QPR brought a halt to their latest losing run as Julien Stéphan was rewarded for a big call in goal with a clean sheet and draw at Sheffield United, but the boldness ended at the team selection and we won’t be shifting many DVDs of this one.

Given the chronic lack of absolutely anything to talk about from this, perhaps it’s an opportune time to remind ourselves how prone Queens Park Rangers are to embark on losing runs, and just how long the spend in funky town when they’ve taken themselves down there again.

Last season, under Marti Cifuentes, the team won two of its first 17 league matches and had separate winless runs of 13 and seven matches. It was two from the first 17 the year before, under Gareth Ainsworth, as well, and at various points that team went 12 and eight games without winning once (essentially half a season). In 2022/23 Rangers led the league in October but then embarked on a death spiral like few others: a winless run of six in November, another of 13 straight after a win at Preston, and another of seven after that. At one stage the team had won two of 28. Warbs Warburton’s last season in charge was another that promised much through the autumn but from the start of February there were separate winless runs of five and six adding up to a spell of two wins in 15. Even four wins in 15 would have been enough to make the play-offs that year, but QPR just couldn’t snap out of their doom loop.

That was something of a theme of Warburton’s reign – under him in 2020/21 the team at various stages went seven and ten games without winning, and in his first season 2019/20 they had gone seven and five without winning at all and finished with another spell of one win in seven when lockdown hit. It was a problem he inherited. Steve McClaren’s 2018/19 Rangers had also been in touch with the play-offs at Christmas despite the worst start to a season in club history (four straight defeats including a 7-1 at West Brom) but that collapsed to, at one stage, seven defeats in a row followed immediately by another winless run of six to eventually add up to one league victory in 15. It’s pretty difficult to do that, even if you’re trying. In this league you can win by accident (see Oxford H last year).

It's amazing, really, none of these ended up in a relegation at some point. There was a period where QPR won five of 46 matches, but they did it over a calendar year rather than a football one. Ian Holloway was lucky too. His QPR side in 2017 had a spell of seven without a win, and another of six, with two wins sandwiched between for a run of two wins in 17 over four months. The prior year his team lost six in a row on three separate occasions, including seven of the final eight, necessitating a win over Forest in the final homer to stave off League One. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink started life as QPR boss with no wins in his first eight. New manager thud.

We could keep going. The source of your disappointment changes, but the constant is you’re always disappointed. It is just woven into the fabric of the modern day Rangers that they can’t lose a game or two and shake that off. Every loss, however narrow, unlucky, or underserved, risks turning into an existential crisis. And, so, when you have lost four of five and three in a row, as Julien Stéphan’s side had over the past couple of weeks, it’s important to get that nipped in the bud double lively. Stodge that thing up. Reach for the footballing coagulant. Stop the patient bleeding out. Get yourself a result, of some sort, somewhere, by any means. A good point from the message board – if you were Julien Stéphan and you’d effectively abandoned the game model he was told to come here and implement, would you want to send your employers into an international break ruminating on four straight defeats?

Which brings us, belatedly, to Sheffield United 0 QPR 0 on Saturday. A result which does at least stop three consecutive defeats and four losses in five becoming four, five and six, but doesn’t halt the winless run, and was an artery hardening spectacle I wouldn’t want to sit through again.

It was a clean sheet for two of the Championship’s three worst defences. Sheff Utd had conceded 26 at the start of play, Rangers 23, which could only be rivalled by the division’s basket case Sheff Wed. This would be just a fourth shut-out for the Londoners, while for Chris Wilder’s men it was only the third time they’d kept the opposition scoreless and the first game they’d drawn all season. In their previous three games these sides had conceded 16 goals collectively.

From a Rangers point of view, that was achieved mainly with a bold selection call in goal. Ben Hamer, a 37-year-old career number two keeper who hadn’t played a game of football for anybody since losing 1-0 at Millwall with Watford at the start of March 2024, was thrust in from the start.

There was some understandable early rust to dust away – young referee Lewis Smith awarded a corner for Hamer holding onto the ball too long after just 12 minutes, a new rule the keeper said afterwards he wasn’t aware of which one would hope is just one of those nonsense throwaway lines people chuck into football interviews otherwise it doesn’t say much for our coaching in that department nor how much attention he was paying from the bench on Wednesday night when Gavin Bazunu was penalised for the same thing.

But when Tyrese Cambell crossed from the right for veteran forward Danny Ings, arriving late in the box and totally unmarked, Hamer produced a special save to not only stop his diving header on the line but generate enough lift to get it up, over the bar, and away onto the roof of the net for safety. It was the one moment of genuine high quality in the game.

Playing behind a new look defence which saw Jimmy Dunne reverting to the middle, where he spent much of the afternoon running into Steve Cook going after the same balls including for that Ings chance, and Amadou Mbengue at right back, where he of course picked up a seventh yellow of the season and is now just three shy of a two-match ban, Hamer had to be on his toes and left this game as not only the narrative but also QPR’s star man for my money.

This situation, however, is less than ideal. QPR are onto a third keeper of the season already and have effectively had to bring a jobbing back-up out of retirement to play Championship football until at least Christmas because of how the position has been mishandled. Paul Nardi cut a sad and disconsolate figure standing to the side of the pre-match warm up.

The Frenchman was one of the team’s better players through the first half of last season, with excellent performances away at Cardiff, Watford and Norwich in particular winning vital points. It shouldn’t be forgotten that he was one of the few players who stuck his hand up in that dreadful period when many others hid. The obvious flaw in his game, a lack of command of his box and tendency to stick to his line, was pinpointed in video reviews and found out in the return fixtures. But that’s not his fault. A few lines, if I may, from Greg Spires’ piece when we signed him and none of us knew who he was: “There was evidence of him being unconvincing, where he stuck to his six-yard-box or waited too long to rush out to attackers… he doesn’t seem as strong or commanding at claiming crosses and high-balls as Dieng or Begovic were, from what I can see.” Now, if the LFW analyst can see that, why are we signing him? You can’t buy a dickless dog and then go around moaning it hasn’t got a dick.

This summer the club demoted him to second choice behind Joe Walsh - an enormous gamble in a position you don’t piss about with. Walsh, who had played two games of Championship football in his life, was asked to play 40+ games ata club with a play-out-from-the-back game model with which he’s never looked comfortable – he cost us a goal at Cambridge in the cup last year doing this. Nardi, meanwhile, having been told he was no longer wanted, wasn’t sold and/or replaced. When Walsh endured a nightmare start and then broke his wrist Rangers were forced to go back to the French keeper who not only everybody (and the rest of the division) now knows is flawed (no sign of improvements being coached into him) but has also had his confidence battered by being replaced by the development squad keeper. The results – dreadful goals at Derby and Sheff Wed in particular – have not been unexpected or surprising. They mirror a similar drop off from a pretty average base level by Kenneth Paal last season – another who was told he was no longer required because he wouldn’t sign a contract, but then didn’t leave and no alternate was found so had to play 40+ games. These guys are human. They’re affected by the same emotions we all are. If you tell somebody you don’t rate them, but neither move them on nor replace them, and you end up relying on them… don’t expect that to go well, in any workplace.

There have been some recruitment and retention successes at QPR this season. The goalkeeper position is not one of them. However Hamer played here, his mere presence says that position has been mishandled.

We’ve gone context heavy here because, as I said at the start, that Hamer save really was the beginning and end of this. Cook and Dunne getting in each others’ way again on five minutes ended up with Ben Mee shooting wide. At the other end Ilias Chair had a powerful shot deflected wide. After half a penalty appeal from Karamoko Dembele, Chair had another curler saved easily by Michael Cooper, recovering from his midweek injury at Coventry to start. Sydie Peck, haircut done by the council, hit an instinctive shot on the turn from a long throw but it hit Steve Cook and went behind. Jimmy Dunne headed another effort by former QPR loanee Sam McCallum out from under the bar. Sam Field was a steady, pragmatic, welcome presence at left back after Esquerdinha’s torture session against Ipswich. Average age of the team continues to creep though #pathways.

That was the first half, which moved at the speed of the church clock. Long throws and foul throws, bobbles and bibbles, dogs and logs. How many set pieces does it take to get your eye in and clear the first man? Are we playing with a medicine ball or something? Both teams had lost three straight coming into this game and man oh man couldn’t you tell. A long, hard drag on a heavy tar cigarette of a football game. We said you’d have been lucky to come through the midweek game against Southampton with any memory of it; you’d have been fortunate to escape this one still with a pulse.

QPR started the second a good deal brighter. Dembele, freed by Chair on a flowing counter attack, curled a fraction wide with the keeper beaten and the away end already celebrating. Chair then, in the next attack, got top scorer Rumarn Burrell away into similar space. The Jamaican went the opposite way to Dembele and Cooper saved at his near post. A much better stop was required from Cooper to beat out an instinctive first timer from Mbengue after McCallum had given the ball away in a dangerous area.

At this point I was genuinely waiting for QPR to just go on and win it. It felt inevitable. Burrell looked the most dangerous player on the pitch to me reunited with Richard Kone in attack. Chair and Dembele were getting good ball. Sheff Utd were wilting from a pretty low level to begin with. The visitors much the better side as the hour ticked by. The game was borderline watchable.

That ascendency wasn’t capitalised on. The momentum allowed to drain. Stéphan said he liked us for an hour, and not much after, and he’s bang on. But, does he not have something to do with that? In this game three of a three game week Rangers didn’t make a change at all until 72 minutes by which point Wilder had already made three. When subs did come, only three were made, depriving the R’s of a potential two other sets of fresh legs. Having made the point in pre-match that SheffUtd had 24 hours extra recovery time on his team, it seemed rather strange for Stéphan to manage his bench that way. And rather than looking to press home advantage, the newcomers felt more geared towards holding what we had: Harvey Vale for Karamoko Dembele who’d been playing well and whose attacking threat was not replaced; Michael Frey for Richard Kone, if I speak I am in trouble; Kieran Morgan for Amadou Mbengue probably the most effective of the three and it would be nice to see a little bit more of him, particularly at right back where I think he can play a useful role.

Again, the usual disclaimer about the manager knowing far more about it than I do, but I was disappointed, standing behind the goal. It’s not that it’s wrong, necessarily, more that I just don’t understand.

I guess with Mark McGuinness’ obvious set piece threat you want to maintain an aerial defence that Frey can bring you over and above (literally) the subs alongside him on the bench. And it’s not like Paul Smyth or Koki Saito have been pulling up many trees of late – frequently, like Harvey Vale, they’ve been rewarded by the manager for a positive show with a start in the next game and failed to deliver (again, literally). Honestly, though, what is Frey contributing to this team at the moment? I’ve posed more goal threat for QPR this season. If you played tag with that guy he’d be it for aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages. Rayan Kolli, meanwhile cannot even make this bench. Make that make sense.

And Sheffield United looked a poor, poor side to me. It’s astonishing to see their decline from last season’s 92-point haul in the flesh and, playing like this, they’ll be lucky to climb too far away from their current position of third bottom and three adrift of safety. Kieran Morgan gave them the ball in a dodgy area seven from time and invited them to attack, they gave it straight back to him and the moans and groans rolled down from the Kop end of Bramall Lane. It was the only noise we heard from them all afternoon.

I say that more out of sympathy and empathy than piss taking and dick swinging. This lot were 14 minutes away from the Premier League and now they look like this. No team in the whole EFL had lost as many as the Blades this season (11) and you could totally see why. Callum O'Hare, a shadow of that Coventry livewire, spent much of this falling over his own feet.

Instead of going for the jugular, QPR spent the final half hour of the game holding grimly to a point. They allowed their positive start to the half to slip, particularly when former Everton man Tom Davies came on and took over the midfield. It needed another fine Hamer save to keep out a back post header from McCallum. Femi Siriki taking things into his own hands and charging 70 yards with the ball right down the centre of the pitch and through where you might expect QPR’s midfield to be stationed ended only with a tame shot wide of the post. Peck went a good deal closer than that in stoppage time, stumbling and fumbling his way through to an improvised, accidental shot deflected off the upright.

You’d have been very, very hard pushed to say Sheff Utd deserved that to go in, although the local press up there disagree – Sheff Utd “scratching their heads” how this ended in a draw, apparently. Nil nil was the fairest of fair reflections on this game as a whole. Had it done so, however, you’d have had to ask questions about QPR’s approach to the last half hour. As four minutes of advertised stoppage time ticked into five Stéphan fumed on the touchline that United were allowed to put a final free kick into the box after a daft foul by Jonathan Varane. Why, though, had it come to that? Screaming at a fourth official about perceived threat to our precious nil nil? Where’s our ambition? I can feel that word “standards” wanting to go on my pad again.

We’re conditioned to think that a point away from home is brilliant news for QPR regardless of how it comes. That Bramall Lane is some bloody citadel that plucky little Rangers are trying to storm with a toothpick (copyright Gary Weaver). This is not a tough place to come any more. It’s just not. Five of the six visitors here this season have won – Bristol City, Derby, Charlton, Southampton and Millwall, hardly a Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade of Championship legend and leading lights. The Blades have scored three times in those games and conceded 11. They looked utterly bereft, to me anyway.

There was a win here for QPR, and after an hour they’d worked themselves into the position to take that very nicely. Instead, they sat back on a goalless draw which does what? Keeps Rangers sixteenth. Big whoop. Now six points away from the play-off position they occupied a month ago, Stéphan keener afterwards to point out it keeps Sheff Utd nine points behind us which is perhaps a telling insight into his thinking about where we’re at and what he has at his disposal here.

Easy to say sitting here now, because had we done so I’m sure I’d be ranting on and boring myself and you guys even more than I’m already doing, but I’d almost rather us have lost this game going for it, than drawn it like this. You’re boring the hole off me. Get some pace on from the bench and let’s have a run at them. Burrell was having great results around the 60-minute mark, it felt like they were ready to crack.

I do acknowledge that it’s stopped a rot to some degree. And, look, maybe an international break is nicely timed. For a team that’s had its confidence knocked, and for me, who’s back to being a bit sick of the sight of them again. You may well not agree with any of this, which is also absolutely fair enough. We’re all in different headspaces for different reasons.

Apologies. I know you don’t want to read whiny, negative diatribes any more than I want to write them really. Not like we lost the game is it? Cheer up you miserable bastard. But I can only speak honestly and authentically as me and how I see it and feel about it.

You’ll be glad to know it’s Jamie for Hull. Not half as glad as I am.

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

Sheff Utd: Cooper 7; Seriki 6, Mee 6 (McGuinness 46, 6), Tanganga 6, McCallum 7 (Burrows 81, -); Peck 6, Riedewald 5 (Davies 56, 7); Brooks 6 (Ogbene 68, 5), O’Hare 5; Campbell 5 (One 81, -), Ings 6

Subs not used: Cannon, A Davies, Shackleton, Soumare

QPR: Hamer 7; Mbengue 6 (Morgan 78, 6), Dunne 6, Cook 6, Field 6; Dembele 6 (Vale 72, 6), Varane 6, Madsen 6, Chair 6; Kone 5 (Frey 78, 5), Burrell 7

Subs not used: Hayden, Esquerdinha, Morrison, Nardi, Saito, Smyth

Yellow Cards: Mbengue 45+2 (of course), Varane 63 (foul)

QPR Star Man – Ben Hamer 7 A very bold selection rewarded with two fine saves from headers either side of half time and a clean sheet.

Referee – Lewis Smith (Wigan) 7 Decent. Big fan of this pro-active targeting of dallying goalkeepers, even when it is ours.

Attendance – 26,529 (1,465 QPR) Not a style or tempo of football game conducive to creating a good atmosphere inside arguably the Championship’s outstanding stadium. To be honest there’s an air of punch-drunk numbness around the place. Like they’re all just sitting there stunned, trying to work out what on earth happened to them. Who can blame them? From 1-0 up in the play-off final with 14 minutes left, to this.

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Pictures - Reuters Connect

ozexile added 20:42 - Nov 9 Good job Clive. Enjoy your break.
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extratimeR added 21:20 - Nov 9 Thanks Clive Yes, completely agree, I also was very surprised how the same Shef Team that ran riot last year has descended to this. ( They were far to cocky before the Play off final, I remember the CEO? explaining in pre match interview " How all the finances were in place for next year in the Premiership" Whoops! Yes, bloody weird with Burrell pulling them all over the place, we then end up hanging on, Dembele being taken off allowed Davies to run riot on that side. Much praise for Hamer, I actually stopped staring in panic at the goalkeeper, the back four didn't look nervous, and two great saves. Cheers Clive great report as usual.

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Myke added 00:51 - Nov 10 Cheers, Clive, your frustration is palpable. Just on Nardi, I feel you are being unduly lenient. If he made those errors that you mentioned because he is not a very good keeper, then fair enough and all the more justification for being dropped for Walsh. If he made them because he couldn't be arsed to try his hardest after being dropped, then that is extremely unprofessional and unacceptable. I came to teaching late (50) and for several years until I got a permanent contract, I worked in various schools as a substitute (I think you call them supply) teacher, filling in for sick leave or maternity leave or whatever. On more than one occasion, it became clear that the Principal didn't rate me, or there was no possibility of my contract being extended. But I didn't allow this to affect my delivery of the lessons to the students, or the forward planning meetings that I knew I wouldn't be there to implement. It simply would have been unprofessional of me, and the same applies to Nardi. Of course we all wanted to be needed and feel valued, but life doesn't always work that way and sometimes you just have to get on with it.

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mwooly75 added 02:31 - Nov 10 Great report as always matey !! Personally I was happy with a point by the end as I see we had 2 centre midfielders in both full back positions- why not bring Morrison in for “the box of frogs” and shuffle Dunne across rather than play Kieran out of his natural position again… Mbengue was injured when he came out for the second half - and on his usual yellow card - to keep him on was Sunday league at best - Favourite comment though has to be “haircut done by the council” still making me laugh now 🤣🤣

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spudoodles added 15:08 - Nov 10 I'm also very confused about Kolli, get him on the bench at least ffs! great impact sub. He'll be brilliant for someone else i guarantee it.
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Stevenpetercox added 16:25 - Nov 11 Great report as per usual Clive, Team are having a confidence crisis again , need more belief. Spudoodles is right , Kolli would be an interesting impact sub rather than Frey for example. I reckon that the lad has pissed off the management someway or how.
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