We wondered what QPR would learn from Saturday and take into another game where the assignment was dominate possession justify a favourites tag – and against Oxford, at Loftus Road, on Wednesday night… we found out.

Three days of gripping Ryder Cup action, a passionate Irish duo dragging Europe over the line, Justin Rose walking after his putt eight feet from the hole fist already clenched. Arsenal stay the course with a dramatic winner at Newcastle in the seventh minute of stoppage time, St James’ Park stunned to silence. St Helens’ ‘wide to West’ moment was so implausible they’re still showing it, and talking about it, 25 years on. On Friday night they did it again, keeping the ball alive after the hooter for a dozen passes and more to score the try that took them to a Super League semi-final. Gut-wrenching disappointments for Trump-supporting American golf fans, the Saudi-backed Toon Army, and the good people of Leeds. Sporting theatre and narrative at its finest, beamed wall to wall into your living room. And, on Monday morning, a breathless press release to say it had been the most-watched weekend on Sky Sports in the history of the network.

Chief Sports Officer, Jonathan Licht, said: “Record audiences tuned in to watch the thrilling action from Bethpage Black, and the Premier League, WSL, Championship, Super League, NFL and more. The results we’ve seen across linear, social, and digital this weekend show how the biggest sporting events really are the best of entertainment, and the exceptional teams at Sky Sports help make them truly unmissable for fans.”

Brandy and cigars and bonuses and tiny penis energy. Well done everyone.

And there, standing by the door waiting for their turn, with a silly grin on their face and a rubber fist in their hand, were Queens Park Rangers. Hiya. You want fucking elite level sport? We’ll show you elite level sport. Give it here, you’re not doing it right. Here’s a plan with some chest hair.

We said last season’s home game with Oxford United was one of the poorest staged on this ground in living memory. Quite a statement, given some of the memories that still live of the times we’ve spent here together. QPR seemed affronted by this and took it as a challenge.

At least that game, belatedly, had a couple of goals, and a Rangers win. This one, across the worst part of 100 minutes, had just one shot on target – a cartoonish 25-yard speculator by Michi Frey which Jamie Cumming caught at his near post. Round of a-fucking-pplause. Other than that, one of the division’s more underrated goalkeepers at one end, and nervous Nardi at the other, had nothing to do but panic over the occasional ropey backpass. Neither needed to bother getting changed before, nor showered after. That’s it, match report done.

QPR’s insipidness owed much to their team selection, which manger Julien Stéphan steadfastly stood by afterwards. The R’s have been fully 27% worse than their already pretty mediocre win percentage in game three of a three-game week for a while now, easily the biggest drop off from any side in the Championship, and one of the lines pushed about Stéphan’s suitability over Marti Cifuentes was that he had experience of managing squads through these logistical challenges having played Europa League and Champions League football with his first Rennes team. Having gone unchanged for a third game in a row at Hillsborough on Saturday and been rewarded with a lacklustre display against Sheff Wed, it was inevitable there would be alterations to the line-up here with Bristol City following on quickly within 72 hours. The Frenchman settled on five switches in the end (naan bread, Jeremy, etc, I’m boring myself at this point).

Oxford arrived with only one win to their name so far, but that in impressive style at Bristol City in their last away game. Their reputation under Gary Rowett is a team that poses much of its threat from set pieces – seven of the nine they’ve scored so far have come from dead balls, 77.8%, the highest total and percentage of any side in the league. Giant centre back Michael Helik has pestered Rangers in this regard several times in the past.

The solution Stéphan came up with to this bubbling cauldron of context was… the most agricultural line-up since season three of Clarkson’s Farm. Michi Frey, so enormous and static I’m amazed somebody hasn’t colonised him and held elections, alongside Richard Kone for one of the more immobile forward lines ever fielded at this level. Isaac Hayden AND Sam Field both together at the same time in the centre of midfield – to me, to you, to me, to you. Steve Cook the coal-fired centre back in for Liam Morrison. All of the height, and all of the elbows. So much mashed up Dundee cake even the Saniflo 33 would struggle to chew through it. Like that episode of Bottom where they’re stirring the home brew in the bath and the handle snaps off when they try to take it out – I think it’s ready.

Not unsurprisingly, the first hour was clunky as a bag of spanners. Far below the usual standards of Championship football, and borderline unwatchable for a midweek crowd at Loftus Road. The only positive was Sky had indeed picked this as their main game. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Ha. Move all our Saturdays to 12.30 will you? Wallopers.

Isaac Hayden broke a line after eight minutes, Michi Frey gave the ball away. Oxford played an incisive through ball (print it out for Joan), Krastev shot high into the Loft. QPR worked a nice breakaway but, when they looked to the acres of space on the left, there was nobody there, because the only winger they did have kept inverting.

That winger - Dembele - showed what a defensive liability he is with the concession of an Oxford free kick which they took short for Krastev to… shoot high into the Loft.

Kone’s decent skill on the ball looked to have worked space for a shot but in fact simply set in motion an Oxford counter which Rhys Norrington-Davies showed pace I didn’t really know he had to track back and recover. Unfortunately, the Sheff Utd loanee slipped over completely under the next through ball and owed Steve Cook a pint for a rescue pick up.

And so this continued. On and on, interminably. Vale and Dembele inverted inside, narrowing the QPR attack and leaving vast hectares of development prospect land out wide which… we don’t have the full backs to move into and take advantage of. Frey’s lay off to Kone and a through ball to Dembele at the midway point was, presumably, what this was meant to look like, but it was the first and last time it happened and the corner it won was wasted. For all the improved recruitment this summer our end of window summary was this was a squad that had big issues in the middle of midfield and at full back, and still does. This game served as the first 20 pages in the prosecution’s evidence bundle.

Mbengue’s big recovery challenge on Lankshear after Hayden had frittered away possession again kept the scores level. Dembele’s drill through the six-yard box only needed a touch, but was neither one thing nor the other – much like his overall performance. Frey had a shot from 25 yards – come on, we’ve all had a drink – and Cook blasted over at a corner. Kone gave the ball away and ran back 80 yards to recover his own mistake.

That was where the applause came. Recovery tackles after bad mistakes, hard yards run by Norrington-Davies and the like. Much like Saturday, the Sheff Utd loanee very much the man with three hairs in this land of the bald. We didn't lose, and there's something to be said for that. Cook looked more his old self, but skill, ability, completed passes… painfully thin on the ground. Goal threat not even that, absolutely zero. We could still be there now. I’m glad we’re not. Once was more than enough.

Rookie referee Ruebyn Ricardo cruelly added another minute to see if things improved. QPR wasted 40 seconds of that dallying over a goal kick and then still somehow contrived to use the final 20 seconds to give the ball away and allow Placheta a shot… high into the Loft.

Fuck me to death. Go inside, take out your brain, rinse it under the cold tap for two minutes, come back to me with something better than that.

Having praised Stéphan for his proactive half time changes at Sheff Wed, naturally here he stuck with what painfully wasn’t working and pissed away another quarter of an hour at the start of the half. The slop continued to flow. Chances are, in a crowd of 15,000+, there was a man there last night whose job it is to climb in and clean/repair septic tanks. And this is what he does on his night off.

Two minutes pissing around in our own penalty area until somebody finally closed down Paul Nardi and was unlucky not to get a boot on his hurried clearance set the tone. Frey ran into a channel and planted a David Bardsley-like cross of devilish whip and bend straight into the car park at the Television Centre. Dembele then showed how you actually cross a ball from that side, and Kone and Frey took turns to miss the delivery entirely. I like Michi Frey, in a certain set of really specific circumstances, but somebody really is going to have to walk me through his two separate contract extensions in the last three months. In the last 18 months the people running our club have handed out four separate contract renewals to Frey and Sam Field.

We have at least solved the problem with the dingey floodlights – just show a bright white advert for Don Shanks’ remarkable New York marathon advert on the big screen. The light of a million candles, finally a bit of light on the job see what we’re bloody doing out there. Thankfully, they didn’t leave it up long. Shine that in my eye mate, I’ve lost a pint of blood.

And look, I get it. I truly do. New team settling in with a tonne of new signings. New head coach working out what he’s got and how to work it. A club with not only an issue with three-game weeks, but the biggest and most pronounced issue in the league over a considerable period of time and multiple managers. We’ve got to solve it. Rotation is more possible now with the depth we do have on the bench versus the subs we were relying on last season. Cifuentes had two years with this squad and this league and learned as he went along what worked and what combinations were kryptonite to any football being played. That knowledge has left the building and Stéphan must now learn it for himself. If he repeats things like Field and Hayden together in midfield for a winnable home game then you have to worry, but for now he’s sucking to see and I’m relatively content that he’s shown himself quite proactive and pragmatic in changing things quickly that don’t work.

Nevertheless, this felt like a misstep, and two points left on the table. Like Saturday, we took this very lightly indeed and paid the price. We don’t have the squad to make five changes and just turn up and win a game. We could have been fifth this morning – all that feel good and momentum from three consecutive wins, you then get back-to-back games against ostensibly the worst two sides in the league and you do that with it.

If felt like we over-thought and over-planned for a home game against a team second bottom of the league, with one win all season, and just three victories to its name in 28 away matches since it was promoted to this level a year and a half ago. Lads, it’s Oxford. Yeh they’re a threat from set pieces, but that’s literally the only threat they have – two open play goals in a dozen games so far. You’re trying to nullify the attack of a team that doesn’t have an attack. What about when we’ve got the ball?

The pace and mobility we’ve fought so hard to put back into this team was removed almost entirely. Only Mbengue really able to commit and run past people with any consistency. Dembele a real frustration all night with a couple of brilliant final balls not enough to paper over the cracks of the rest of his performance. The progression out of midfield was gone entirely - Field and Hayden taking it in turns to come up with different convoluted passback to Paul Nardi scenarios. No pace, no tempo, no verve, no rhythm and no threat. An absolute dirge for an hour. Type something will you, we’re paying for this shit. Go forwards. GO FORWARDS.

A triple substitution on the hour was roughly 55 minutes overdue. Rumarn Burrell provided the weapon, Koki Saito the transport, Nicolas Madsen the keys. For the first time, Oxford started to look vaguely uncomfortable in the game and the crowd came to some form of life in response. Saito was into the action immediately. Burrell toed a Norrington-Davies cross just wide at the near post. Madsen chipped a glorious Hoddle-like through ball for another sub Paul Smyth – forward balls from midfield, witchcraft – but the Northern Irishman botched the cutback with Kone screaming. It says something for his progress, but also how we played here, that we missed Madsen in this game. Field and Hayden treated the halfway line like an electric fence.

There was width in the team for the first time on the night - we’d previously been too narrow against a team happy to clog the middle of the field - but the end product remained poor. There were occasional forward passes, mainly from Madsen, but the central midfield was a dead zone all night and Jonathan Varane didn’t improve matters when he came on either. De Keersmaecker kept that fairly well locked down all night allowing Brannagan to spend his time refereeing.

It was a game of really strange combinations. Not only on paper, where Frey and Kone formed no kind of partnership, and the dynamic Field and Hayden midfield duo was a footballing Father Fitzpatrick - "an awful dreary, monotonous voice" – but in practice on the grass as well. At one point in the second half we worked a nice triangle that forced Steve Cook into action as an auxiliary right winger. The cross he produced was a stupendous thing, hard and low and undefendable, completely unread by a collection of stunned teammates, but still… if your pattern of play has worked Steve Cook into the right wing position you’re knitting the wrong sweater grandma.

In the end we were still too narrow, still too keen to go backwards and sideways, and still too ponderous in possession – two, three, four touches when a first-time flick was required. Like the AGM at the Cleethorpes and District Arthritis Care Group. Get the ball moving, pull the opposition around. Play our game, not theirs, play Richmond Oiler ball. Instead, right into their hands. Oxford able to stay in shape and repel all boarders with ease really. A defence that included Tony Currie’s QPR supporting nephew (too good to check) Jack Currie went through the motions here and claimed a clean sheet without too many dramas. And, let me promise you this, you’ll wait a long time to play a team as poor as them at home. Placheta, who played ostensibly as a creative midfielder for them, had a pass completion of 52% from 21 attempts - your ballplaying midfielder/winger gave the ball away every other time he tried to pass it. El Khayati eat your heart out.

This took some sitting through. Longer than a Leonard Cohen song.

The positive, in the end, was we didn’t lose the game. Cue lots of barroom logic that we would have done 12 months ago. It really was more by luck than judgement that we didn’t here.

Mbengue, mad as a dickless dog, decided the 74th minute, just when Oxford had really settled in and decided a point was fine for them, was a good moment to clatter straight through the back of Luke Harris who was a) miles from the penalty box and posing no danger at all, b) wide on the field and going nowhere, c) with his back to the goal and no support, and d) Luke Harris. A brain fart so potent it incurred a ULEZ charge. Good news for the F Block cohort who had him at 9/2 for a card on SkyBet (can’t imagine that price will be hanging around for long, it’s like buying money) but bad news for a huge travelling support to Bristol on Saturday where he’ll serve a one match ban. We talk about ceilings with players, Mbengue’s ceiling is VAR.

To be fair, we needed another big recovery tackle from the former Reading man to stop Varane nodding Oxford clean through on goal when he tried to find Cook with a simple back header and missed him by 12 feet. And the whole lot of them were seriously fortunate when a period of stoppage time largely burned off by Gary Rowett being a fucking helmet and delaying a quick throw in ended with an Oxford free kick perfectly delivered onto exactly the man you’d want on the end of it… and Helik somehow botched his header wide of the post. A real let off. You’d expect Helik, and a Rowett team, to ice that.

You couldn’t argue Oxford, without a serious shot on target all night, deserved to win, but had that gone in you’d have been hard pushed to say QPR didn’t get exactly what was coming to them for a shoddy, sloppy display.

Maybe just shake hands now. I don’t think QPR and Oxford should be allowed to play each other. Three points each a season and let’s not bother. It doesn’t happen often, and no good comes of it when it does. Like several meetings with the U’s before, may we never speak of this one again.

Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread

QPR: Nardi 5; Dunne 6, Cook 6, Mbengue 6, Norrington-Davies 6; Dembele 5 (Saito 61, 6), Hayden 5 (Varane 81, -), Field 5 (Madsen 61, 6), Vale 5 (Smyth 75, 5); Kone 5, Frey 4 (Burrell 61, 6)

Subs not used: Morgan, Esquerdinha, Hamer, Morrison

Yellow Cards: Mbengue 74 (foul), Burrell 87 (foul), Norrington-Davies 90+3 (scuffle)

Oxford: Cumming 6; Spencer 6, Helik 6, Long 6, Currie 6 (Leigh 90+5, -); Placheta 5 (Mills 69, 5), De Keersmaecker 6, Brannagan 5, Krastev 5 (Dembele 56, 5); Lankshear 5 (L Harris 69, 5), Prelec 5 (M Harris 90+5, -)

Subs Not used: Davies, Goodrham, Ingram, Vaulks

Yellow Cards: L Harris 85 (foul)

QPR Star Man – Rhys Norrington-Davies 6 Again. I guess? Surprising turn of pace, good recovery runs and tackles. For what it’s worth our Oxford correspondent in the away thought Cook was our standout, keeping Oxford top scorer Will Lankshear under a careful lock and key. It certainly wasn’t anyone further forwards.

Referee - Ruebyn Ricardo (Leicester) 7 A very good first hour on his first QPR appointment. A rather more ropey last half hour concluding with the nonsense in stoppage time that should have seen Rowett dismissed for deliberately stopping a quick throw in and then trying to burn off all the stoppage time with some general cuntiness – bottled that rather with two yellow cards wafted in the vague direction of both benches. You can only work with what you’ve got at the end of the day, never mind refereeing this I could barely stay awake through it.

Attendance 15,470 (1,500 Oxford approx.) All of them bored to tears.

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 - Reuters Connect

jointy added 23:42 - Oct 2 Great report as usual.Given the squad we now have and our piss poor 3 game a week record, I felt Julien did the right thing with the changes. Bed the squad, let them know they get their chance if others don’t perform and get minutes on the board for those that haven’t played 90 mins of Championship football for a while. Unfortunately as soon as I saw the concourse stat boards telling me Oxford haven’t won here since 1969, I was fearing the worst!

0

Myke added 00:21 - Oct 3 Cheers, Clive. Whatever about the 'extended highlights' , how you got 2000 + words out that dross is remarkable. I don't actually agree that, two many changes caused the result. The performance caused the result, just as it did on Saturday when we had our 'first team' out. I believe our problem is attitudinal as a collective, rather than individual selections. Quite simply, we frequently 'can't be arsed' and this is a problem on-going for years. The moment we let our tempo drop we fail to win (if it's Oxford/SW) or get thumped (Burnley/Coventry). The moment we up the intensity and desire, we win (Stoke/Sunderland). People talk about consistency - that's the consistency JS needs to achieve, consistently playing at a high tempo. I always reckon with QPR, you know withing 5 minutes of the game starting, how it will unfold, and sadly that was all to true last night. Still, 5 games unbeaten and still unbeaten at home - baby steps.

4

Northernr added 00:53 - Oct 3 Myke - good post, and I don't disagree at all.
0

VancouverHoop added 02:32 - Oct 3 Michi Frey, so enormous and static I’m amazed somebody hasn’t colonised him and held elections, Worth raising a glass for. Wonderful!
1

HastingsRanger added 09:44 - Oct 3 Clive, great summary of a disappointing night. I really think that we do have some strength in depth, compared to other seasons, allowing potential change in 3 game weeks. However, this makes it all the more puzzling to start with the Frey/Kone and Field/Hayden combinations on the pitch at the same time. Start with one and I would have given Frey and Field the first half. Also, this lack of intensity gave Oxford the perfect time to settle in, when we should have stretched them from the off. Reminded me of the opening period with Derby last season, only we got perfectly timed goals out of the blue to change the game. Only positive for me was to see the impact of Madsen. Good technique and quick intelligent passing. If he continues to improve his tackling back /competing (admittedly not difficult to improve from very low), he could be a key player in the future. Just hoping. Points dropped like this may make another long season. Passed up opportunity.

1

Geoff78 added 11:50 - Oct 3 There was a point in the first half when Field had the ball in a reasonable patch of space and dithered over what to do. There was a 40 yard cross field pass on to Vale (I think) and I'm sure Field saw it but didn't have the confidence to play it. Having been an automatic selection for most of the past 3 seasons I guess his confidence is low but he's never been a great passer and it's obvious Stefan wants more from his midfield (except when he's resting them!). I like Sam as most of us do, but this is sad for him. As for the ref I entirely agree he was excellent for three quarters of the game but gave some odd decisions late on, although I couldn't see the injury time scuffle from the SA stand. Finally, Stefan has to try these different combinations and knows better than we do the fitness and stamina levels of the players. I don't think we'll see this line up again. Thanks for a great report.

1

Marshy added 12:38 - Oct 3 The trouble with supporting QPR is you never know which team is going to turn up. Just when you think we’re on the up we regress into a team of clueless amateurs. I mean one shot on target all night, come on. I suppose in mitigation Julien is still finding his best combinations, but clearly won’t go with Frey / Kone and Field / Hayden pairings again. The one player I felt we missed most was Illias Chair. At his best he would have at least given us some progressive midfield. I look forward to his return as soon as possible. Still early days I guess, but it’s so frustrating watching matches like this. On one positive note I did think that Steve Cook put in a really good shift, and was effective defensively and going forward. Given his age - a great professional.

2

stainrods_elbow added 17:28 - Oct 3 Nail on head in all particulars - and very blackly funny with it at times. Should be cced to JS asap.
0

stainrods_elbow added 22:47 - Oct 3 Looking at Myke's post, it appears consistency is a thing after all!
0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Derby County Polls