QPR need five wins from nine matches, and the fixture list means Everton at home on Sunday almost certainly has to be the first of those.
The vintage QPR collapse in the first half at Crystal Palace last weekend means the margin for error is now razor thin.
In fact it’s not even a margin at all, more a length of wire stretching across a very deep canyon which Rangers are going to have to walk along flawlessly to reach the big pile of money on the other side. If you want to torture that metaphor a little further then a glance over the side reveals Steve Evans waiting for us at the bottom of the gorge, sweating, eating a cheese bake, with a big hairy-arsed centre forward to unleash on whoever’s playing in the middle of the defence for us next season.
Having won only six matches all season, in 29 outings, QPR now need to win at least five of their remaining nine. In preparation, they’ve lost nine of the last ten including the last four. There are five winnable games on the fixture list — including this Sunday clash with Everton who are having their own problems this season — but there are also trips to Manchester City and Liverpool and a home match with Champions-elect Chelsea. Effectively, QPR need to win five out of six against Everton, Villa, West Brom, West Ham, Newcastle and Leicester on the final day of the season with all the tension and baggage that may bring if it does indeed get that far.
There is hope to be found up ahead if those five victories can be found as well. Sunderland, hamstrung by only being able to persuade mediocre players to move to that part of the country, and having to pay them way over the odds to do so, have a poor team, low on confidence and rather too keen on the booze. The only genuine speed in their team comes from Adam Johnson, and he’s been using that to run away from the angry fathers of promiscuous 15 year olds rather than opposition full backs of late. If managers as experienced and diverse as Martin O’Neill, Steve Bruce, Paolo Di Canio and now Gus Poyet can’t get anything out of that club, what hope Dick Advocaat?
Hull, too, are not out of the woods yet. Nikica Jelavic has been ruled out for most of the rest of the season and if QPR do indeed win the five matches then Allam’s Tiger Cubs need to win three and their fixture list shows home games with Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Burnley and Man Utd intermingled with trips to Swansea, Southampton, Palace and Spurs. The pressure seems to be causing extreme memory loss in manager Steve Bruce who, just three weeks after Tom Huddlestone and Alex Bruce led an aggressive delegation around referee Anthony Taylor to try and persuade him to send off a 19-year-old kid on his professional debut for a perfectly good tackle, has criticised Leicester for sending an aggressive delegation to referee Jon Moss to try and persuade him to send off Bruce’s grossly overrated son.
But, like I say, it all depends on QPR winning five times and that doesn’t seem likely. Fail to do so here against Everton and it’s almost game up. The Toffees seemed to have all their eggs in the Europa League basket prior to Thursday’s mauling in Kiev and it’s been to the detriment of their league form. Rangers will hope to benefit from a trend that has seen Martinez’s team win just one of seven Sunday games after Thursday night European matches so far this year. But then there’s that recurring problem of the opposition simply having better players to pick from than Chris Ramsey. Joey Barton returns from suspension this weekend and says, with typical lack of self awareness, that he could improve things — having gifted Everton two first half goals with moronic play in the 3-1 loss at Goodison back in December.
If it goes as it increasingly looks like it will, I can’t help but glance down the divisions for examples of how QPR may look in years to come. Will we do what Fulham are currently trying to do, blending excellent academy players in with ageing senior pros and the occasional big money buy to no great effect under a steadily rotating carousel of managers? Could we collapse to the extent Wigan have? Could we bounce back straight away again as we did last time, and would that necessarily be a good thing considering it cost us another £70m and doesn’t appear to have progressed the club at all?
At the moment what’s happened at Wolves looks like a best-case scenario to me. I’ve said before that the mid-season appointment of Chris Ramsey looks very similar to the doomed decision to give Terry Connor the top job at Molineux, and of course Wolves infamously dropped straight through the Championship into League One. Did I say best case? Well, it did allow them to shift on all of the expensive mistakes they’d made — signings like Roger Johnson they overspent on, existing players like Kevin Doyle they rewarded too much when the going was good. They’ve rebuilt a strong, pacy, competitive side on a sound budget, they’ve won promotion back to the Championship and are chasing the play-offs this year after last night’s win against Derby. They’ve done it all under two men who helped rebuild QPR before — Joe Gallen and Kenny Jackett — and they seem a lot healthier and happier as a club than when they were trying to fight fires and claw their way to Premier League survival every year.
So there’s still hope, whether Rangers find five wins or not. Just be prepared for this to get worse before it gets better.
Links >>> Martinez enigma — opposition profile >>> Inflexibility issues — interview >>> Banniester and Byrne slay champions — history >>> Selhurst Dark — Podcast >>> Moss in charge — referee >>> Race relations - ‘presser’
Gareth Barry is suspended for Everton. Bryan Ovideo (hamstring), Tony Hibbert (calf) and Steven Pienaar (knee) are all doubtful.
Elsewhere: Dick Advocaat starts his tenure as landlord at the Sunderland Arms with a trip to Big Fat Sam’s Big Fat Farewell Party at Upton Park this evening. BT, for reasons known only to themselves, are starting the weekend with Manchester City v West Bromwich Albion and their flat back eight — a chance for an extended lie in if ever there was one.
Tactical Tim will be breathing fire over the wheat fields of Swansea this afternoon before delivering a three hour lecture on the life and times of Harry Kane. Burnley have a tricky trip to Southampton while Leicester are drinking in the last chance saloon at Tottenham, Nigel Pearson glancing around the bar looking for somebody to offer outside. Newcastle will continue to lose, at home to Arsenal this time, without ever dropping into trouble, somehow, while Stoke v Palace seems like a rather pointless exercise.
A game that matters on Sunday with Louis Van Gaal taking on the Collective Men of Liverpool. Chelsea boring the tits off Tigers Tigers Rah Rah Rah is, mercifully, at the same time as QPR v Everton, so we don’t have to watch it.
Referee: As he did in 2012, Jon Moss takes charge of QPR v Everton at Loftus Road. On that occasion Junior Hoilett scored in the opening minutes of the game and Steven Pienaar was later harshly sent off but Rangers still couldn’t hang on for a win and had to settle for a draw. Moss is fresh from making rather a mess of Leicester v Hull last weekend and previously refereed QPR’s 2-0 home win against Burnley in December when Charlie Austin was sent off. For more information click here.
Everton: Everton’s record isn’t a good deal better, just two wins in the last 13 matches although four of those games have been drawn. Everton’s nine away defeats is the worst record outside the bottom three and they’ve only scored once in the last five away trips, winning one and losing four of them 2-0. Everton have lost four and drawn two of the seven games they’ve played on Sundays after a European game on the Thursday.
Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion WestonSuperR tells us…
"The performance last week was so poor that it appears to have been the final straw for many QPR fans and the vast majority of us our now resigned to relegation. We’re not definitely down, but with our current form ten losses from 11 we will need a monumental turnaround in form.
"Everton have had of their poorest seasons for some time and didn’t look particularly good during our trip to Goodison back in December but had a very decent result last week at home to Newcastle, the only slight positive with this being that they are now well clear of the drop-zone and shouldn’t really consider themselves candidates for a trip through the trap-door, will they suffer after a match after a long trip to Kiev? Let’s hope so because on form alone we have little chance.
"With the success on the wings that Palace had against us and with this being strength of Everton, Coleman in particular I think is a great player, this is a worry and with so many injuries and changes of personal recently in our starting XI I am not sure what to suggest other than hoping that SWP is nowhere near the side.
"We really need a win and even that wouldn’t really be enough to feel very confident about staying up and although I don’t think we will get it, I can see us snatching draw.”
John’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 Everton. Scorer — Charlie Austin
LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-0 Everton. Scorer — Charlie Austin
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