From the sublime to the ridiculous. QPR’s five game unbeaten run at home came to an end this afternoon with a tired, error-strewn performance that ended with a 0-2 defeat to Middlesbrough. The largely unchanged team was a shadow of its Wednesday-night self, reminding over-excited fans like me that we’re still in a relegation battle. With Stoke and Millwall winning their games and Blackburn taking a point, we’ve finished the day in 20th place, with only Birmingham separating us from the bottom three. And Birmingham have a game in hand!
Martí Cifuentes made two changes to Wednesday’s starting eleven, replacing Paul Smyth with Chris Willock and Isaac Hayden with Joe Colback, who’s back from suspension. That meant we lined up in a 4-2-3-1 formation as follows: Asmir Begovic in goal; Jimmy Dunne, Steve Cook, Jake Clarke-Salter and Kenneth Paal in defence; Colback and Sam Field in front of them; Willock, Lucas Anderson and Ilias Chair as the attacking trio; and Michael Frey leading the line.
We started quite strongly and my wife, who hadn’t been to a game since the Ainsworth era, said we looked like a team transformed. Chair won a free kick in the fourth minute which led to a corner, then another, then another. The third ended with a decent chance for Field, who headed it over the bar from a few yards out. Willock, who looked sharp in the first half, got off a curling shot in the 20th minute that drifted just wide of the far post, and struck again a few minutes later, this time forcing a decent save out of Seny Dieng.
Our former keeper was called into action once more in the 30th minute, when a through ball from Frey put Chair in on goal. The Moroccan struck well, but Dieng, who was caught off his line, got a hand to it and pushed it out for a corner. We weren’t playing with the same energy as Wednesday night – not surprising, given this was our third game in eight days – and some of our players were more-than-usually prone to unforced errors. But we had the better of the first half, with an xG of 0.39 to the visitors’ 0.17 and eight shots to their four. Overall, we had 63% possession.
But it all went pear-shaped in the second half. It wasn’t that we got significantly worse, although we created fewer chances and conceded two goals. It was more that Boro realised we were beatable and began to take control. It was so obvious that the game was drifting away from us that Cifuentes made three early substitutions in the 55th minute, replacing Frey with Lyndon Dykes, Field with Hayden and Chair with Smyth. You don’t often see Chair getting the hook so early and it extinguished what little creative spark we had. Willock looked tired in the second half, posing little threat, and Smyth didn’t have a shot on target.
If Cifuentes had been hoping to stop the rot it didn’t work because the visitors scored in the 65th minute. Their goal started with a free kick needlessly conceded by Hayden, with Emmanuel Latte Lath latching on to the ball and guiding it past Bego. From where I was sitting, it looked like Bego could have done better. The visitors scored again 12 minutes later, with a cross finding Marcus Forss on the far post, who nodded it over Bego’s head and into the far corner. Again, the Bosnian looked a bit slow and didn’t compare well to Seny, who produced two good saves in the first half. If we stay up, I imagine Cifuentes will be looking for a new keeper
The Spaniard made two more changes in the 78th minute, replacing Paal with Ziyad Larkeche and Anderson with Sinclair Armstrong. Apart from a touchline altercation involving Clarke-Salter and Luke Ayling, both of whom got carded, nothing memorable happened in the remainder of the game.
A disappointing afternoon, then, in which the R’s seemed to revert to type after losing just one in their last nine. Perhaps a dip in form was inevitable after the gargantuan effort expended on Wednesday night. But as Clive Whittingham said on X, we really need to win all three points when we play that well.
In his post-match interview, Cifuentes said he thinks we still have enough to survive. Let’s hope he’s right. There are nine games left, meaning 27 points up for grabs. In previous seasons, 50 points is usually sufficient to stay up, which means we need 11 from the next nine – which is surely doable. But it depends on how those around us perform, obviously, and at the moment the only team in the bottom eight that isn’t competitive is Rotherham.
Next up is Sunderland away, then a break, then we take on Birmingham at home in another six-pointer. I expect to age at least 10 years in the next two months.
You can watch the highlights on Sky here.