Despite His White Boots

Champions By Degrees

2011-05-08T20:10:00.002+01:00

So finally, as I'm sure you know, QPR were found guilty of 2 of the charges against them for a fine of £875,000, allowing them to receive the Championship trophy yesterday. It's very easy to comment on the verdict without knowing the facts - the lack of knowledge clearly didn't stop half of Fleet Street and Mark Palios after all, so you can hardly expect random Internet commenters to show any discretion. Predictably enough you can read plenty of comments about how QPR "got away with it" because they are rich, based in London or any other reason that people could think of.

My favourite was the guy who said that because Faurlin scored against Sheffield Wednesday in their relegation season, that shouldn't count and so Wednesday should be reinstated to the Championship immediately. He didn't say who he supported, but I think I could hazard a guess. Ridiculous as that was, everybody does it to an extent, even me. You pick the side that suits your team and then try to think of a justification.

I'm just glad it's settled, assuming of course that it is and Swansea don't appeal. You can bet your ass Cardiff would have done. Ideally Swansea will go up through the playoffs and that will be that, which I'd like to see anyway because they finished 3rd and play good football. In the event I think Forest might win through but we'll see.

It is a shame that QPR had to celebrate promotion "by degrees" as I imply in the title of this post. First of all they were almost there barring a massive goal difference swing and FA verdict ; then barring just the FA verdict ; and then it was confirmed. At least it was confirmed on the final day so they could celebrate at Loftus Road. And again, I'm not going to blame the FA for the delay, how do I know it wasn't QPR spinning it out (as some reports suggest it was). The only specific criticism I have is that it's ludicrous that three organisations are making rulings on the same competition - the Football League, the FA and the Welsh FA. The relationship betweem the League and the FA is so convoluted it may never be sorted out, but it's about time the Welsh FA were kicked to the curb. I have no problem with Cardiff and Swansea playing in the English league but is it too much to ask that they be subject to the English league's rules like everyone else?

Anyway, massive respect to Neil Warnock and all the players. They have done brilliantly. Have they received the credit they deserve? Meh, who cares. Life isn't fair sometimes. I think they rock and I'm sure no Rangers fan would disagree. From the flair of Adel Taarabt to the know-how of Clint Hill, Warnock has picked a system to suit most of the players he had, added to that squad in the right positions and generally managed the club, in the true sense of the word, excellently. Not every signing worked, but enough did to get the job done. I'm not going to talk about what Rangers will and/or should do in terms of preparing for next season, mainly because I'd like to enjoy this for a while without starting to think about matchups like Bradley Orr v Gareth Bale. And that's what I'm going to do.

QPR 0 Derby 0

2011-04-18T23:10:00.004+01:00

10 days ago it was looking like this could be the night QPR could seal the deal. After an unexpected defeat at Scunthorpe and wins for the chasing pack at the weekend though, it wasn't to be even with a win. As it was, Rangers looked tired and couldn't break down a determined Derby County.

Again, if you were interested, you probably saw it. If you gave up before the end, good call, and you didn't miss anything. Derby executed a game plan very well and Rangers created not much in the first half and nothing at all in the second. Helguson seemed to duck under Routledge's cross-shot early on, and Taarabt's sublime long-ranger with the outside of the boot was well tipped over by Jones. Robinson wasted a good opening for the visitors just before the break, and Pearson was denied by a stunning Paddy Kenny save, by far the highlight of the evening.

Apart from that, Savage did what he does best and Taarabt got suckered into a personal battle with him instead of doing a job for the team. This time few of his team mates stepped in to take up the slack, the sole exception being Smith who did his level best without much support.

It still looks like Rangers are just about there, barring the nightmare scenario of a points deduction. If and when they do step up next season, they can be sure that no one is going to park the bus at Loftus Road, but they will have other problems to solve that's for sure! I'd just like to see them over the line and I'll be stepping back at that point. I am, in the words of Danny Glover, getting too old for this shit anyway :). As if to underline that point, I met someone who used to write for In The Loft which I used to contribute to as well. Was nice to have a chat but man oh man that was so long ago! ZOMG!

QPR 3 Sheff Utd 0

2011-04-05T23:55:00.004+01:00

Once again, if you were that interested in the game you probably saw it on TV ; I don't have too much to add. There's a definite feeling around the ground that the job has pretty much been done. Of course it hasn't, quite, but Warnock has been here often enough and in any case the players are responding by playing with more freedom.

Although Adel Taarabt was fairly quiet, the other attacking players all had good games, switching positions and linking up well, albeit against a very porous defence. Wayne Routledge's goal gave Rangers a deserved half time lead, although United did have a couple of chances, but when Bogdanovic missed their best opportunity just after the break, Alejandro Faurlin's excellent strike ended the game as a contest.

Thanks to some careless finishing, good goalkeeping from Simonsen and some utter comedy from sub Patrick Agyemang, Rangers only added one more, Routledge grabbing a second to earn him the TV Man of the Match prize. Personally I thought Faurlin was the class act, he just gets better and better and will be a key player next season, if the club can hold on to him. If I was a manager with £8 million to spend in the Loftus Road summer sales I'd definitely be looking at Faurlin rather than Taarabt (for all his qualities) and keeping the change. But we'll see.

In the meantime this season isn't quite over yet ; I has a ticket for the Derby game in two weeks and with a following wind that could be when Rangers finish the job, it would be nice. As for Sheffield United, I felt a bit sorry for them, their supporters started off boisterously enough but the first goal and a well-timed chorus of "We're going to Liverpool, you're going to Hartlepool" seemed to knock the stuffing out of them. The team, who you traditionally associate with hard bastards like Chris Morgan, were lightweight, sloppy in defence and generally looked like a team who know they're going down.

QPR 2 Ipswich 0

2011-02-23T12:45:00.003Z

Rangers dug out a massive three points thanks to two late headers against a tenacious Ipswich side at Loftus Road last night. Neil Warnock sprang a surprise by replacing both centre-halves, Shittu and Hall coming in for Gorkss and Connolly. I could see the reasoning behind replacing both rather than one, as Hall and Shittu had played 3 reserve games together, but it was still quite a turn up [1]

After an initial flurry, the new defensive pairing found themselves with plenty of work to do as Ipswich dominated. Rangers' attacking midfield three of Taarabt, Routledge and Miller gave possession away constantly, whereas the visitors passed it neatly with Bullard usually in the thick of it. Having said that I think Paddy Kenny only had one save to make, but Rangers went off to nervous murmuring all around the ground at half time. Personally I couldn't see where a goal was coming from.

As often happens though, the second half was better as Rangers, perhaps with a few words of encouragement from Warnock ringing in their ears, at least played most of the game in the Ipswich half. Taarabt's set pieces looked dangerous, with Shittu getting on the end of quite a few. One knock-down fell to Heidar Helguson but his diving header flew over the bar. Shittu had an opportunity in the inside left channel but was closed down well by a defender, then Taarabt sidefooted straight at Fulop from a similar position. Akos Buzsaky came on for Miller (a substitution I called 10 minutes before) and looked very composed, but the deadlock was finally broken via another set piece. Ipswich couldn't deal with Taarabt's corner and Clint Hill nodded in from close range.

The evident relief of the crowd was clearly shared by the QPR players who immediately looked like a different side. Fulop beat away a shot from Routledge after a slick passing move, but soon after Hill managed to reach the by-line and dig out a fantastic cross which gave Helguson the easiest task to nod in.

And that was that really. A massive three points for the Rs. Other results all went unexpectedly, I thought Forest, Leeds and Norwich would all win comfortably while Cardiff and Swansea would find it difficult, so there you go. In this division I think there's hardly any point looking at games and saying "ooh, that's a tough one, should be three points there though." It's mad.

Looking at the team, I would definitely keep Shittu in, he was excellent and is a big threat on attacking set pieces. It's harsh on Gorkss who has done little wrong for 30 games, but this is no time for sentiment! Hall vs Connolly is a lot closer, I'm still not convinced by Hall although he did play well last night. Up front, people are worried that WBA will recall Miller but I don't think it would be a big loss. He's strong and quick, but also totally one-footed and lacking in vision. Buzsaky provides a better balance, at least until Smith comes back who I think is under-rated by many Rangers fans.

Finally, not for the first time, maximum respect to Shaun Derry and especially Clint Hill, two players I was very sceptical about when they signed. They have been instrumental all season and without them we'd be a long way short of where we are now.

[1] Warnock said afterwards that the main reason was "tiredness", but he has been critical of both Gorkss and Connolly in recent weeks, so make your own mind up :)

Speculating To Accumulate

2011-01-23T20:30:00.004Z

If you were interested in the game today, you probably saw it, but even if you weren't, try to catch Wayne Routledge's goal (it should be on BBC Football by Tuesday). Superb quality pass from Taarabt, touch and finish from Routledge for the mf win.

I'm pleased to see Routledge back at QPR, he has his faults but he is very, very quick and pace is an asset the squad was lacking even before Kyle Walker left, to bigger and better things I'm sure. Ishmael Miller and Pascal Chimbonda also look like useful signings, and crucially all three are here to the end of the season only, Routledge and Miller on loan, Chimbonda on a short contract. Whatever you think of Neil Warnock, he knows what he's doing, and while it seems harsh to talk about addressing the weaknesses of a squad that's 5 points clear at the top, it's really a compliment to how well the current squad has done to get into that position.

While Rangers have spent unwisely in previous January windows, and are indeed still paying for that spending in terms of wages of players who are past their best, I think this was a vital injection of funds that has to be +EV in terms of how much a Premiership place is worth. An online article today said that Rangers have their "Zest back". For a moment I thought it said Zesh back, FML. But signs look good for Rangers to push on, and a win at Hull next Saturday would post an imposing 8 point lead over a group of rivals who all have various weaknesses. Rangers must be looking to do the bulk of the work in the next 10 games, during which they only play Forest from their principal rivals. Let's hope they can.

Correction: Norwich are also playing next Saturday so Rangers won't necessarily go 8 clear with a win.

QPR 2 Bristol City 2

2011-01-03T18:17:00.002Z

Rangers will be kicking themselves for not winning this game, although they played well throughout and there were a lot of positives to take from the performance. Unfortunately two very uncharacteristic mistakes were punished to the maximum by the visitors.

QPR dominated the first half hour, with Tommy Smith and Adel Taarabt sending in a number of teasing crosses. Rob Hulse was only able to latch on to one of them properly though, and David James made an excellent save from his downward header. City had their best spell of the game just before half time with Jamal Campbell-Ryce causing a lot of problems, Brett Pitman had their best chance but Paddy Kenny was able to save.

10 minutes into the second half Clint Hill, who had totally dominated Jon Stead up to that point, made a very rare mistake for him, heading an aimless punt straight up into the air, allowing Pitman to run through and slot past Kenny. Rangers struck back within five minutes though as, equally uncharacteristically, Taarabt was able to pick out a pass from the byline allowing Alejandro Faurlin to slide home. The home side totally controlled proceedings from that point without fashioning anything too clear-cut, but just when the game looked like petering out into a draw, a stroke of luck saw them take the lead. Shaun Derry blatantly blocked off a defender, allowing Orr to lob the ball back into the City area where Hulse was (apparently) fouled. Taarabt stroked home the penalty and Rangers looked all set for three points.

City threw on QPR old boy Damion Stewart as a forward and piled bodies into the box as you would expect. Rangers have seen out several games in this kind of situation already this season, but after Kenny made an outstanding save from Campbell-Ryce's curling shot, Steven Caulker was allowed a free header from point blank range from the resulting corner, and he made no mistake. Rangers have been very well drilled at set pieces this season, so it was in a way even more surprising than Hill's error for the first goal. Even then Tommy Smith had a chance right at the death but was unable to force the ball in from an acute angle.

So two points dropped would be the verdict, but the performance was good and once again neither Norwich nor Swansea could capitalise. Rangers have wobbled somewhat lately, but no one's showing me that they have the belief to catch them. Cardiff, Leeds, Norwich and Swansea have all occupied second place only to succumb to the pressure as soon as they got there. Rangers don't play any of those sides till April, and they've already played Norwich and Swansea twice. Meanwhile they play each other a bunch of times in the next two months (starting with Cardiff-Leeds tomorrow). I'm sure Warnock knows what he's doing but I wouldn't be surprised if one or two reinforcements come in. It might be on loan rather than permanent, the club probably being wary of bringing in anyone permanently on Premiership wages just yet, but an injection right now just to make sure Rangers can get over the line would be money well spent IMO. We will see.

Finally there was a tweet or two about croud trouble at the game, but I saw nothing more untoward than a couple of City fans being chucked out for overexuberant celebrations.

World Cup Phrasebook

2010-12-02T23:24:00.002Z

Planning for the World Cup already? Welcome to my handy World Cup phrasebook. All you need to know in 2018.

Всегда славно когда ваши собственные вентиляторы выругают вас - Always nice when your own fans boo you

Кельнер, там Polonium в моих сушах - Waiter, there's Polonium in my sushi

10 евро для Budweiser? Иисус! - 10 euros for a Budweiser? Jesus!

Путин говорит it' s не его недостаток стадион обрушился - Putin says it's not his fault the stadium collapsed

Могу я иметь мою заднюю часть бумажника теперь угождаю полицейскию? - Can I have my wallet back please officer?

Бумажник я как раз дал вам проклятье оно! - The wallet I just gave you dammit!

Большая побежка от русского нападающего. It' s как полная задняя часть носит конкретные ботинки. Oжидание - Great pace from the Russian winger. It's like the full-back's wearing concrete shoes. Oh, wait...

То зонтик наклоненный отравой или вы как раз довольный, котор нужно увидеть меня? - Is that a poison tipped umbrella or are you just pleased to see me?

Join me next time to learn how to say "Arrest me for what? I'm Mark Lawrenson!" in Arabic.

(With thanks to Babelfish)

QPR 3 Preston 1

2010-11-20T20:25:00.004Z

As any student of the Championship knows, Adel Taarabt "frustrates and delights in equal measures". Today was one of his good days as he lit up Loftus Road with two terrific goals and plenty of tricks besides.

Rangers lined up with Matt Connolly stepping forward as the holding midfielder, Fitz Hall coming in at centre-half and Leon Clarke replacing Tommy Smith (who I think was ineligible in some connection with his convoluted loan from Portsmouth). Bottom of the table Preston added three loan signings and set out their stall to contain Rangers, only for keeper Andy Lonergan to spill Kyle Walker's cross in the fourth minute, allowing Rob Hulse to bundle in his first for the Hoops. The best laid plans.

Rangers can cause problems for any team at this level if they get the ball to feet in the last third ; the real issue for Preston was that they couldn't defend the long ball either. Time and again Hulse occupied two defenders, allowing the ball to sail through for the onrushing Clarke and Jamie Mackie. Both should have scored in one attack, Mackie having his shot saved and Clarke spooning the rebound over. Clarke also had a goal disallowed and the other talking point was a crunching two-footed tackle on Mackie of the type that is red-carded every day in the Premiership, but was on this occasion not even deemed a foul.

I should think Neil Warnock was disappointed to be only one up at half time and according to his interview he did "have a few words" during the break. Taarabt and Alejandro Faurlin started to exert more influence on the game and Clarke and Walker were played in behind the visiting defence almost at will. Despite any number of balls flashing across the Preston goal area, Rangers finally doubled the lead with Taarabt's stunning 25-yarder. I was about level with the goal-line, which is not the best angle, but even so the instant he hit it you could see that the shape was right and the keeper wasn't going to get there. The siege on the Preston goal continued apace but once again Taarabt's 20 yard piledriver was too hot for Lonergan although to be honest it did look close enough to the keeper to be saveable.

That was pretty much that and Warnock was able to give Martin Rowlands a bit of game time, and a debut to teenager Bruno Andrade. Matt Connolly chested an Ian Hume free-kick into his own net for no apparent reason towards the end, but even the remaining Preston fans could barely raise a cheer. I was just glad I hadn't backed the QPR clean sheet again.

I know Preston are cut off at the bottom of the league but I have seen worse at this level, and this is a funny division where you really can't take anyone for granted. Rangers have had good players in defence for a couple of years, but what they do now is defend from the front extremely well. Everyone knows their job and it's a testament to their organisation that it's mid-November and they haven't conceded a single goal from a set piece this season.

A lot's been said about the recent run of draws but I reckon when May comes, draws at Portsmouth, Swansea, Forest, Derby and even Bristol City are going to look like very good results. The Cardiff game next week is probably going to be talked up as bigger than it actually is, it's still only 3 points and there are 26 games left. It should be a good one though. I think it's practically sold out so I'll probably give it a miss, but I reckon maybe Santa might bring me a half-season ticket !

Finally I did catch the Arsenal-Spurs game just now and after the anodyne Manchester and Welsh derbies I've seen lately it was great to see two teams both trying to win a game like that. And while I try to keep the "in my day" to a minimum, Van der Vaart's yellow card was a joke. I remember Kevin Sheedy running along the goal-line flicking V-signs at the Kop after he scored for Everton and no one booked him. In my day...

Update : Wait a minute - the own goal yesterday was from a set piece. Doh.

InternatioNil-Nil Break

2010-10-13T21:53:00.004+01:00

I might kick this blog back into life. Completely unrelated to the fact that QPR are storming the Championship (note: sample size). I can't find it now but one one of my blogs somewhere I said that football and reality TV (or football for girls as I think of it) was just distracting people from how shit everything is and someone commented along the lines of "yeah, but what can you do, might as well enjoy it". He might have been right.

So yet again the football season has been completely derailed to make way for international qualifiers. And haven't us Brits been storming them. I had to laugh a bit at Northern Ireland, even though of course their performances must have been >>>>>>>>> those of Wales for a start. It's just that NI stick 11 men behind the ball against Italy, the vistors don't take their chances and everyone from the Province is "Yes ! Green Army ! We're The Greatest, By Jizz !!" (rearrange vowels randomly to duplicate Ulster "brogue"). Three days later the Faroe Islands stick 11 men behind the ball (and at least manage a goal), NI don't take their chances and it's back to "FML we're the worst".

A more balanced assessment is that with a bit of hard work, home advantage and good old luck it's really not unusual for a well-organised, physical team to nick a point against technically superior opposition. It's still clear enough that the scuffling point-gainers don't have a cat in hell's chance of qualifying anyway. The real question is does anyone care ? I suppose attendances are still high enough, certainly judging by the swathes of England fans I had to wade through at Liverpool Street yesterday, but I have to say it leaves me pretty cold, even allowing for the fact that when it comes to patriotism I'm well onside with Dr. Johnson.

Nonetheless it might have come at a good time for the Superhoops. A lot of the buzz on the Internet seems to be "if we can steer clear of injuries", but it's worth pointing out that we are where we are with Faurlin, Rowlands, Orr, Hall and Hulse all injured but coming back into contention soon. I would think only Faurlin would come straight back into the team (replacing the disappointing Buzsaky) but that's a hell of a bench at this level. The squad looks strong enough to deal with most eventualities, Warnock has excellent connections and a good eye for a player when it comes to loans (as we can see with Kyle Walker) and I really can't see anyone else reaching the same standard, with the possible exception of Cardiff when they get their forwards back fit.

Clearly nothing can go wrong now :)))

QPR 3 Doncaster 0

2010-09-25T18:54:00.003+01:00

I haven't seen many 3-0 wins to go 6 points clear at the top in my football watching history, but I would hazard a guess that, as they go, this wasn't very convincing. Nonetheless Rangers kept their shape, dug in and found a way to win the game even though they weren't allowed to play their passing game.

Perhaps I should say supposed passing game because the only games I have seen were this one and most of the 2-2 at Derby. All the others have been freeflowing extravaganzas according to reports. So maybe I am a bok of sorts, although not enough of one to stop the points from being hauled in.

Anyway, today I arrived late and could only get a ticket for the School End Lower, which is were away fans traditionally sit at Loftus Road. It was a first for me, and it's been quite a while since I saw a game from low down behind the goal. As you would expect, it's more difficult to assess the game from there but it was pretty clear in the first half that most of the action was at the Rangers end. Rovers came within a whisker of taking the lead when Paddy Kenny pushed a free kick onto the bar and James O'Connor seemed certain to score the rebound until someone (it turned out to be Clint Hill) found a way to kick it off the line.

Rangers came out a bit more positively after the break and soon took the lead from a corner, Kaspars Gorkss belting in the rebound after his initial header was blocked. James Coppinger hit the bar again for the visitors after a mistake by Akos Buzsaky (who didn't have a great game), but apart from that Rangers held the Rovers at bay with solid defending from front to back, before adding a very flattering gloss to the scoreline with Adel Taarabt's penalty and another header from Gorkss.

So there you go, clean sheet, set pieces, penalty, gg. It wasn't as pretty as I had hoped but you have to credit Doncaster for that, it's definitely unfair to talk about "the likes of Doncaster" or (one of my particular irritants) call them "a good little side" - they're a good team with good players and look top half at least. Rangers never really got going and had quite a wobble in the first half but Hill and Shaun Derry, two players I was quite sarcastic about on Twitter when they signed, helped keep things together when a lot of the forward players couldn't make it happen. Credit to them, Jamie Mackie who absolutely never stopped running and most of all Gorkss who would probably have been my Man of the Match even without two goals.

On the whole, Rangers look solid, there's no weak spot in defence for opponents to target, and similarly they can't be shut down going forward just by nullifying one player, as often happened in the past. Avoiding injuries might be key (nice to see Martin Rowlands back on the bench though), but if they do, I think they're going to be right up there in what doesn't look a very strong division this year.

How Owning 1/50000th of A Football Club Worked Out

2010-09-08T16:40:00.002+01:00

Spotted this on BBC Sport the other day :

What Happened To MyFootballClub and Ebbsfleet United ?

If you're incredibly keen and have a very long memory you might remember me blogging about this when it first arose :

Own 1/50000th Of A Football Club

There isn't much to add to the new article, which is worth a read. Cliffs are that fans never did get to pick the team, sorting transfers by vote was impractical because clubs didn't want the details in the open, people lost interest and now there are only 3500 paying members from a peak of 30,000. Several people involved at the start are now calling it "unworkable".

No surprise, but it doesn't give me a lot of pleasure to say "I was right", compared to usual anyway. At least they tried something different.

Sympathy For The Devil

2010-08-10T17:35:00.003+01:00

It may well be that Marlon King ends up elsewhere but it does seem to be the topic du jour among Rangers fans. I have no intention of trawling every message board but here's a sample thread :

QPR Report Message Board Thread

I would like to make a couple of points. Firstly, one poster, who goes by the name of "bowles" firstly says

"FFS WE HAVE TO HAVE SOME STANDARDS AND MORALS! I WOULD RATHER SEE RANGERS NOT GO UP THAN HAVE THAT BLOKE PLAYING FOR US!!!!!!!! "

and then follows it up with

"is it really worth it for a average 30 year old player??? "

Either this is a moral issue or it isn't. Adding in how good he is as a player is effectively saying that if it was Wayne Rooney that would be fine. And where are your morals then ? Do we have to start checking the background of every single player and weighing it against his ability before deeming him fit to "wear our shirt" ? Another recent QPR signing Bradley Orr served a brief jail sentence in 2006. Should he be "booed and spat on" by his own fans as people are suggesting King should be ?

Secondly, what I would say to the people who are so opposed to King joining QPR is this. That's all absolutely fine with one proviso. If Rangers fail this season, then you say "Well, never mind, at least we have morals and nice guys in our team, that's what's important". Is that what they will say ? These forum posters who are already frothing at the mouth at the prospect of a transfer that hasn't even happened yet ? We will see.

Finally, when you hitch your fortunes to a football club, this is what you sign up to. This is what you get. Your club might sign anyone in any capacity, and a lot of them might be bad people. Warnock himself has been called one of the most disliked people in English football. But here he is. What are we supposed to do, switch allegiance and follow whichever team, I don't know, Sven Goran Ericsson manages, he seems like a nice guy ? Nope. This is it. I've said it before, I'd cheer the Devil himself if he scored 30 in a season for QPR. I don't have to like him but if he scores I'll go "Yes ! Stitch that, fans of the opposing team !" That's football.

Here We Go Again ...

2010-08-04T14:47:00.006+01:00

Already ? Fraid so. It seems like only last week it was all Spanish matadors and Dutch cloggers, but here we go again as the Football League starts on Saturday. It's all change at QPR as Warnock starts to shape the squad. I didn't want to comment on all the comings and goings but it's really hard not to, you know you're trying to analyse decisions that have a huge random factor in how they'll turn out but damn it, it's just fun :)

The biggest surprise for me is the departure of Damion Stewart together with Fitz Hall being retained and, I see today, being made captain. That's a huge turnaround for Hall who was completely frozen out in January. But he's come back to the club and seems to be firmly part of the plans, as does Heidar Helguson who has been the main striker in pre-season. Rowan Vine might just be paid off, never mind sold, and that's understandable given what I've heard about his wages and how far off the pace he's looked since the injury. Warnock at least seems to have the sense to put together a system that suits the players he has to work with, ie a lot of attacking midfield types and few strikers, and so it's generally been 4-2-3-1 with players like Buzsaky, Ephraim and the new guys Clarke and Mackie buzzing around in the 3.

Back to Stewart though, and you can see that if Peter Ramage is considered a centre-half, which seems reasonable, we had one too many. It's still surprising that Stewart was the one shipped out but it all depends how much Bristol City paid. All this "Undisclosed" is bollocks IMO. Why shouldn't we know how much was paid ? Without knowing that, it's impossible to evaluate the sale. If they paid £300k, it's a bad deal, if they paid £1m+, fantastic. Good luck to Stewart though, he was pretty raw when he arrived and also had to overcome the considerable handicap of playing alongside Zesh Rehman, but he improved a lot and I always like to see that in a player.

Also out of the picture is Gavin Mahon, no squad number, no involvement pre-season but also no indication on the entire Interwebs that he's moved on. Truth will out I suppose. I liked Mahon but I suppose Derry is viewed as a like-for-like replacement and if Martin Rowlands can get fit that will be another huge boost in the midfield. There is also a report this morning that Tottenham have decided to cut their losses and let Taarabt go for less than £1m, which would be an absolute steal. It was in the Mail though, so we'll wait and see. Finally I wouldn't be surprised to see one more striker arrive. If it's Marlon King, we'll assess it when it happens.

So it's a big season for Rangers, they've spent money, the directors box looks a lot more stable, Flavio seems to be out of the loop thank fuck, but as I say "looks" and "seems", you never know with QPR. Me, I'll be keeping an eye and popping along every now and then. If they're doing well, I'll go more often. If you don't like that, bite me :) I've done my time watching shit football and I'm not going to waste any more if it's no good and everyone in the ground is still angry. Every season it's a little more "If they win, great, if they don't, never mind, life's good". And that works for me.

Finally, I won't be posting a lot on here but I will be talking football on Twitter, home of the one-liner, so feel free to follow me http://twitter.com/GetItQuietly

Oh and finally finally, I was just flicking through past entries and I came across this one, What QPR Should Do . To be fair, the club/Warnock do appear to be 1) Buying rather than loaning 2) Buying players with experience of this division 3) Bringing in leaders (Derry, Hill) and hopefully 6) giving the manager some time. And looking back it does seem like 2) and 4) (buying from lower divisions) contradict each other. So credit where it's due, and let's hope it works out.

Update 10/8 : Gavin Mahon is currently marked "Unattached" on Wikipedia ; given that his contract did expire in the summer I expect he was just quietly let go. Good luck to him but at 33 it might be difficult for him to find a gig. There are a lot of players without clubs at the moment and which ones get signed really depends on how much of a wage cut they take. And of course Taarabt did sign, and starred in the win at the weekend by all accounts.

QPR 0 Newcastle 1

2010-05-03T13:36:00.004+01:00

Done and done. A predictably low-key game turned when Peter Ramage dived in on Shola Ameobi and got himself sent off seconds after half-time. It was a shame because Gorkss and Ramage looked a more solid pair than anything I'd seen for quite a while, and Ramage seemed quite upset to be sent off against his former club. I got the impression that both sets of players were asking the ref to be lenient but technically he had to go.

Peter Lovenkrands finished expertly from a one-on-one to put United one up, and five minutes later Jay Simpson fired straight at the keeper from an almost identical position. "That's why we're champions" sang the travelling support, and they were right. So ends another season and I'm sure I'm not the only one glad to see the back of it. Regarding players new to me, Dusko Tosic looked too good for this level, i.e. probably too expensive for Rangers, while in the other full-back position Josh Parker looked remarkably assured when he came on as a substitute for the once again disappointing Lee Cook. Rangers have probably been unlucky that neither Cook nor Rowan Vine are half the player they were before a bad injury ; then again Cook had had a lot of problems at Fulham and was probably bought with the heart rather than the head. Fulham are laughing either way. Or they would be if £1.7 million made any difference to a £200m debt. Plucky Fulham, don't start me off again. Meanwhile Alejandro Faurlin had the best game I've seen him play for the club and I wouldn't be amazed if he moved onwards and upwards in the summer.

Anyway, nuts to it. We'll see in August but I'm certainly not queueing up for a season ticket and I doubt many others are either.

Update : Just to underline that, Faurlin was voted both players' and supporters' player of the year.

Parachutes

2010-05-01T11:22:00.008+01:00

The row between the Premiership and the Football League gathers pace. Interesting blog on BBC Sport here. However, one could very reasonably say that the row is actually between the Championship and the two lower leagues. According to this blog 23/24 Championship teams voted for this payment plan, and all 48 in the lower two divisions voted against. It's not necessarily the gap between Premiership and Championship that's the issue ; one could argue that with so much dross in the lower half of the Premiership (by top division standards IMO) that gap isn't so big right now (see: Stoke kicking their way to mid-table with ease twice in a row). It's now the gap between Championship and lower leagues that is set to widen.

I have always thought that the parachute payments are a complete gyp but when the Prem says "take it or leave it" there's very little that the leagues can do. Some of the teams who get promoted make an unbelievable hash of their finances (see: Hull City) considering how much Premiership football is supposed to be "worth", something like £80m per season, with £10m added on every year come the playoff final. The other problem is that when a club is fairly sensible and sticks to a sustainable budget on being promoted, like Burnley, they end up with a manager jumping ship for someone more "ambitious" and fans booing the team off when they get a tanking off opposition that cost £300m to assemble.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this ; I did want to refer to one comment on the blog that said

"Smaller clubs will have to spend time and effort getting their youth set ups working and developing talent (much like Crew [sic] have with Dario Gradi) and using this as a source of income. If it works well they will have every chance of breaking through the "glass" ceiling of the top divisions."

Unfortunately this is not true at all. The top clubs, with their almost unlimited budgets, can afford to take punts on promising youngsters from the lower leagues. The smaller clubs can't afford to turn the money down or "stand in the player's way". At least Charlton got 30 games out of Jonjo Shelvey ; QPR have let Dean Perrett and Raheem Sterling go to Spurs and Liverpool respectively without them ever playing a first team game.

Conclusion : football is bent. I have a ticket for QPR-Newcastle tomorrow but even with it already paid for, if I go into day 2 of the FTOPs $2K tonight I'll skip it. So see you at Loftus Road :). But don't expect to see me much next season, barring the occasional social visit if the Camel's about.

and incidentally : Having a drink in the golf club yesterday (I know), people were talking about football and obviously Fulham came up. "Isn't it great what they've done for where they've come from" one guy said. I let it go at the time, but could well have pointed out that at the last reckoning, Fulham had the biggest debt in the country outside the top 4 - £200 million. And that was two years ago. That's what they've done to get where they came from - spent £200 million of other peoples' money. Where they came from is less relevant than where they will go if that debt ever gets called in.

final rant : Alex Ferguson says that Liverpool will not "throw away history" by "giving Chelsea the win" tomorrow. Is this just me or if I was Benitez (who lets face it has nothing to lose anyway) I would put the youth team out and say "I did that because you're a cunt Ferguson. Stitch that. Next time, shut the fuck up and mind your own or I'll do it again". I didn't notice Alex Ferguson respecting history when he put his youth team out against Hull last game of last season, in a game that affected the relegation places, and no one said anything. And then Wolves got fined this season. Football is so bent. I'm going to put that on Facebook. That'll show them.

GSOH

2010-04-03T13:08:00.002+01:00

I'm in Dublin right now. I saw Jeff Stelling's book Jellyman's Thrown A Wobbly in the airport bookshop so I bought it to read on the plane. It delivers pretty much what you would expect, some light entertainment without being especially revelatory. When you think about it, as the book says, the whole concept of Soccer Saturday (watching four ex pros watching football matches that you can't see) is utterly bizarre but it does work very well. The reason it works IMO is that the show finds the right level of irreverence about the game. People like Stelling, Baker and Kelly, and so on understand how the game is viewed by a very large chunk of fans - as something to be passionate about but at the same time have a good laugh at/with.

Some of the mainstream TV football shows at least nod in this direction, for example the BBC's Football League show, but even these have too much inane "we've just lost two in a row sack the manager" comments from random jawflappers at home. But most, and this is most pronounced at the level of Premiership, Champions League and internationals, are so utterly humourless [1] and so far up themselves that most of the "analysis" is just bonecrushingly dull. Then you get the tabloid-stylings of TalkSport and the like, where every marginal decision is raked over the coals and every issue of the slightest controversy attacked like a lynch mob.

If people in football weren't so far up themselves I'd have a lot more time for it. If Match Of The Day with Alan Shearer and Mark Lawrenson became Match Of The Day with Matt Le Tissier and Danny Kelly instead, I'd watch it every week, and I think so would a lot of others.

[1] Stuff like the clumsy sarcasm of Alan Green and the camp stylings of Mark Lawrenson is actually worse than humourless. Good humour is spontaneous [2] and good-natured. The mental image of Green sitting up all night pre-preparing his cack-handed butchery chills the spine.

[2] Yes OK, stuff like "Jellyman's thrown a wobbly" isn't spontaneous either, as Stelling admits, but he has the style to pull it off and it's all in fun.

Why Should The Fans Suffer ?

2010-03-11T14:24:00.003Z

Interesting blog post on BBC Football here. As usual, while there are some good comments in there, it doesn't take long for someone to cry "After all, why should the football fan suffer ?". Sigh.

First of all, as is pointed out almost immediately, when these reckless gambles pay off, the fans benefit hugely. Trophies, bragging rights, the lot. Portsmouth won their first trophy in what, 50 years ?

Secondly, clubs are driven to take these gambles in part because of fan pressure. If fans accepted that their club's income was not high enough to compete for promotion, or to avoid relegation, realised that club and players were doing their best within these constraints and took bad results or seasons on the chin, then fair enough. But what really happens is that the majority are booing the team off and whingeing on phone-ins about the club "not showing any ambition". QPR lost £19 million last year according to their accounts. If the club sold players and cut wages to the extent required to keep the yearly deficit to a manageable level (not break even, just manageable), the majority of fans (most certainly the loud majority) would throw a fit.

And thirdly, when club A spends beyond its means, wins promotion and then goes into administration a year later, sticking two fingers up at all its creditors, explain to me why the fans of club B, who played by the book and missed out on promotion should suffer ? When their club didn't even do anything wrong ?

Once again, I endorse the comments of Barry Hearn a couple of months ago. Overspending such that you end up having to go into administration is cheating. Hammer clubs who do it. Double relegation. Fans can either realise in advance that this is not the way to go about things or fucking lump it.

QPR 3 West Brom 1

2010-03-06T22:06:00.004Z

It seemed churlish not to go to this, seeing as I had already bought the ticket and I was arriving at Gatwick 12.15 lunchtime. Needless to say though my luggage took ages to be disgorged and I rolled up to Loftus Road at about 2.57pm. It's difficult to evaluate the entire situation based on one game, with the changes at the club and in my own relationship to the game in general, so for now I'll keep it relatively factual.

While 3-1 against a team in 2nd place going in is a great result, I didn't think Rangers played well at all. For sure they worked hard and stuck at it, but after a decent first 20 minutes their passing was poor to say the least. Fortunately, by that time the home team were two goals to the good, thanks in no small part to the hapless Scott Carson. I've commented on him before, when playing for Charlton, and now he looks even worse. How he played for England, and in a crucial qualifier not some pointless friendly, is beyond me. First he spilled Adel Tarrabt's low cross to present Jay Simpson with an open goal, then he allowed the not exactly prolific Matt Connolly to slide the ball through his legs after a good Rangers passing move. West Brom were soon on top despite the 2-0 deficit and Chris Brunt pulled one back after an equally good move by the visitors.

Rangers were clinging on for 20 minutes after half time but managed to stay in front thanks to some desperate blocks and decent saves from on-loan keeper Carl Ikeme. Then Akos Buzsaky's 45-yard free kick (of course intended as a cross) bounced up into the top corner with the entire visiting defence standing watching to seal the win. Indeed, Simpson and Rowan Vine both had decent chances to add a completely unrealistic gloss to the win. Of the players I hadn't seen before, Ikeme did well as I said, Matt Hill was keen but looked a little short of quality, while Tamas Priskin had almost no impact on the game at all. Given that Simpson and Tarrabt are loanees as well, and so only 6 of the starting 11 were actually QPR players, it's even more difficult to evaluate where the club is headed. I'm fairly sure that relegation isn't too much of a threat ; but what will happen in the summer, who knows. Who knows.

Arriverderci Flavio

2010-02-20T17:08:00.003Z

If you were wondering why I haven't commented on Flavio Briatore's resignation as chairman, it's because I was ignoring football with such success that I didn't hear about it until I checked today's result. I am not, as yet, dancing around the room in celebration because I can remember all the times in the past that we were happy about a chairman leaving only to find that his replacement turned out to be worse. Time, as ever, will tell, but it should at least lighten the atmosphere around the place. Winning today would help with that too. I have a ticket for the West Brom game in two weeks so might as well pop down then and see what's up.

How To Wean Yourself Off Football

2010-02-09T01:33:00.002Z

It struck me today that supporting QPR in the top flight in the late 80s/early 90s was great fun (little did we know how lucky we were). League One was good because it really felt like the players cared and of course a lot more games were won than lost. But this league, in two spells, has been 90% grind and drudgery. Right now, I believe that very few people in the club respect the supporters. Respect me. Briatore sure as hell doesn't. Harford made a very condescending remark about "fans will come back if the team's winning". ORLY ? Ainsworth has gone, leaving only Rowlands and Cook who have a genuine connection with the club. Far from following my advice about cutting down on loan players, the club now have so many they're not allowed to play them all and are paying two players from other teams to kick their heels about the training ground. Enough is enough.

The problem is, as mentioned in a previous post, supporting a football team is very addictive. It's a potent mix of tribal identification and randomized jolts of pleasure and pain. How to break it off ? Well, I'm finding that a few things are helping.

- Cut down the frequency of the jolts. When they're playing, ignore it until it's finished. Have a look. Lost 1-0 to Peterboro, lame. Go back to what I was doing. One jolt instead of several. Ideally I wouldn't even look but I can't go that far ... yet.

- Ignore all the guff in the press and the Internet between games. If your club sign Lionel Messi, or John Terry shags the Queen, you'll hear about it. Instead of logging on to BBC Sport to read Steve Bruce's thought of the hour, forget about it. This is a lot easier if you don't watch TV or read newspapers, but I highly recommend that too anyway.

- Meditation helps a great deal with mental training in this kind of thing. It helps you to simply stop thinking about things you don't want to think about. Cliff notes : when you catch yourself thinking about it, smile at your incessantly chattering monkey brain and stop. Don't judge, don't criticise yourself, just let it go.

You might then be surprised how soon you can go entire days without hooking your moods up to the antics of "the world's thickest millionaires", as Charlie Brooker calls them. Try it and see.

The Devil Is In The Detail

2010-01-26T14:19:00.004Z

An interesting example of how selective quoting can misrepresent on the BBC website today. If I had just read this :

Peterborough Chairman Slams Team

I would have thought that the chairman had just gone off on one out of frustration. However, if you read the whole thing (which luckily I already had done), it paints a very different picture :

Statement From Darragh McAnthony

I have a lot of sympathy for the guy reading the whole thing, and I wish that more people in football were as honest with the fans, even if they did tread on a few toes inside the game. His comments about keeping the club out of debt were echoed by Barry Hearn (chairman at Leyton Orient) in an interview I saw earlier in the week. He said that his main priority was keeping the club out of debt ; that clubs who go into administration are basically cheating by paying players money they can't afford ; and that administration should be punished with immediate relegation by two divisions. I totally agree, and I'm fully aware that QPR of course went into administration a few years ago.

Nonetheless, "Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo", as HG Wells once said, according to this WSC article that I also quite enjoyed. All of these links came to me via the excellent QPR Report. As you can see on that site, Wayne Routledge has left the club for Newcastle United. Fair enough if we got a good price and he wanted to go, the club still has too many players who play in that kind of position. I think Rangers should be looking to reorganise from the bottom up, which won't happen with Briatore there I know, but there are signs that he might be looking to sell (the main one being he says he isn't). I'd be looking to build a team around young players like Connolly, Ephraim and Balanta, who are all already good enough to play and have lots more potential, and anyone who is fully committed to the club, which would probably include Rowlands, Cook and Leigertwood. Everyone else has their price, especially older players on long-term contracts. TBH I think they should look to unload Hall, Agyemang and Buzsaky (who I think was more than culpable in Magiltongate) even at less than market rate.

Here in La Manga I have Sky Sports and have been watching a bit of football in the evenings (there isn't really a lot more to do). Surprisingly (to me) I have really enjoyed a few games, notably the Manchester derby and Tottenham-Leeds. What's disappointing is how long it's been since a game of football excited me as much as those City and Leeds fans must have been. Oh well, it is what it is. If you've made it this far a couple of lolworthy snippets to end :

"Hicks and Gillette don't own the club ... well alright they do, but ..." - Liverpool fan on radio phone in

"Steve Bruce today slammed Liverpool for unsettling Kenwyne Jones, and also confirmed his interest in Portsmouth's Younis Kaboul" - Sky Sports News reporter, without the slightest trace of irony.

My Official Response To Events At QPR

2010-01-15T10:08:00.003Z

You Know What ?

2009-12-10T14:44:00.003Z

To hell with them all. Specifically at QPR, where I don't care who's to blame or what really happened, the fact is they're all being paid fortunes, of our money, and they can't get the job done without poncing about in strops and sacking each other every half a season, while clubs run on a shoestring like Watford and Blackpool put them to shame with their character, team spirit, togetherness and work ethic right through the club (not just the players).

And on a broader level, I've already invested far too much of my time on people who don't even know who I am. I mock the celebrity culture and how people seem to care about "celebs" who wouldn't give them the time of day, and yet I do it myself, spending far too much of my time thinking about footballers or poker players who, for all their faults, certainly spend 0.00000% of their time thinking about me or anyone like me.

I'm probably going to close this blog down in the New Year. I'll just give it a couple of weeks as I have a lot of previous for changing my mind .. but I hope I'll stick to this one. If I devoted that time to thinking about friends and family instead it would be better for me and everyone around me.

Alternatively ...

2009-12-09T16:32:00.002Z

... they could suspend the manager amidst reports of manager and players throwing head-butts and offering each other out. Jesus, what a laughing stock.

What QPR Should Do

2009-12-08T21:34:00.006Z

I read this on the BBC website today. How many times have we seen this kind of story about QPR ? I'm not going to comment on individual players, as my sample size of 2 games this season is probably unfair, but I've seen enough of the way the club has been run let's say post-Holloway to be able to make more general comments. What QPR need to do is to stop being so fixated on promotion and try, in a Zen-like way, to properly attend to what they're doing step by step. Basically, build a team, try to play good football and see where that takes you. It might lead to promotion. It might not. If you get it right, that won't matter so much, but you'll still have a better chance of achieving the goal anyway. So here are my proposals :

1) Most importantly, enough with the loans. I don't see the point of Helguson being at Watford (with QPR still paying half his wages) while Simpson is here, Ephraim being at Leeds while Watson is here, Balanta kicking his heels while Tarrabt is here, and so on. Now the players who are currently here on loan probably are a bit better. But not much. And they can't possibly be as committed. Any medium-term improvement in these players, particularly the younger players like Tarrabt and Simpson, is of no benefit to QPR. Bringing in a player on loan should be a last resort. Chuck some young players in, see how they get on. Give your squad players some game time. They might surprise you. One sole exception is if you're thinking about spending big money on a player and there's an option to "try before you buy", then absolutely, make sure he has the character and the commitment. If that's the case with Watson, then I'll make an exception for him. Even with the players currently injured (Connolly, Cook, Rowlands, Mahon), Rangers could put this team out with no loan players : Cerny ; Ramage, Stewart, Gorkss, Borrowdale ; Routledge, Leigertwood, Faurlin, Balanta ; Buzsaky ; Agyemang. And still have Vine, Helguson, Ephraim and Hall on the bench.

2) Enough with the foreign players. I can't think of a single one who has been value for money post-Holloway [2]. Faurlin looks OK but cost a fortune. Ledesma was hyped to the stars and played about two good games. At least that was two more than Parejo managed. Instead ...

3) If you're going to spend decent money, bring in leaders. We need one leader who knows this division in defence, in midfield and in attack. It's unfortunate that both Rowlands and Mahon are injured at the moment, as they fit the bill. But we have no leader in defence and no focal point for the attack. The lack of leadership in the side was brutally exposed by Middlesboro on Saturday as QPR fell apart in the second half. Meanwhile if there's one thing the fans can do it's stop moaning at players like Mahon when they misplace the odd pass. Everyone can't play this tippy-tappy boutique football, you need someone to dominate the opposition physically and we as fans need to accept that these players at this level won't be as good technically.

4) Build your squad by taking punts on young players from lower divisions. You only need one Michael Kightley or Jack Rodwell to pay for all the ones that don't come off. Give them a chance when the squad is needed rather than bringing in another loanee on big wages from another club. It's not that long ago that QPR saved their season in the top-flight by bringing in Darren Peacock, Rufus Brevett and Andy Tillson from lower divisions. One was sold for £2.5 million profit [1], one was a good servant to the club for many years and OK the other didn't work, big deal.

5) Cut admission prices and cut wages accordingly. Alright we're stuck with players on big wages. If they don't merit them, ship them out. Explain the situation to the supporters, we're not complete idiots, and the goodwill generated by not asking anyone for more than £25 to watch Championship football will go a long way. Sign players on shorter contracts but promise them they will be extended if they do well (and of course keep those promises). OK, sometimes a player might do well and move onwards and upwards when his contract expires causing you to miss out on a fee - swallow it. It's better than paying players off for long contracts or having uncommitted players hanging around drakking up the dressing room because you can't afford to pay them off and no one wants to buy them.

6) Give your manager more time and let him get on with it. Every manager since Holloway has been constantly looking over his shoulder. The immediate pressure to get results has often mandated paying over the odds for transfers, bringing in too many loan players, not giving youngsters a chance, etc. Invariably the axe has fallen medium-term anyway, and so a new manager comes in who wants his own players and his own system. Managers should only be changed mid-season if the team is absolutely falling apart and/or in imminent danger of relegation IMO.

7) Invest more money in youth system obv, do I even have to explain this one ?

Do those things, build a team, be honest with supporters and do the best you can. I'd buy into that and I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of fans would too. Unfortunately I have no confidence whatsoever that the current owners are prepared to do any of these things.

Cliff notes : Why would any QPR manager even try to build a team with a view to being stable and successful in 3 years time, when he knows he won't be there ?

[1] Many people, myself among them, date the start of the club's decline to the sale and non-replacement of Darren Peacock.

[2] Buzsaky is an exception but remember he had already played 100 games for Plymouth. I'm talking about players with no experience of English football.

Despite All My Rage

2009-12-08T14:28:00.003Z

... I am still just a rat in a cage. Victoria Coren made an interesting point in an interview she did recently (there's a link to the interview in the blog). When asked if poker was addictive, she said that it wasn't because you have some control over the outcome, whereas blackjack and roulette are far more addictive because (card counting aside) there's basically nothing you can do but put your bets down and hope.

It had never occurred to me that this is a big part of why watching football is so addictive too. It's the random jolts of pleasure and pain. Say you have your lab rat in a cage with a button to press. For a while, it gives out food. Then it gives an electric shock. Pretty soon the rat will stop pressing it despite the fact that it previously gave out food. Now you take another rat and give out food/shocks randomly for a bit. Then switch to just shocks. The rat will keep pressing it forever. This is fact by the way, scientific fact [1]. In football, not only do you have your random wins and losses, you can watch the game and have your pleasure/pain hits of goals for/against, and then you can watch all the games funking for someone depending on how you bet or just how much you hate each particular team/manager ... it seems endless.

I'm trying to wean myself off it, basically. The best way is to just go and do something else when the games are on, and see how they turn out afterwards. It's not easy on a night like last night when I was sat at home with no other games on, and on Saturday I was actually at the game (having rashly pre-bought tickets for 4 games throughout the season) suffering every kick. Maybe I'd be singing a different tune if I'd been at a couple of the games where QPR whacked someone else for 4 or 5 this season, instead of the only two home defeats (bok), then again it's just another peak or trough in the endless graph. It's pretty annoying that on Friday and Monday afternoon I played a great round of golf (2 out of my best 3 ever), only to allow myself to be knocked off my cloud because one team of over-paid hired guns lost to another, and I think, for me, it has to stop.

[1] By which I mean I read it somewhere and it suits my argument.

When Irish Eyes Are Crying

2009-11-20T12:09:00.002Z

I wasn't going to say anything more about the Henry handball incident, having already argued about it far too much on Facebook, but having said that :

Ladies And Gentlemen, Mr Roy Keane

Whether you like Keane as a person or not, he absolutely nails it here.

QPR 1 Leicester 2

2009-10-31T00:23:00.003Z

With 6000 extra squeezing into Loftus Road, we probably shouldn't take personal responsibility for bokking the Rs, tempting as it is. But Rangers were, as Jim Magilton admitted after the game, second best in this one and Leicester deserved to win. If you're interested in the game you've probably seen the goals anyway. I wasn't too impressed by the players I hadn't seen before, although Faurlin in particular probably just had an off-night. Whatever, Magilton added that "As much as we didn't get carried away by our recent fine form, I'm not going to go over the top about one loss." which is fair enough as well ; I think both teams should be around the play-off zone in the final shake-up. I quite enjoyed myself, but as much for the company as the game so I'll just stick to as and when I feel like it going forward. Don't hold your breath :-)

Debt And More Debt

2009-10-28T14:33:00.003Z

A quick update to The League Table Of Debt ; you would have thought that having found their way into the Premiership with a debt of just £1m, Hull City might at least be reasonably safe - but apparently not. Now, as they say in the article, those numbers apply to the point just after Hull were promoted, so the extra Premiership income should see them through, you would think, if they haven't gone nuts on wages. It makes you wonder though, when Hull City, with a new stadium and good attendances, bink the Premiership out of nowhere, stay up and they're still apparently under threat, after basically finding the "pot of gold" - well, it's no wonder what the writer says at the end about most clubs needing a sugar daddy. Premiership (and wannabe Premiership) football appears to be completely unsustainable on its own merits at the moment.

Given that, I might as well pop along to QPR and see if they really are playing their best football since 1995 at the very least, before they hit the skids as well, and I should be at the Palace game next week (if not Leicester on Friday).

Can Daniel Negreanu Put A Penalty Past Pepe Reina ?

2009-10-03T20:51:00.004+01:00

WTF you say, can Superman outrun The Flash ? But there is some indication that this is a challenge that might actually be thrown down. I say some indication because we're working off a piece in The Sun (I know) :

Sheringham Is Feeling Flush

Incidentally the poker content of this piece is LOL even by The Sun's standards. However, this is the bit that sparked interest on 2+2 :

"But Canadian Daniel [Negreanu] has the chance to win some extra cash over a bet with another footballer - Liverpool goalkeeper JOSE REINA. Jose met Daniel at a tournament and reckons Daniel won't score past him in five attempts - and there's £12,000 riding on it."

Here's the 2+2 thread. Oddly, Negreanu chips in to comment on his football background but gives no indication whatsoever if the bet is genuine and, if so, when it might happen. This leads me to suspect shenanigans and severly doubt whether anything will happen. Nonetheless, if it does, I have booked $1000 with 2+2er BKIce, with me saying no way, Negreanu will not score in 5 pens and him taking 1/5 or more. It seems self-evident to me that I have the best of this, not least because Negreanu is a wet and a weed. Someone who's more than 9 stone dripping wet might have a better shot. I have to say though, it's a good bet - it's fun to see how many people (myself included) are so confident even though they're taking opposite sides.

Update : Sadly, especially for those of us hoping to make the easiest $1000 in earth history, this is not going to happen. Negreanu has again posted in the thread without giving any indication of if and when it will actually take place. My read of his thought process is "Yay ! 8 pages of people talking about me playing football ! Who says I'm gay ?". Everyone Daniel. Everyone.

Crisis At QPR - The BBC Steps In

2009-09-23T13:23:00.004+01:00

Report - F1 Scandal Hits QPR

A typically in-depth report from the BBC. The one expert opinion that the reporter seeks is ... a bloke in a flower shop. Nice bloke I'm sure, but what does he know ? Nothing. Wouldn't it be better journalism for the BBC to find someone who actually does know what would happen in the event that the Football League deem Briatore to be "unfit" to own the club while he actually owns it, instead of during the process of buying it ? Because that would be a useful thing to know, and someone in football must know it, if leagues don't make stuff up as they go along (hang on ...).

I don't know shit about what would happen. I'm expecting a BBC team to knock on my door at any minute. Why don't we just wait and see. In the meantime I will actually be at the game on Saturday as the Camel is in town for the donkaments (what a great sentence that must be to someone who doesn't know poker). If Rangers win, great, if they don't then meh. That mindset's working really well for me so far this season.

Update : Camel bows out with camel flu and I have to be in Chelmsford this evening so it was too awkward to go on my own. 5-2 thriller. FOL.

Further Update (7/10) : Briatore set to discover QPR fate

"We have a board meeting and have at least a couple of fit-and-proper person issues which we will address," said Football League chairman Lord Mawhinney.
"They are on the agenda. I would like to come out of the board meeting with settled policies in general terms which we can apply to future cases that need to be addressed. "

So in other words they are making it up as they go along. Marv.

Hmmm. They Do Have A Point.

2009-08-28T19:48:00.001+01:00

Mitchell and Webb on Football

What, already ?

2009-08-05T22:42:00.003+01:00

Yet again, the football league season lurches over the horizon just when we'd got used to seeing the back of it. It does seem ridiculously early but what can you do. I haven't bought a season ticket this year ; I have just been texted by QPR to let me know that season tickets are still available. Yes, I bet they are. Nonetheless, I do believe that Rangers could have a very good season. Obviously this optimism comes to all of us (well most of us) every August, but one thing I'm sure of is that the vast majority of the "Championship previews" I've read were clearly composed in about half an hour before lunch.

When the hack in question reaches QPR in the list he comes up with meddling owners ... continual manager changes ... sold top scorer ... doom ! Who's next, Reading. While there's no denying those three facts, I'm still holding out some hope that the people running the club aren't complete fucking idiots. There's that optimism again. Surely at some point the penny will drop that they have to give someone a chance to do the job. Jim Magilton wasn't everyone's dream choice but as a slightly better informed local paper said in their preview, given that most of us expected that only a complete no-hoper would actually take the job it could have been a lot worse.

As for the squad, at face value it looks like we've lost Camp and Blackstock and only brought in an "unknown" midfielder and striker. Ooh, unknown to the guy who spends 10 minutes every week writing the first thing that comes into his head about the Championship in the Daily Mail ! Wow, they must suck ! The reality is that since Vine and Agyemang arrived 18 months ago, they have been head and shoulders above all the others as our best strike pair. Last season with injuries they played one game together, the last one. We also missed Rowlands and Buzsaky for a large chunk of the season. Now those four are added in, Angelo Balanta has played every game in pre-season and don't forget Wayne Routledge. The Loftus Road pitch, probably the worst in the division, has been relaid, and there's no change to the defence which was the 5th best anyway last season.

Follow the money. Betfair has us around 7th, but that's below Newcastle and Middlesboro who are always going to attract money but I don't fancy either. At all. Pre-season shme-season you might say, but it's damn hard to sweep a result like Leyton Orient 6 Newcastle 1 under the carpet even if it's a frigging testimonial. I make West Brom clear favourites, Sheffield United probably second, then there's a bunch of teams with not much between them and I reckon Rangers could be right in there. Of course, they could also sack Magilton in October for losing two games in a row and go right back to square one, I'm not saying that's impossible :-).

All of which kind of overstates how much I'm investing emotionally this year - which is as little as possible. I'll go when I feel like it. I'm the first to admit that I'm far more likely to go if they're winning games and there's a bit of feel-good around the place. I'm not even going to justify that. Whatever. As usual, it's just the shoddy journalism that annoys me. I'm pretty sure that for any club outside the big four, definitely any outside the Premiership, any fan with half a brain knows more about his club than the people who write blanket coverage in the national press. So my advice would be stick to the blogs if you want to know what's actually happening, and I'll chip in as and when I go to games.

Edit : Also lol at Darren Bent bitching on Twitter and then being "disappointed at how it came out". Does he fully understand how Twitter works do you think ?

The League Table Of Debt

2009-06-06T11:02:00.002+01:00

Obviously I knew that Premier League clubs have a lot of debt, but here it is in black and white, and I find it just incredible :

Premier League clubs boast £3.1bn of debt

All the information is there, I'm just collating it here to draw attention to the most interesting bits. First of all, here's the league table of debt

Club Debt/£m
Chelsea 701
Man Utd 699
Arsenal 416
Liverpool 280
Fulham 197
Man City 147
Newcastle 106
Middlesboro 93
Aston Villa 73
Sunderland 70
Wigan 66
Tottenham 65
Portsmouth 58
Bolton 52
Everton 39
West Ham 36
Blackburn 17
West Brom 9
Stoke 2
Hull 1

All these figures were as of the most recent filed accounts, most of which were in summer 2008. No doubt the promoted clubs at the bottom will have different figures as of this summer, although hopefully (for their sake) not much bigger debt !

Greatest "overachievers" in terms of league position vs "debt position" were Everton (+10), not Stoke as I would have assumed, who were joint second with West Ham on +7. "Overachievers" Fulham finished 7th but have the 5th biggest debt in the league, so there goes that one. Not surprisingly, Newcastle and Middlesboro prop this one up on -11.

If you make a "wages" table it looks remarkably like what you would come up with if you subjectively compiled a "biggest club" table. Fulham come out of this much better, with the 14th biggest wage bill for +7, but Newcastle are the real dogs with the 5th biggest wage bill for -13.

OK, you say, so these clubs have debts. But at least money's coming in, right ? Well, you would think. 7 clubs made a profit (we have to count Everton's £26 thousand profit technically). In only two cases did that profit amount to more than 10% of the club's debt : Blackburn (£3m cf. £17m) and West Brom (£11m cf. £9m). Even also-rans like Bolton, Wigan and Middlesboro are losing £10m a year. Manchester United lost £45m but I assume that includes interest payments of £69m. Chelsea lost £85m even though they pay no interest at all.

So what do we conclude ? Well football does seem to be something of a special case. If a business with figures like Newcastle United's [1] (or half the other clubs) was up for sale no one would go anywhere near it. With a few exceptions [2], established Premiership clubs are entirely dependent on their backers to avoid complete collapse, never mind to compete. The healthiest position by far appears to be West Brom's, which kind of makes sense ; you can disparage the "yo-yo" clubs if you like but the way it's set up if you get promoted, don't go mad on wages, accept relegation, pick up parachute payments and repeat, it seems to be just about the only way of actually making money. And it's not bad for fans either, one season of crushing and scoring lots of goals, one of watching top players rip you to bits.

Anyway, this was all an eye-opener to me. I've generally assumed that the top four were so far ahead because of their Champions League income. However, it's really because of the huge levels of debt they have incurred and continue to incur [3] just to keep up with each other. House of Cards anyone ?

[1] To summarise, £106m debt, £75m wages, £34m loss last year.

[2] Blackburn and Everton seem to be reasonably well run but of course Blackburn only dragged themselves out of the bottom end of the second tier thanks to a huge private investment

[3] Arsenal are probably exempt from this as most of the (£416m) debt was to finance the new stadium and they did make £36m profit last year, But of course then their fans are up in arms because they don't spend enough !

Magilton In

2009-06-03T15:55:00.003+01:00

Good luck to Jim Magilton at QPR - signs are he'll need it. It's slightly encouraging that he is officially described as "manager" rather than "first team coach" as has been the case before, but little more than that. Given the number of better jobs available at the moment this rather low-key appointment is in fact about the best that QPR could reasonably hope for. It will be interesting to see who pitches up at Reading, and Swansea if Martinez goes, for comparison.

Season ticket sales are, apparently, through the floor compared to last season and I don't expect a lot of money to be spent on players. If Blackstock (and perhaps Camp as well) go to Forest then maybe the club will splash out on Beckford or Cox up front, we'll see. I'm pretty much going to take it as it comes till August at least and see how I feel after a couple of months off.

One For The Road

2009-05-25T11:19:00.003+01:00

One thing that people consistently overlook in football is the fact that, for example, however bad the teams at the bottom are, only 3 go down. However good the teams at the top are, only one can win, three go up, etc. This couldn't have been demonstrated more clearly then yesterday in the Premiership.

Four teams at the bottom [1] needed a result against higher placed opposition who had nothing to play for. They all lost. They were mostly [2], by all accounts, abysmal. Then of course what happened was that Hull and Sunderland celebrated like they had won the Champions League, when what they were actually celebrating was being about 3% less fucking awful than Newcastle and Boro. And for what ? So they can do it all again next year.

Let's be clear. Those four teams have been absolutely stinking the place out since Christmas. FFS they all finished at least nine points behind Stoke. And next year, mark my words, it's going to be even worse. Wolves, Birmingham and the playoff winners will compete in the Premiership in the sense that they won't really be much worse than Hull, Sunderland, Stoke, Portsmouth, Bolton and Wigan. If they can put a few points in the bag before they get sussed, they'll have every chance. It worked for Hull.

The other frightening thing is how much money the game is sucking up via these extremely moderate outfits. On Match of the Day last night Jonathan Pearce said that fifteen of the Newcastle squad earn more than 50 grand a week. OK, it was Jonathan Pearce, but he can't just make that up can he ? Later he said that relegation would cost them £100 million. Now, there seems to be an unspoken agreement that any time someone mentions this amount of money, whether in the context of relegation from the Prem or promotion from the Champ, they have to say something higher than the last time someone said it. It can't be that much. Can it ? But the funny thing was I was sitting there thinking "so where does it all go ? ... oh right, the wages".

People within the game are still trying to sell this notion that the Premiership is a great competition. When asked about Newcastle's relegation, Steve Bruce said "It just goes to show how competitive the Premiership is". No, what it actually goes to show is how shit Newcastle are. The bottom eight or so is "competitive" in the sense that they're all about equally terrible, except that a couple of them (Bolton, Stoke) are better organised and kick people to better effect.

More and more people outside the game, on the other hand, have realised that the money, and the Champions League money in particular, is making the league much less competitive, in overall terms. Last year's top six : United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton, Villa. This year : United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton, Villa. Net change : Liverpool moved up two places. Next season - anyone want to take a wild guess ?

Look, I'm sure it's great if you're a top four fan. Most of your home league games consist of trying to get past the opposition bus parked in the goal area, but what the hell, you usually win anyway, and there's your Cups and Champions League. But from the outside, it's basically crap. And the worst thing is that the very height of my own club's ambition is to do a Fulham and elbow their way to 7th for a season or two, which to be honest they could maybe do, with a different owner anyway. But so what if we did ? Is that all there is ? If that's all there is, my friend, let's go and play golf instead.

[1] Incidentally Fulham and Spurs, the only other teams with something to play for, also lost

[2] Sunderland maybe get a pass against Chelsea.

Update 26/5 : In the light of the above, and how impressed I've been with them the last 2 seasons at Loftus Road, I think Burnley could be a really good bet to stay up next season.

Torquay 2 Cambridge United 0

2009-05-19T18:50:00.002+01:00

I nipped over to Wembley for the Conference Playoff final during my "internet holiday". As I used to occasionally pop down to the Abbey when I lived in Cambridge, I thought I'd throw my lot in with them. Unfortunately for them, I kept up my 100% playoff final record of no wins and even no goals in three games. United were the better side until Chris Hargreaves burst through to open the scoring for Torquay ; the goal seemed to knock the stuffing out of them and they only really pressed for 10 minutes at the start of the second half. That surge had already come and gone when one of their centre-halves was sent off for a rash foul (having already been booked), and when Tim Sills headed in a second it was totally game over.

Wembley still looks great and the newly-relaid pitch was pretty good as well, although you'd hope it would be as this was the first game played on it ! And so now we're definitely done and done for another season.

Good Blog Post re: Briatore

2009-05-12T14:05:00.000+01:00

An Open Letter to Flavio Briatore

Nothing for me to add. You can see my own comment basically agreeing, #32.

Done And Done

2009-04-26T15:37:00.001+01:00

As far as I'm concerned anyway. Rangers, by all accounts, ambled their way to a 0-0 against Plymouth. There was also a report this morning that they've been training twice a week since the play-offs became unreachable. Well they have got a tough trip to Bahrain coming up, so screw the people who actually pay at the gate, I mean what kind of corporate branding can they give for the club ? We'll see what happens after a summer off but if I were you I wouldn't exactly check this blog every morning.

For now I'll leave you with another look into the mind of the football fan. Port Vale fans vented their wrath yesterday by throwing their season tickets onto the pitch. In their last home game of the season. Take That indeed. Which is an amusing witticism, because Robbie Williams is a Port Vale fan and shareholder. How we laughed.

The Hypocrites' Hypocrite

2009-04-19T23:22:00.004+01:00

Ferguson Fears Ref Was Pressured

Dammit. I'll be picking up the bits of my irony detector for a week, and the smoke is still in the air even though the windows have been open for an hour. If anyone can top this for bare-faced hypocrisy, in any field, in the history of the world ever, I'll tip my hat to them.

Update 26/4 : But how can you blame him, when it so obviously works. I'm certainly lost for any other explanation for the most ludicrous penalty decision I've seen in many a year. On the plus side, it was against Tottenham.

Update 25/5 : A late entry, but still from the Champion of course :

29/4 : "Arsenal's big advantage is that they can play Pat Rice at right-back and Arsene himself at centre-forward on Saturday ... We have to play a team to win the game. We have a lunchtime kick-off at Middlesbrough and I do not think it is right."

24/5 : Manchester United team v Hull : Kuszczak, Rafael Da Silva (Eckersley 60), Neville, Brown, De Laet (Possebon 79), Nani, Fletcher, Gibson, Welbeck (Tosic 87), Martin, Macheda.

Where Do We Go From Here

2009-04-14T19:39:00.003+01:00

I've just been watching the highlights from yesterday's game against Sheffield Wednesday (I was in Dublin). With Di Carmine safely off the pitch, and playing 4-4-2 for the last half hour, Rangers scored three, had two disallowed for offside (one of which looked on), hit the post twice and missed about four more great chances. There is a lot of talent in the side and you really have to wonder why sometimes we have looked so awful this season.

Maybe the catalyst is Gareth Ainsworth taking the team again, he was great on the club website after the game, talking about getting the players to enjoy and express themselves and trying to play exciting and attractive football "because that's what the fans want". And it is. 100%. I'd rather see Ainsworth get the job than some tosser like Wise or Ince, and obviously no good, established, employed manager is going to touch the gig with a barge pole so why the fuck not IMO. Just bring in a very experienced man as number two and let Ainsworth go at it.

That's what I'd do anyway. I'm definitely going to pass on a season ticket for next year anyway though, and just show up as and when I feel like it, which is much more in keeping with how I'm trying to live my life, moving on from here.

Update : In the interests of fairness, Briatore makes his case here. I'm still a lot less than convinced, but there it is. I am glad to hear they're re-laying the pitch in the summer.

Enough Is Enough

2009-04-11T09:57:00.003+01:00

Alright, that's it. I've given Briatore & co the benefit of the doubt for far too long. With all the conflicting reports that come out of the club, there's little you can do but try to make your own judgement based on gut feeling. The pattern has now repeated itself often enough to look at the common factors - it can't always be the manager. Every time. It's the people running the club and, by every indicator that I have, it's Briatore.

The F1 consortium may well have "saved" QPR, but at what cost ? The club is now a joke. Official reports about Paulo Sousa's departure smack of a pretext to remove him without paying off his contract. While the team has been below par for a couple of months, extenuating circumstances like injuries, the state of the home pitch and, most of all, the interference from above are enough for me to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Ah, what's the point in focussing on the particular details this time around. It's still the same story. Now, no manager worth his salt will touch the job and frankly the best practical option is Gareth Ainsworth, despite his inexperience. Because who else would take it ? It tells you all you need to know that the betting favourite is Dennis Wise.

QPR will always be my club but it's time for me to become much more detached, emotionally. There's now no way I'm buying a season ticket for next year and I will come and go as I please. In the meantime I can only offer up a heartfelt appeal for the Mittals to please, please, please make Briatore an offer he can't refuse (take that any way you like :-)), because until then the club is fucked.

QPR 0 Crystal Palace 0

2009-04-04T20:51:00.004+01:00

Where to start. Well let's start with Rangers. For the umpteenth time this season, we didn't pass the ball well enough and had no cutting edge up front whatsoever. In a way I feel sorry for Di Carmine, he's a trier and it's not his fault better strikers are being loaned out to other clubs for no apparent reason. On the other hand, I'm sure he's paid a handsome wedge and he just isn't good enough. Not even close. The crowd's frustration with him kind of boiled over today but you can see why ; (relative) fortunes have been spent on players and wages but we scored more goals when Marc Nygaard was up front.

As for Palace, this is a dilemma. I think I have a responsibility not to be too critical of other clubs who don't have the same financial backing, but I also have a responsibility to report things as I see them, and the truth is that Palace hoofed, hacked and spoiled their way to a point. Now, it is absolutely their fundamental right to play any style they like within the rules and spirit of the game. But it is also my fundamental right to say nuts to this, I'm playing golf next season instead. There are far too many games in Championship and Premiership where one team is basically going out to stop the other from playing and nick a point if they can, and I'm perfectly aware that Rangers have done it when it suited them as well. This is how it's going to be until measures like salary caps and redistribution of TV income come in, which is to say in the real world, never.

Perhaps it was ever thus, and it's only now I'm realising that life's too short to do things you don't enjoy out of a sense of "duty" to an identity (with a football club) that ultimately has nothing to do with who you really are. Which is maybe a topic for another day, but I have a feeling that football isn't going to realise that they charge way too much for the sporadic entertainment on offer until it's far too late, and at that point there will be a lot of clubs packing up and going out of business. I've said it before, but it's now closer than ever. It won't be long before creditors effectively fight back against the kind of financial Three Card Monte that enabled Leeds, as the most prominent example, to stick two fingers up at everyone they owed money to. Once one club goes, many more will follow. House of Cards.

Match Reports

2009-04-01T14:40:00.002+01:00

Saved up from my little jaunt up West. I have to say it was pretty sweet just being 5 stops on the tube from LR.

QPR 1 Swansea 0

Writing this a few days after the game, there wasn't really a lot in it ; 0-0 would have been a fair representation but Michele Leigertwood headed in from Jordi Lopez' free kick ftw. For once the ragged Loftus Road pitch probably inhibited the visitors more than the home team, and Rangers held on for a morale-boosting 3 points, a good effort considering the injury list at the time. Adel Tarrabt made a very lively debut on loan from Tottenham and Hogan Ephraim added impetus to the centre of the midfield where he looked surprisingly comfortable.

QPR 2 Bristol City 1

Rangers kept their "faint playoff hopes" alive by winning an entertaining game. Paolo Sousa kept faith with the side and the formation that beat Swansea in the week, but was able to name a very strong bench with Cook, Routledge, Helguson and Vine all substitutes. Rangers started brightly but City came into the game with Adebola a defenders' nightmare as usual, and had two excellent chances, Sproule and Maynard both firing over from less than 10 yards. At the other end, City keeper Basso read Samuel di Carmine's curling shot, and the referee spiced matters up by booking Adel Tarrabt for a dive in the City box.

Wayne Routledge came on at half-time, but City pressed quite strongly until Heidar Helguson also joined the fray to make a 4-4-2 after Matt Connolly limped off. The impressive Jordi Lopez (or is it Gomez ? No, Lopez definitely) curled a free kick to force Basso into a low save, and then five minutes later flighted a beauty into the top corner from the same spot. Helguson skimmed a shot just wide as Rangers looked likely to increase their advantage on the break, but after some careless play in the left-back area, Sproule was allowed to cross for McIndoe to volley in at the far post.

During the Swansea game, you looked at Tarrabt and you would be surprised that he hadn't seen any action for Spurs. Then today, you could suddenly see why - City doubled up on him quite often but he still wanted to try a trick every time instead of playing it simply to someone in space. Nonetheless, there's a lot of ability there, and luckily when Damien Delaney broke down the left and sent over a great low cross, there was no option for Tarrabt to try a backheel or a double stepover, and instead he lifted the ball over Basso for the winner. Routledge could have eased the nerves with an acrobatic volley but even so the game was seen off without too many alarms.

Special credit to Michele Leigertwood today who did really well after having to play the last half hour at centre half. While we have had quite a few injuries lately, we have been lucky that six defenders have been enough up to this point of the season. Kaspars Gorkss also starred and he looks pretty much like the main man at the back now. To be honest we still need a miracle to make the play-offs but at least these two wins have lifted the mood, the players looked a lot more confident and the crowd were quite up for it as well, so it was a good day all round.

In The Mind Of The Football Fan

2009-03-01T13:56:00.003Z

From BBC Sport :

"1343: The Hull fans are FURIOUS, and so is Geovanni, as Phil Brown opts to take off the Brazilian. Geovanni turns and claps the home fans, promoting a massive cheer, but then the boos return and the striker sits on the bench and carries on ranting. Phil Brown must be feeling the heat as he stands motionless on the touchline."

Yeah, what a donk that Phil Brown is. What's he ever done for Hull ?

Sarcasm aside, yes fans are entitled to boo and jeer if they feel they're not getting value for money and their club is being badly run. But FFS, does everyone have the memory span of a fucking goldfish ? Where were Hull 18 months ago ? Bottom six of the Championship. And 5 years ago ? Propping up the entire football league. And now 14th in the Premier League isn't good enough for them. Does everyone have to win every game 5-0 to be happy ?

Listen, Charlton fans are entitled to boo. So are Leeds. Grimsby. Oxford. But when you're watching the club who is overachieving probably more than any club has overachieved since Wimbledon were in the top flight, how about cutting them a bit of slack for the odd bad day ? How about, when the manager, who has taken you to a position you could barely have dreamed of, makes a change that you don't understand, accepting that there must be a reason for it that you don't know ?

Hull may not be my problem, the worst thing is that this is coming at Rangers. It's depressing to think that even if we made the Premiership it wouldn't stop.

Barnet 4 Bradford 1

2009-02-21T19:32:00.001Z

I was in a funk of indecision this morning about whether to go to Loftus Road or not for the 5pm Sky game, until I decided to dodge the question entirely by throwing Barnet a bone instead. Inspired decision in hindsight. Barnet recorded a thumping win, their first at home for some time. QPR legend Paul Furlong lined up for the Bees against a visiting defence that included the not quite so legendary Zesh Rehman.

The experience of Furlong, Gary Breen and Matt Lockwood helped Barnet to look a lot more convincing than the last time I saw them, whenever that was, and the home team had the best of it even before Breen played Albert Adomah in to slot home the opening goal. Joe O'Flynn added a second with a glancing header just before the break to make the score a comfortable looking 2-0 at half time.

Even I know, however, that Barnet have been tossing leads away for fun this season, and the alarm bells were clanging when Bradford scrambled in a goal from a set piece. Fortunately they were almost immediately silenced when Adomah reached the byline and pulled back for Furlong, whose cross-shot was tapped in by Yannick Bolasie. Four minutes later the game was over as Joe Devera swapped passes with Adomah, stepped inside a defender and finished neatly for 4-1. Barnet could have added one or two more but no matter as Bradford pretty much gave up at that point. They looked poor for a team in the playoff zone, and I am unsurprised to report that Rehman doesn't look any more comfortable two divisions down.

The old heads have clearly helped Barnet a lot, and the younger players around them looked confident from the start, despite their low league position, which was a good sign, and it looks like Barnet have enough to hold off the teams below them who are still struggling to overcome huge points deductions.

The double wasn't to be though, I made it home just in time to see Ipswich equalise ; they were the better side from that point on and ran out 3-1 winners against a Rangers side who looked disturbingly flat and tired, especially with 8 games in 4 weeks coming up. Unfortunately, a considerable improvement on the road has been cancelled by 4 average to poor home performances in a row (well they were OK against Reading I suppose) ; we just don't look threatening going forward unless it's on the break. Still a lot of work to do, but what the hell, it's February and we are totally safe from relegation which is something.

Cause And Effect

2009-02-09T14:34:00.003Z

I have no particular view on Tony Adams' dismissal at Portsmouth, except to say that if Sylvan Distin makes a routine clearance on Saturday, they almost certainly win the game and everything's on the up. Small margins indeed.

What frustrates me is the misconception that the Managers Association suit guy trots out yet again. "Alex Ferguson, " he reads from his list, "Arsene Wenger, Martin O'Neill, David Moyes". This proves that you should give managers time. Once again, cause and effect are hopelessly switched. Those guys have been in the job for a long time because they're good. They're not good because they've been in the job for a long time. If you give a bad manager time all he's going to do is drag your club down further and further. We don't know if Big Tone would have been a good manager in time, but coming up with this ludicrous survivor biased argument is completely irrelevant.

A lesser point that hasn't come up is that managers who have been around the block have a good sense of what jobs to take and what to steer clear of. Or even jump ship from, in Redknapp's case - a bit of a no-brainer to move from Portsmouth with no money to spend to Tottenham who still seem to have an inexhaustible supply. Especially when you're not hindered by inconvenient personal traits such as loyalty or commitment to previous agreements. Worldly wise managers tend to steer clear of situations like Portsmouth or Blackburn in the summer when the outgoing manager was a big success and has moved on to better things, but there isn't much money around to rebuild. Whereas Paul Ince and Tony Adams probably feel it's the best chance they'll get to prove themselves. If a young manager really wants a chance in the Premiership, his best bet IMO is to wait for a gig at a Championship side with the backing to move forwards, and store up enough goodwill through promotion to see out a bad spell or two in the Prem. But not QPR thanks, we're happy with Paulo.

Update : Expect more of this guff in the light of this.

QPR 0 Reading 0

2009-01-31T19:33:00.003Z

A draw was a fair result in a competitive and reasonably enjoyable, if not exciting, game. Both sides had their best chances in the early stages ; Heidar Helguson headed wide from Damien Delaney's inswinging cross, and Khalifa Cisse's deflected shot bounced off a post for Reading. Defences were pretty much on top after that, but there was no lack of effort from either side. Stewart and Gorkss were oustanding for Rangers, Routledge did manage to evade some very tight marking to cause problems on a couple of occasions, and Miller had an encouraging debut in midfield.

Nice to see Loftus Road full, although not so good to have to fight your way to the bar before the game and the toilets at half time. Just goes to show we should count our blessings even when the ground isn't full and the opposition aren't great !

Credit Where It's Due

2009-01-28T12:53:00.002Z

This is the funniest and best-observed football piece I've seen in a long time :

The 50 worst things about modern football

Do read it all but I think my favourites are :

16. Internet message boards - My team’s better than yours. No, my team’s better than yours. No, my team’s better than yours. No. my team’s better than yours. Repeat until the world ends.

9. The FA Cup [1] - When was the last time a milkman lifted the FA Cup? When was the last time a postman scored at Wembley? There’s nothing romantic about a competition which ends every year with a bloke who earns £100,000 a week lifting a trophy that he doesn’t really give a monkey’s about.

And of course

6. Radio phone-in shows - “The next caller is Gary from Guildford. What do you want to get off your chest, Gary?” - “Well, Alan. I think Rafa’s got to go. How can you leave Torres on the bench when you need three points? And as for that ref, he’s got to be the worst ref I’ve ever seen.” - “Were you at the game, Gary?” - “No.”

This list should be printed out and stapled to the head of every TV executive and FA suit who is responsible for all these atrocities.

Meanwhile things are looking up in W12, two excellent away wins have brokem the hoodoo. Reading come to town on Saturday and whatever happens I'm sure the joint will be jumping.

[1] LDO. You know what I think of the FA Cup already.

The School Of Science (better title pending till I think of one)

2009-01-13T11:23:00.003Z

It looks like the new scientific approach to football hasn't made it as far as Doncaster. When fans questioned why their new £30 million stadium doesn't have undersoil heating, the managing director said, and here's the link if you don't believe me, "I think the view was taken that due to predicted global warming that there wouldn't be a need for it" .

LOL, who's your scientific advisor, DY ? Here's a quick heads up for football directors, right-wing bloggers and other n00bs. What you think of as "global warming" does not entail "well that's a shame for hot countries but it'll be nice to have milder winters here". What the scientific community now calls "climate change" to try to avoid this kind of blockheaded nonsense actually entails "catastrophic and permanent wrecking of the climate and environment to a point where life on the planet as we know it would be unsustainable". And before that happens, one possible effect is that the Gulf Stream is diverted, causing temperatures in the UK (which is after all on the same latitude as Siberia) to drop by around 10 degrees. I'm sure it will be a comfort to you to mutter "so much for global warming" at that point.

Thanks to the Camel for bringing this to my attention, and standard disclaimer, if by about a 25-1 shot the guy was levelling then most amusing.

QPR 1 Coventry 1

2009-01-10T19:32:00.002Z

QPR looked set for a third goalless draw on the spin at an arse-numbingly cold Loftus Road today until both sides popped up with a goal in the last 20 minutes. Rangers had a fair amount of possession even before City were reduced to 10 men but, despite Wayne Routledge impressing on his debut, created very little with Heidar Helguson in particular having a real, let's say off-day to be nice. When Stephen Wright lunged in on Helguson just before half time, I thought a straight red might have been a little harsh, but given that (as I suspected at the time) he had already been booked he was definitely walking either way.

City then parked the bus, pretty much, not that I'm blaming them and I'm sure we'd have done the same. Out of nowhere though, they took the lead when Radek Cerny gave free-kick expert Daniel Fox far too much space to score with one of those near post free kicks that bounces before going in, that never looks good for a keeper. Emmanuel Ledesma came on for QPR and did quite well IMO, but thanks to woeful shooting all round, the visiting keeper was not tested until a long punt forward was helped on by Samuel Di Carmine, and Dexter Blackstock nipped in between the hesitant defenders to nod home. A point isn't really much help but it would have sucked to watch that oik Clinton Morrison dancing around celebrating a victory so at least there was that.

I see that Paulo Sousa has acknowledged that it was a mistake to change the system (to a flat midfield four) when players have been unable to train much because of the weather, but frankly it's what I'd have done and what I'd like to see us do when Cook returns and he and Routledge can stretch teams on both wings. Rangers are in a kind of odd position at the moment, we are struggling to attack cohesively but I don't see this as a long term problem because Vine and Buszaky will improve the forward play no end when they eventually return. In the meantime I'm happy to cut them some slack and watch a gradual process of putting a team together for next season.

The FA Cup Is Super Ghey

2009-01-05T22:47:00.003Z

IMO. Of course the media think it's great because they can trot out all their cliches about plucky postmen and all that bollocks. Everyone else only watches it in the hope that Johnny Big Nobs United get embarrassed by Scungeford. But even when they do, newsflash to Scungeford : no one actually cares about you.

Still, provided these no-marks tug their forelocks and slope off after their five minutes are up, that's not so bad. However, now that everyone seems to be obsessed with money and nothing else, they start getting uppity. First off, Droylsden. They play a guy who is suspended and he scores both goals in their 2-1 win. Bang to rights you would think. But no. Their defence going into an appeal, seriously, was "It is not as if we have brought a ringer in at the last minute ... It was a genuine mistake by our secretary. Fine us by all means but don't kick us out". Oh well that's alright then. Once people start on this "but ... but ... it's us !!" line of argument it's such an insult to the intelligence of everyone involved. There are such things as precedent and deterrent. You let this go through and Chelsea will play John Terry in the final even though he decapitated four opponents last week and say "Oh, was he suspended ?" *clicks fingers at minion* "Cheque book ?". Doryslenden, whatever the hell they're called, their chairman also said if they didn't get reinstated he would "throw himself off the nearest bridge". Still waiting for news of that.

Then I might have let that go until those frightful nouveau riches Histon started chirping. On Saturday the referee had the nerve to call their game off because the pitch was like concrete. For some reason, I can't even see how this helps anyone, their chairman put it down to pressure from their evil scheming League opponents, Swansea City. "when [the referee] arrived, he had the assistant manager of Swansea and a number of their staff in his earhole, saying the pitch was not fit. " raged the Histon chairman. Except it turns out that the only Swansea official present was their physio, who said nothing other than "no, we've enjoyed our five [hour] bus trip so much we are all desperate to do it again next week" when accused of wanting to get the game called off. Presumably this is all something to do with Histon having to pay police and catering expenses twice. You haven't heard of insurance then ?

My message to non-league clubs is simple. You got your big draw, take your money, kick as many professionals as you can for 90 minutes, shut the hell up and fuck off. Magic of the cup my arse.

NB : This post is completely unrelated to the fact that QPR haven't won an FA Cup tie since 2001.

Quick Off The Mark

2008-12-29T11:34:00.004Z

A couple of pieces caught my eye on BBC Sport this morning. First of all Lee Camp is on his way back from Forest now that Calderwood is out ; interesting to note that there is no mention of QPR having changed manager in the interim. Judging matters as I do from my 4-inch square goal highlights on the Internet, Camp looked a lot less than commanding shipping 4 to Doncaster, but then again, it looked like Cerny cost Rangers 2 points at Charlton. That's the first time he has cost us points IMO, but it will be interesting to see whether Sousa gives Camp another chance.

Elsewhere, I loved this. Pratt sets record for red card. Some egg got himself sent off after 3 seconds in the Southern Premier. The club secretary (LOL nonleagueaments) said afterwards "You normally won't meet a milder man, but David lost it". That's so awesome. How can you lose it in 3 seconds ? It must have been like *refereeblowswhistle* yourmother'sawhorehowdareyoutakethataaaaarghhhhyou'reoffson.

QPR 0 Watford 0

2008-12-28T19:28:00.002Z

I suppose we were due one of these. Neither team did anywhere near enough to deserve a win, and frankly the highlight of the first 80 minutes was "Is Vic There" coming on the PA at half time. Eventually the game livened up a little bit as Radek Cerny tipped Lee Williamson's free kick onto a post and, moments later, Jay Mariappa almost turned Heidar Helguson's cross into his own net. The End, apart from a few scuffles from set pieces.

I'm still happy with the shape Rangers are in going into the New Year ; I wish some of the people around me would have a similar sense of perspective at times, but whatever, you're there to show a bit of passion however you choose to do it :-).

Elsewhere Paul Fairclough stepped down as Barnet manager on Friday, and it's a measure of both the man and his chairman that he stood down himself after feeling that he had been given every chance. In a nice touch, he took the team for one more game today and they responded with a first win in 14, 2-0 at Bournemouth. Fairclough has done a terrific job at Barnet and it's not the worst job in the world to come into IMO ; the chairman is like a League Two version of the guy at Middlesboro and will give the new man every opportunity.

Ricky S's Red And White Army

2008-12-27T12:07:00.002Z

The S stands for Ship It :

"Specials / Next Sunderland Manager Ricky Sbragia Back xxxxxx9180 04-Dec-08 13:54 38 5.00 38 Not Settled"

Seriously, always back the caretaker. Massive value.

PS Note to self : more than £5 next time.

QPR 3 Preston 2

2008-12-20T20:25:00.003Z

Paolo Sousa's late gamble paid off as Rangers won an exciting game with a late goal. Once again the home side started very strongly, and should have been a goal to the good within two minutes. After Lee Cook's swerving shot was too hot for keeper Andy Lonergan, Patrick Agyemang looked certain to score the rebound against his former club but he didn't connect cleanly and allowed Lonergan to save again. Before too long though, Cook turned provider again and this time Heidar Helguson made no mistake from his wicked cross.

In a disturbing echo of the Burnley game, Rangers conceded a lot of possession after their early surge faded out, and when a couple of opportunities to clear were missed, Chris Sedgwick sent a good header across Radek Cerny for the equaliser. Youl Mawene blasted over moments later as Rangers wobbled. However, Helguson restored the lead with the kind of goal we haven't seen since the days of Andy Thomson. God only knows what actually happened but after a corner was helped back into the six yard box, the ball was somehow in the net and Helguson was celebrating his second. A few of these scrappy strikers' goals can make a big difference over a season.

Into the second half, Agyemang's low volley was turned away by Lonergan but Preston again came back into the game and were denied only by a couple of last ditch tackles. When Cerny went to ground to push the ball away from Sean St Ledger, practically everyone in the ground, including the players, was intent on what St Ledger, who had stayed on his feet, was going to do with the loose ball. Everyone except the referee who inexplicably pointed to the spot, and Callum Davidson made no mistake.

Rangers were well on the back foot until Sousa made a bold double substitution with 10 minutes left. Both full-backs were removed as Rangers went 3-4-3. The momentum shifted immediately and Cook's cross caused chaos in the Preston box until Lonergan finally grabbed it. And the gamble paid off when Dexter Blackstock, one of the substitutes, rose majestically to head Martin Rowlands' free kick into the top corner. You can see why Blackstock doesn't really fit into the system that Sousa wants to play, but if you get the service right, he will head the ball into the goal, which generally helps. Rangers are used to closing games out at Loftus Road, having won 6 out of the last 7 by a single goal, and there were no more alarms.

Looking at the table now, this was a genuine six-pointer (for once), as Rangers find themselves just a point off the playoffs instead of trailing by 7 with a defeat. Positives to take from the game are the goals from Helguson, Cook's continued improvement and, most of all, Sousa's aggressive substitutions. Iain Dowie may have been a little harshly treated at Loftus Road, but there's no way he would have made that kind of change on the back foot at 2-2. On the downside, Rangers conceded a lot of possession for long periods, and if Mahon isn't having a good game (which he didn't today), this will happen with Cook and Ephraim in the midfield. Still, onwards and upwards, and with three eminently winnable games coming up let's see what we can do.

Arriverderci Dani

2008-12-18T11:55:00.003Z

Yes I know, but didn't Homer Simpson say that Spanish and Italian are the same language ? However you want to say it, it seems that Real Madrid politely enquired whether Dani Parejo might return to them on January 1st, and Rangers said "he'll be on the next plane". Paolo Sousa made a rather pointed comment about how Parejo will have a great career "with a good professional attitude" and frankly this sounds best for everyone, even Briatore who can save some face as it's a "recall" by Madrid.

Anyone who saw Parejo stumble around Selhurst Park for 45 minutes can see how getting him off the wage bill is a total result, except Eurosport that is who made him part of their "Team Of The Week" based on that display ! While QPR have come off another couple of disappointing away results, albeit that a draw at Plymouth isn't that bad and at least we scored a goal, now we have 4 out of the next 5 at home (including the FA Cup), and the one away game is at gruesomely woeful Charlton. Now would be a great time to kick on, even a couple of results to push us back towards the top 6 before the transfer window opens might help to attract players to the club. Fingers crossed for Ben Watson, who I think would be a good acquisition, but the main priorities IMO are a striker (Helguson will do from what I've seen so far) and an attacking full back ; with Sousa's preferred narrow midfield, we desperately need an attacking threat from full back and none of the current squad are good enough going forward, although they're basically sound defensively (even Ramage provided no one's running at him). Cook is supposedly a done deal to sign permanently, and bring Balanta back from Wycombe IMO !

First impressions of Sousa are good, not least because he looks to have the board fully behind him, so it will be interesting to see whether the club want to gamble in this transfer window or try to build more gradually for next season.

Must Be Nice

2008-12-09T16:24:00.002Z

One thing I respect about footballers, there might not be many things but here's one, is that you can't bluff your way into becoming a professional footballer. If you aren't good enough, you get found out double quick. Now for sure, some players are in the right place at the right time to get Premiership gigs or international caps when other, better players might miss out, but there's no one at the top level who's there through a total combination of smoke and mirrors.

But maybe I should say "no players" rather than "no one" because I really wonder about managers sometimes. If you can get yourself on that particular gravy train then you're laughing IMO. Just look at Juande "Tottenham will finish above Arsenal" Ramos [1]. He seemed to basically make Spurs a complete laughing stock, so much so that Arry "Run around a lot lads" Redknapp can come in and look like the Messiah in comparison. And so, after this abject failure, where did Ramos pitch up today ? Leyton Orient ? Deportivo La Leytonorienta ? Nope, try Real Madrid. Must be nice.

And speaking of Messiahs, I have touched before in this blog on how far up themselves people who speak of themselves in the third person are. One thing about Gareth Ainsworth taking a back seat at QPR, I love Ainsworth, but at least we don't have to listen to him talking about "what Gareth Ainsworth's all about" any more. In any case, I think we have a new winner, Sunderland reserve David Healy.

Healy is quoted in the Belfast Telegraph (so you would think no translation problems, apart from the general incomprehensibility of the Ulster accent) as saying

".. with Kyle Lafferty scoring goals for Rangers, Martin Paterson scoring goals for Burnley, is the axe going to fall and is he going to do the unthinkable and leave the hero; the messiah, out of the team? "

You almost have to read this through again just to check that yes, he really is talking about himself. Now if somehow the journalist's text has found its way inside Healy's quotation marks, I'll take it back, but if it hasn't, and Healy was serious then he is the Messiah of being a cock.

[1] Try reading it out loud.

QPR 1 Wolves 0

2008-12-06T21:11:00.004Z

I was umming and ahhing about showing up for this one ; after a (rare) heavy night last night I was struggling, but the extra 2 hours made the difference and I was able to haul my ass to Loftus Road. And a good job too, as Rangers won the best game I've seen for some time.

Paulo Sousa opted for a bold selection, with Blackstock, Agyemang and Helguson all playing. Once again, Helguson had an early chance, but he fired over from 16 yards. Then Agyemang found himself clear on goal after a slip by Mancienne (of all people), but his shot was too close to Wayne Hennessey in the Wolves goal. Wolves of course are no mugs, and I was expecting Edwards' curled shot to nestle in the onion bag soon after, but it flew a fraction wide. Jones also went close from a free kick before Rangers asserted themselves once more and dominated the rest of the first half. Hennessey saved again from Helguson and Cook, the latter having come on to replace Blackstock. I'm really not sure whether Blackstock was injured or not ; he probably was, but while he is our main goal threat, he is very reliant on good service from the wings. In Sousa's favoured diamond formation, this isn't generally forthcoming, and Agyemang looks much more suited to the formation. The Ghanaian forward appeared to have the beating of both Wolves fullbacks at will, but often let himself down with the final pass or shot.

Moments after the break Helguson had yet another early chance after a long punt went all the way through to him, but Hennessey somehow managed to divert the ball wide with the inside of his foot. Wolves also showed more of a threat as the game could officially be classified as "pulsating" IMO. Radek Cerny saved brilliantly from another free kick, and then threw himself backwards to claw Ebanks-Blake's header off the line when a goal seemed certain. From the next attack, Rangers took the lead. Agyemang and Martin Rowlands appeared to get in each other's way 30 yards out, until Rowlands took control and belted a swerving shot over Hennessey and into the roof of the net.

From this point, the ebb and flow of the game turned to complete ebb towards the Rangers goal, not surprisingly. Matt Jarvis came on for Wolves and looked much more threatening than Kightly had been on the other flank, but the outstanding Stewart, Gorkss and Mahon kept the Wolves from the door (groan). Indeed, the closest we came to another goal was when late Rangers substitute Di Carmine drove narrowly wide from 20 yards in injury time.

So Mick McCarthy becomes the latest manager to talk about how hard it is to come to Loftus Road, and while this has been the case for several years, certainly this season there has been a huge difference between the performance levels at home and away this season. Rangers were completely unrecognisable from the defensively solid but otherwise insipid outfit we saw at Selhurst Park the week before. I'm not getting carried away until we improve considerably on the road, but Gorkss has taken the defence to another level IMO and we have a strong base to build on from there at least. The return of Vine and Buszaky could turn QPR into a very handy outfit, but we'll have to wait till next season for that unfortunately. For now, I said I'd be happy if we were top half by Christmas and able to push on in the New Year, and hopefully that's at least where we'll be.

Crystal Palace 0 QPR 0

2008-11-30T16:12:00.002Z

This was the first away game I've been to in a long time. It's been so long that the last one was also at Selhurst Park, against Wimbledon. It was nice to know in this ever-changing world that South London and in particular Selhurst Park is still a complete dump.

I ended up going because Frode and his friend Matthis (sp ?) were at a loose end and had decided to go to the game, correct score bets in hand. The guys had lumped on 3-2, 3-3 and Any Unquoted (basically more than 3-3). Their faces dropped somewhat when I informed them that Rangers had scored 2 goals in 9 away games this season. Sports betting is all about research guys :-).

There were basically two ways this game could go IMO ; Rangers could defend well and draw 0-0, or defend badly and lose 3-0. We were treated to the former. In fact, sub Heidar Helguson should have put Rangers in front with virtually his first touch, but slid the ball wide of an open goal from 25 yards after Speroni went walkabout. That was about it from Rangers, and Palace didn't come up with much better for all their huff and puff.

I still quite enjoyed it but for the sole reason that I had someone to talk to. On my own it would have been the most boring, cold and pointless waste of time in history. Or perhaps the second ... At half time one of these keepy-uppy ponces came on, set himself up in a shoulder stand (I'm sure all you yoga devotees will know what that is) and juggled a ball on the soles of his feet for long enough to "break the record" Sergei Bubka-style. Now, I'm not denigrating how difficult this must be. It must take extraordinary balance and skill. The point I'm getting at is how can someone devote that kind of talent, and the interminable hours of practice that it must require, to something so pointless ? And could this be a metaphor for the match and indeed all of football itself ? Perhaps so.

Leeds Announce £4 Million Profit

2008-11-27T14:49:00.002Z

So you're going to pay back a few of the people you stiffed then ? Oh, actually no. Of course not, what was I thinking.

Update : Karma is very quick these days.

QPR 2 Charlton 1

2008-11-25T23:54:00.004Z

There's always someone worse off than you ; luckily for QPR that was their opponents tonight, as Rangers recorded a fortunate victory.

A dire first half somehow produced two goals. I see on the official website that Damiano Tomassi "rolled back the years with a burst down the left wing". What actually happened was that half the Charlton defence stopped because they thought the ball had gone out for a throw in. Tomassi, to be fair, sent in an excellent low cross to pick out the totally unmarked Dexter Blackstock and he converted for 1-0. Charlton equalised when a deflected cross fell to Hamer Bouazza ; his first touch was poor but he had enough space to retrieve the ball and drive it into the six yard box for Thierry Racon to force home. Apart from that absolutely nothing happened until the break.

Paulo Sousa wasted no time in replacing Samuel Di Carmine with Patrick Agyemang ; I suppose if you don't like having the chairman pick your team, the next best thing is to hook his players as soon as possible, and indeed Di Carmine, Tomassi and Parejo were all withdrawn in the second half (Parejo in particular had an absolutely shocking game). Agyemang made a difference once again, and Rangers pressed for 10 minutes without creating anything clear-cut. Charlton came back though and had 3 excellent chances in their best spell of the game. Bouazza turned Peter Ramage inside out and sent in another low cross, only for Damien Delaney to pull out a goal-saving tackle. Luke Varney blazed over from six yards with no one near him and time to pull the ball down, and Andy Gray glanced a header wide from about the same distance.

After riding their luck though, Rangers won the game 10 minutes from time. Hogan Ephraim sent in a fine cross, and Blackstock's header was even better, looping over Nicky Weaver and into the top corner. Blackstock headed another top-notch Ephraim delivery wide moments later, from what looked like a much better chance, but Rangers held on fairly comfortably to see the game out.

All in all, very happy to pick up three points with 6 players out including most of our creative options, and hopefully this will boost confidence. Despite being one point off the playoffs though, I think we'll need all the points we can get until the transfer window opens at least. Charlton, even though they ought to have won the game, weren't really much better and have a very long winter ahead of them.

QPR 1 Burnley 2

2008-11-15T18:55:00.004Z

Just like last season, Burnley fell behind early on but came back to record a deserved win at Loftus Road. At least the difference this time was that Rangers rallied after falling behind and had a good go at chasing the game, but it wasn't to be.

Rangers started very well, threatening down both flanks, and took the lead when Lee Cook and Damiano Tomassi worked some space down the left wing. Cook found Dexter Blackstock and he curved a shot around his marker and into the far corner. Rangers pressed for another 5 minutes as the visitors looked rattled, but they soon re-asserted themselves and took a grip on the game. When the excellent Robbie Blake was given far too much space on the edge of the area, he rifled in an unstoppable equaliser. From that point until half time, Rangers were totally unable to keep possession and could consider themselves fortunate to hold the visitors at bay till the break.

It seemed impossible for Rangers to come out and concede so much territory in the second half, and indeed the Rs had the better of the opening stages as Blackstock was bundled over by Clarke Carlisle in the box for a very close penalty call, and Di Carmine was denied by visiting keeper Jensen. However, when a weak header from Fitz Hall fell to substitue Alan Mahon, his good finish put Burnley ahead.

One thing in Gareth Ainsworth's favour is that he doesn't hang around with his substitutions, and he immediately made his final change, sending Patrick Agyemang on to make a third striker. Agyemang looked by far the most threatening forward from that point, and must surely be playing ahead of the ineffective Di Carmine in future. Burnley defended well though, and did plenty on the break to keep Radek Cerny busy. Rangers had another penalty shout through Blackstock which I didn't think was as good as the previous one, although Ainsworth afterwards indicated that he thought this was a clear penalty. In the closing minutes Agyemang headed wide from a corner when I thought he was going to score, and fired in a snapshot that Jensen tipped over, but the visitors held on for the win.

Of course there was a certain amount of grumbling from the home fans but this was nowhere near as bad as the Derby game ; IMO we just got turned over by a better side. People need to remember where we were this time last year, and the season before for that matter. Me, I think it would help to stop reading gossip websites and messageboards, and just stick to what actually does happen. Or basically just go to the games, enjoy them and forget about it the rest of the time. It's only football.

Update : A couple more thoughts from yesterday : Radek Cerny had no chance with either goal, made a number of good saves and looked very confident throughout. He was applauded by by both of the home "corners" in the early stages and now looks very comfortable in goal. It's very tempting to date this back to Lee Camp's departure (albeit on loan) but who knows whether that's just a coincidence.

The Lee Cook situation needs to be resolved. He's trying very hard, perhaps even too hard, but not really firing and doesn't look the same player as he was two years ago. I honestly don't see the point of sending Balanta off to Wycombe and giving Ephraim half a game here and there when we have loan players like Cook (and Ledesma to an extent) playing in their positions. Similarly with Di Carmine who just doesn't look up to it. Loan players have to be clearly better than what you already have or there's no point IMO.

Finally I was astonished to see Michael Mancienne called up in the England squad. Pleased for him for sure, but he really didn't impress much last season. Either he's suddenly playing blinders for Wolves or, more likely, he has generally been good in the U21s. Anyway good luck to him.

Barnet 1 Rochdale 1

2008-11-09T13:19:00.002Z

I figured that QPR could manage without me for one weekend. They've got my money anyway, which seems to be mostly what they care about. It wasn't a great game against Cardiff by all accounts but it was a decent result, and nice to see Mahon score the winner, I give him a lot more credit as a player than most of the people around me seem to at LR.

As for Barnet, it was easy to see why they've found it difficult this year. Puncheon's gone of course, and Hatch still hasn't been replaced from January. They also look a little weaker in defence and lacking in confidence all round. Not much happened in the first half, but five minutes into the second, confusion in the home defence allowed Gary Jones too much time to retrieve a loose ball and cross for Chris Dagnall to score from close range. Barnet huffed and puffed and scored a rather fortunate equaliser when a free kick fell into the path of Ishmael Yakubu, who slotted it nicely though.

Barnet didn't try to force the issue towards the end as much as they could have done. I would have thought that gambling for the win in the last 10 minutes would have been a better bet than going up to Rochdale for a replay, but I held my counsel at the time, unlike a lot of the whingebags around me. I still don't understand this mentality, if you don't enjoy going to football then why bother. Still, some people actually like complaining I know.

Finally there was just one moment that made me wonder what football is coming to. When Rochdale's chief shouter instructed one of their number to "fooking" do whatever, someone shouted out "language !" from the crowd. The coach turned round and, instead of giving some back or flipping the guy off or anything, actually held up a hand in apology. I suppose it's good really, but if you can't swear at a football match these days, where the fuck can you IMO.

QPR 1 Birmingham 0

2008-10-29T10:06:00.003Z

Rangers pulled out a fine result last night after looking completely up against it at half time. The team selection had the air of Briatore's involvement once again, with Tomassi starting in midfield, Ledesma returning and Di Carmine keeping his place up front, although Parejo was on the bench and Blackstock returned to join Di Carmine. City started on the front foot and should have taken the lead within 3 minutes when Cameron Jerome was clean through on goal, but after a poor touch he had to hurry his shot and Radek Cerny saved well. Cerny also pushed away a fierce Kevin Phillips volley, and was rewarded with a first ever appreciative chant from the Loft !

Once the game settled down, City had much more possession and were able to regularly stretch the Rangers defence through the excellent McFadden. The home side tried to play the ball too quickly for the most part, but worked their way back into the game with Lee Cook providing his usual quota of dangerous crosses. Five minutes before the break, the game turned when Michele Leigertwood lost possession in midfield, chased back after it and tried to pull out of his challenge on Lee Carsley after the ball had gone. By the time he arrived, unable to check his momentum on the wet turf, he couldn't avoid making contact, but it seemed light enough, with Carsley staying on his feet and barely reacting at all. Referee Atwell, however, immediately brandished the red card, to the fury of home players and fans. This is the 25 year old "fast tracked" referee who gave the non-existent goal at Watford. I'd say fast tracking would be good for him now, providing it's in the opposite direction.

Anyway, matters looked bleak at half time, given how the visitors had controlled most of the first half before the sending off. In a bold move though, Gareth Ainsworth kept two up front and replaced Cook with Gavin Mahon. This was rewarded when a quick counter-attack seemed to have broken down, but Tomassi won the ball back and fed Di Carmine 25 yards out. The young Italian promptly belted the ball into the top corner to send Loftus Road into raptures.

City responded with a flurry of corners, from one of which Phillips' shot was cleared off the line, but after that they were absolutely hopeless. This shouldn't take away from the quality of Rangers' defending, from front to back, but even so you would have thought the league leaders should have done better. McFadden and Phillips were forced out of dangerous areas, leaving the leaden-footed Jerome and Bent, who looks to have put on about a stone and a half since I saw him at Charlton, to blunder around in the middle. Substitute Quincy was unable to either make an impact on the game or unmask the murderer from a piece of bum-fluff found at the scene of the crime. Phillips netted from an offside position in injury time, but Rangers held out, despite playing with almost nine men as Ledesma looked out on his feet.

I'd have given you at least 10-1 on a Rangers win at half time, but that's the beauty of the game, how it can surprise you. Discussion of the managerial position should wait till another day, as the team deserve all credit for last night's committed and composed defending, with a special mention for Damion Stewart who was absolutely outstanding.

Here We Go Again ...

2008-10-25T08:06:00.002+01:00

I wasn't amazed to see the news of Iain Dowie's departure when I arrived home last night ; I could easily say that I wasn't even surprised. It's almost impossible to know what's going on in the club at the moment. I don't want to keep falling into this trap where I slate the press in one piece and then repeat all their rumours in the next ! For whatever reason though, Dowie and Briatore just couldn't work together and so off we go again. At least we lasted 12 games before sacking the manager this season, compared to 8 in each of the last two.

I haven't got time to comment fully, and I'd love to see if Dowie's side of it comes out, although it rarely does in these circumstances, the outgoing manager preferring to pocket a payoff for keeping it shut. Keeping it shit I typed in there first, Freudian. Going forward the board need to make some clear decisions.

Firstly : hands on manager or coach who does what he's told. Pick one, make sure the new incumbent knows the score and everyone knows where they stand. Obviously I'd prefer the former but if you can't bear to let the manager do his job because you think your one hour a week dealing with football qualifies you better, then at least make this clear at the start.

Secondly : decide whether we're buying a team for quick promotion or building one for the medium term. If the former, spend some money. A lot of money in fact, although I can't see automatic promotion this season whatever given there's still two months to the transfer window. If the latter, then enough with the loan signings. For example, I love Lee Cook, we all do, but he's not our player. Either buy him or send him back and play our own young players, like Balanta and Ephraim. What's the use of them sitting in the stand watching if Cook goes back to Fulham at the end of the year.

But what can you do. We don't know what's going on and we certainly have little or no control over it. The club is rapidly becoming a joke and the worst thing is, if you look at it from the point of view of a good, upcoming manager who already has a sound gig (like Martinez at Swansea), why would he leave that to go to QPR, where he could get sacked for having 6 bad games or insisting on picking his own team ?

As You Were

2008-10-22T21:23:00.002+01:00

Rangers announced today that there will be no more "Category A" games this season. I kind of suspected they would ; after all, if Derby County was an "A" games, then you would have expected Forest and Birmingham to be similarly classified, which they weren't. And while late is better than never, a lot of damage has been done in PR terms that will take a while to overcome. Unless the Standard and the Mail report the re-think under a headline of "QPR not such greedy bastards after all". That'll be the day.

On the pitch, the win against Forest was an important one and, while all reports indicate that the performance was awful at least going forward, not many teams will take a point at Swansea this season. Lee Camp's departure on loan isn't a major surprise to me, there's clearly something going on off the field there. Recent reports indicate that the management aren't particularly happy with any of the keepers at their disposal, and that rings true enough to me. We'll see.

As for me, I was surprised how much I was funking the Forest result in Dublin ; clearly I do care after all :-). One more thing, the editor of the fanzine I used to write for, In The Loft, has produced a compilation book which you can find here. I haven't seen it yet (should pick it up at the Birmingham game) but I'm in it so obv it's great. Seriously, I always thought we were one of the better fanzines around and it should make a good read.

A Season Too Far ?

2008-10-10T11:15:00.003+01:00

I can't remember where I recently heard someone say "It's not the principle, it's the money". It made me laugh, and could easily be applied to what's happening at QPR, and many other football clubs to be fair.

Here's a good piece from the Mirror about club owners :

Why football fans should care as much about who owns their club as they do who plays for it .

QPR of course get a mention, and he makes a fair enough point. These guys are not philanthropists, and while it's true that the club was in desperate straits when they came in, no one thinks they did it out of charity. On top of the Derby fiasco, QPR have apparently rejected Manchester United's offer to reduce prices for the league cup tie, and £40 it is again.

They say the money is going to be reinvested in the team, and as long as it is, I expect most people will tolerate it. If it isn't though, well we'll have to see what happens. I myself am thinking about drawing a line in the sand after this season. Anything more than £20 to watch a football match is ridiculous when you think about it. Compare it to the cinema, 90 minutes entertainment, sometimes good, sometimes bad - £6.

There are clubs who are doing it right ; Hull City are charging £20-25 for Premiership football [1], and they've made a statement about staying in the black whatever happens, and keeping to their wage budget accordingly. Not a bad start in the Premiership either ! Charlton's prices were reasonable in the Premiership and still are in the Championship (although maybe their fans might prefer more investment in the team). But the real blueprint IMO is Bradford City. They've gone completely the other way with admission prices ; £140 for a season ticket, and as a result they get 13,000 in League Two, compared to the all the other 2-5 thousands. Consequently, they sell 3 times as many programmes, hot dogs, etc, and they have a bigger crowd cheering on the home team and intimidating the away.

I'll be out of town for the Forest game, and then the next one is Birmingham City in 3 weeks time. This gives me a break at least. After that I might just turn up whenever, not worry about it too much and try to just enjoy the games. Then maybe next year I might find something better to do TBH.

[1] I don't know if this is increased for Liverpool, Man U etc. but there's no indication on their website that this is the case.

Correction : The decision about ticket prices for the cup game was entirely down to Manchester United :

http://www.qpr.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10373~1419984,00.html

I should know better, the amount of complaining about the press I do !

QPR 1 Blackpool 1

2008-10-01T10:18:00.002+01:00

This was a definite improvement on Saturday, and in the end Rangers could count themselves unlucky not to win. The home team passed the ball well for 15 minutes, and created a couple of half-chances, when Blackpool suddenly scored out of nowhere. A long punt forward fell to Gary Taylor-Fletcher and he had time to flick the ball up and send a fine volley swerving into the top corner. This knocked Rangers' confidence and they only threatened close to half-time when Dexter Blackstock could have done better from two wicked Lee Cook crosses.

Iain Dowie wasted no time in replacing Latin lightweights Parejo and Ledesma with the more forthright presences of Leigertwood and Agyemang, and Rangers were soon on the front foot. Cook's low drive was saved well by Rachubka, and after a string of corners delivered into the heart of the 6-yard box by Rowlands and Cook, Dexter Blackstock headed one in, only to be denied by a very late flag after the referee had clearly given the goal.

While Rangers dominated possession, the final ball just wouldn't quite come and it seemed like a set piece would be their best best. So it proved, in a way, as third substitute Akos Buzsaky sent a sublime free-kick onto the crossbar, with Blackstock diving to head the rebound in. The anticipated late assault proceeded in fits and starts as Rangers were too anxious to win possession back and gave away a number of momentum-stalling free kicks. The closest they came was when Leigertwood's header was deflected over by a defender who knew very little about it. Four injury time corners tested the visiting defence to the limit, but they clung on for the point.

The last two home games have been a bit of a reality check for Rangers, and while they could have timed this a bit better than just after I backed them for everything, it might not do any harm in the long run. Parejo and Ledesma are finding it more difficult against physical opponents, and I have to say I really don't like Parejo playing in the 2 of a 4-2-3-1 because he has a tendency to play over-ambitious passes, which isn't so bad in the last third, but can cause a lot of problems on half-way. Still, there's plenty of time to work with it, and with Wolves, Birmingham and Reading looking a clear cut above the rest of the division, we can settle in and try to work towards a play-off spot IMO.

QPR 0 Derby 2

2008-09-28T00:26:00.003+01:00

If you expected to be disappointed, does it count as disappointment ? One for the philosophers there, but let's just say this wasn't a big surprise. Teams with a real winning mentality don't ease off after a great result, they come out even stronger in the next game. Rangers have never been able to do that, and they didn't today.

All the forward players were below par, but Rangers still managed to come close three times, Blackstock was denied by a goal-saving challenge in the first half, then Ledesma's shot was bundled onto a post by a defender in the second half, and Blackstock struck the same post shortly after. But it was all too few and far between as pass after pass was misplaced. Even so, over-worked centre-halves Hall and Stewart might have salvaged a point, but with 10 minutes left Albrechtsen had way too much space to drill home a shot after a corner wasn't cleared, and Villa headed a second from another corner in the dying minutes. As the quiz question goes, we could beat Villa on Wednesday, but not today.

I don't have a lot to add on top of this interview with assistant Tim Flowers, which is accurate and to the point. At least we're back at it against Blackpool on Tuesday ; I expect to see Leigertwood back in for Parejo, and Ledesma could probably use a rest as well.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

2008-09-18T16:57:00.004+01:00

The good news first, a great win for Rangers last night, Norwich are no mugs and to actually win the game after going down to 10 men on 25 minutes was a hell of a result. It's far more the mark of a team that actually achieves something to win a game like this 1-0 compared to battering lightweight opposition 4-1 at home as on Sunday.

Unfortunately, the club have stepped right in it with recent price increases. The timing is particularly bad, there were increases during the summer, but these had been taken on board and were overshadowed somewhat, if not completely, by the team's good start on the pitch. If you're not familiar with the story, last week Rangers suddenly announced that they were going back to categorising games as A, B and C, with £5-£10 increases for A games compared to the prices announced pre-season. The first of these "A" games is Derby County (hmm) on Saturday week. County have, quite rightly, dug their heels in about their fans being charged £40 to watch a Championship game and this has brought it all out into the open (it's not quite so bad for home fans because they have cheaper seating options and many, like me, have season tickets anyway).

The best seats in the ground are a ludicrous £50 for this game, and while there are only a handful of them, this allows the press to print half-truths like "the club have announced a hike in matchday tickets which will see pay-on-the-day fans charged £50 for a 'Category A' match. " (The Mail) [1]. In this case, don't blame the dog for biting you - that's what the Mail does, and the club have let it happen. It's a huge PR black eye for the relatively small extra income it will bring in and I hope that the club see sense and reverse this decision ASAP.

[1] To be fair, The Mirror did have the decency to point out that this was for "some seats".

Update 22/9 : One interesting footnote to this : Derby did something similar last year, albeit in the Premiership.

Resolution 23/9 : Derby's complaint was successful. QPR have responded by reducing prices is corresponding home areas (behind the other goal), but the other increases hold. Rather surprisingly, QPR have also announced that they've sold all the £50 tickets. I suspect there only were a few hundred at that price anyway, which really makes me wonder whether it was worth attracting the bad publicity in the first place.

QPR 4 Southampton 1

2008-09-14T21:03:00.002+01:00

This was quite a strange game. Despite not playing particularly well IMO, Rangers scored 4, had 2 more disallowed (albeit correctly), hit the post and forced a string of fine saves from the overworked Kelvin Davies in the visitors' goal. Southampton's passing and movement were excellent but they were very, very lightweight in defence even before going down to 10 men.

It took less than a minute for Rangers to take the lead. On winning a throw-in from the kickoff, Rangers sent more defenders forward than they have in these situations recently, which may (or may not) have contributed to the chaos in the Saints' defence. Everyone clustered at the near post, allowing Dexter Blackstock to nip around Lee Cook as the ball bounced over his head and slam in a close-range shot with no defenders in sight. When their debut centre-half Ollie Lancashire (I know, I'd never heard of half the team) was sent off for a reckless lunge at Damien Delaney, the result seemed a foregone conclusion.

However, Davies kept his side in the game with good saves from Blackstock and Delaney, and then a superb reaction stop from Blackstock's near post shot after a sweet Rangers passing move. And 10 minutes into the second half a smooth counter-attack was finished off by Adam Lallana to send the away fans into raptures and level the game up. Iain Dowie wasted no time in replacing the ineffective Dani Parejo and adding another striker in Patrick Agyemang. Within a couple of minutes, the other substitute Martin Rowlands sent over a free kick that again saw the defence go AWOL as Damien Stewart tapped home, although just about every report says he was clearly offside. This time the game really was over and Davies did well to restrict the Hoops to only two more, Blackstock following up after Agyemang's shot was saved, and then Agyemang himself driving home in injury time.

I was glad to read Iain Dowie's comments when I got home, saying that we didn't play as well as we could, which was absolutely correct, and also praising Blackstock who has been a huge plus this season with the way he's taken to a lone striker role. The defence, which was quite sloppy at times today, will be tested more fully at Norwich and Coventry in the last two games.

Finally if you missed it in the week, Rangers signed free agent Damiano Tomassi on a season-long deal. If the name is familiar, Tomassi is the player who, when at Roma, only accepted minimum wage when trying to prove his fitness after a bad knee injury. A sort of anti Michael Owen. I loved the comment on the BBC Sport forum saying how good it was that Tomassi could communicate with the Italian players and Dani Parejo on the field. Clearly an advocate of Homer Simpson's theory that Italian and Spanish are the same language. Ahh, it's all foreign, what difference ?

Just When It Was Starting To Get Interesting

2008-09-02T08:28:00.002+01:00

As usual, just as everyone was getting into the swing of it, everything stops for 10 days so England can play Andorra. Again. Still, a good time to chew over the action so far, especially in that the start of the season is so important, at least in terms of perception.

Say Team A wins their first three games, does averagely well over the bulk of the season, and loses the last three games. Team B does the opposite, 3 losses, average, 3 wins. Even though they finish level, fans and media will all go away thinking that team A had the better season. And in a sense, they did. Because Team A will have spent three months in the top 6 before settling down to mid-table, whereas Team B spend three months in the bottom 6 before clawing their way up.

QPR have matched the criteria laid down in the last post for a "good start". I am quite a bit more confident now than I was pre-season, not just because of results, but a few pointers gleaned from events so far. Mainly, the management team have adapted the system to the players available and made quick and effective changes to solve the problems that have arisen, notably after the hammering at Sheffield United. It's clearer than it's ever been (IMO) that truly no one has an automatic right to play, but players seem to be respecting this and responding in the right way. Captain Martin Rowlands will be back in the side soon enough, but as a substitute on Saturday, he was noticeably the first to congratulate Dexter Blackstock on his goal. Dexter's playing well as the lone striker and has already picked up 3 goals ; and while the defence still looks a little light numerically, as Dowie points out, if you have enough centre-halves (which we do) then you can change the system if need be. I'm not bothered that no one was brought in yesterday ; if the right players aren't available, wait until they are. Rangers will strengthen in January IMO if they're in contention. Seeing as this start is better than I anticipated, and yet promotion odds have drifted to 5-2, I have had a nibble. Dare to dream and so on.

By contrast, Barnet have stumbled out of the blocks horribly, losing the first 3 games and then taking a battering at Chester who had also lost their first 3. Any manager is only X games from the sack, with X being a variable according to past credit, character of board, etc. Time isn't on Paul Fairclough's side but he's done so well there I really hope he can turn it round soon enough. Rotherham are gobbling up their points deficit tout suite and Luton are suggesting that they might just do enough over 46 games.

Elsewhere, yet another fake apology that incenses me 100 times more than the actual thing being apologised for. Newcastle owner Mike Ashley at least has half an idea how to keep it real on the streets, even if his identikit Newcastle fan outfit almost looks too good to be true, right down to the receding hairline. You won't see Ashley carefully draping a scarf over a 2 grand suit like Al Fayed and men of his ilk. During the game at Arsenal on Saturday, cameras caught the Toon Army General downing a pint in the classic style (and by all accounts this was the most free-flowing move Newcastle put together all afternoon). Now, as I've been saying lately the rules should be the same for everyone ; and the police don't make the laws and are obliged to have a word because of course you're not supposed to drink in the stands. So they have a word. Newcastle's official response ? Let's consider the options :

- Oh FFS he downed a pint, what's the fine, here's double for charity
- Sorry, someone gave me a pint and in the heat of the moment I forgot
- Pathetic insulting cover-up ?

You guessed it. Salient extract : "Newcastle issued a statement which said: "Mike was offered a drink which he thought was non-alcoholic so he took it in good faith." ". Oh for GOD'S SAKE. He thought it was ginger beer ? That's why he went "Hey, look at me everyone, watch me make light work of this fizzy pop".

Further extract : "Arsenal confirmed they do not sell non-alcoholic beer in the stadium.". I hereby confirm that the world is full of pathetic scumbag lawyers who would tell you black is white for ninepence to insult and lower the intelligence of everyone around them unfortunate enough to be within earshot.

Finally there's only one transfer that caught my eye yesterday. You can keep your Berbatovs and Robinhos because West Brom have signed Ryan Donk from AZ Alkmaar. His position ? Well there would be something badly wrong with the Universe if a player called Ryan Donk wasn't a centre half, don't you think ?

QPR 2 Doncaster Rovers 0

2008-08-23T21:10:00.003+01:00

Rangers put in a much better performance to win this game fairly comfortably. Following last week's defensive debacle (by all accounts), Ramage and Stewart returned to the back four in place of Connolly and Gorkss. Gavin Mahon also came back into midfield to captain the side at the expense of a striker. While everyone wants to see two up front, especially at home, it appears that this 4-2-3-1 formation probably suits the players at Iain Dowie's disposal, given the surfeit of creative midfielders and lack of options further forward.

This system does put a lot of pressure on the lone striker ; fortunately Dexter Blackstock had his best game for some time, and it was his close-range finish that gave Rangers an early lead from Daniel Parejo's excellent free kick delivery. Parejo and fellow flamboyant Latin type Emmanuel Ledesma were causing the visitors all sorts of problems with their movement and close control, and after Parejo had headed narrowly over from Ramage's cross, Ledesma doubled the score on the half hour. Stewart's quick free kick caught the visiting defence napping, and while the Argentinian might have been a shade offside, his immaculate first touch took him clear of three opponents and he poked a shot into the corner. And then was promptly booked for going into the crowd to celebrate. Exuberance of youth :-).

Fitz Hall limped off to be replaced by Matthew Connolly, but if anything the home defence looked even tighter with this change, and for all Doncaster's good passing and movement, Radek Cerny wasn't troubled all afternoon in the Rangers goal. Unfortunately nor was Neil Sullivan (who must be what now, 40 ?) in the second half as the game petered out, but with Rangers 2-0 to the good that wasn't our problem !

So all in all a step forward for QPR in what a lot of people thought would be a difficult game. In the event, Rangers are probably going to struggle more against the more physical teams, and the visitors lacked a cutting edge with one (possibly two I'm not sure) main striker missing. Still, you could see them being a pain to play against if they go in front, as they did keep the ball very well at times. If Rangers can see Carlisle off on Tuesday and then take something away to Bristol City next weekend that will go down as a very satisfactory start to the season.

QPR 2 Barnsley 1

2008-08-10T10:11:00.003+01:00

QPR recorded an unconvincing win in their opening game, but a win nonetheless. Cerny, Gorkss, Ramage and Ledesma made their debuts for the home side, but it was Barnsley's new signing Iain Hume who sprinted through a big gap in the Rangers defence to open the scoring on five minutes. It wasn't even their first chance, Jon Macken having fluffed an excellent opportunity from 10 yards, and Rangers were seriously wobbling. Fortunately Barnsley couldn't add to their lead, and with Ledesma coming into the game, Rangers started to push forward. And it was the Argentinian's free kick that led to the equaliser ; Barnsley keeper Steele fumbled the low shot, and a whole posse of Rangers players forced the ball in via the crossbar, with Fitz Hall claiming the final touch. Within two minutes, Hall added a second, volleying from over his shoulder across the keeper after Barnsley had failed to clear Lee Cook's corner.

Rangers then had the better of the first half, but Barnsley were stronger in the second, especially after Hall of all people wasted the chance to kill the game from the penalty spot. Most people around the ground assumed that Hall was taking the penalty because he was on a hat-trick, which seemed unprofessional at 2-1, but Iain Dowie maintained after the game that Hall was the designated penalty taker, which seemed unlikely until you actually looked around the team and wondered who else would have taken it. Fortunately Martin Rowlands will be back soon to relieve him of the job.

Barnsley had several set-piece opportunities but with Gavin Mahon seeming to head almost all of them out of danger, Rangers hung on, more comfortably after Van Homoet was sent off for slashing at another debutant Dani Parejo from behind. The Spaniard showed a few neat touches in a 20-minute cameo without seeing much of the ball, as did winger Matteo Alberti. Of the starting newcomers, Ledesma was the clear pick, very skilful and a real threat. Ramage had a decent game at right-back, but Gorkss and Cerny perhaps need some time to settle in. It does seem harsh on Lee Camp to be immediately replaced in goal IMO, and he looked a lot less than happy during the half-time subs kickabout.

In the end everyone was glad to pick up 3 points even if the performance could have used a lot of improvement ; it's very important to start with some momentum, and that's one game out of the way before Rowlands comes back at least.

Once More Unto The Breach

2008-08-08T17:47:00.002+01:00

Screw the Olympics, it's the Football League !!!1! And where to start but Loftus Road, with the hoops being as short as 11-2 ftw this season. While this is way too short, expectations are high. Dani Parejo received clearance to play today, and I'm really looking forward to seeing him. One commenter on a BBC Messageboard who lives in Spain (and is not a QPR fan) said "if this boy was playing with a broken leg he'd still be the best player in the Championship". And it must be true. Bloke on the internet said. With Lee Cook also making a welcome return and Buzsaky still recovering from injury, the forwards should have plenty of ammunition to work with. Whether they can convert this into goals is not so sure ; pre-season has not gone well, especially in terms of goalscoring, and we still look a striker short. But Agyemang and Blackstock have both had their spells of scoring a lot of goals and so deserve the chance to start IMO. If they don't fire straight away though, expect another arrival before the transfer deadline (end of August).

Whatever happens it should be exciting and I'd rather be reading predictions about how we "probably aren't good enough to go up" than "will struggle to avoid the drop". League Two is much less appealing this year, Barnet will find it difficult without Jason Puncheon (gone to Plymouth) but manager Paul Fairclough keeps finding players somewhere, and more to the point they're going to have a 30 point start on Luton (ha ha), and 17 on Rotherham and probably Bournemouth too. So this gives them plenty of room to build and develop some of the younger players. So let's have at it !

On The Other Hand ...

2008-05-28T14:22:00.003+01:00

I did say see you in August but just one more, for this pathetic spin in from the Evening Standard. It's about season ticket price increases at QPR. Here's the relevant snippet :

"Among them is salesman Mark Todd, 40, who has seen the season-ticket bill for himself and his young sons Lewis, eight, and Oliver, five, increase from £530 this season to £1,599. Todd, from Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, told Standard Sport: "I have been a season-ticket holder in the South Africa Road stand upper tier for eight years. "Last season I paid £460 for my ticket and £70 for Lewis's, while Oliver's was free as part of an FA initiative. But the club have decided to change the price structure for our part of the ground and call it the Platinum Area. That means if we want to continue sitting there, which we do, I'd have to fork out £699 for my ticket and £450 each for both of my boys. "

What this guy is saying is that if he makes the completely ridiculous decision to pay £450 for a season ticket for a 5-year-old in a particular area of the ground instead of getting him in for free anywhere else, then it's going to cost him a lot of money. And of course the Standard, who have had a grudge against the club for several years and have had to officially apologise for malicious and untrue stories about the club more than once, are happy to oblige. This guy could still get a perfectly acceptable season ticket for himself and his two children for £624. It just wouldn't be the best seats in the house, which the club are quite reasonably trying to maximise revenue from instead of giving them away free to 5 year olds.

Yes, season tickets have gone up. For sure, voice your concerns. But don't talk a load of shite.

Done And Done

2008-05-26T13:16:00.002+01:00

With apologies to fans of Stockport and Rochdale, if any such exist that aren't on their way to Wembley right now, that's another season wrapped up. While I try not to indulge in schadenfreude, it would take a better man than me not to have a chuckle as fans of Chelsea, (Glasgow) Rangers and Leeds end up crying in their snakebites. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys. Meanwhile my sympathies to those who had to clean up after them in Moscow, North London and particularly Manchester.

Congrats to Hull in the Championship, it does always appeal to an innate sense of rightness when the team who finished third win the playoffs. All go at QPR for next season of course under Iain Dowie ; if you're wondering why I haven't commented on this as yet it's because I'm just going to wait and see. Dowie said all the right things at a press conference but talk is, as ever, cheap. It's the first time in a good while that Rangers have changed the manager in the close-season rather than the more traditional panic measure after 8 games. For the most part the Rs are second favourites to Birmingham in the early betting, and when you look at the line-up, if Palace, Reading, Derby and Sheffield United are next favoured, it looks like we should have a fair chance if we can get our act together. The club have hiked up season ticket prices in many areas of the ground, which is not unexpected ; it's no odds to a balla like me but it would have been nice if there was some mechanism for people who have had season tickets for like 10 years to get some kind of discount. God knows they've suffered enough.

Finally my bets were mostly rubbish (LDO), Bolton at 6-1 for relegation was value in hindsight but they managed to scrape out of it, while my best bet of all was laying England to qualify for Euro 2008. Which is coming up pretty soon, easy as it is to miss it now. I'll be in Vegas so that can manage perfectly well without me. See you in August !

De Canio Leaves

2008-05-08T16:46:00.003+01:00

By mutual consent, apparently. I'm quite disappointed to hear this, I liked him. He did extremely well with the players he had, improved the style of football beyond recognition and had a sense of humour when interviewed.

Perhaps the real problem was that all these interviews had to be done through an interpreter. There was a lot of speculation that he hadn't settled, and I think it's fairly clear that he wasn't choosing the players to bring in. The next appointment is absolutely huge and I have no idea who it's going to be. We'll just have to wait and see. For now, ciao and grazie Luigi.

QPR 0 West Brom 2

2008-05-04T21:25:00.002+01:00

Not much to this one really. Rangers were always going to find it difficult against the champions elect missing Buzsaky, Agyemang, Vine, Hall and Stewart, but started reasonably well and had the better of the first half hour. Dexter Blackstock should probably have scored from Gareth Ainsworth's cross but Kiely managed to claw his header off the line. 10 minutes before half time Martin Rowlands was sent off for an ill-advised lunge on Jonathan Greening and from that point the visitors were always going to be too good. Do-Heon Kim nodded them into the lead from close range and, after Chris Brunt had smacked a marker onto the crossbar, he went one better with an excellent free kick into the top corner.

So their fans were able to celebrate, and why not, they deserved to win it definitely. Hopefully we will have some celebrating of our own to do this time next year.

Barnet 2 Stockport 1

2008-04-26T20:26:00.003+01:00

A good enough game to keep me awake in the spring sunshine. Just. Which is more a comment on my mental state than the game, which was OK. Stockport played the better football in the first half and missed two great chances to take the lead, first of all Lowe clipped a loose ball onto the post rather casually, and 10 minutes later Gleeson looked certain to score when Josh Wright pulled out a saving last-ditch block with keeper Harrison stranded. Barnet's PA announcer then attempted to liven up the atmosphere by announcing the score "Brentford 0 Hereford 2" five minutes before half-time, a classless act that reflected poorly on the club. Obviously someone had a word because he apologised at half-time. I mean it's hardly the kind of thing you do by accident.

Adomah had put in a couple of good crosses and shown some decent footwork on occasion in the first half but, not for the first time, it was the other winger Jason Puncheon who was the class act on display. He fired the Bees in front just after the break after winning a free kick, having his first effort blocked but then shooting home low through the crowd from 20 yards. County equalised five minutes later when Rowe lobbed Harrison after a defensive mix-up. It looked all set to drift into a 1-1 draw when Barnet introduced a couple of young substitutes and one of them, Danny Hart, sent in a fizzing cross that Cliff Akurang only had to connect with to score, which he did.

Giuliano Grazioli came on for a well-received cameo towards the end as Barnet closed it out. They're 11th now and can count that as a really good effort after having to sell three quality players before the season started. County meanwhile will take their place in the play-offs, which looked fair enough on today's showing.

Just one more game to go then, QPR v West Brom next Sunday, and I really hope that the Baggies will already be promoted by then, as it will make for a party atmosphere and anyway they're clearly the best side in the division.

Kindly Old Uncle Alex

2008-04-26T11:27:00.004+01:00

It's hard to imagine these gnarly managers as Werthers-sucking JR Hartley grandfather figures but they do have like families and wives who presumably don't get the full hair-dryer treatment for overdoing the Sunday roast. Although you never know. And not that kind of roast. But dammit all either Alex Ferguson is mellowing in his old age or I am, because he said some nice things about QPR yesterday that I liked :

Sir Alex On QPR

Just for that I'm going to give United the considerable boost of my funk power at the Bridge today. You can't deny the quality of football United have played for more than a decade, and it's easy for me to forget that sometimes when I don't watch TV games.

I'll probably catch the second half today in the pub when I make amends for being very remiss about getting up to Underhill lately. It's been all QPR QPR QPR and I've been busy with other stuff but I'm going to pop up today, partly because they're playing Stockport who are right in the thick of it so it's a big game for at least one team, and partly to have a look at this Albert Adomah who is attracting a lot of interest. Spring is finally here so it's a nice day to catch some fresh air, as fresh as the air gets in Barnet anyway :-)

Update : Bok, ldo.

QPR 1 Charlton 0

2008-04-19T20:05:00.002+01:00

Rangers won comfortably today against a sluggish Charlton. Lee Cook started for the visitors, to great applause, and Rangers played 16 year old Angelo Balanta up front in the absence of Vine and Agyemang. I'm sure a striker is going to be top of the summer shopping list, if not two, but fortunately Dexter Blackstock is back in the goals and he put the Rs in front on 15 minutes, outmuscling Patrick McCarthy and slotting home from 10 yards.

The hapless McCarthy almost made it two, shinning one just over from the edge of his own box, as Rangers controlled the game without threatening all that much. Cook limped off, to general relief, and Charlton only rallied for a short spell when Iwelumo came on to add some muscle up front. Martin Rowlands and Balanta clipped the Charlton bar and the game should have been over five minutes from time when substitute Akos Buzsaky overhit his cross to Rowlands with the goal gaping as they say. Charlton woke up a bit and punted a few into the mixer but the excellent Damion Stewart and Matthew Connolly soaked it up and held on for the win.

I was surprised how little urgency the visitors seemed to show in a game that meant much more for them than for us, but so it goes. Rangers are showing admirable professionalism as they play the season out, although as Fitz Hall said on the club site on Friday, this is as much because players know that plans are being drawn for next season and replacements can be shipped in double quick if required.

While I'm here a quick hats off to Aldershot and Gary Waddock, Aldershot because they started all the way from the bottom again like you're supposed to, and Waddock because he's a top man who was let down by certain players at Rangers IMO and I'm very pleased that he has done so well there. What odds a League Cup clash next season ? These things do happen :-)

QPR 2 Preston 2

2008-04-06T15:43:00.002+01:00

Rangers pulled out a ludicrous runner-runner chop yesterday after being comfortably second best for the entire game. With Vine, Buzsaky and Delaney all missing, and three or four others playing well short of par, there would have been no complaints if Preston had gone away 2-0 winners. However, Gareth Ainsworth inspired an unlikely comeback in injury time to snatch a point.

Lee Camp had already saved well from Mellor and the excellent Whaley before Rangers forced their first effort on goal, Dexter Blackstock nicking the ball off the visiting defence and having his fierce shot pushed away by Lonergan. Preston went straight upfield, won a corner that could surely have been avoided, and from the set-piece Mawene's header fell to Mellor who blasted a volley past the helpless Camp. Michael Mancienne, Rangers' best outfield player on the day, fired wide from 25 yards just before the break, but that was it for the home side in an off-colour first half.

Matters soon worsened when Whaley and Sedgwick doubled up on the isolated Mancienne and Sedgwick's cross was bundled in by a combination of Priskin and defender Connolly. Camp had to pull out a fine save from Priskin's header and with a better cutting edge the visitors would have been out of sight. Luigi de Canio shuffled his pack as best he could, but with 5 minutes left large swathes of the home support were heading for the exits.

Suddenly though Ainsworth, who had been completely ineffective up to that point, stuck a leg out onto a low cross and somehow lobbed the ball over Lonergan for what looked like a consolation. Rangers woke up and threw caution to the wind, Camp coming forward for a corner, and remarkably Ainsworth found room to swing over a good cross which Blackstock converted after nipping in front of his marker.

Naturally we celebrated this as though we had just been promoted. Well you do, don't you. All in all, Preston were as good as anyone I've seen at Loftus Road this season, and confirmed my current thinking that you'd much rather play one of the "table-topping" sides right now than the form teams. Unfortunately for us it's a trip to Hull next week, the form team of them all. But it's a good test, and that's what the rest of the season is all about, testing ourselves and trying to gel all the elements together into a team to challenge next season.

This Is Where Honesty Gets You

2008-03-25T13:36:00.002Z

I found this report depressing for more than one reason :

James dropped by BBC Wales

First of all, I feel that James has been singled out because he has busted the myth of "we all want other local teams to do well". This comes up more often when English clubs are playing in the Champions league, but in this case, James has expressed the views of I would guess 99% of Swansea fans. The last thing they want in the world is Cardiff winning the cup. He hasn't said "I hate Cardiff" or "Cardiff are all wankers", all he said is, once again :

"To see Cardiff in the final would be hard to take for Swansea fans. So, to be brutally honest, I think I'm behind Barnsley on this one."

And more to the point IMO he didn't even say it in his capacity as a BBC commentator. He said it in a newspaper column. He was being honest, he said it as politely as he could, and the vast majority of people who get off their arses and actually watch football at the gate know exactly what he means and feel exactly the same way.

However, Auntie Beeb and all the people watching who think that John Motson is the country's leading football expert can't have their cosy little world disrupted like this. And the worst thing of all is they're complete hypocrites. You've got Gary Lineker mumbling his way through "and Scotland miss out again for another year, commiserations to them" while trying not to laugh, or Alan Green trying to commentate on a Liverpool win without creaming his pants, but as long as they don't actually say anything they really mean, there's no problem.

As ever, the correct role model to follow is Jeff Stelling. He supports Hartlepool, makes no secret of it, but is able to work this into his presentation without being unprofessional because he's any good. Because he's clever, witty and a genuine fan, and those of us who prefer to see the world as it is rather than have "everything's great and we all love each other" spoon fed to us the whole time can respect that.

UEFA's Cold Balls

2008-03-15T20:06:00.002Z

There's an excellent rumour going around that the Champions League draw was fixed. Just google "Champions league draw fixed" like I did and you'll get the flavour. What appears to be beyond dispute is that at 10.28am yesterday someone posted this on a Liverpool Echo football forum :

"Rumour going around draw has been leaked….. this is no doubt rubbish but if Rumour is true it’s LFC - arsenal and Chelsea - fenerbache and manure v roma. No bookies will take bets on the draw either……. "

The bookies bit is a red herring because none of them take bets on Cup draws ever. As much as I'd like to cry foul, I suspect this is just coincidence, exacerbated by our old friend hindsight bias. How many posts like these have been made over the last 10 years, to be forgotten within a day because they were wrong ?

As a nerd though I am interested in the actual odds against one person guessing this correctly in one go. Not least because I once Emailed Football 365 after a suspicious Euro Championships playoff draw in which the four higher ranked teams were all drawn against the four lower ranked teams, with the higher playing away first. One of F365's football writers quoted my odds from the Email, only for a slew of follow-up Emails to arrive the next day pointing out that I had botched the calculation.

When I googled as above, I picked up various answers of 63-1, 119-1, 191-1 and "less than 1%". The later being a more sensible line to take (although not as sensible as avoiding the odds question entirely). I reckon those are all wrong and it's quite simple. One ball is drawn. The second must match the first as predicted, probability = 1/7. Then the third ball, which could be anyone. Fourth must match the prediction, 1/5. Fifth, again could be anyone, sixth must match, 1/3, last two fall into place. So I make it 1/(7*5*3) or 104-1. Any more offers accepted in the comments :-)

QPR 3 Scunthorpe 1

2008-03-15T19:25:00.002Z

A different test for Rangers today as they had to come from behind against a dogged Scunthorpe. Rangers were unchanged, with Rowan Vine on the left in place of the suspended Hogan Ephraim, and it was nice to see Ian Baraclough at left-back for the Iron, one of very few players to emerge with any credit from the Harford/Francis era. Whatever did happen to Stuart Wardley ?

Anyway, the game had barely taken shape when Grant McCann swept a free kick past the wrong-footed, and probably at fault, Lee Camp to give the visitors the lead. Rangers almost replied immediately when Joe Murphy spilled Martin Rowlands' shot and Patrick Agyemang tapped in the rebound, sadly from an offside position. Murphy also saved well from a close-range Agyemang volley, and Damien Delaney dragged a shot narrowly wide after a quick break. Rangers didn't really threaten any time the visitors were set, but had a couple of breakaways that should have come to more with a better final pass. Five minutes before the break though, Rowan Vine burst through from the left wing and was bundled over for a penalty. After a long delay, Rowlands obliged from the spot with minimum fuss.

Scunthorpe seemed happy to settle for a point in the second half, which seemed odd to me given how far adrift they are in the bottom three, but perhaps they didn't really believe that they could score a second goal. For at least 25 minutes, it didn't look as though Rangers believed they could either. Finally some gaps started to appear as Mikele Leigertwood dragged a shot wide and Akos Buszaky's lob managed to evade both the far post and the onrushing Dexter Blackstock. Two minutes later Buszaky and Agyemang combined sublimely to free the latter, and he made a welcome return to the scorers list with a clean finish into the roof of the net.

The visitors bunged on another big striker and did their best, and had a good chance when Camp didn't collect a cross, but took too long and Rangers scrambled it away. Deep into injury time, Gavin Mahon opted to swing a ball into the area instead of keeping it in the corner ; this seemed to surprise the visiting defence and Vine was left free to clip home a third at the far post. 3-1 was probably quite flattering in a game that Rangers had to work very hard to win, but win it they did, and credit is due for keeping at it in a game that didn't really mean a lot to us.

Elsewhere you really wonder who is going to finally flop over the finish line at the top of the Championship, and how embarrassed they will be. Probably not as embarrassed as next season, when whichever three sides are promoted are liable to make Derby County look like Real Madrid.

Speaking The Truth

2008-03-13T23:20:00.003Z

I quite enjoyed this, for the punchline if nothing else :

Premier League Hopefuls

When answering the question "What has got you into this position", everyone bestows praise upon a certain aspect of their club, be it attack, defence, teamwork, the manager, the board, etc. All except the Palace fan who just says "it's a shit division". Hats off to him, because it is, basically. There's really not a lot between the vast majority of the teams and probably the only club who deserve unconditional praise for their progress this season would be Bristol City. The rest simply have to be measured by the yardstick of the overall standard.

Oh and as for Ipswich being "arguably the best footballing side in the division", this is a great example of how the word "arguably" should almost always be replaced by the word "not". And I'm not punting QPR for this, West Brom are the best footballing side in the division by a million miles.

That's Specious Reasoning Dad. Thanks Honey !

2008-03-03T19:40:00.002Z

OK my bets suck but at least I'm not employed by Betfair to explain them with completely spurious logic. Check this out :

Using The Stats To Profit On In Running Football

Here are the salient extracts :

- "You'll note the performance of Everton. In terms of percentages, when the Toffees score first in a match they go on to win it 88% of the time." Or 16 times out of 18 for those of us who think sample size is relevant.

- "that figure suggests they should have been around (1.13) to win as soon as they took the lead." Doesn't sound totally unreasonable if you put it like that.

- "Furthermore ... you could have gone in again at much bigger odds even after Pompey drew level. Why? Because the statistics show that Everton win 88% of these matches. That includes matches where the opposition don't score at all or draw level (even if they go ahead)." Doh ! Yes, that includes matches where the opposition don't score at all. Which this isn't. So they don't count. The relevant stat now, if it is at all relevant, is how many matches Everton win when they score first and the other team equalise which, as I have nothing better to do right now, is 3/5. And while looking at these stats, I notice that the 88% includes cup games against Metallist Kharkhiv, Larissa, Luton Town, etc.

Still it's more amusing than annoying. I'll have to keep an eye out on Betfair for this guy wanting to back Everton @ 1.2 when they're 4-1 down with 10 minutes left after scoring first. Value IMO, whatever the stats say.

QPR 3 Stoke 0

2008-03-02T23:29:00.002Z

Another promotion chasing outfit were knocked back at Loftus Road as the Rs produced an excellent display. Stoke forced a few corners early on and clipped the bar in a goalmouth scramble before Rangers managed to hack the ball clear. Just as I was thinking "there's goals in this game" Rangers moved it up the field and when Michele Leigertwood wasn't closed down 25 yards out he clearly had the same thought as me, that he might as well have a pop. He caught the half-volley beautifully and it beat Simonsen low to his left.

Within 20 minutes, "Legs" doubled his tally when Akos Buzsaky's deep cross was headed into space by Rowan Vine. Leigertwood was unchallenged but showed good technique to smash a 12-yard volley into the roof of the net. From then on Rangers dominated proceedings as the visitors, belying their lofty league position, were completely unable to keep the ball. Worse was to follow for them as Andy Griffin launched into a 50/50 with Hogan Ephraim, and referee d'Urso deemed it an aerial two-footed challenge and sent him off. While most reports called this "controversial" or "harsh", I had a very good view of it (from the other side of the pitch to the press box) and, while it might not have been a 100% straight red, I could see why he gave it, Griffin seemed to dive in with both feet off the ground. At the least it was a very reckless challenge from an experienced pro who should have known better.

Ricardo Fuller, Stoke's best player by a street, pulled out a scare right on half time when his shot scuffed off a post, although I think Damian Delaney might have had it covered chasing back. In the second half, Martin Rowlands continued to run the game for Rangers, and soon enough Stoke conceded a third that was reminiscent of our own struggles at the start of the season. The visitors made a complete hash of a free kick in a dangerous area, and after the Rangers wall had tackled each other to see who would bring it clear, they set off on a 4 vs 3 break. The chance appeared to have gone when Patrick Agyemang got the ball stuck under his feet, but he managed to free Buzsaky and the magic Magyar made no mistake from 10 yards.

When Simonsen had to pull out a fine save to deny Ephraim within 10 seconds of Stoke's kickoff, I think I saw Tony Pulis chewing his hat. Despite Pulis' fearsome glare from the sidelines, the rest of the game was a virtual training session. Lee Camp saved from the otherwise anonymous Glenn Whelan, and Simonsen also saved from Vine and Blackstock. As the game meandered to a close, the official man of the match was named as Rowan Vine, as selected by the committee of someone whose dog Leigertwood ran over once, a crack cocaine addict and Mrs. R. Vine. Hardly anyone cared though as Rangers continune to gel and show increasing promise, especially as Fitz Hall and Matthew Connolly forge a very useful centre-half partnership. And if West Brom and Charlton were rubbing their hands at this result, they should know that their own trips to W12 later in the season could be very testing indeed.

As for Stoke, anyone's going to find it difficult at Loftus Road with 10 men when Rangers are playing well, but even so I was surprised by the lack of fight from reputedly the most combative side in the division. To quote Roger Meyers Jr., they weren't proactive, they had no attitude and I don't know what they were in but it wasn't our face. Still, not our problem. Forza QPR.

Iron Man Live Again

2008-02-27T12:24:00.001Z

Lincoln Recruit Iron Man On Loan

Iron Man ? Cool ! That should stiffen up their defence. Altogether now : Daaa Daaa Da Da Da / DaDaDaDaDaDa Daa Daa Daaaaa.

Instant Karma

2008-02-24T13:42:00.002Z

I don't mean to make sport of Eduardo's injury but in its way this is pretty funny. The Camel said to me when we met up at Loftus Road, "What price will you lay me that Steve Bruce will say 'He's not a malicious player' in response to the tackle" ? Instead of booking the action on the spot my good nature forbore me to do so, and I instead pointed out that he could have 1000 if he wanted because Steve Bruce now manages Wigan, not Birmingham.

Then today, via the Telegraph :

"Wigan manager Bruce, who signed Taylor from Blackburn in February 2004 in his time at St Andrews, said: "I was watching it and you are very saddened.
"But let me tell you Martin Taylor is the biggest, gentlest man. There will be nobody more upset and sickened than him.
"He is an absolute model professional who would never cause you any problem. With 'Big Tiny', I worked with him for a few years, and there is not a bad bone in his body.
"He would never, ever do anything malicious. He has mistimed the tackle, and I've seen it. Some would say it is not even a yellow card."

Some would say it is not even a yellow card, lol. Some would also say that Steve Bruce is a cunt. At least I dodged a bullet that would have stopped many a ruthless gambler :-);

QPR 1 Sheffield United 1

2008-02-24T12:07:00.003Z

This game was rather optimistically previewed on the club website as a "mouthwatering mid-table clash". I don't think anyone was really expecting that but it turned out to be a fairly flat game with few chances for either side. Angelo Balanta scored his first goal for QPR when he applied a neat finish to Hogan Ephraim's cross after a passing move that was by far the best of the game. United had the majority of possession in the second half as Rangers completely failed to get to grips in midfield, and the visitors equalised when Chris Morgan's low shot found its way into the corner. The end. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, hopefully Rangers can do better in the next few games when Akos Buzsaky returns from suspension.

Wednesday Woe

2008-02-19T12:50:00.003Z

Sheffield Wednesday look a good bet to be relegated from the Championship, 3.1 currently on Betfair, I've put an offer on for 3.5 which would definitely be tasty. Possession is nine tenths of the law at the bottom, and Wednesday are currently 23rd in the table, with a game in hand but even so it looks a lot like 3 from 4 at the bottom right now. They've lost their main striker Akpo Sodje, and if they think Ben Sahar is going to get them out of it they can think again. Tonight's game at home to Coventry has been postponed, now their next three home games are Cardiff, West Brom and QPR. They still have to go to Colchester and Scunthorpe. Preston have some easier games coming up and are in better form. 5-2 would be top value and 2-1 is still very good IMO. And of course if you think I'm full of it, take my bet yourself :-).

I'm also very tempted to lay Liverpool tonight, Inter are the best team in Italy by a street this season and as for Liverlol, where to start. There's always the last chance saloon/win this one for the gaffer factor but motivation only takes you so far against better technique, and 2.66 looks plenty short for the Scousers to win this one.

QPR 2 Burnley 4

2008-02-12T23:49:00.001Z

A disappointing result but a highly entertaining game in which Andy Cole's predatory instincts were too good for the home defence. As has been the trend recently at home, Rangers turned on the heat in the first half hour and were soon two goals to the good. Patrick Agyemang, who looks better with every game, sent Akos Buzsaky into the box with his deft backheel, and the Hungarian's inviting cross was met by Gavin Mahon at the head of a posse of Rangers players queueing up at the back post. The second goal arrived when Damien Delaney poured forward (in as much as one man can pour forward). There didn't seem to be too much danger with just Delaney and Agyemang up against four defenders, but pass and run were timed to perfection. When Agyemang gets one on one at the moment you'd put your house on him scoring, and he waltzed past Jensen to slide home the second.

Rangers were good value for 2-0 at that point, and Buszaky and Rehman both tested Jensen further (the latter after an unbelievable 60 yard burst). However, the visitors pulled one back out of the blue when Gudjonsson's free kick appeared to be going nowhere until Cole flashed out a boot to send the ball flying past the wrongfooted Lee Camp. After the break Rangers pushed forward again, and both Agyemang and Buszaky were unable to pick out a team-mate from fantastic positions deep in the penalty area. Burnley substitute Ade Akinbiyi showed them how to do it when he picked out Cole, whose top-class movement allowed him to finish easily at the far post.

For 20 minutes it was an even contest, Rangers were weakened somewhat by injuries to Rowlands and Ephraim, but even so Leigertwood and Connolly both tested Jensen from 20 yards. At the other end Lee Camp was probably slightly aggrieved when he touched Elliot's piledriver onto the post only for the referee to give a goal kick. Unfortunately Rangers then conceded the sloppiest goal of the evening ; Damion Stewart met a deep corner but could only head the ball up instead of out, and the home defence unforgivably failed to come out and play the visiting forwards offside, allowing Akinbiyi to score with ease when Caldwell returned the ball into the six yard box.

Home heads dropped at this point and Burnley completed a convincing comeback when, with Rangers possibly expecting a free kick to be played into the corner, it was instead played in to Cole who had the ball in the back of the net in a nanosecond. Sometimes you just have to take your hat off to a team or a player and say they were too good for us. Cole was the difference between the sides and I wasn't the only home fan to give some polite applause when he was substituted. Rangers will learn from this and hopefully playoff talk will be shelved in favour of more work on the training ground and gradual improvement. Meanwhile you could do a lot worse than get on the right side of Burnley for the remainder of the season, and in fact I've just had a nibble at 10 for promotion. They looked a decent side and if I've written this report properly it should have conveyed the impression that Cole is still quite good.

Silence Of The Hams

2008-02-09T13:23:00.000Z

As I was in the supermarket this morning I could see the back pages of a lot of the papers, hands held in front of them six inches apart, shoulders bunched, poised to wring them sanctimoniously if anyone disrupts the minute's silence at the Manchester derby tomorrow. Doesn't anyone realise that the very best way to ensure there's a problem is to keep banging on about it ? I first heard Mike Ingham droning on about this two weeks ago on Radio 5. With his spectacles perched on his nose, he patiently explained to the class, er I mean listeners, that Matt Busby played for City and Frank Swift and so on and so on.

First of all, let's just stop and think here. What kind of person would disrupt a minute's silence ? A fucking idiot, LDO. And how do fucking idiots respond to reasoned, schoolmasterly appeals ? They ignore them. More to the point, making this into an issue both before and after is in fact likely to exacerbate the situation, because what do fucking idiots love ? Attention. FFS just ignore them. Stop going on about it. OK I'm going on about it here but at least I'm not talking a load of shite. If there's a problem on the day, either ignore it or say "well, a few idiots embarrassed themselves but that's their problem". But of course that's the one thing the media can't do. People like Alan Green and Jeff Powell, who seem to view their purpose in life as to find something to get angry about and make as many other people as possible angry about it too, will never just let these things go.

Meanwhile if you want an anniversary of horror that we can all remember, QPR lost 5-0 to Southend a year ago on this day :-)

Money Money Money

2008-02-07T23:32:00.001Z

A couple of interesting articles concerning the top and bottom of the Football League. First of all the proposal to play a round of Premier League matches overseas :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/7232390.stm

In a lot of ways I can see this working, I mean I'm not necessarily a traditionalist and why not try something new. It may need a little thought. Some kind of seeding is a must, I think the guy is trying a bit too hard at the end of the article when he talks about symmetry not being the same as fairness ; it just doesn't seem right to me that say Manchester United could play an extra game against Derby when Chelsea play theirs against Everton, for example. It depends as well on how the money is shared out, but there could be some mileage in it.

At the other end, I did find this article about Bradford very interesting :

http://www.squarefootball.net/article/article.asp?aid=5336

I think more lower league teams should take the plunge and go with something like this. Simplistically, if you double your attendances at half the price you're still clearly quids in because of extra programme/food sales etc. Having a bigger crowd will surely help your home results as well. So it's really a question of how low you go and how you juggle the numbers. Someone like Barnet who are desperate for bigger crowds should think hard about a £200 season ticket or something IMO.

Finally not money related but some quite amusing mud-slinging going on at Plymouth where everyone's trying to blame everyone else for their best players leaving the club :

Plymouth chairman blames Holloway for everything

Holloway and Mandaric reach for the lawyers

As ever, I expect the truth is somewhere in between, but it must be quite embarrassing for Plymouth fans having this all aired in public. Interesting comments about Buzsaky being "inconsistent" and "unpopular in the dressing room".

QPR 3 Bristol City 0

2008-02-02T21:31:00.000Z

3-0 might have been a bit flattering but, make no mistake, QPR dismissed their high-flying opposition very easily today. Hogan Ephraim made his first start since joining the club permanently, and Zesh Rehman and Michael Mancienne filled in at the back for the injured Hall and Connolly. Rangers started very brightly and forced a series of corners in the opening five minutes. Although these came to nothing, it wasn't long before Rowan Vine sent Patrick Agyemang away to finish expertly with a low shot. Agyemang is clearly sky-high on confidence and why not, this being his fourth goal in his fourth start for Rangers. The same player doubled the score after winning a ball that he had no right to in the City box, feeding Akos Buzsaky and making his way into the six yard box to tap home the Hungarian's cross-shot.

Just past the hour Agyemang held off his man to tee up Buszaky on the edge of the box, and his fierce shot deflected over the keeper's dive for 3-0 and game over. Up to this point, City had managed the sum total of one header from a well-worked free kick that drifted wide, and that was it. At 3-0 Rangers took their foot off the gas somewhat ; Dele Adebola fired a shot against the post and couldn't force the rebound past Lee Camp, before Michael McIndoe sent a tame header straight at the keeper when he seemed to have time to bring the ball down.

Bafflingly, Agyemang was passed up for the official MoM award in favour of Martin Rowlands, but the Ghanain striker has been the pick of the January signings, just as I had picked him out as the one I wasn't sure about. Shows how much I know. By my calculations, of the 7 goals we have scored in the league with Agyemang in the side, he has scored 5 and played the last pass on the other 2 ! Glory be, we might actually have found a goalscorer. With only 16 games left it's too late for genuine playoff aspirations IMO, but we've got plenty to be working with. It's also worth putting in a word for the defence who, even though they were well protected by Gavin Mahon and not really tested, were unrecognisable from the rabble of September even though 3/4 of the unit were the same players in Stewart, Rehman and Mancienne.

As for City, I've said before that I don't want to be critical of teams who aren't fortunate enough to have our resources, but it was a mystery on today's performance how they find themselves second in the league. The fact that they still are in an automatic promotion spot says a lot about the quality of the league as a whole, or lack of. What was surprising was that they didn't even look solid at the back, and could well be worth opposing for the rest of the season. None of which is any concern of mine, or any of the home fans in another bumper crowd (really) of 16K+.

Barnet 0 Bristol Rovers 1

2008-01-26T18:24:00.000Z

This was a missed opportunity for Barnet. Jason Puncheon missed a penalty after barely two minutes ; scoring would have changed the game completely. As it was, Barnet had the better of the first half but only created a couple of half chances. Rovers struck five minutes into the second half when Lambert headed in a low cross, and were rarely troubled after that as they sat back, kept their shape and dealt with what little Barnet had to offer very comfortably.

Oh well, win some lose some, and at least they managed to wedge 5000 people into Underhill for a half-decent payday. It was surprising how arsey some people were about actually having to take up the seat that their ticket applied to. One guy seemed to think that because he'd been to an away game or two this season, he could settle himself down wherever he liked. Although it was a shame I couldn't have sloped off to another vantage point in the second half, as the bloke behind me reached super-annoying heights with his squeaky voice, complete lack of knowledge of football and, worst of all, parrot-like small child repeating everything he said. Live football's like live poker, it would be great if it wasn't for other people :-)

Barnet 1 Swindon 1 (2-0 on penalties)

2008-01-22T23:45:00.000Z

Barnet battled hard with 10 men for almost an hour to hold the higher division outfit off and win a penalty shootout. The first half was fairly even but Barnet really do miss Liam Hatch, and the current incumbent Cliff Akurang is nowhere near as much of a threat. Three minutes before the break the mostly anonymous Billy Paynter was given enough room to trundle away from his marker and slot home through keeper Rob Beckwith's legs to give Swindon the lead.

The home supporters, newly housed in a South Stand that has been put up remarkably quickly, were still fairly optimistic though as we've seen the Bees turn over many a half time deficit kicking down the slope. Akurang somehow managed to get tangled up with a defender in the six yard box with the keeper nowhere, and Swindon smuggled the ball away, but soon enough Jason Puncheon, who was excellent as usual, tricked his way to the byline and sent in a fierce cross which the hapless Paynter deflected into his own net. Unfortunately when Michael Leary was sent off for a nasty two-footed lunge, Barnet lost all momentum and created little for the rest of the game. However, they defended well and Beckwith only had to make a couple of good blocks to keep the scores level and force the dreaded penalty shootout.

In all my time of watching football I honestly can't remember seeing a live shootout before (I was mercifully absent for the QPR - Vauxhall Motors debacle). Unsurprisingly, it's good fun being behind the goal in use so you can wave your arms and shout "Wanker arrrrrrgh" at journeyman League 1 pros. Whether this helped or not who knows, but criminally, Swindon failed to hit the target with any of their first three kicks. Paynter hit the bar, Roberts pulled his shot wide and Aljofree blasted over. Yakubu prodded his shot wide for the Bees, but either side of that Thomas and O'Cearuill slotted home. With four kicks to go Swindon needed to score both theirs and save both of Barnet's to keep the tie alive ; however only one was needed as some egg proved John Gregory's theory of left-footed penalty takers being crap (really) by popping his shot up at a good height for Beckwith to make a save.

And so, anticlimactically, Barnet face more League One opposition on Saturday as Bristol Rovers overcame mighty (ha) Fulham tonight in their replay. I should be there and if any readers fancy a trip to Underhill for the magic of the Cup, let me know.