QPR’s win at home-bore away approach to Championship football came a cropper at Loftus Road on Saturday when they once again fell flat in a game they were expected to win at home to struggling Blackburn.
Win at home, bore away. It’s an approach that carried Bristol City to the play-offs in last season’s Championship, but it’s one with a single point of failure – you do have to keep getting the first bit right.
To be fair, Queens Park Rangers have been pretty note perfect to date. Setting aside the freaky injury time meltdown against Wrexham, where QPR had played pretty well for the most part, there’s only really the New Year’s Day game against Norwich at Loftus Road where they haven’t performed on their own patch of late. Six wins in eight home games, and eight victories here overall which is already more than they’d managed in any of the last three seasons. Only the top four have won more home games than the R’s in 25/26, only Ipswich, Coventry and Birmingham have scored more home goals. Then-leaders Coventry were downed here 2-1 last time out on a raucous afternoon in Shepherd’s Bush.
The away performances have been largely dismal. Long drawn-out affairs in which QPR only showed any ambition to try and win the games when they were nearly over, and prior to that didn’t even seemed to be that interested in holding onto the ball for more than three passes at a time. One win in 11 on our travels, but not many defeats – four of the last five drawn, five of the last six if you include taking West Ham to extra time in the FA Cup.
So far so fine, two points a game, top six here we come. The problem comes when you lose a game like this, like this.
Blackburn Rovers, a club in crisis, two wins in 17 games and one of those against hapless Sheff Wed, new manager roped in on Friday afternoon and even he only on a part time basis. In the bottom three and showing few signs of having enough about them to escape from there between now and May. Stéphan said last Friday’s fairly torturous 0-0 at Charlton - a third successive goalless draw on the road, spent mostly with 11 men behind the ball, no interest in possession, and relying on Joe Walsh, Jimmy Dunne and Steve Cook to get us through – would be vindicated by a victory in this home gimme.
Well, you’re putting pressure on yourself there, aren’t you? Might have just been easier to try and beat the lousy team in front of you at the time.
To be fair to Stéphan, he is battling myriad problems now into the second half of his first season in English football.
The Frenchman was quick to point to budget constraints in his post-match press conference, which we know all about and have written much on over the last decade, but has more immediate concerns and challenges.
Secondly, his team are being asked to play every other week on a really poor playing surface. You’ll find more coverage on Richard O’Brien than you will the pitch at Loftus Road. Christian Nourry’s latest business Q&A which the club published on Friday night said the club have just been unlucky in this regard. Certainly, nobody who lives in London will argue this hasn’t been a particularly grim winter of never ending rain and perpetual darkness, and there are pitches across the EFL in dreadful states of decay because of it. But the comment that Birmingham players emerged from a 2-1 defeat to a 96th minute Kieran Morgan goal eulogising about the playing surface and it has rapidly deteriorated from there rather ignores this interview with Stoke boss Mark Robins back in August where he claimed his team had been pre-warned that the pitch "had something wrong with it” and had been treated with a substance which meant all clothing, footwear and anything else that had come into contact with it that day would have to be thoroughly washed down.
Thirdly, the team has an injury list as long as Idrissa Sylla’s neck – and that problem is worsening by the game. Jake Clarke-Salter, four starts in a year, was fit enough for a bit of a jog up and down the touchline in a tracksuit here but by the end key midfielder Nicolas Madsen had been forced off by a crunching tackle after a hospital pass to the Dane nearly turned out to be literally exactly that. You can’t legislate for that, or the tackle on Karamoko Dembele in the Coventry game, in a contact sport but the things so many of our injuries have in common this year is they’re muscle, ligament and soft tissue problems, and they’re mostly occurring in home games on this pitch.
Richard Kone looked to badly jar his knee at one stage, like Jonathan Varane against Sheff Wed and Ilias Chair against West Brom. Kone played through to conclusion, one of several players who’s being forced to do every minute of every game by our current situation which will in turn exacerbate the situation further. You’ve got players here that need a rest and can’t have one, and you’ve got several who desperately need loans in the division below but we also can’t spare and so they’re chucked into games like this out of their depth. Boy did it show on Saturday. The decision to instead part with Sam Field, who can be relied upon to be available and cover a number of positions, is going to look increasingly perverse if we’re finishing games like this with a midfield of Paul Smyth, Harvey Vale, Kieran Morgan and Koki Saito. Field, meanwhile, starred again in a big Norwich win with 60% possession, the Canaries will likely move above us in the Championship table by the end of next week’s three game session.
Nourry says this is our first sticky spell with injuries, which anybody who saw us start with Dembele as a lone striker at Stoke last season or Paul Smyth in that position at West Brom, knows is not true. Ronnie Edwards only ended up here on loan in the first place because we lost all our centre backs at the same time at exactly this point of last season. He also says that, luckily, the team’s performance level hasn’t dropped despite the absentees. That was always tempting fate…
It certainly dropped here. Poor pitch or no poor pitch, injuries or no injuries, there was little excuse for Rangers’ performance in this game. Rovers had scored three goals in their prior seven fixtures, never more than one in a game, and have only scored more than twice in a match on one occasion – way back in August. They bagged three here with embarrassing ease. Whether Rangers ran out of petrol, or took the game lightly, is up for debate. Is this week's 'fourthly' that we're able to get ourselves up for a home game against the league leaders, or the visit of a former manager, but not the run-of-the-mill stuff?
Northern Ireland boss Michael O’Neill did take his place in the dugout rather than the billed watching brief but was quick to praise coach Damian Johnson for setting up the visiting team this week. Johnson had clearly seen something he liked in the channel between Steve Cook and Rhys Norrington Davies. They scored the same goal twice through that gap in the first half. Koki Saito gave the ball away, Norrington-Davies got schooled by Japanese winger Ryōya Morishita who then played glorious pass in behind the QPR centre backs and Mathias Jørgensen tapped home. Then Koki Saito gave the ball away again, Sondre Tronstad played a through ball behind the QPR centre backs, and Jørgensen tapped home again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
It’s a good job for him personally that Saito was the man to score QPR’s equaliser - nice football between Ronnie Edwards and Harvey Vale, a mishit shot by Isaac Hayden, and Saito controlled and finished into the roof of the net – because without that I’d have been struggling to find a mark for him. He had, to be fair, spun and crossed early from a clever Nicolas Madsen free kick which resulted in a good chance for Richard Kone, but he had a poor game overall and was regularly outmuscled by Blackburn’s bigger, stronger boys.
The 2-1 half time deficit would have been a lot worse had referee Steve Martin judged Joe Walsh’s lunge on Gudjohnsen as a penalty, but needn’t have been terminal against this opponent, particularly with Isaac Hayden let off with only a yellow card for a foul other officials may have judged more critically. However, as they’ve done so often this season, QPR then made it twice as difficult for themselves by conceding straight after half time. Morishita’s goal from Tronstad’s cross was the first time the 28-year-old has ever scored with a header in his entire career (a first goal of any sorts in 23 games, because of course). He could hardly miss, unmarked from six yards out, at the end of a remarkable move in which Blackburn had at least three players completely unattended by a defender throughout. It was like we’d had three sent off. Norrington-Davies again happy to just stand off his man and allow a cross into the area.
It’s been the centre backs and goalkeeper taking the praise for keeping Rangers’ show on the road of late, but the defending for this one was laughable. Stéphan’s side have the fourth worst defensive record in the division, and only Sheff Wed have conceded more at home. Of the 46 goals shipped, 12 of them have been scored between minutes 45 and 55. Not sure what Stéphan’s telling them at half time, but it might be time to come up with some new jokes.
All a far cry from that Coventry game at this point, but it was again an example of Rangers struggling when they’re expected to be on the front foot, have possession of the ball, control the game and take it to their opposition. The 2-1 win in this fixture last February is the last time QPR won when holding more possession than their opponent, all 16 victories achieved since have been with less of the ball, and facing a second half 3-1 down against a team that knew their work was largely done for the afternoon was a painful watch.
I’m not going to sit here and pretend the manager is blessed with a whole load of talented, game changing options from his bench at the moment, but to make no changes until minute 70 in a game that had obviously gone badly awry seemed crazy to me. It was clear what we had on the field wasn’t working, Rovers were very happy and comfortable, and yet we largely pissed away 45 to 70 thinking about what we might do about that. Paul Smyth, Amadou Mbengue and Rayan Kolli were all belatedly introduced at once, but the three of them had been up milling about on the touchline for an age before we eventually pressed the button. Dressed, undressed, up and down like a bride’s nightie, let’s just wait for this free kick, for this corner, let’s just make sure he’s not injured, let’s change our mind, let’s get the ring binders out and have another think about it. Get. On with it. What have you got to lose?
At Sheff Wed earlier in the season Rangers were 1-0 down at half time and Stéphan made three changes immediately, with the team responding with an equaliser straight after half time. At the time I said that was a really good sign – aggressive, proactive management, not standing for any shit. He’s become more indecisive ever since. He regularly doesn’t use his full complement of subs and frequently leaves it late to bring on the ones he does use. You could easily have done Mbengue at right back and Edwards into the middle at half time here, it was an obvious change to something that wasn’t working. How poor Daniel Bennie was left out there to suffer 70 minutes of this I do not know, likewise Norrington-Davies getting a 79-minute going over, and Saito incredibly completing a full 90. That’s not even Monday morning quarter back stuff, there were people peering over the side the South Africa Road upper tier wondering what on earth was going on down on the bench for much of the second half.
With a chunky 11 minutes added to the end of the game who knows what might have occurred had a crazy goalmouth scramble in the first of those ended up in the net when it really should have done. Vale’s free kick caused panic in the six-yard box, Tóth had to be at his best to keep out a header from one of his own defenders on the line, then Ronnie Edwards rebound was somehow, implausibly, deflected out for a corner when a goal looked certain. That could have set up a grandstand finish but, sadly, Vale’s hilariously hopeless corner scuffed straight out into the Lower Loft just before all of that was rather more typical of the performance on the day. Blackburn were the better team, and deserved their win. In Sondre Tronstad I was again forced to watch what a central midfielder is meant to look like at this level, but in opposition colours.
We desperately need some of these injured first teamers back, that much is obvious, but even when they were all playing we struggled to dominate games we really should, and are still yet to win this season with more possession than the opposition.
The next few weeks go one of two ways. There are some tough away games – Hull fifth in the league, Southampton three home defeats all season, Birmingham have lost just once at St Andrew’s in their last 39 games there. Our next two games here are in form Boro and Sheff Utd. It’s possible, nee likely, that our annual spring slide down the table back to 16th is about to get into full swing against better equipped sides in better form.
QPR have now won three of their last 13 games and having made excuses and largely given them a pass for what have been some pretty dreadful performances in amongst those, in another couple of weeks we’ll perhaps be looking back at things like losing 2-1 at West Brom without a single shot on target (the Baggies are 20th, that’s their only win in 13 games) or drawing 0-0 against that dreadful Oxford side (three wins in 23 games, four defeats from five, failed to score in six of their last eight), or Stoke (no wins in seven, four wins in 19) or Charlton (three wins in 16 prior to our meeting) and think we should have done so, so much more with those opportunities rather than treating a single point on the road in the Championship as some sort of Godsend we’re lucky to get.
Or, being the underdog again, not having the ball again, being allowed to sit in deep and try and spring quickly on the counter attack and in transition might suit us. Having faced the teams currently 24th, 23rd, 22nd, 21st, 20th, 19th, 18th and 17th since the end of December and beaten two of them, we now go in against 1st, 5th, 10th, 11th etc and start exceeding expectations again. Not just because it’s the QPR thing to do to beat Coventry at home then lose to Blackburn, but because it just does not seem to suit us at all when we’re required to have the ball and do interesting, creative things with it.
Medium to long term, though, this team desperately needs to learn how to play some actual bloody football when it has the chance. Get on the ball, pass it to a team mate, move it forwards, with purpose.
Performances like this aren’t good enough, regardless of any mitigating factors.
Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread
QPR: Walsh 5; Edwards 5, Dunne 4, Cook 4 (Kolli 69, 6), Norrington-Davies 3 (Esquerdinha 79, 6); Madsen 5 (Smyth 69, 6), Hayden 4 (Morgan 79, 5); Bennie 3 (Mbengue 69, 6), Vale 4, Saito 4; Kone 4
Subs not used: Adamson, Hamer, Smith
Goals: Saito 35 (assisted Hayden)
Yellow Cards: Hayden 38 (foul), Vale 78 (foul)
Blackburn: Toth 6; Alebiosu 6, Carter 7, McLoughlin 6, Cashin 7; Baradji 6 (Montgomery 90, -), Tronstad 7; Morishita 8 (Forshaw 90, -), Jorgensen 8, Afolayan 6 (Miller 46, - (Pickering 54, 6)); Gudjohnsen 6 (Ohashi 74, 6)
Subs Not Used: De Neve, Michalski, O’Riordan, Ribeiro
Goals: Jorgensen 21 (assisted Morishita), 39 (assisted Tronstad), Morishita 50 (assisted Tronstad)
Yellow Cards: McLoughlin 36 (foul), Morishita 84 (dissent), Cashin 90+2 (kicking ball away)
QPR Star Man – N/A
Referee – Steve Martin (Beverley Hills) 7 Not a referee we’ve had a particularly happy time with of late, and while the result was poor from a QPR point of view he was absolutely fine. The Walsh penalty incident in the first half is one of those I’d have wanted at the other end but I guess the keeper has pulled his leg out. Isaac Hayden also potentially lucky to only see yellow for his challenge.
Attendance – 16,607 (995 Blackburn)
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