Match Report from Loft for Words

While families up and down the land settled down for the Bank Holiday films on television, QPR fans endured their own version of Groundhog Day at Loftus Road on Saturday. Meagre opposition happy to waste time and play for a point? Check. QPR dominant for long spells? Check. Impressive visiting goalkeeper? Check. Score draw that could and should have been a comfortable win? Check and check again. Like Blackpool, Palace, Sheff Utd, Scunthorpe and Derby before them Sheff Wed came, were awful, and still left with a valuable result.

A victory here and one against Derby a fortnight before and Rangers would be safe. As it is that tendency to look good but produce little going forward, and appear untroubled and then concede a stupid goal in defence, risks dragging us into a relegation battle over the remaining fixtures. Our only saving grace may end up being that if Sheff Wed are this dreadful in their remaining games they will no more get four more points than us than fly to the moon. Wouldn't it be just our luck for our form to collapse and theirs to pick up though?

Following the two two draw at Preston last week, which should really have been a win, Warnock made on change to his side. Jay Simpson, apparently recovered from his hamstring injury but never really up with the pace of this game, returned up front at the expense of Antonio German who dropped to the bench. Taarabt and Priskin supported him with Ephraim wide left, Faurlin and Leigertwood deeper in the midfield. At the back Ramage continued to deputise for Connolly at right full back with Gorkss and Stewart in the middle, Hill at left back and Ikeme playing the penultimate game of his loan spell in goal.

Wednesday had winger Jermaine Johnson back after a hamstring injury, although the Jamaican was only fit enough to make the bench. Lewis Buxton returned to the back four after a lay off, seemingly charged with the task of man marking Taarabt whenever Rangers had possession of the ball - visiting manager Alan Irvine no doubt wary of the Moroccan after his one man demolition job at Deepdale the week before.

Wednesday goalkeeper Lee Grant is one of the best in the division, and always seems to have a terrific game against us. He may well have been anticipating a busy afternoon as Rangers pressed early on, but few of the actual efforts on goal actually carried much threat. Grant was almost caught out by an overhit cross from the right by Priskin but the Wednesday keeper was alert enough to follow the flight of the delivery and watch it safely over the bar and onto the roof of the net. Then he easily gathered a tame low effort on goal from Ephraim after he'd made an unusually forceful run to the edge of the area around the ten minute mark.

Faurlin made the most of a lucky bounce of the ball after Taarabt and Ephraim had become muddled in their own intricate build up work but his powerful shot flew straight at the keeper. Priskin stooped to head a corner from Taarabt well wide of the post as the R's continued to press. Wednesday’s only real threat of the first half came from Potter who fired high into the Loft after decent approach work from Soares. The Owls hardly mustered a single worthwhile attack for the first hour of the game in truth.

Tamas Priskin had two decent chances for his first Loftus Road goal either side of the half hour mark. First he seized on a broken Wednesday attack after Soares was forced out of possession and raced into the right channel behind Spurr who had bombed forward to join the attack. His second touch took him rather wider of the goal than he would have liked but his shot from a tight angle was still struck fiercely enough and needed pushing wide of the post by Grant. The keeper was able to watch the next effort, from an almost identical position in the left channel, fly high over the bar as Priskin had a wild lash following a neat bit of skill to put him through in the first place.

In between those two chances, in fact from the corner conceded by Grant in denying Priskin, Rangers took the lead. Taarabt received his poorly taken corner back from a defender, tried to trick his way into the area but lost possession again, and then the ball rolled free to Hogan Ephraim whose deep cross was headed towards Damion Stewart by Alejandro Faurlin and when the big centre half won his header on the edge of the six yard box the little Argentinean was able to race onto the loose ball and hammer it home. To a man the Rangers players joined him in celebration of his first ever QPR goal down by the School End corner flag.

Buoyed by the goal, if not his own strange part in it, Adel Taarabt produced a quick repertoire of his skills on the edge of the area to beat three Wednesday players and shoot wide of the goal just before half time.

This pattern of QPR pressure without a cutting edge continued into the second half as Gorkss saw a header from another Taarabt corner cleared out of the goal mouth by some desperate Wednesday defence.

QPR could and should have put the game to bed in the ten minutes straight after half time. Clearly Warnock had sent the team out with that aim in mind as they took the game to Wednesday and penned them back deep in their own half right from the off. When the visiting side’s offside trap fell to pieces under a routine long free kick Tamas Priskin really should have scored but a poor first touch left him with his back to goal and then a gratuitous bicycle kick flew into the Lower Loft via a combination of Grant’s hand and the top of the crossbar.

Priskin nevertheless looked a lot more confident in himself on Saturday after an improved showing and goal at Preston last week and a neat step over on the edge of the box from him allowed a ball from Leigertwood to find Ramage in acres of space down the right channel and he got to the byline before pulling a cross through the six yard box to nobody. Occasions when the ball has flown across the face of goal without a striker being on hand to provide the finish are mounting for QPR – I cannot believe coaches are not nagging Simpson to get his nose under the cross bar more often. He could have had five or six more goals this year simply through loitering in the six yard box more. Ramage repeated the trick a quarter of an hour later, sending a peach of a cross through the six yard box and throwing his arms up in despair at the lack of a team mate in position.

Faurlin had a long range shot well saved by Grant as the R’s continued to press. Wednesday though had options on the bench. Jermaine Johnson has always posed us problems when he has played against us and his hamstring was sufficiently recovered from a recent spell on the sidelines for him to come on for the last 20 minutes, closely followed by Leon Clarke – and if you thought Jon Parkin was fat….

Sure enough the new arrivals added a freshness to the Wednesday side that saw them come roaring back with an equaliser and then look the more likely to side to press on for a winner in the closing stages. O'Connor fired the first warning shot across the bows with a header from a Spurr cross that Ikeme saved and held well. The frustration of not being able to put the game to bed, and constantly being followed around by Buxton, finally got to Taarabt midway through the second half and he was shown a yellow card by referee Colin Webster for a mixture of dissent and squaring up to his persistent opponent. Taarabt will face this tactic more and more as he continues to progress through his career and must learn to keep his temper and deal with it better than he has done against Derby and Sheff Wed this season.

It was no surprise to see the newly introduced Johnson at the heart of the move that led to the goal, racing through to the edge of the area leaving several QPR players trailing in his wake before catching Peter Ramage out numbered and out of position with a ball through to overlapping full back Spurr and his cross was powerfully headed home from a slightly awkward angle by Tom Soares arriving late in the box and towering over Matt Hill.

With ten minutes to go Rangers launched what was sadly becoming an all too rare attack when Ramage got to the byline and pulled the ball back to Leigertwood. After taking a touch to set himself and assess the situation Legs decided that with no Wednesday players offering a challenge he may as well try a shot and his powerful left footed drive flew an inch or two wide of the top corner with Grant beaten.

Wednesday thought they’d won it moments later when a perfect free kick from the right by Spurr swung right into the danger zone and really only Clarke will know how he allowed the ball to be claimed by Ikeme on the goal line when a second goal seemed absolutely nailed on as the ball dipped down into the goal mouth. He dragged a shot wide of the post from reasonably decent position as well leaving Rangers thankful that Irvine only had a fat, bumbling idiot to turn to from the bench rather than a striker who may have punished us more severely for our wastefulness in attack and slack marking in defence.

Warnock sent on Lee Cook for Hogan Ephraim with ten minutes left for play but sadly Cookie had one of those cameos where absolutely nothing went right for him and his introduction did more harm than good. German replaced the ineffective Simpson before that but could do little to influence proceedings himself while Rowan Vine came on for Priskin, who was actually applauded by the crowd for a change after an improved performance, but had only four minutes of stoppage time to produce something and failed to do so.

It was like being surrounded by 10,000 Swiss Tony’s on the way out of Loftus Road on Saturday – all talking about how you have to make sure you score when you’re on top. Football, is very much like making love to a beautiful woman. In a similar circumstance to the Derby game QPR had been the better side for the first part of it, the first hour or so in this case, but having only managed a single goal were then made to pay for a lack of cutting edge by a Wednesday team that took their one chance of the match. Soares’ goal was the visitor’s only shot on target in the entire match and would have been academic had we put away just a couple of the numerous gilt edged and half chances we missed before it.

Priskin was more guilty than most, his mis-control and subsequent complicated bicycle kick onto the roof of the net when he had time to get the ball under and finish properly was the worst miss of the lot. However this was probably the Hungarian’s best game for us overall and it was nice to see the crowd recognise that with warm applause when he was taken off rather than the usual jeers and cheers. Peter Ramage had an excellent game as well, even slinging over a couple of quality crosses that nobody got on the end of, but like Priskin, who played well but missed our best chance of a winner, Ramage was a mile out of position in the build up to the Wednesday goal.

I would at this point say ‘on to Leicester’ but as I’m writing this with the hindsight of the 4-0 Easter Monday defeat it has tempered my conclusions somewhat. I think any criticism of Neil Warnock is harsh at this stage. He really is polishing turds here and just hoping to drag this bizarre hotch potch squad of ours through to the end of the season. I don’t agree with many decisions he is making but I’m not sure the answer to the problems we’re having at the moment is at the club – we don’t have a ball busting centre forward for people like Simpson and Taarabt to play off and we don’t have a Martin Rowlands or Gavin Mahon figure to play with Faurlin in midfield. Until we have either of those, minimum, I’m afraid we’ll just have to muddle through and to expect much more than what we’re getting, or Warnock to be able to turn this dodgy mixture into a tasty cake is not realistic in my opinion.

QPR: Ikeme 7, Ramage 7, Stewart 6, Gorkss 6, Hill 6, Ephraim 6 (Cook 81, 5), Leigertwood 6, Faurlin 7, Taarabt 6, Simpson 5 (German 73, 5),Priskin 6 (Vine 89, -)
Subs Not Used: Cerny, Buzsaky, Balanta, Oastler
Booked: Taarabt (dissent)