about here and the vast majority of a capacity home crowd had fled for the exits long, long before the end.

I can see why there was such a mass exodus from the stands so early into this one. We’re a faithful bunch, we’ve put up with a lot, the club and the team have treated us poorly and are going out of their way to make us less informed about the decisions they’re taking. We’ve said, broadly, nothing. Years of defeats, weekend after weekend of staring at that School End having a lovely time, have been swallowed with nary a word of protest. But when they do the same braindead thing twice in a game, twice in the same 15 minutes, the desire to just turn your back on them and do something else with your Saturday night can become overwhelming.

Perhaps chief among the ballaches though, was you felt like Christian Walton in the visiting goal was eminently gettable. Flapping around like Christ in a crucifix shop all afternoon, dropping this and that, bitching and moaning to the referee, an absolute old woman of a man. He’d already cost his team an equalising goal when Ilias Chair’s trademark shot on a cut inside bounced in front of him and brought a poor parry straight back into traffic and the in form Rumarn Burrell reacted first to stick in his fourth of the season. Did we go near him again after that? Reader, we did not.

Chair and Burrell really the only two players who looked like the belonged on the same pitch as the opposition, but that was very much Finland’s warmest day. Two players playing sort of okay doth not a coherent, cohesive attacking threat make. There was some improvement when Kwame Poku made his long-awaited return from injury, and if there is a positive it’s that we might see some more minutes from him in the two games to come this week.

Other than that, a litany of second half substitutions did little to redress the balance. Walk-in-bath salesman Michi Frey continues to be a big problem for this club. On God-only-knows what contract, he couldn’t hit water if was standing in a boat.

Overawed and easily beaten by a far better side, you do sometimes have to hold your hands up. Hirst said afterwards he should have scored more. I make him right. Ipswich have, indeed, been poor away from home, but as we said in the preview only Coventry have created more chances than this lot, and no team in the league has missed as many sitters statistically. That was never going to continue and, unfortunately, it’s QPR on the receiving end.

Quite why Kieran McKenna's team, in this state of ascendency, felt the need to try and kill off so much of the second half with staggered substitutions, shithousing and injury feigning I don’t know. There was an even bigger score here for the taking for them had they wanted it – another Coventry in the offing for a beleaguered and bewildered QPR who wore the collective expression of someone who’d just taken a wrong turn in a really bad neighbourhood. Instead, Town wanted to play this ridiculous scourge of the game where we all collude in the illusion the goalkeeper’s suffered a pulmonary embolism while scratching his pubics alone in his penalty box. Still, modern football I guess. And the grouchy grumbles of a beaten football fan.

No use pretending it had much effect on the score, and in fact when referee Sam Allison tired of the antics and tried to force Town to play on it was QPR who were using the chance to convene the Cleethorpes and District Knitting Circle down by the dugouts and had to be called back by the referee when it should have been us pushing to restart while one of their players was incapacitated. Too nice, too weak, fast asleep. Losing the moment all of the time. Wasting what little opportunity there still was for a salvage operation.

It rather summed up the limp lethargy of the whole performance. Stéphan said we were good for an hour. It wasn’t an hour that I spent at Loftus Road on Saturday. This was four for one declared.

Links >>> Photo Gallery >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread

QPR: Nardi 3; Dunne 4, Morrison 3, Cook 3 (Mbengue 78, 5), Esquerdinha 2 (Norrington-Davies 62, 5); Vale 3 (Poku 61, 6), Madsen 4, Hayden 4, Chair 5 (Saito 62, 5); Kone 4 (Frey 68, 4), Burrell 6

Subs not used: Field, Varane, Hamer, Smyth

Goals: Burrell 21 (assisted Chair)

Yellow Cards: Vale 32 (foul), Morrison 62 (foul), Mbengue 90 (of course), Hayden 90+4 (foul)

Ipswich: Walton 4; Furlong 7, O’Shea 7, Kipre 7, Davis 7 (Johnson 73, 6); Matusiwa 7, Taylor 7; Egeli 8 (McAteer 71, 6), Nunez 8 (Clarke 84, -), Philogene 7 (Young 84, -); Hirst 8 (Akpom 73, 6)

Subs not used: Button, Cajuste, Greaves, Humphreys

Goals: Hirst 2 (assisted Egeli), 57 (assisted Furlong), Nunez 47 (unassisted), 64 (unassisted)

QPR Star Man – Rumarn Burrell 6 Along with Chair, probably the only QPR player who looked like he belonged on the same pitch as the opposition.

Referee – Sam Allison (Trowbridge) 7 Pretty decent I thought. Kept a hold of the rampant (and totally needless) second half shithousing as best as he could within the rules he’s got to operate within and added seven minutes to the end. The linesman’s steadfast refusal to glance down at the placing of Darnell’s feet at his long throws, presumably because he didn’t want to be seen to bowing to pressure from a crowd that knows (and likes) this player well and is fully aware of his side hustles, felt like exactly the sort of obstinance that drives football supporters crazy with officials.

Attendance – 17,505 (1,800 Ipswich approx.) Certainly wasn’t that by the end, and given the way this game went and everything this club has put (and continues to put) this home crowd through I don’t blame anybody for making a hasty retreat. I think I did well to stay in my seat/hold it together when a professional football team gave away the same free kick in the same position it had conceded from previously and conceded from it again. I’d have left at that point if I hadn’t had to write this nonsense. When you get back to The Crown & Sceptre and Joe Hylton’s already been there for half an hour that’s a bad sign.

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

Northolt_Rs added 19:32 - Nov 2 It’s only a game…🥴
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Watford_Ranger added 20:06 - Nov 2 Half time was bizarre. Glad I didn’t imagine it. They came out pretty much on time and had a nice little warm-up. We ambled out, late, ten seconds before the whistle.
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Sittingbournehoop added 20:17 - Nov 2 I left with 15 minutes to go and was surprised Ipswich didn’t add to their goal tally. Simply awful, we’ll still lose a lot more games than we’ll win this season. Should be 3 teams worse than us and I expect a finish around 15th place and the usual exit in the 3rd round of the FA cup, so not a lot to get excited about!
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Myke added 21:11 - Nov 2 Cheers Clive, depressing stuff. The dropping of Field is now coming home to roost. Yes leaving out N-D, the mad lad and Smyth, removed most of the pace, (bar Burrell who is proving me wrong I'm happy to admit), but the solidity that Field provides in the middle of the park. the 'unseen' mopping up he does, has being badly missed in recent games. So he is not that adventurous, prefers to play sideways or backways, that's fine, let Madsen do the creative, positive stuff and Field the ugly stuff, breaking up the play, interrupting the oppos 'flow'. Jimmy is also being found out at RB and needs to be moved back to centre back and play Morgan at RB until the Jan transfer window.

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bullythebear added 21:17 - Nov 2 “ Walk-in-bath salesman Michi Frey” had me in stitches Clive 😂😂😂
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PastCaringNW2 added 08:21 - Nov 3 I assume the aim is to pick up an average of around 1.6 points per game in order to be in contention for the shallow end of the top six. Next block of 12 through to NYD? I am figuring a spread of 13 to 15 points. Which means we will read a lot more reports like this one where the journalism is immeasurably better than the performance. To be sat somewhere between 10th to 14th on NYD and 10 points back from whoever is in 6 would give the board an interesting choice. I really hope they don't spend more of the Eze money and we use the last half of the season as a long run up to 2025-26 with a lot of rotation and maybe giving 5-3-2 more of a go, I am happy to pay to watch that if the effort is there.

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Spanishal added 09:38 - Nov 3 Can't see how Nardi can start Wednesday but what options do we have. Guessing Walsh is still injured and Hamer hasn't played competively for a long time. Also Kone had contributed much more in defense than he has as an attacker which goes to show how weak our attack is.
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jimmosley added 13:46 - Nov 3 Even by your high standards Clive, that is one of your best and funniest reports. Some absolute pearlers in there.
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TacticalR added 13:58 - Nov 3 Thanks for your report, which I am sure was not easy to write (or the game to watch). I missed the game, but here are my thoughts from watching the extended highlights. Those free kicks really made us look like mugs. So, so naive. Esquerdinha. For the first goal, although Egeli went past him like he wasn't there, Esquerdinha did at least try and keep pace with him (so it wasn't one of those situations where Esquerdinha was nowhere to be seen). Hayden. Although he gave the free kick away for the second Ipswich goal, he did make the cross-field pass to Chair that led to our goal. Nardi. I think the first free kick is on him as he steps the wrong way when the free kick is taken and can't get back in time. I am not sure about the second one as the wall was too small to do its job. Presumably we assumed that the free quick would be floated into the area for a header, so the wall didn't matter that much. All very embarrassing, particularly as Nardi's strength is as a shot stopper. Let's hope Stéphan has some new ideas, because at the moment we are looking very, very vulnerable.

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Marshy added 22:19 - Nov 3 It was fairly obvious from the team selection that we were going to be in for a tough afternoon. Esquerdinha was totally out of his depth, and should have been pulled at half time, or maybe before. Why ND didn’t start is a mystery, and also why Mbengue, Saito and Smyth were on the bench. Arguably 3 of the 4 goals could have been prevented. Awful defending, but also when you have Nardi in goal it doesn’t bode well for a solid defensive unit. I’m just wondering if we should consider actually using Ben Harmer. He may not have played much in recent times, but has loads of experience. I have a lot of admiration for Steve Cook, but he should definitely be rested as he is now just too slow for this level. I’ve been very supportive of JS up till now, but he got the selection and tactics totally wrong for Ipswich. Unfortunately my doubts are starting to creep in.

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francisbowles added 09:51 - Nov 4 Excellent, as balanced as possible, report. A couple of points though. The ref seemed to have a change of interpretation of pushing at half time. After allowing Ipswich to push everyone at will, in the first half, he then penalises Hayden, in a critical position of the pitch, for the first push in the second half. Not saying we would have got anything from the game but we had been doing okay since equalising. That decision led to the game turning moment. Throw ins! I sit in SA Rd so I'm not sure whether Furlong was offending or not. However, I feel most of us may not understand what 'foot position' constitutes a foul throw. There was an explanation on here a few years ago, which seemed to indicate most of us had been coached incorrectly as young kids. From law 15 The Throw In. The thrower must: have part of each foot on the touchline or on the ground outside the touchline.

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Oxfordhoop added 11:57 - Nov 4 Great report Clive. They don't write themselves! Nice to meet you finally after the Millwaal game. Wanted to agree with the point above about the ref and pushing. At the time I made the comment that he'd ignored Ipswich pushing our players from behind throughout the first half and then finally awards a free kick against Hayden for very little contact just outside the box. Little moments change games. Don't think we deserved to win but it was a turning point.

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