A continuation of Tuesday night’s sad collapse at Southampton for QPR, well beaten at home by Sheffield United on Saturday.

I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as tempted to just take the previous match report, copy and paste the thing into this one and change the names.

Another defeat to nil against another obviously better side, more meek resistance and motions passed through, another promising season circling the drain back down to sixteenth in the Championship. “And if you poke your head around the door of the Stansted Wetherspoons and clock which Championship teams are getting off to Mykonos on the early flight it’s us and Stoke bloody City again, as usual.”

Here comes the paragraph where we talk about all the absentees Julian Stéphan is having to deal with. With now only 11 games left it’s unlikely we’ll see any of Ziyad Larkeche, Karamoko Dembele, top scorer Rumarn Burrell or star boy Ilias Chair again this season. To that list, add player of the year elect Nicolas Madsen. By the time we play Middlesbrough next week new signing Justin Obikwu will be going into week seven of his absence for a reason the club has refused to publicly disclose. Steve Cook and Paul Smyth did at least make it back as far as the bench for this one, and a real live Jake Clarke-Salter was spotted in the wild for the first time in three months, but - with Rhys Norrington-Davis forbidden from facing his parent club - a left side of the lesser-spotted-JCS, the chronically out of form Koki Saito and *insert your own terrifying metaphor here* Esquerdinha screamed exactly the sort of afternoon that duly unfolded.

Another one of those team sheets where you can sit in the Crown & Sceptre at quarter to two and predict exactly what’s going to happen. Do you think they might come down our left? I've seen more complex plots on Scooby Doo. Mr Chong the old fairground caretaker?! Knock me down with a tiny feather.

Here comes the paragraph where we talk about the riches available to the opposition manager by comparison. Up front for QPR, Richard Kone, and boy did he toil hard in vain. Up front for the Blades, Tyrese Campbell (four goals in ten appearances against Rangers) and Tom Cannon (three in five) with Patrick Bamford on the bench. In reserve for QPR, Kealey Adamson, Jaylan Pearmon, Tylon Smith. In reserve for the visitors, Bamford, Gus Hamer, Mark McGuinness, Oli Arblaster... Deep sigh.

And now the bit where we point out that despite all this, we’re not playing the Dutch World Cup side of 1978. Sheffield United, like Southampton before them, were below QPR in the league table at the start of play, and have already been beaten away from home this year on ten occasions – only the hapless relegation-haunted pair of West Brom and Sheff Wed (12 each) have lost on the road more than the Blades. I haven’t watched many of those losses, but I suspect the opposition played with a good deal more intensity, fight, energy, physicality and purpose than Rangers mustered here. You don’t have to be a brilliant player to run. QPR’s don’t seem to want to do that.

From minute one, as on Tuesday, we looked bereft and beaten. Nobody smashing anybody, nobody tackling, nobody winning first contact, nobody picking up second balls. If you get a chance to watch the whole 90 back then don’t, but if you do watch out for the moment on 31 minutes where Varane and Morgan (our entire central midfield) lose out on a 50/50 ball to a bloke lying on the floor. You won’t win Championship football matches like that anyway, but against a Chris Wilder team you really are going to be in trouble. The sort of man who orders a burger at a French restaurant, and enjoys it.

We’re contractually obliged to run through the opposition goals and describe them, so we’ll do that now.

The first, after 13 minutes, was painfully inevitable. Tanganga, out to Hoever, into Peck, slid nicely between the full back and centre half for Chong, chipped cross to the back post, Callum O’Hare with the finish.

Most goals conceded from crosses in the league this season? QPR, 16. And watching this you could see why. Down the left, as the town drunks had predicted, a footballing clusterfuck. Four QPR players in the picture – Varane, Saito, Esquerdinha, Clarke-Salter – and not one of them within five yards of their man or even attempting a challenge. Leaden footed, heavy legged, unfit. O’Hare completely unmarked as he came in from the opposite flank to finish. A goal you’d have scored yourself. Watch Richard Kone, head on his side and exasperated long before the goal was scored because you could see it coming from a thousand miles away. Stéphan says they’d reviewed this Sheff Utd move in training. Goal all the same.

Second, after half an hour, a nice finish to be fair to Campbell, turning on the edge of the box and firing with unerring accuracy into the corner. But Varane had hopelessly passed the ball straight to Peck to begin that move and United really should have been three up by this point having carved apart QPR’s insipid left side again shortly before only for Campbell to steer a much easier chance wide of the post. We’re going to stick up for Stéphan a fair bit in this report, but that left side selection was tantamount to ringing the dinner bell. Development club, pathways for young players, player trading model… into the fucking sea. We cannot subject Esquerdinha to another afternoon like this. The same thing happened when he was cobbed in against Ipswich Town earlier in the season – tonight, on QPR+, a live drowning, £10 PPV. It does no good for the team, and it does no good for him. Miles off it. Would have been 3-0 by the break but for Morgan’s brave block of an early thunderbolt from Sydie Peck (haircut done by the council).

There were a couple of differences from Tuesday’s mauling at St Mary’s – not least Sheff Utd kindly and sportingly deciding to declare at 2-0 whereas Southampton batted on into the evening session. In the week it was Cameron Archer, Ross Stewart, Tom Fellows, Shea Charles stepping up to terrorise us from the bench. Here the visitors brought on Gus Hamer, Patrick Bamford, Oli Arblaster and co. An ordeal tempered only slightly by Paul Morrissey announcing them as “Sheffield Wednesday” subs. Not that half the ground will have heard that, as the place continues to fall apart around our ears. We brought on Kealey Adamson, and played him left wing. I don’t think he touched the ball once. Which is probably a good thing. O’Hare’s cut back for Andre Brooks to fire a presentable chance over the top a timely second half reminder the visitors had another couple of gears to go through at any point if required.

Good job they didn’t, really. Consecutive 5-0 losses are poor mood music, and after half an hour of this game it genuinely looked like it could once again be any score the opponent fancied as Rangers stood off forlornly and let it all go on around them. Any danger of anybody tackling anybody at any point? Any danger at all? Any time any of you like? Anyone want me to rap a little bit, lift the mood?

QPR did, however, in their favour and contrast to the midweek massacre, pose the odd goal threat.

Richard Kone’s header at the end of the first half from Harvey Vale’s cross struck his shoulder, as his finish at West Ham had done, but this time the Ivorian’s effort went straight to stand in keeper Adam Davies rather than into the far corner. Kone spent most of the afternoon going after Dominic Iorfa’s record for most offsides in a single game, but Davies - in for Michael Cooper who’s having difficult second album syndrome at Bramall Lane - looked gettable and nervous all day.

Vale’s dead ball deliveries tend to alternative between 2/10 and 8/10, and there was much more of the former here (finding one man wall Callum O’Hare with a final chance of the first half to put some good ball into the box nearly cost me another plastic seat), but when he did get a second half corner right on the money and Kone headed home it looked like the R’s might have something of a lifeline to cling to. The goal was disallowed for offside because sub Paul Smyth interfered with the keeper – technically correct, bit daft of Smyth, very well sold by Davies who’d have certainly let the goal in anyway.

Esquerdinha and Daniel Bennie had been mercy killed by the manager at half time. QPR were marginally better for it. Davies also came charging out of his box to enact a dramatic diving header and missed the ball entirely, putting Smyth into possession in the box with the goal unguarded, but the Northern Irish winger snatched at a first time shot and banged it well wide when Kone and fellow sub Rayan Kolli were poised for tap ins. Isaac Hayden headed a late Smyth corner past the post when he should have scored.

Incredibly frustrating, but not half as frustrating as the total lack of ball progression out of central midfield all afternoon. Kieran Morgan showed how it can be done for that Smyth chance – a defence splitting pass of skill, accuracy and great imagination. It was the only time any of our central midfielders did anything like that all afternoon. Varane, whose only forward pass all day set the Sheff Utd second goal up, had a dire hour or so on his return from injury. The backwards and sideways routine became chronic and for the first time you really felt the home crowd that has backed this club and this team so well for so long starting to frustrate and turn. Varane was ironically jeered from the field by a sizeable minority when eventually substituted (another good example that internet is not real life, because in the online world he's a "baller" worth £10m+). I swear, if we get a penalty and let him take it, I wouldn’t back against him trying to welly it back the other way to Joe Walsh. There is nothing he and we cannot turn into a pass back to the goalkeeper. You sense this is going to be a persistent theme of Madsen’s absence.

The other noticeable change was Julian Stéphan’s post-match comments. Not, of course, on the club’s official channel, for really obvious reasons, but in his downbeat, frustrated press conference upstairs afterwards. Post Southampton he hadn’t quite been jolly, but there wasn’t the sort of anger and despair there you’d expect of a manager who’d just been beaten 5-0. He seemed almost sanguine and upbeat. Put it behind us, forget about it, win on Saturday and that’s six points and a good week. Here… very different.

“Tough game… Tough performance… …. Conceded a goal early. Didn’t start the game with enough intensity, enough aggression. Tried to correct problems at half time, but didn’t really create enough strong momentum to score… They deserved their win, a tough game for us. We knew before the game how they were able to combine down the right side and the first goal is exactly what we expected from this team. If you don’t respect the principle of play, you don’t close inside, simple things, then it’s not a question of back four, five, six, seven, it’s a question of respecting the principle of play. Second one, we have to be able to keep the ball in this situation. I don’t think it’s a question of shape or organisation. We know the situation with the injuries and players out which has a huge impact on the quality we are able to have on the pitch but if you are not able to compensate with more intensity, more aggression, we have no chance in the Championship. The last two games, that’s the main disappointment.

“We had a good result at Hull City but the reality is the lack of players we have makes it difficult to play every three days. We see it, physically and mentally, we’re not at 100% in the second and third game and our performance drops a lot. A big, big, big difference between Hull City and the two next one is physicality, aggression, quality with the ball.”

Having gone out to bat for his players on the South Coast, the first cracks starting to appear. A manager who felt let down by what his team had produced.

And, for the first time this season, just the hint of another manager being “QPR’d”. We’ve talked about it a lot over the years. A difficult club to manage. A support base that feels deep down this is a Premier League club in the Championship, when in fact the sport has moved on and left it behind so much that its infrastructure and finances mean it’s more a League One organisation overachieving. Over your head, politics central. Staff upon staff upon staff upon staff. A head of recruitment. A head of “methodology” (even though the “methodology” clearly got ditched after game three). Director of sporting operations. Physical performance coach, performance scientist, performance therapist, head of integrated performance, head of performance services. Arsenal legend Steve Bould is here as head of defensive coaching. A coach to do your set pieces, who doesn’t report to you. Individual development coach. A "football focused CEO". This year’s team photo had 27 members of backroom staff in it, and 25 outfield footballers. And every week, it’s you on the touchline, trying to cajole and manipulate the team this absolute hodgepodge of tracksuits and egos has thrown together. You in the firing line. You in front of the press. You getting the blame. And when you leave, the same thing happens again.

Mark Warburton (a grown up) got through three years of it. Neil Crithcley lasted barely three minutes. Poor Gareth Ainsworth looked like he was sleeping at the railway station by the end of his six-month torture session. Marti Cifuentes went completely grey in 18 months. And now, for the first time, just the merest hint that Stéphan too is resigned to his fate.

“This is our reality… I am just the manager. I’m not a specialist of injuries. I don’t know. The reality is it impacts our performance a lot. We are playing with a lot, a lot, a lot of young players without Championship experience. Fortunately, we have 13 more points than Leicester now and we need to get four more points to stay in the league. It’s better to deal with that situation with 47 points. We’re not happy with the situation, with our performances, but the main objective is to get four more points to stay in the league. We’ll have a good discussion after to understand everything.”

Of course, while moaning about lack of Championship experience, QPR do have Sam Field, who they’ve loaned to Norwich, where he’s playing brilliantly, and did so again at the weekend. Steve Cook, rested last two games, little trot up and down the touchline here as an unused sub. Can’t have it both ways.

Still, these feel a lot like the sort of comments Marti Cifuentes was starting to make this time last year – particularly around player unavailability. Relations decayed, he looked for other jobs, the fans turned, the snake emojis did the rounds, the club and Christian Nourry escaped relatively blemish free from dismissing someone who I believe was a very good manager here. It’ll be interesting, now Stéphan is beating the same drum, ‘52 points and get the hell out of Dodge’, whether the club and its supporters turn in the same way. How many times can you blame the manager before you realise he’s not the issue? We’ve probably got another couple in us, but it should dawn eventually.

Stéphan, like Cifuentes before him, is working with a hand tied high up behind his back. Do you think he doesn’t know that Esquerdinha and Saito is a poor left side defensively? But the club are invested in those two players – the latter has cost millions to bring here and is travelling backwards faster than a Jonathan Varane pass.

That’s the sort of question I think is more pertinent than whether the head coach could have played a back three or a midfield three or Clarke-Salter at left back or Mbengue at right back. Did he get this team selection right? No. Is he too stubbornly wedded to a system that’s largely been found out by teams in their second games against us? Yes. But we’re shuffling deckchairs on the Costa Concordia here. This wasn’t 2-0, this was two for nil declared. You weren’t a slightly different team selection from winning this game, in my opinion.

There’s been a lot of talk about all the progress we’ve made this season. Started badly, burned bright in the middle, got loads of injuries, season over by the first week of March and on the beach thereafter. That sounds a lot like last season to me. I know I’m a bit of a misery but I’m seeing two versions of Spiderman pointing at each other here. We’ve had more injuries this year than last, but at various points last season we had no fit centre backs and no fit centre forwards. Stéphan has also had Rumarn Burrell and Richard Kone to pick from up top, whereas Cifuentes’ main strikers were Michi Frey and Zan Celar.

This time last year, 35 played, 44 points, 7-5-6 at home, 4-6-7 away, 41 goals scored, 45 goals conceded, 14th in the league. Today, 35 played, 47 points, 8-2-7 at home, 5-6-7 away, 46 goals scored, 54 goals conceded, 15th in the league. Where’s the progress?

Still, at least the leaving three up from opposition corners was back. Small mercies.

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

QPR: Walsh 5; Edwards 6, Dunne 5, Clarke-Salter 4 (Mbengue 69, 5), Esquerdinha 3 (Smyth 46, 5); Vale 6, Varane 3 (Hayden 60, 4), Morgan 5, Saito 3; Bennie 4 (Kolli 46, 5), Kone 6

Subs not used; Cook, Hamer, Pearman, Smith

Yellow Cards: Smyth 80 (foul), Morgan 90+3 (fighting)

Sheff Utd: Davies 5; Hoever 6, Tanganga 6, Bindon 6, Burrows 6; Chong 7 (Brooks 60, 6), Peck 7, Ridewald 6 (Arblaster 75, 6), O’Hare 8 (Hjelde 88, -); Cannon 6 (Bamford 88, -), Campbell 7 (Hamer 60, 7)

Subs not used: Faxon, McGuinness, Rothwell, Seriki

Goals: O’Hare 13 (assisted Chong), Campbell 33 (assisted Peck)

Yellow Cards: Hamer 79 (foul), Brooks 90+2 (fighting)

QPR Star Man – Jude The Cat I don’t know. Harvey Vale? Who cares? Eleven games left.

Referee – Tom Nield (West Yorkshire) 6 The Richard Kone disallowed goal is the key talking point. I think a few things can be true at once: the decision is technically correct, but I think at this level is usually ignored; the goalkeeper has absolutely sold it when he was never saving the thing anyway, but Smyth has been pretty daft and blatant about it. Fair stones on the linesman for sticking to that decision in that corner of the ground. There was a QPR corner a moment or two later that he seemed desperate to give as a goal kick – had he done so you’d have needed that flag to be luminous just to stand a chance of extracting it from him.

Attendance – 17,376 (1,744 Sheff Utd) Spring sprang on Wednesday in the nation’s capital and we’ve clearly been out on our troublesome playing surface with a bag of seed. I wish our full backs held their position as steadfastly and determinedly as the fat pigeon living its best life on the corner of the box underneath F Block – despite multiple scarecrows around him. You play round me, I’m going nowhere mate, this is good stuff. Not the first parasite at Loftus Road to enjoy the fat of the land.

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