This is getting repetitive. Another half-decent performance, another defeat. I’m beginning to think Clive Whittingham is right and the better our opponents, the better we play, but with this caveat: we always play just that little bit worse than them. And so it proved yesterday against Watford at Loftus Road. We were a lot better than we were against Cardiff, creating plenty of chances and, for the most part, frustrating their efforts to get into goal scoring positions – we had an xG of 1.57 to their 0.43 and seven shots on target to their two. But the crucial difference is that we only made one of our shots count, whereas they converted both of theirs. In other words, we weren’t clinical enough in front of goal. And with last week’s news that the Championship’s financial rules effectively prohibit us from doing any business in January, that means no striker to save us from relegation. As the Cardiff fans sang after the match on New Year’s Day, we’re going down with the Rotherham.
This was my first visit to Loftus Road in two weeks, having missed the FA Cup tie against Bournemouth last weekend. I got a last minute invitation to go shooting, and given how rare those are, I didn’t think I could turn it down, particularly as QPR almost never progress beyond the third round. Of course, I regretted this when, as I was driving back to London listening to the game on QPR+, Armstrong scored in the 40th minute. When that was immediately followed by a goal from Dykes, I pulled into a service station so I could get the game up on my laptop. But as I sat there watching Bournemouth score three goals in the second half – the first two from corners, would you believe it – my regrets at not being there began to fade.
Having rested Chair and Willock last Saturday, they were back in the starting line-up yesterday, as was Jack Colback – meaning Martí Cifuentes fielded what looked like our strongest team, save for the fact that Dunne rather than Steve Cook was at centre back. That meant we lined up in a 4-3-3 formation as follows: Asmir Begović in goal; Reggie Cannon, Dunne, Jake Clarke-Salter and Kenneth Paal in defence; Sam Field, Colback, and Chris Willock in midfield; and Lyndon Dykes, Ilias Chair and Sinclair Armstrong up front.
Our first chance fell to Armstrong in the fifth minute, who got his head on the end of a cross from Paal, but failed to hit the target. The Hornets countered in the ninth minute, got in behind and might have scored if it hadn’t been for a sliding tackle from Field right in front of goal. I was relieved when the referee, Simon Hooper, signalled to the Watford players, who were appealing for a penalty, that Field had got the ball.
We had another chance in the 19th minute when Cannon won a free kick on the edge of the area. Chair took it and came pretty close, hitting one of the stanchions. The Hornets got in behind again in the 30th minute, with Dunne making a goal-saving tackle this time – and to be fair to the Irishman, he had a pretty good game.
Shortly afterwards, they had a free kick from just outside the area and, given how poor we are at defending dead balls, it was squeaky bum time. One of their players managed to head the incoming ball against the cross bar, but he was flagged for offside so it wouldn’t have counted even if he had been on target. There was another heart-in-mouth moment when the visitors won their first corner in the 42nd minute and I noticed that all of our players had come back to defend it. Happily, the ball was intercepted by Clarke-Salter and cleared.
Our best chance came in the 43rd minute, when Armstrong got a shot off that stung the goalkeeper’s gloves, forcing him to spill the ball. Chair was straight on to it, but a Watford defender got to it first and managed to scramble it to safety.
It was 0-0 at the break, a huge improvement on our performance in the reverse fixture on the opening day of the season when Watford scored four goals in the first 45 minutes. We had two shots on target this time, whereas they had none.
We were even better at the beginning of the second half. Armstrong got in behind in the first 10 seconds, drawing a save from the keeper. He fired again in the 57th minute in our best move of the game. Bego released the ball quickly with a long throw to Willock who was deep into enemy territory. He squared it to Armstrong, who then clashed with a defender. Somehow, the ball ended up at the Irishman’s feet, but he took a touch when he should have shot straight away and that meant the keeper was ready for him when he did let fly a second later. It still needed saving, but it was the kind of opportunity we have to take if we’re to get anything out of games like this.
Sure enough, Jake Livermore scored for the visitors three minutes later. It was their first shot on target, but it was un-saveable – curled into the top right-hand corner from outside the box. Charlie turned to me and said: “That’s what happens if you don’t take your chances.”
We’d been playing so well up to this point I refused to believe it was game over, even though I know that we almost never win after conceding first. But to ram the point home, Livermore scored again five minutes later, prompting a string of expletives from me. Why can we never get any points, even when we’re playing well? We are now winless in seven.
Hope was momentarily restored when Paul Smyth replaced Chair in the 69th minute and proved to be a real handful on the left-hand side. In the 77th minute, he managed to lose his marker and put in a wicked ball across goal that Dykes managed to bundle into the net.
In the 85th minute, Cifuentes replaced Clarke-Salter with Ziyad Larkeche and Field with Andre Dozzell and, with seven minutes of added time, it looked like we might at least salvage a point. The closest we came was when Smyth unleashed his long throw in the 93rd minute, which sailed over the head of the nearest defender and fell kindly for Dunne, who forced another good save from the Watford keeper. More expletives from yours truly.
If I didn’t know QPR better, I’d take some comfort from this performance and say: “If we play like that in the next two games against fellow strugglers Millwall and Huddersfield, we’ll stick some points on the board.” But the corollary of Whittingham’s Law is that the worse our opponents are, the poorer we are, and we nearly always play just that little bit worse than them, too. I hope to God I’m wrong. But at this point what little hope I have has almost been extinguished.
You can watch the highlights on Sky Sports here.
Taken me six and a half hours to find the energy / pluck up the courage to read Toby’s match report - a sign of fan base malaise. Being fickle though, a few wins and I will be back to refreshing my inbox waiting for it!!
Whittingham’s law is frustratingly true.