With the winnable looking home game against Crystal Palace postponed QPR now face trips to Cardiff, Chelsea and Newcastle in the next ten days with just one win to their name in the league so far this season.

Cardiff City (4th) v Queens Park Rangers (14th)
Coca Cola Championship
Saturday September 19, Kick Off 3pm
Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff

It is hard to explain to the non-believers just why you would want to travel hundreds of miles by rail to a football match that you fully expect to lose. “Why don’t you give this one a miss?” they say. Fools.

If I wanted to watch a football team win I’d follow Man Utd, and I would be bored. Winning is great, but where’s the fun in winning all the time? Winning with QPR is great because it happens so seldomly, you feel like you have really had to work for that win. Winning is usually unexpected with QPR, so the feeling of surprise and elation when it happens is all the sweeter. I don’t think it’s going to happen this weekend, but hey it might, and I will be there to see it, and it will be great.

It’s tough following QPR at the moment. Not as tough as it has been when we were watching Stefan Moore and knew full well we didn’t have a snow ball’s chance in hell of winning, but still tough in its own way. It’s hard watching footballers earning so much money from our club and giving such meagre returns. The players are currently playing within themselves and while I keep saying “when we click we’ll give somebody a good hiding” I am starting to worry that the “when” may actually be an “if”.

If we click this Saturday we will win, simple as. We have the players to do it, Cardiff away is not an insurmountable task it perhaps appeared to be a week ago with Newcastle giving a clear indication of how to play them successfully at their new stadium last weekend, and we have a good recent record in this part of the world. One of those surprise wins, and make no mistake I would be absolutely stunned if we won this game, this weekend would be very hand because with midweek trips to Chelsea and Newcastle to come and Barnsley suddenly playing a bit of football due in W12 next Saturday the “one win in...” statistics are starting to mount.

Jim Magilton promised to “shake the living daylights” out of his team after the Accrington cup match. Now might be a nice time to start doing just that.

Five minutes on Cardiff
Recent History: Cardiff choked like a pensioner on fifty cigarettes a day last season, and it was not the first time they had done so recently either. Four games out from the end of the campaign Cardiff beat fellow promotion hopefuls Burnley 3-1 at Ninian Park to move into fourth position, just four points away from the automatic promotion places. They had won three on the bounce, scoring nine in the process, and were the form team of the top six. It seemed likely that their new stadium would witness Premiership football in its first year.

As we all know now it was actually Burnley, so comfortably beaten that day at Ninian Park, who took the play off promotion spot and Birmingham and Wolves who held on to the top two. Incredibly Cardiff’s season finished with the rest of us on the first weekend in May. A week after the Burnley game they went to Preston North End, eighth and four points away from the play offs at the time, and lost 6-0. This freak result had several damaging effects – it shattered the mental stability of the Cardiff dressing room, galvanised Preston’s players and annihilated the goal difference between the two sides so that when it came down to it on the final day of the season Cardiff’s loss at Sheff Wed and Preston’s victory over our good selves at Deepdale was enough to see the teams swap places.

Cardiff were perhaps unlucky to run into Ipswich Town in their last ever match at Ninian Park in the week when Roy Keane took over at Portman Road, but a 3-0 home defeat was just hard to fathom as the Deepdale massacre. They collapsed like a pack of cards, and there was much soul searching during a summer when it looked likely at one stage that manager Dave Jones and star layers Roger Johnson, Joe Ledley and Michael Chopra would not be around to see this new campaign at the new stadium.

While things have undoubtedly started well this season Cardiff fans would do well not to count any eggs until they have hatched, grown up and started laying eggs of their own. While Jones’ experiement with veteran stars like Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Robbie Fowler and Trevor Sinclair brought great FA Cup success in 2007/08 they were poor in the league. In 2006/07 though they choked again – leading the league by so far (seven points) in October that many pundits seemed happy to hand the trophy over there and then Cardiff fell apart in the second half of the season starting with a poor defeat at Colchester and then another at home to QPR on the famous Ray Jones night and ending up losing seven and drawing one of their last eight and finishing 13th.

Short term it is the mental fragility cultivated by such failures that threatens Cardiff the most. Long term it is the mountain of debt the club currently shoulders. While the new stadium and continued pro-activity in the transfer market suggests a time of great wealth in this part of the world Cardiff owe roughly £30m to former owner Sam Hamman. The former Wimbledon owner rebuilt Cardiff in the 1990s and early part of this decade, brushing past QPR in a League One play off final in 2003 along the way, but left on less than amicable terms and took the club to court last season to try and recoup the money he is owed before the scheduled repayment date. He failed, had he succeeded Cardiff would have been in administration long before now, but that money does have to be repaid at some point and it is a lot of money for Cardiff to find, new ground or not.

Still, never fear, Peter Ridsdale is in charge. What can possibly go wrong?

The Manager: Dave Jones is now one of the most experienced managers in the Championship but the noises coming out of Cardiff following their dramatic collapse at the end of last season was that he might no longer be considered the best man for this job. Personally I would not envy any manager working for Peter Ridsdale and the financial situation at City looks to be a recipe for future disaster so Jones seems to be doing a sound job to me, if he can just manage to convince his players to see the job through to the end of a 46 game season. Jones cut his managerial teeth at Stockport and after winning two promotions with them also did well at Southampton until revelations about his private life, which he tackles with great honesty and anger in his recently released autobiography ‘No Smoke, No Fire’ saw him take leave of his position and then eventually get replaced by Glenn Hoddle. He won promotion with Wolves after returning to football and has done a good job at Cardiff so far. It looked like Cardiff may have missed the boat by not getting promotion last season when Roger Johnson went on without them to join Birmingham City but the expected exodus of players has not materialised with Joe Ledley and Ross McCormack staying put and Michael Chopra signing on a permanent basis. Realistically Jones only has one more shot at this before patience in South Wales starts to wear a bit thin and so far all the signs are good – Cardiff must shed their recently acquired reputation as chokers to keep their gaffer employed into next season.

Scout Report: Cardiff seemed to me to be lined up in a standard 442 on both occasions I have watched them this season – a 3-0 home win against Bristol City and 1-0 home defeat by Newcastle. Gavin Rae holds the midfield allowing Joe Ledley to break forward and join the attack but the real threat comes from wide areas with Whittingham possessing a great delivery with his left foot and Chris Burke providing the raw pace and directness to trouble full backs – I really don’t fancy Gary Borrowdale against him to be honest. Despite being obviously right footed Burke was not afraid to cut inside onto his left and run directly at the heart of the defence rather than sticking wide and delivering crosses. He set up a third goal against City for Gavin Rae by doing just this and laying a ball in with his left.

Up front they worked a standard big man, little man partnership with Chopra and Bothroyd very effective against City but less so against the Magpies. Initially City played a fair amount of long ball up to Bothroyd with the likes of Chopra and Burke looking for flick ons but as they took the lead and gained more confidence they passed the ball with greater frequency and quality and Bothroyd appeared equally adept at both. Against Newcastle they seemed a little too sure of themselves for my liking, knocking the ball around in their own half of the field a little too readily instead of hitting Bothroyd early and that enabled Newcastle’s hard working five man midfield to engage Cardiff very high up the pitch, restricting supply to the strikers and often actually winning possession back in danger areas.

While Chopra I the obvious one to watch stopping Burke, Whittingham and Bothroyd would isolate the Championship’s top scorer anyway – our centre halves should be good enough for the latter but I’m not sure we have the quality at full back to do the former and Ramage, Leigertwood, Connolly and/or Borrowdale will have to be right on their games, and need help from the wingers in front of them so perhaps this is not the day for Adel Taarabt to be playing wide left.

From corners Peter Whittingham’s left foot is a dangerous weapon, normally dropping balls plum onto the edge of the six yard box towards the back post. Bothroyd tended to take two Bristol City defenders with him to the near leaving Hudson to come up from the back and challenge for the balls at the far stick. Hudson and Gerrard were the centre halves when I saw them – they made a formidable pair physically but looked very short of pace and I would certainly have Taarabt up front against them. Bristol City were not really able to take advantage of this despite having the pace of Maynard and Haynes up front and this was because, unlike QPR at Ashton Gate, the Cardiff defence sat very deep, retreating to their own 18 yard line whenever City attacked and leaving no space in behind for the strikers to run into. David Marshall the goalkeeper dropped several routine crosses and shots on both occasions I saw him so our strikers would be well advised to get in and around him as often as possible.

Three to Watch: Let’s avoid doing the obvious here shall we and picking Michael Chopra and Joe Ledley – one is the Championship’s top scorer, the other probably the division’s outstanding midfield player. It is taken as read that we are going to need to keep a very close eye on the pair of them.

Peter Whittingham on the other hand may slip under the radar slightly and that would be a very dangerous thing as I believe (no family bias here I assure you) that he is pivotal to the way Cardiff play the game. An Aston Villa trainee as a youth Whittingham has 17 England Under 21 caps to his name and a sweet left foot that creates a lot of the openings for Chopra and Bothroyd in attack. He has maybe suffered in the past through not having a proper position – not really defensive enough to play left back, not quick enough to be an out and out left winger, and crowded out of the centre of City’s midfield by Ledley and McPhail among others. He seems to have found a little niche for himself down the Cardiff left this season. Chris Burke keeps tight to the touchline wide right meaning that Whittingham can come infield and influence the game with a fine passing game without making the play or the Cardiff side too narrow. His set pieces can be lethal as well.

Burke himself provides a different kind of threat from wide on the right. While Whittingham is a more thoughtful player, Burke is a Wayne Routledge style kick and rush winger who loves to get the ball at his feet and drive at the heart of a defence at speed whenever possible. Newcastle coped with him rather better than Bristol City but with QPR weak in the full back areas these two could have a real field day this weekend. Burke joined Cardiff earlier this year after making just shy of 100 appearances for his boyhood club Rangers north of the border and he too likes to take corners meaning City always have an option to outswing or inswing all set pieces depending on the opposition – it has been outswinging to the back post mostly in the two games I have seen them play.

The focal point of the attack, the man Whittingham, Burke and Ledley feed into and the one Chopra feeds off, is Jay Bothroyd who is a useful target man at this level while never really fulfilling the early potential he showed at Arsenal that persuaded first Coventry to take a £1m gamble on him and then Perugia to give him a chance to prove himself in Serie A. Bothroyd has yet be a real success anywhere and is probably best remembered for a horrendous hack on Norwich’s Mattias Jonson while playing on loan for Blackburn Rovers in 2004. He goes down injured a lot when often there turns out to be little wrong with him, a bit like Emile Heskey, but having said all of that he is important to the way Chopra and Cardiff like to operate and if QPR can cut service to him in the first place, or pick up the second balls from him often enough, they will have one a long way towards stopping the Bluebirds causing us problems.

Links >>> Cardiff Official Website >>> Cardiff City Message Board

History
One of QPR’s many (eleven) nil nil draws last season came at Ninian Park in February. Following hot on the heals of the Loftus Road collapse against Ipswich Rangers were much more solid in a hostile atmosphere created by the return for former City loanee Wayne Routledge who had snubbed a permanent move to Wales to sign for Rangers instead just a month before the fixture. In the end Rangers were unfortunate not to win with Heidar Helguson sticking a presentable late chance past the post.

Cardiff: Konstantopoulos 6, McNaughton 8 (Comminges 46, 5), Purse 7, R Johnson 7, Kennedy 7, Parry 6, Rae 6, Ledley 7, Burke 7 (Owusu-Abeyie 73, 6), Chopra 5 (Whittingham 66, 6), McCormack 6
Subs Not Used: E Johnson, Scimeca

QPR: Cerny 7, Connolly 7, Gorkss 8, Stewart 8, Delaney 8, Cook 7, Miller 6 (Alberti 58, 6), Leigertwood 8, Mahon 7 (Blackstock 89, -), Routledge 7, Helguson 6 (Di Carmine 90, -)
Subs Not Used: Hall, Lopez
Booked: Miller (foul), Alberti (foul)

QPR came out on top in the first meeting between these two teams this season thanks to a late header from the man everybody is talking about this week Gavin Mahon. Rangers were below par though and probably owed much of their success to Cardiff’s indiscipline as the visitors were reduced to nine men by the end. Darren Purse was sent off before half time for a lunging tackle on Lee Cook that could easily have been given a yellow card and then deep into the second half Comminges also got to sample the early bath water after arguing with a linesman. In between the red cards Mahon struck, sending a good cross from Peter Ramage (no, really) sailing over Heaton’s head and into the corner. How he would love another like that on Wednesday to silence the doubters.

QPR: Cerny 8, Ramage 6, Stewart 8, Hall 8, Connolly 7, Ledesma 5 (Buzsaky 55, 7), Rowlands 5, Tommasi 5 (Mahon 67, 7) Cook 5, Blackstock 4, Di Carmine 5 (Agyemang 71, 7)
Subs Not Used: Cole, Delaney
Booked: Agyemang (foul)
Goals: Mahon 80 (assisted Ramage)

Cardiff: Heaton 6, McNaughton 7, Purse 5, R Johnson 7, Comminges 6, Rae 6, Ledley 6 (Gyepes 29, 7), Whittingham 6, McPhail 6, Eddie Johnson 5 (Parry 72, 5), Chopra 5
Subs Not Used: Enckelman, Blake, Brown
Sent Off: Purse (28) (dangerous tackle), Comminges (87) (two bookings)
Booked: McPhail (foul), Comminges (foul), Comminges (dissent)

Head to Head:
Cardiff wins – 24
Draws – 11
QPR wins – 30

Previous results:
2008/09 Cardiff 0 QPR 0
2008/09 QPR 1 Cardiff 0 (Mahon)
2007/08 Cardiff 3 QPR 1 (Agyemang)
2007/08 QPR 0 Cardiff 2
2006/07 QPR 1 Cardiff 0 (Blackstock)
2006/07 Cardiff 0 QPR 1 (Jones)
2005/06 Cardiff 0 QPR 0
2005/06 QPR 1 Cardiff 0 (Nygaard)
2004/05 Cardiff 1 QPR 0
2004/05 QPR 1 Cardiff 0 (Shittu)
2002/03 Cardiff 1 QPR 0 (Play Off Final)
2002/03 Cardiff 1 QPR 2 (Furlong, Langley)
2002/03 QPR 0 Cardiff 4
2001/02 Cardiff 1 QPR 1 (Pacquette)
2001/02 QPR 2 Cardiff 1 (Thomson 2)
1999/00 QPR 1 Cardiff 2 (Peacock)
1999/00 Cardiff 1 QPR 2 (Langley, Fowler og)

Played for both clubs:
Wayne Fereday
QPR 1980-89
Cardiff 1994
One of the quickest players to ever grace the Loftus Road turf (and plastic), Fereday was major part of Rangers folklore throughout the 1980’s. A Rangers youngster, Fereday made his debut for the Super Hoops without even playing a reserve game. Then manager Tommy Docherty saw him play in the South East Counties League that week and then slung him straight into the first-team. The 17 year-old wasn’t daunted though and made a dream debut with two goals in a 4-0 win over Bristol Rovers. Soon after Docherty left Loftus Road and was replaced by Terry Venables. With Fereday still a young player he had to bide his time with the new manager and only managed eight appearances over the next three seasons under Venables, watching the 1982 FA Cup Final defeat to Tottenham in the stands.

Venables left in 1984 to manage Barcelona and it was under his replacement Jim Smith, Fereday would play his best football for QPR. Over the next four seasons Fereday would become a regular fixture in the R’s first team on the right flank or at right-back. His mazy runs down the wing made him quite the fans favoruite with the Loftus Road crowd, especially as he chipped in with his fair share of goals too - a season high of seven in 1985. Wayne also played in all Rangers games in the 1986 League Cup run but was left out in the final defeat in place of a retuning Warren Neil. In all Fereday played in 244 games for Rangers before following Jim Smith to Newcastle. Further spells followed at Bournemouth, West Brom at Cardiff but he could never discover the same form he found at Loftus Road. Now works in Portsmouth for the PFA and OPTA. –AR

Links >>> Cardiff 0 QPR 0 Match Report >>> QPR 1 Cardiff 0 Match Report >>> Match Report Archive >>> Connections and Memories

This Saturday
Team News: Cardiff will be without last season's top scorer Ross McCormack who has a hamstring injury and will be out until mid October, and Kelvin Etuhu who has damaged his ankle ligaments and also faces eight weeks out after joining on loan from Man City. Joe Ledley has recovered from a knock picked up against Reading and will start in midfield with gavin rae as Stephen McPhail's red card for violent conduct has been upheld on appeal.

QPR are again without Fitz Hall and Angelo Balanta who both have groin injuries. lee Cook is a long term absentee but Martin Rowlands is pushing for a start after returning from an ankle injury with a sub appearance against Peterborough last week.

Elsewhere: The stand out game of the weekend is obviously the televised Friday night clash in South Yorkshire between bitter rivals Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday. Both have started the season well but lost in midweek conceding three goals – this will be a cracker as they look to bounce back in a match that divides the city. On Saturday watch out for a clash between two sides that were in the top flight last season Middlesbrough and West Brom, refereed by our old mate Trevor Kettle, and a match between two very out of form sides Palace and Derby at Selhurst Park – both managers may be starting to feel the pressure a little bit there. Plymouth have the “long old poke” made famous by the Aviva adverts as they head up to Newcastle and just for your amusement and interest the official Argyle club coaches to that game are leaving at 4am.

Referee: Lee Probert, a man who once mistook Jude the Cat for Paul Furlong and sent him off and wa branded a “village idiot” by then QPR boss Ian Holloway following a controversial late penalty decision in a 3-2 defeat at Sheffield United, is in charge here. Probert is a Premiership referee these days and has improved immensely from the days when he let Wolves see out a 2-1 win against Rangers despite the pitch being under a foot of water. Cardiff have just as much reason to fear his appointment as we do – last season Probert refereed the fixture between these sides at Loftus Road when Rangers won 1-0 and Cardiff had two players harshly sent off.

Links >>> Dean Sturridge Memorial Injury List >>> Arthur Gnohere Discipline Counter  >>> Prem ref Probert in charge at Cardiff >>> Referee League

Form
Cardiff: City’s 1-0 defeat by Newcastle live on Sky last Sunday was their first on their new ground having won their previous four and scored 13 goals in the process. Scunthorpe were hammered 4-0 on the opening day, Dagenham and Redbridgewent for three in the League Cup while Bristols Rovers (League Cup) and City (Championship) were beaten 3-1 and 3-0 respectively. Their away form has been very tidy as well with two wins, at Reading and Plymouth, and a draw at Blackpool offset only by a poor defeat at Doncaster. Cardiff are fourth, four points behind leaders West Brom, going into this weekend’s round of games. Last season they hovered around the play off places all year, and even threatened a tilt at the top two at one point, before a dreadful run of three defeats in their final four games saw them miss out on the six altogether on goal difference to Preston who they lost 6-0 to right at the end of the season. They won 14 and drew five of their 23 home matches last season.

QPR: It is as you were for QPR following the postponement of Tuesday’s match with Crystal Palace because of a waterlogged pitch. The R’s have still only won once this season, and drawn 1-1 on four different occasions. The win they have enjoyed in the league came at Scunthorpe, their first away win since January, and followed hot on the heels of a draw at Plymouth that should have been a win, a defeat at Bristol City that should have been a draw and a thumping good cup win at Exeter City. The R’s have a good recent record in this part of the world, winning three and drawing two of the last six meetings at Ninian Park – the challenge is to carry that form into the new Cardiff ground as we have done at Pride Park.

Prediction: Cardiff bounced back from their lacklustre display and defeat to Newcastle last weekend with a midweek win at Reading and although our postponement means we should be a little fresher than them I cannot help but feel, having watched City twice this season, that they are much more cohesive unit than us and will more than likely win this game. The key to our success is firstly keeping Burke and Whittingham quiet to stop the service to Chopra and Bothroyd, pressing the Cardiff defenders high up the field as Newcastle did to great effect last week, and getting people like Routledge and Taarabt running at Gerrard and Hudson their lumbering centre backs as much as possible. I don’t think we’ll do it though.
Cardiff by two clear goals

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