Neither QPR nor Exeter City have enjoyed any degree of success in the League Cup in recent years, but that will change for one of them on Tuesday when they meet at St James’ Park.

Exeter City v Queens Park Rangers

League Cup, First Round >>> Tuesday August 6, 2013 >>> Kick off 7.45pm >>> St James’ Park, Exeter

In 1994, a Caribbean Cup match between Barbados and Grenada descended into farce when the Barbadians realised a quirk of the competition rules meant it was in their interests to score an own goal and force extra time. They’d begun the game requiring a victory by two goals or more to progress from the group stage at Grenada’s expense — a defeat, draw or even a one goal win would not have been enough and Grenada would have gone through instead.

The situation was complicated by an odd rule that meant a goal in extra time would not only end the game immediately, but it would also count double on the scorecard. Winning 2-1 with time running out, Barbados realised that rather than push for a third goal to seal their progress in the few seconds remaining it would be easier and more beneficial for them to score an own goal to extend the game by half an hour and give them more time to search for a golden goal that would give them the two goal margin required for victory.

Once they’d done so, with a couple of minutes still to play, Grenada realised it was now in their interests to score in their own net and lose by one to progress. This lead to an unprecedented situation where Barbados had to defend both ends of the pitch for the final few seconds. They eventually prevailed 4-2 with the extra time goal.

The League Cup may be increasingly unloved, but we’ve never quite got to the stage where teams have been deliberately scoring own goals to duck out of it. Mind you, I sense we haven’t been too far away from that at QPR in recent times.

Rangers made swift exist at the first stage of both major cup competitions on three occasions during Neil Warnock’s time as manager and all three were by design. A home loss to Port Vale in 2010/11 meant a Rangers team heavily reliant on the ageing limbs of Shaun Derry and Clint Hill didn’t have the same Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday commitments of their promotion rivals and at Blackburn in the FA Cup later that season Warnock said he would have “killed” centre back Kaspars Gorkss had his late header off the bar gone in and forced a replay. Once promotion was achieved, staying in the Premier League became the aim and Warnock fielded a scratchy side and told it not to try too hard against Rochdale at Loftus Road for fear of a cup run distracting from the important business of league points. The Lancashire side duly won 2-0.

The daft thing is QPR have never had a problem losing early round cup ties to supposedly inferior opposition even when they were trying to win them. Northampton (twice), Port Vale (twice), Orient (twice), Vauxhall Motors, Grimsby and others have all brushed strong QPR teams aside with a minimum of fuss. This time last year Mark Hughes was making a very big deal about his insistence that Rangers take the cup competitions seriously and pick their strongest team and although that was good enough to see off League One Walsall at Loftus Road, it rather backfired when a mixture of Reading’s firsts and reserves turned up in the next round and dumped the R’s out. That performance and result really started the warning klaxon on QPR’s campaign.

So we wait and see what Harry Redknapp intends to do at Exeter on Tuesday night. The Grecians are certainly no cup kings themselves — having returned to the Football League in 2008 they’ve had a home draw in the first round of this competition every year for five seasons and won only one (against Yeovil). QPR, still in a mid-transfer window state of flux and with plenty of movement in and out expected in the remainder of the month, look ripe for an upset but Exeter have little pedigree to suggest they’re capable of handing one out.

QPR won their opening day match with Sheffield Wednesday thanks to a lively attack, with Andy Johnson and Junior Hoilett impressing. Bobby Zamora, with mounting fitness worries and declining form, could drop out to give somebody else a run, possibly Charlie Austin. At the other end things looked less secure with two penalty appeals and a shot off the post leaving the Owls frustrated at what might have been. Will Redknapp decide that this back four and midfield need another run out together to try and tighten that up? Or is this a chance to get some senior game time into Richard Dunne and Yun Suk-Young? Two of Saturday’s starters — Joey Barton and Armand Traore — are unlikely to be here beyond the end of the month so do they start again or do we try alternatives out in a competitive match? Does being cup tied count against a transferred player any more? One suspects not in the case of the League Cup. Or does Harry just do what Warnock did and sling a load of reserves and kids out there and to hell with the result?

I’ve said before that I find this whole situation a shame. Clubs like Exeter rely on the gate receipts from cup matches and although they’ll probably do quite nicely out of Tuesday night both Rochdale and Port Vale played matches at Loftus Road with three of the stands closed, and presumably negligible cash benefit once travel and accommodation had been taken into account. The poor attitude of the bigger clubs to the early rounds of this competition is another example of the upper end of the game shafting the lower.

And it’s not like this cup isn’t up for grabs either. Bradford City made the final and lost to Swansea last season and the latter now has a place in Europe as a result. So it’s certainly not beyond the realms of possibility for a Championship club, particularly one financially well equipped like QPR, to go all the way in this competition. It’s medals and days at Wembley you remember for decades, not solid league seasons, and if you offered me a Wembley final or a promotion this season we’d all be off around the North Circular Road quicker than you can say face paint.

Nevertheless, once again this year QPR have probably got other things on their mind. We’ll find out soon enough.

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Tuesday

Team News: Loic Remy joined Newcastle on a season long loan late on Monday and is likely to be followed out of the door by Adel Taarabt on Tuesday with Fulham the likely destination. Michael Harriman, who probably would have had some game time here, has signed a one month loan deal at Gillingham. None of the rumoured incomers — Chris Baird and Gary O’Neil are allegedly close to signing — have arrived in time to feature here. Harry Redknapp has Stephane Mbia and Esteban Granero fit and available having played for most of the pre-season before being left out at the weekend. Yun Suk-Young, Richard Dunne, Brian Murphy and Charlie Austin will all be hopeful of starts after beginning on the bench against Sheff Wed.

Striker Alan Gow sat out the latter stages of Exeter’s pre-season preparations after contracting an ear infection but he came on for the last 15 minutes of Saturday’s opening day win against Bristol Rovers. Former QPR midfielder Tommy Doherty was an unused sub in that game but will no doubt be itching to play in this one — if he does it’s unlikely QPR’s bill of health will be quite so clean come Saturday at Huddersfield.

Elsewhere: The League Cup got off to a fiery start on Monday night when local rivals Preston and Blackpool clashed at Deepdale. PNE, from League One, beat their Championship neighbours 1-0 in a feisty encounter but the result was marred by a post-match pitch invasion in which a steward was trampled by a police horse. He, thankfully, seems ok but the obsession football fans have suddenly developed with running on the pitch at every opportunity remains both mystifying and dangerous.

There doesn’t seem to be much potential for similar scenes in the 31 games played on Tuesday although there are one or two eye catching ties around. Bournemouth, newly promoted to the Championship, host Portsmouth who are heading the other way for example and that’s sure to draw a decent sized crowd. League newcomers Newport have a trip to Brighton while last year’s beaten finalists Bradford start at nearby Huddersfield.

Sky have gone for Morecambe v Wolves as part of their quest to show as many of the league’s founder members live in the first week but for me the tie of the round other than the Preston game is Sheffield Wednesday’s first trip to the new ground at near neighbours Rotherham. A big crowd is expected and Millers’ boss Steve Evans is sure to stoke his team up for that one.

Referee: Lancashire official Jeremy Simpson is in charge on Tuesday — his first ever QPR appointment as a referee in this just his second full season on the league list. Exeter will have fond memories of him though. Last season he refereed them away from home twice and on both occasions they won against a side reduced to ten men. At Oxford in September they won 4-2 with two goals from Jamie Cureton and James Constable was sent off for the hosts, and then at Rochdale in December they won 3-2 with Terry Gornell sent off in injury time. For what it’s worth, his stats and details are available here.

Form

Exeter: So, as said, the Grecians haven’t done terribly well in this competition of late. A win against Yeovil at this stage in 2011 set up a home tie with Liverpool but last year they were beaten at home by Crystal Palace in the opening round and prior to that Ipswich (2-3 after extra time), QPR (0-5) and Southampton (1-3) had all overcome what they may have considered a potentially tricky draw at St James’ Park. This wasn’t a happy hunting ground for Paul Tisdale’s men in the league last season either. They broke the club record for away wins in a league season last term with 11 but only won seven of their 23 home matches which meant a tenth placed finish in League Two. Injuries, particularly in midfield, contributed to a run of one win from the last 11 games but they started well enough on Saturday with a 2-1 home win against Bristol Rovers.

QPR: Oddly, considering Rangers only won two at home and two away in the league in the whole of last season, they did manage some success in both cup competitions. West Brom were beaten in an FA Cup replay at The Hawthorns in January thanks to a Jay Bothroyd goal and Walsall lost 3-0 at Loftus Road in the League Cup. Sadly Reading won 3-2 in W12 in the second round of the League Cup and MK Dons emphatically 4-2 in the FA which restored normality somewhat. Rangers had been knocked out at this stage of the League Cup by Rochdale and Port Vale in the seasons prior to the Walsall win but won 5-0 on this ground in 2009 before beating Accrington on their way to a third round tie at Chelsea. Saturday’s 2-1 win against Sheffield Wednesday was the first in 11 attempts for the R’s since a 3-1 home win against Sunderland in March.

Prediction: Our reigning Prediction League champion Mase says…
“This is our second match against Exeter City in less than a month, following a pre-season friendly which finished goalless. It's hard to tell how we will approach this game and what sort of a priority the League Cup will have this season but I am guessing the answer to those questions is ‘training exercise’ and ‘not high’. Since I gave my prediction for Sheffield Wednesday before we'd signed Charlie Austin, and before it became apparent that certain players had, perhaps surprisingly, not played their last games for the club, I find it a difficult one to call. It's probably a truism that this is a game neither side particularly wants to play. Famous last words but, if we send anything like a first team, I think we will be in the hat for the next round with some ease.”

Mase’s Prediction - Exeter 1 - 3 QPR. First scorer: Charlie Austin

LFW’s Prediction — Exeter 0 QPR 3. First scorer: Charlie Austin

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Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images via Reuters

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