Join us for a special bumper preview of tomorrow’s crucial Championship face off between whatever bits and pieces Sunderland have got lying around, and the smouldering remains of Queens Park Rangers.

Sunderland (21-13-11 WDLLLL 4th) v QPR (13-14-18 DWDWLL 15th)

Sky’s Super Saturday Brunch Spectacular >>> Saturday May 3, 2025 >>> Kick Off 12.30 >>> Weather – Sunny, breezy, almost certainly freezing >>> Stadium of Light, Sunderland

Ohlalalalalalala, c'était une catastrophe. As Paul Nardi might say, while making a thousandth attempt to execute that sodding goalkick routine.

I thought I’d be winding down writing Ronnie Edwards erotic fan fiction by now, but QPR have never been any great respecter of publishing schedules and so here we are. A popular manager on garden leave for apparently talking to another club while the other club says he’s not even on their shortlist. A performative move to publicly punish somebody you were never going to leave in charge this summer anyway, for doing something everybody in the sport does all the time. Something we’ll have done to get him here in the first place. Something we’ll have been doing with other players and managers all season long. Your supposedly sellable asset, with his big release clause you were so keen to protect, now damaged goods parked in the ‘to clear’ aisle with a yellow sticker slapped on.

Even by QPR standards, some truly virtuoso work with the blowtorch this week.

As ever, I blame myself for getting my hopes up. The inevitable QPR melt into the floor always feels worse when I dared to let myself believe they wouldn’t do it this time. A year ago, basking in the euphoria of the way the team had ended the season, I thought we might have cracked it. Which to watch on a loop today, the Jimmy Dunne last minute screamer, or the 4-0 demolition of Leeds? This team, playing like this, with this manager, with more FFP headroom and some smart new ideas in the boardroom… why, we could be, maybe even as high as tenth in the Championship next season. Just imagine. Sunlit uplands.

In the end, I think we’re fortunate not to be ending the campaign in League One. I look at what’s going on at Preston and wonder how close we were to being in their shoes – a couple of fewer good results in that hot run over the winter, a disallowed Stoke goal, our bad run starting two weeks earlier than it did… There but for the grace of God. If you’d said last summer that Steve Cook would get injured before Christmas and not really play properly again thereafter, that Jake Clarke-Salter wouldn’t play this season at all, that Ilias Chair would start fewer than half our games, that Sam Field would miss the last three months of the season, and that your strikers for the season would by Frey, Celar, Kolli and Lloyd and even all four of those would spend much of the year on the treatment table, you’d have been very concerned. That’s the spine of your team and all of its goals.

In praising Marti Cifuentes for keeping this poorly put together and injury riddled team safe with games to spare, we must also acknowledge his failings. This team showed you last year, and again over the winter, how it can win. Give up possession, narrow three-man midfield based on hard work and running yards, lean heavily on a set of old school centre backs and a shot stopping keeper, then hit them off set pieces and long throws at the other end. Jimmy Dunne has the most touches in the opposition box and most efforts on goal of any of our players. Every time we’ve tried to open it up, play 4-2-3-1, dominate the ball, play out from the back, we’ve shown we don’t have the players for it. Cifuentes went back to it at the start of the season, and again from February onwards, it didn’t work and we started to lose. We’ve seen some of the worst QPR games in many years this season – even ones we didn’t lose, like Oxford and Cardiff at home, have been unwatchable dirge. If this is the fabled “game model” we’re recruiting the next manager to, then we’ll need to be recruiting a dozen new players as well who can play this way, because this lot certainly can’t.

In the end the main positive from the last year has been the support. QPR have failed to win 16 of their 23 home games this season, and set a club record run of homes without a win to start the year (nine in the league, 11 in total) – Loftus Road sells out every week regardless. There are another 1,000 people travelling to tomorrow’s game – a 12.30 kick off, in the Arctic Circle, with nothing riding on the game, at the end of a long slog of a season, in a week where the club has looked a public shambles. It’s remarkable. What’s more remarkable still is the support for the manager, the team and the club has remained steadfast. There hasn’t been a word of dissent. Not a single protest or negative song. Serve us slop, we turn up and sing for that supper regardless. This a fanbase that once invaded the pitch to protest the profitable sale of players while in the top half of the Premier League.

The Premier League hangers on have unsurprisingly melted away. That angry, aggressive, cocaine fuelled atmosphere post lockdown is a thing of the past. In its place is this passionate, steadfastly loyal group of absolute gluttons who the club keep insulting but who keep coming back for more. There are large groups of young lads following QPR home and away again, creating the atmosphere, filming their raucous celebrations for YouTube. It’s wonderful to see. That is the future of the club. There is a collection of silly old twats like me still plodding along to every game. There is this fantastic dads and daughters vibe you see in the Crown every weekend. A thousand again tomorrow. A thousand. I’m in awe of you all. Proud to stand among you.

I’ve got to ask, where is the respect for those people? Where is the respect for them from our club? Where is the respect for those people this week?

Sure, Tweets about the fantastic away support. Interview with the manager every week where he’s invited to say “yeh, great innit” about another 2,000 idiots going to West Brom to watch his team try and fail for a third time this season to score a goal against ten men. But so much of what the club has actually done this season has been designed to involve you less, tell you less, keep you less informed, control what you know.

Every time you have a pre-season tour abroad and say we can’t come. Every time you sign a player but refuse to tell us for how long, or how much. Every time you reduce the fans forum to flashy announcements and pre-submitted and vetted questions. Every time you say “oh we’ll have another forum with the manager later” and then don’t bother. Every time you cut/reduce/remove/redact/edit communication with us. Every time… you’re treating us with contempt. In a three-line statement announcing Cifuentes’ departure, Christian Nourry says he “understands the frustration of the fans”. Does he though? Does he really? I don’t see it. Show me that understanding.

Yesterday was the kit sponsors’ day, where you get to meet the player you sponsored for a bit of a chat and have them hand over their shirt. This used to be an evening reception at Loftus Road, but then we used to have a player of the year dinner at this club as well – again, nice stuff that was for you and me, to reward for our loyalty and money, removed by people running the club never to return. These days it’s at the very conveniently located Heston Training Ground, in the middle of the day, on a working Thursday. You basically get to grab your lad for a couple of minutes as they come off the training pitch. This year the sponsors got ten days’ notice. Paul Smyth, because of course, happy to hang around and give people his time - several other players weren’t there at all. For this they pay £558 including VAT. Penny of that for the thoughts of whoever sponsored Marti Cifuentes this year, and have never been allowed within a thousand yards of him. Halfway through this year the sponsors were asked if they wanted to stick another £350 + VAT on that for the third kit? Nah, you’re alright. The heavy lifting/actually speaking to people, as so often, was once again left to Andy Sinton, who stands like a beacon out of this ocean of distinctly mediocre people.

The club’s incredibly hard working and long suffering media and commercial teams - many of them QPR fans themselves, many of them with literally decades of service, many of them who use their actual weekends off to go and stand in the away end and support the team - left to face the music online and in person on behalf of people too cowardly, too afraid to do it themselves. Or, perhaps, just not arsed. Those poor sods field the frustrations and anger of fans. This is in no way meant as any criticism of them. I feel sorry for them.

For not one of the owners, not the chairman, not the CEO/DOF who was wandering around the training ground, to even think it might be an idea to pop their head round the door of that event and say hello, maybe offer an apology, at the end of this season and THAT week, to people who shovel another £500 into the club’s bank account every year for now little more than shaking Steve Cook’s hand and getting a selfie.

I think it says a lot. I think it says a lot about how they think of us and view us in all this. I think it’s appalling. And I’m not a kit sponsor.

To the people who are, to those going to Sunderland tomorrow, to both regular readers, and to me, this is a football club. You may think it’s a career stepping stone. You may think it’s a place to get you fit and a bit more experience. You may think it’s a chance to fluff your CV. You may think it’s a job, or a project, or a chance to try out all your big ideas, or a place you can play at being a football director, somewhere to cut your teeth and make your mistakes, somewhere for you to experiment or try and train up some protégé. You may think it’s a bit of a joke, that it doesn’t matter. Let me tell you, to us, we are nobody’s project, nobody’s stepping stone, no plaything for rich folk. We are a football club. A shambling, unsuccessful, farcical joke of a football club at times. But a football club all the same. Proud. Our football club. And we’ll be here long after you.

I haven’t seen a lot of people bothered about us this week. The day after bombing the manager out they sent us an email reminding us about season ticket renewals.

Just look, just look, how we are projecting ourselves publicly. Left to the wonderful Paul Furlong and his development team to save any face at all with a cup win. Elsewhere, egos, powerbases. Leaks to the press. Sky Sports News, which cares about the Championship about as much as I care about who wins The X Factor, leading on leaks people working at our club have given them. Whoever it is, doesn’t matter. It’s about standards. Relationship breakdowns playing out publicly in the press. Fans of other clubs once again coming up to me and saying “what on earth is going on at your place now?” Lots and lots of people acting in their own self-interest. Nobody acting in the supporters’ interests. Does anybody, anywhere, think QPR look well run at the moment? Does anybody think this is going well?

Where is the ownership in this? Ruben Gnanalingam has obviously had his own public flogging recently, but he cannot be happy with how the business he is pumping £2m a month into is currently presenting itself in public. Where is Richard Reilly? Who is Richard Reilly? A man who has never deigned to speak to us once? You trust people to run your business for you and, well, just look at it. A real lack of class and professionalism all round. I’d have been putting a couple more people in the garden this week personally. And if heads aren’t going to roll, they should certainly have been banged together. What are you doing? Where are you?

Bobby Robson said: “What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it. It’s not the television contracts, get-out clauses, marketing departments or executive boxes. It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.”

QPR would do well to remember that. Weeks like this are not good enough. Not good enough by half. And a thousand of us go to Sunderland regardless.

To them, enjoy your summer. To the custodians of our club, and that’s all you are, sort it out.

Links >>> Cifuentes reign unravels – Column >>> Six of the best (and worst) – Column >>> Cifuentes exit – Patreon Podcast >>> Momentum schmomentum – Oppo Profile >>> Sheron’s Easter resurrection – History >>> Backhouse in charge – Referee >>> Sunderland official website >>> Sunderland Echo — Local Paper >>> Roker Report — Blog >>> Not606 — Forum >>> Ready to Go — Forum >>> Wise Men Say – Podcast >>> What The Falk – Podcast >>> A Love Supreme – Fanzine

Below the fold

Team News: In goal, number one, Robert Green. A back four of Taxi Joe, Jude the Cat and Spark the Tiger a formidable centre back pairing, and the ghost of Daphne Biggs overlapping down the left. Conor from the Box Office and Gerry Francis anchor the midfield. Andy Sinton will be wingman to Nick London down the left while Trevor Sinclair’s dreadlocks will play wide right. Mel Huckridge will lead the attack assuming the bus doesn’t get waylaid at a pub where he knows the landlord en route. Suburban funeral director Calm & Betsy will oversee the ceremony.

The role of Sunderland will today be played by the lads from Seham Reds Star’s U15 side.

Elsewhere: The final round of fixtures take place all at the same time on Saturday morning. Permutations, reading down from the top, are as follows.

Red Bull Leeds, away to Plymouth, will be champions unless Burnley, at home to Millwall better their result.

Bristol City guaranteed play-offs if they win at home to struggling Preston Knob End. A point will be enough if no more than one of Coventry, Millwall & Blackburn win.

Frank Lampard’s Coventry, at home to Middlesbrough, are guaranteed play-offs if they win unless the highly unlikely scenario of Bristol City winning and Millwall winning at Burnley by five or more goals than Coventry’s margin of victory comes to pass. A point will be enough for Lampard’s team if two of these three things happen – Millwall fail to win, Blackburn fail to win, Bristol City lose.

Millwall, with five wins from six and seven from ten, can gatecrash the play-offs with another win at Burnley if Bristol City or Coventry fail to win. Or in that unlikely scenario of winning by 5+ goals than Coventry’s margin of victory. A point will only be enough if Bristol City lose by 5+ goals.

Blackburn have suddenly won four in a row at just the right time and will be guaranteed play-offs if they win at Sheffield Red Stripe, who cannot move from third regardless, and two of Bristol City, Coventry and Millwall fail to win. A point will not be enough in any circumstance.

If Middlesbrough do win at Cov they will be guaranteed play-offs if they win and two of these three happen – Bristol City lose, Millwall fail to win, Blackburn fail to win.

At the other end, Cardiff were relegated last week with a game to spare. Thanks dad. They have a dead rubber at Norwich which means a big ex-Arsenal touchline face off for caretaker managers Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere. Will the benches at Carrow Road be replaced by two physio beds for the managers?

Plymouth are second bottom and only three points adrift but effectively down whatever they do against Leeds because of their -36 goal difference.

Hull will be the third team relegated if they lose at Portsmouth – Pompey have lost only two of their last 16 games at Fratton Park. The Tigers are, however, guaranteed survival if they win because Derby and Stoke are playing each other. A point will be enough if one of these three happen – Preston lose, Luton lose, Derby lose by 3+ goals.

Luton are relegated if they lose away to West Brom and Hull avoid defeat. The Hatters are down if they draw, Hull win and Derby and Preston avoid defeat (providing Derby do not win by 6+ goals). Matt Bloomfield’s side are guaranteed survival if they win.

Preston Knob End have lost four in a row and won only one of their last 14 games. They will pay for that with relegation if they lose at Bristol City, who need a result, and Hull and Luton avoid defeat (along with proviso that Derby do not suffer a heavy defeat). Heckingbottom’s side are also down if they draw, the Derby v Stoke game finishes level and Luton and Hull win. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Preston are relegated with fewer defeats (16) than Coventry qualify for the play-offs with (17).

John Eustace’s Derby rescue job will fail if they lose at home to Stoke, Preston and Luton avoid defeat and Hull win (Hull would only need to draw if Derby lose by 3+ goals). Also down if they draw and Preston, Luton & Hull all win. Guaranteed survival if they win.

Stoke relegated if they lose that game at Pride Park, Preston avoid defeat and Luton and Hull win (Luton would only need to draw if Stoke lost by 6+ goals). Guaranteed survival if they avoid defeat.

Referee: Anthony Backhouse from Carlisle finishes his season here. He began it by sending Jack Colback off for dissent at Bramall Lane, and last time he had Sunderland he awarded them two penalties against Burnley at Turf Moor – James Trafford saved both from Wilson Isidor. Details.

Form

Sunderland:Much like our 2013/14 campaign under Harry Redknapp, Sunderland have been secure in fourth for much of the second half of the season – too far from the automatics to challenge, too big a gap to seventh to drop out of the play-offs. Playing in the play-offs for the fifth time in seven seasons they have taken this opportunity to rest players and go on warm weather training trips to prepare them for the end-of-season knockout. Redknapp’s QPR won seven of their final 19 games, three of their final 10 aways, but then beat Wigan over two legs and knocked Derby out with the last kick of the final. Sunderland have lost four games in a row coming into this one, failing to score in three of them. They have won four of their last 12 matches losing seven. Winning 21 of their 45 games in the Championship this season (D13 L11), is their most victories in a second tier campaign since 2006-07 (27).

Sunderland are having their worst losing League run of season – four games. Without a win in five League games, scoring just one goal. Lost 1-0 in each of the last two home games, against Swansea & Blackburn. Lost three of last six home games, having been unbeaten in opening 16 League games at Stadium of Light. Not lost three successive home League games since 2018. Wilson Isidor is the top scorer here with 12.

The last two meetings between these sides have finished 0-0. Sunderland are unbeaten across their last five league games against QPR (W2 D3), scoring exactly three goals in each of those victories. QPR have won just one of their last ten away league games against Sunderland (D6 L3), a 2-0 victory in February 2015, though the Londoners are unbeaten across their last five visits to the Stadium of Light (W1 D4).

Sunderland have won just one of their last seven final games of a league season when its come on home soil (D1 L5), a 3-0 victory over Wolves in 2018. QPR do have a good record in these sort of end-of-season dead rubbers on the road. They have won at Coventry, Stoke, Swansea, Stoke, Sheff Wed and drawn at West Brom in their final away games across the last six seasons. The last time they lost was a 2-0 defeat at Leeds in Ian Holloway’s last match in charge.

QPR: (via Dave Barton) Marti Cifuentes managed 82 games, the 23rd highest for a QPR manager, just six below Neil Warnock and above the likes of Don Howe and Ray Wilkins.

He won 27 games with a win percentage of 32.93% just below Gerry Francis & Harry Redknapp

We scored 97 goals under him, we've only scored more goals under Mark Warburton (201) since our return to the Championship a decade ago.

The 20 clean sheets is the fourth highest number from a QPR manager this century behind Redknapp (31), Warburton (34), Warnock (36) andf Holloway (91)

Our biggest wins under Marti were the 4-0s at home to Leeds in April 2024 and Derby in February 2025. His biggest away win was the recent 3-1 win at Oxford.

Paul Smyth has made the most appearances under Marti playing in 78 of his 82 matches. Kenneth Paal featured in 74 games and Jimmy Dunne in 73

Michael Frey has the most goals for QPR under Marti with ten goals followed by Ilias Chair with nine and Sam Field with eight.

Ilias Chair has the most assists with 15, the next highest is Paul Smyth & Chris Willock each with six.

Jack Colback has the most yellow cards with 15 in his 45 games, Sam Field has 14 and Jimmy Dunne 12

We've had three red cards under Marti Cifuentes with Colback, Varane and Saito all sent off

We only had five penalties during his time at the club with Frey, Madsen and Dykes scoring three of them and Frey and Celar both missing one each.

Danny Rohl has the best managerial record against Marti Cifuentes winning three of his four games.

Marti's best record is against Rob Edwards winning three times against the former Luton manager.

Prediction: In our Prediction League for 2024/25 we’ll once again be handing out prizes for being top at Christmas and overall winner from The Art of Football - sample the merch from our sponsor’s newly extended QPR collection here. As we hear from last year’s joint winners WestonsuperR and SimplyNico for the final time, it will take a miracle for QPR_Hibs to lose his 10 point lead at the top of this season’s table...

Nico’s Prediction: “Well, what a way to end the season. This time last year, I was hoping for an Ilias Chair goal to get me to the top of the predictions table. This year, I’m just waiting for the season to end. Looking back over my posts, it has been interesting to see hope at the start of the season morph into contempt, flicker back to hope, and then collapse into despair. The underlying theme to all of it has been our hopelessly inexperienced CEO/DOF and the appalling squad he produced for our now gardening head coach (the garden leave being a season ending act of self-destruction equivalent to throwing a pin whilst holding a grenade in your mouth). The game against Sunderland pales into insignificance: they will likely batter us and we will deserve to lose given what has been done to the club this season; it has been positively Trumpesque and beyond parody.”

Weston’s Call “Who knows what team we will select, who knows who is even selecting it. Crazy and worrying times at QPR and I really fear for us next season unless this is cleared up quickly. Well done to all travelling to Sunderland, hope the team produce a good performance for you all but hard to see it given the current situation.”

Nico’s Prediction: Sunderland 4-0 QPR. No scorer.

WestonSuperR’s Prediction: Sunderland 3-1 QPR. Scorer – Ilias Chair

LFW’s Prediction: Sunderland 3-0 QPR. No scorer.

If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via our PayPal account loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk.

Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

JimmyJ19 added 18:56 - May 2 Ironically I think the only way I'm going to keep my love for the club is take a bit of 'gardening leave' myself next season.
1

pedrosqpr added 20:16 - May 2 Spaffed up for my season ticket renewal , I guess if Preston get relegated tomorrow Clive you won’t have to write knob in your previews
1

062259 added 01:02 - May 3 Amateurs
0

royinaus added 02:57 - May 3 Thanks Clive - I feel better now you have that off my chest!
0

francisbowles added 10:02 - May 3 Mr Christian Noury, Mr Lee Hoos and anyone else in the clubs hierarchy and owners, read the words that Clive has written and feel some shame. Let them sink in, show some remorse, stop treating us with contempt and vow to do better, to be more open and honest in the future.
0

gigiisourgod added 10:03 - May 3 Thanks Clive, hope there is a bit of ‘Christian Nourry is a w@nker’ heard in the North East today. Disrespectful, arrogant little worm.
0

TacticalR added 12:22 - May 3 Thanks for your preview (amidst the chaos). After getting rid of Warburton it's taking us three years to get back to where we started (well actually lower in the league than where we started), and now were ripping that up too. You've been saying all along that the club's communication strategy has been non-existent. The siege mentality of the board seems to me to be a reflection of the dehumanised leadership which we see throughout society, and in a very extreme form in the United States. Sarah Wynn-Williams's recent book about Facebook begins with this epigraph from the Great Gatsby: 'They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made'. Today's match looks to be a game between a team that has lost momentum and one that never really had any in the first place.

0

AgedR added 17:30 - May 3 Quite brilliant Clive. Jeez wouldn’t it be great to proud rather than ashamed.
0

stainrodnee added 19:51 - May 3 As you always do Clive, you’ve hit the nail on the head. And as francisbowles said, those in charge at the club need to read and take heed.
0

LoftBoy57 added 08:35 - May 4 Terrific piece of work Clive - the pride, pain & passion of supporting this crazy club captured so well. Thanks for all your hard work & the excellent reads.
0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Derby County Polls