This Saturday QPR welcome Preston, currently in amongst the play off pack, to Loftus Road looing to close the gap on them and the other teams above them in the Coca Cola Championship.

Queens Park Rangers (9th) v Preston North End (5th)
Coca Cola Championship
Saturday December 20, Kick Off 3pm
Loftus Road, London
Those of you that suffer my weekly ramblings in the ‘this week’ column will know I have been reading David Conn’s book ‘The Beautiful Game?’ recently. I would certainly recommend it to anybody and everybody, and I have never particularly had a lot of time for Conn’s articles which always seemed to be based around the assumption that all clubs should be run by the fans, nobody should be allowed to spend more than they have coming in, everybody should be like Crewe and this should all be in place by yesterday.

The idea that fans of Blackburn, Wigan, Blackpool, Dagenham and others would happily sit back and smile safe in the knowledge that they own the club and it is financially safe as the team slides two, three maybe even four divisions back to its correct level is idealistic in the extreme. Then again, as Conn’s numerous examples testify to, relying on a single rich man, or in our case small group of rich men, to bankroll a club to an artificially high level is monumentally risky. Think Rushden and Diamonds and Gretna as small examples, think Wigan without Dave Whelen, think of QPR with numerous average players earning £12k a week or more on the sixth worst gates in the division without Briatore and Mittal.

By Conn’s logic, based on income and people through the gates, QPR are a club that should be yo-yoing between this league and the one below. That is of course what we were doing when our new owners arrived on the scene and we are currently artificially high in the league as a result, and paying wages that the club could not sustain without them. It is a risky position to be in should this ‘project’ of theirs fail.

Two seasons ago we played Preston North End at home preparing for the ‘yoing’ bit of the pattern. Bad defeats at relegation rivals Southend and Hull and a failure to win at similarly threatened Leeds had left Rangers in a dire situation. They had to win a game in hand against Paul Simpson’s men to stand any chance. With Preston chasing the play offs and Rangers’ survival far from guaranteed even with a win the mood among the paltry 11,000 crowd that turned out in the freezing cold was downbeat.

A couple of gripping hours, and a ripsnorting volley from Dexter Blackstock, later and Rangers had won a thrilling, nail biting contest. It was one of those nights where it seemed like there were 40,000 people inside Loftus Road, one of those nights that made it all seem worthwhile. The feel good factor sparked a run of victories that maintained our league status.

The current QPR team is clearly superior to that one, but you just wonder how much better we’d be if we could put the honesty of people like Adam Bolder and Danny Cullip into the bodies of some of our more talented but less committed current bunch. Daniel Parejo’s ability with Danny Cullip’s attitude – we’d have been crying into our pillows at his departure this week rather than cracking open a celebratory bottle or three as happened at LFW towers on Wednesday night when the news broke.

Preston are back this Saturday and chasing the play offs again, although Alan Irvine is now the manager, and they will provide as stern a test as ever for a QPR side still with designs on a top six place of their own. The Lilywhites can open up a seven point gap over Rangers with a win here so this is an important match if we do have any ambitions of going for top six this season.



Five minutes on Preston
Preston, though they probably won’t thank me for saying it, are very similar in many ways to their neighbours and bitter rivals from down the road Burnley. Both famous old names in the game, both fell on hard times, both are now steadily climbing back up the ladder and redeveloping their grounds. Both arrived in the Championship at the same time back at the start of the decade and have remained here ever since to become two of the division’s longest serving clubs, both have flirted with promotion and relegation in that time, Preston even made a couple of play off finals without success, and both are now pushing for the top six again under impressive young Scottish managers.

It was a Scot in charge of Preston back in 2000/01 as they embarked on life in this division for the first time since the early eighties years following promotion alongside Burnley. David Moyes was that gaffer from north of the border – he took over Preston aged just 34 and still registered to play as a centre half although he had known from early on in his career that he was not going to be good enough to make it at the very top level so turned his attention to coaching and management pretty early on. Moyes made an instant impact at Deepdale, losing against Gillingham in the play offs in his first season before winning the Second Division, now League One, title in his second.

Preston were an impressive addition to the second tier, infamously beating QPR 5-0 with American striker Brian McBride among the scorers and drawing 0-0 at Loftus Road into the bargain. QPR were relegated that season but Preston looked very much like a team on the up and Moyes led them straight through to the play offs at the first attempt before succumbing 3-0 to Bolton at Wembley. The Lilywhites pushed for the top six again the following season but the developments on and off the pitch at Deepdale, which was having new stands built on three sides, had not gone unnoticed elsewhere and in March 2002 Moyes left to take a shot at the big time with Everton.

After a period of success under Howard Kendall in the 1980s Everton had endured a tough 1990s, working their way through numerous managers and enduring nerve jangling relegation battles under the likes of Mike Walker, Joe Royle and Kendall again although Royle did bring the FA Cup back to Goodison in 1996. Moyes has rebuilt the team since moving to Goodison, regularly qualifying for Europe on a relative shoestring compared to the other clubs in the top flight that all have the billionaire owners Everton lack. Moyes is one of the country’s hottest managerial properties now and is sure to be linked with Man Utd when Alex Ferguson retires at the end of next season.

Preston missed the play offs following Moyes’ departure and did not replace him well either, turning to former Scotland coach Craig Brown. Moyes was always going to be a hard act to follow but Brown took the team backwards finishing twelfth in his first season, fifteenth in his second and then after a lousy start to the 2004/05 season saw them beaten by Gillingha, Sheff Utd and Brighton in the first month he was dismissed.

Sticking with the theme Preston again appointed a Scot, Brown’s assistant Billy Davies. He was a spikey little character who had previously managed in the SPL with Motherwell and turned out to be much more in the Moyes mould, leading Preston to the brink of the Premiership on two occasions. Davies showed a keen eye for a player, picking up David Nugent from Bury for little over £100k and reached the play off final in his first season in charge only to see PNE beaten again, this time by West Ham. Leeds United beat them in the semi finals of the end of season knockout a year later and Davies chose to up sticks and move to Derby instead – he got his promotion at last at Pride Park but it turned out to be the worst thing that could have happened. Derby were promoted too early even by Davies’ own admission and they were totally out of their depth in the higher league, winning only once and getting Davies the sack after just three months. He has been out of work ever since, having been one of the league’s hottest properties while at Preston.

Again they looked north for a replacement, though they stopped short of the border this time picking up former player Paul Simpson from Carlisle. Simpson did a poor job at Rochdale in the bottom division before hauling Carlisle by their bootstraps out of the Conference and then straight through League Two to One in consecutive seasons. Simpson was left a very competent team at this level by Davies with Nugent up front, Sedgwick supplying the crosses and the likes of Youl Mawene and Claude Davis at the back.

PNE lost the likes of Dickson Etuhu, Chris Lucketti, Davis, Richard Cresswell and Eddie Lewis at the tale end of Davies’ time with the club and at the start of Simpson’s reign but he showed in picking up liam Chilvers from Colchester and Sean St ledger from Peterborough, where he had hardly covered himself in glory on the infamous Big Ron Manager programme, that he had a good eye for a player and knowledge of the leagues he had ripped through with Carlisle. Preston started 2006/07 where they had left off under Davies but only won three of their last eight games, a run that included the 1-0 defeat at Loftus Road, and ultimately missed the play offs altogether after looking a shoe-in at one stage.

There were further departures at the end of the season, most notable David Nugent to Portsmouth for £6m just after he had won an England cap playing for Preston in the second tier, the first Preston player to do so or half a century. Simpson went back to Carlisle and bought Karl Hawley to replace him but it looked risky and with just three wins in the first four months of the season Simpson was sacked in November last year.

Another Scot, Alan Irvine this time, came in to replace Simpson – he had been Moyes’ assistant at Everton before stepping up to be a number one for the first time. Preston were in a poor state when he took over and early results were not encouraging but he brought the best out of players like Neil Mellow and made good use of the loan market to land the likes of Chris Brown and Tamas Priskin in the second half of the season who scored enough goals to lift them up to 15th in the Championship and safety.

Loans have made way for more permanent signings this season and, mainly thanks o some imperious home form, Irvine has his charges ensconced in the play off positions once more this season and looking like a good bet to run the top six close in May. Deepdale’s redevelopment has now been completed and QPR fans will find brand new stands on all four sides when they visit in may for the last game of the regular season. It’s a set up that could host premiership football although it is, like the budget and average attendances, much more suited to where they are now – the upper echelons of this league, providing dangerous opposition for the likes of us.

Men to watch
The most impressive player in this fixture last season was Preston striker Neil Mellor and as he is Preston’s top scorer again this term with six strikes already to his name he will be worth keeping an eye on once again. Mellor shot to fame, you may recall, when he played for Liverpool’s first team after coming through their youth set up – his finest moment was a rasping 30 yarder at the Kop End to beat Arsenal in the last minute of a Premiership game. Sadly though he has always seemed to be carrying at least a stone of weight and has never been that quick so after a couple of loan moves here and there, West Hame, Wigan, he moved permanently to Preston in 2006. He has only started to find his feet at Deepdale since Irvine took over as manager but he seems to be playing very well now.

If Mellor is carrying a bit of extra baggage then one of his potential strike partners needs to be moved around on a luggage trolley. Jon Parkin, a summer signing from Stoke, always was a little on the large side at Macclesfield but he ballooned beyond all recognition when out of favour at Hull City and has never really managed to shed any of his ample girth. He has two goals from ten starts and seven sub appearances and represents a physical threat to QPR, but he’s a trumped up pub player really and we have to be able to cope with the likes of him if we are to get anywhere at all.

A more likely partner for Mellor is Chris Brown, camera man in the Sunderland roasting video, who impressed on loan from Norwich last year and signed permanently in the summer. Stephen Elliott, who had one terrific season when Sunderland were promoted but has struggled for form there and at Wolves since, started with Brown against Birmingham in the week and will be desperate to get back to scoring form – he has three in eight starts and nine sub appearances this season.

Further back former Rotherham winger Chris Sedgwick might lack the natural pace of some wingers but he knocks a nice ball across and QPR could really do with cutting the service to that striking line up off at source by marking him closely. Further infield Paul McKenna always looks very impressive to me when we play Preston, busying himself in the middle of midfield and giving things simple like a PNE equivalent of Robbie Savage or Marc Bircham. While he disrupts and winds up Richard Chaplow, once of Burnley, provides a goal threat and touch of class down the middle since his move here from West Brom – his totally bald head caused by alopecia makes him difficult to miss. Ross Wallace on loan from Sunderland is another who had one good season at the Stadium of Light but has struggled since.

At the back Irvine still has Sean St Ledger at centre half alongside Mawene and that loos like a very good partnership on paper. In goal Andy Lonergan looked pretty dodgy against QPR in both games last season.

Previous Meetings
There was little at stake at Loftus Road last season when the two teams met, both QPR and Preston were comfortably climbing away from the bottom three after early struggles, but the game had a real twist at the end as Rangers came from behind to draw. Preston were well on top for the vast majority of the match, taking the lead through the excellent Neil Mellor eight minutes before half time and doubling that advantage with a scrappy goal from loaned striker Tamas Priskin just after the hour. That looked to be that with Rangers below par but De Canio sent on Gareth Ainsworth and after hooking home a lob from the edge of the box in the first minute of stoppage time Wild Thing rolled back the years with a sublime cross for Blackstock to equalise with seconds remaining. An unlikely and undeserved point but thrilling all the same.

QPR: Camp 7, Mancienne 5, Stewart 5, Hall 4, Connolly 5, Ephraim 5 (Balanta 61, 6), Mahon 4 (Ainsworth 66, 5), Leigertwood 4, Rowlands 7, Agyemang 5, Blackstock 5
Subs Not Used: Pickens, Barker, Lee
Booked: Rowlands (foul), Connolly (foul)
Goals: Ainsworth 90 (assisted Mancienne), Blackstock 90+3 (assisted Ainsworth)

Preston: Lonergan 6, Jones 7, Mawene 7, St. Ledger 7, Davidson 7, Sedgwick 7, McKenna 7, Carter 7, Whaley 8, Mellor 8 (Priskin 46, 8), Brown 7
Subs Not Used: Chris Neal, Chaplow, Hill, Lewis Neal
Booked: Brown (foul), Lonergan (time wasting)
Goals: Mellor 37 (assisted Mawene), Priskin 64 (assisted Sedgwick)

Match Report

There was nowhere near as much drama or excitement in the corresponding fixture at Deepdale earlier in the season. With referee Trevor Kettle in typical whistle happy, card flashing form the game struggled to get going at all and only Lee Camp’s fine save from Paul Gallagher’s penalty, harshly awarded for hand ball against Martin Cranie, got the fans on their feet.

Preston: Lonergan 4, Jones 8, St. Ledger 7, Mawene 7, Hill 8, Sedgwick 5 (Mellor 82, -), Davidson 6, Nicholls 7,Gallagher 5 (Whaley 67, 7), Hawley 6 (Ormerod 69, 6), Agyemang 6
Subs Not Used: Chris Neal, McKenna
Booked: Davidson (foul), Mawene (foul)

QPR: Camp 9, Mancienne 7, Stewart 7, Cranie 8, Barker 7, Ainsworth 5 (Nygaard 57, 7) Bolder 4, Leigertwood 7, Rowlands 5, Ephraim 6, Vine 6
Subs Not Used: Cole, Bignot, Moore, Sahar
Booked: Mancienne (foul) Bolder (dissent) Vine (dissent) Rowlands (dissent) Stewart (tackle from behind)

Match Report

Head to Head:
QPR wins – 7
Draws – 12
Preston wins – 10

Past QPR v Preston scores and scorers:
2007/08 QPR 2 Preston 2 (Blackstock, Ainsworth)
2007/08 Preston 0 QPR 0
2006/07 QPR 1 Preston 0 (Blackstock)
2006/07 Preston 1 QPR 1 (Ainsworth)
2005/06 QPR 0 Preston 2
2005/06 Preston 1 QPR 1 (Shittu)
2004/05 QPR 1 Preston 2 (Furlong)
2004/05 Preston 2 QPR 1 (Santos)
2000/01 Preston 5 QPR 0
2000/01 QPR 0 Preston 0

Team News
QPR should have top scorer Dexter Blackstock available for selection from the start, he missed the Sheff Wed game with a back injury but came on as a sub against Plymouth last week. Whether he can displace Agyemang and Helguson from the attack remains to be seen. Matt Connolly is nearing a return from his own back complaint but Akos Buzsaky and Rowan Vine are long term casualties. Daniel Parejo has returned to Real Madrid.

Preston team news to follow
Injury List

Referee
Top Premiership referee Alan Wiley drops down a level this weekend to take on this fixture. Both teams lost 2-1 at home the last time he was in charge of them – QPR to Crystal Palace and Preston in the League Cup against Morecambe. Both will be hoping for better this weekend although as Wiley is generally one of the better referees around I am not sure how much blame can be pinned on him for either defeat.
Details

Elsewhere
Second placed Birmingham face third placed Reading on Saturday lunch time, the game of the day and a live Sky date for both clubs. Wolves have a chance to open up more ground on the losing team from that match with a trip to relegation haunted Doncaster. Neil Warnock’s return to Sheffield United with Crystal Palace is the live Sky match on Saturday night. Bristol City, without a win in seven, welcome play off chasing Burnley to Ashton Gate.
Tony’s Championship Preview

Form
QPR may be struggling to score goals and have a lousy away record but they are pretty formidable on their own patch. The single goal victory against Wolves last time at Loftus Road was the second time this season QPR have beaten the league leaders at home and made it eight wins and two draws from 11 league matches at Loftus Road this season – the fact that Rangers followed that up with one point from six that could and should have been four or maybe even six on the road sums up the problems this season nicely.

It is no surprise that with one win QPR have the worst away record in the top ten, but Preston are not far behind and have only won twice on their travels this season so far. Alan Irvine’s men won at Ipswich on day one and then the derby game at Blackpool more recently but have been beaten on the road by Burnley, Watford, Plymouth, Sheff Utd and Cardiff. Don’t get your hopes up too much though, they come into this game on the back of a run of three wins in four games during which they have kept three clean sheets. There last away game was a 2-0 defeat at Cardiff City.
Form Guide

Prediction
This is certainly a tough game but QPR have improved of late and are as good at home as they ar bad away. Preston’s away record is not a great deal better than our own and with the defence in good form I am confident there is something here for us if we can replicate the Wolves display of a fortnight ago.
QPR 1 Preston 0

Photo: Action Images

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