QPR 3-1 Charlton

Match Report

Well, we needed a reaction and we got it. At half time, when we were 1-0 up, thanks to Paul Smyth, I said to Charlie: “We now need a goal in front of the Loft to take the sting out of that Coventry defeat.” In the end, we got two: a fantastic individual goal from Koki Saito on his season debut and a cool finish from Richard Kone, who went one-on-one with the keeper in the 96th minute. That means we’re 18th in the table going into the international break, level on points with the three teams above us. Not great, obviously, but not the disaster it was threatening to be.

Julien Stéphan promised a very different performance today and to make sure we got one he made six changes to the starting line-up, preferring Kone over Rumarn Burrell, Harvey Vale over Kieran Morgan, Paul Smyth over Rayan Kolli, Nicholas Madsen over Sam Field, Amadou Mbengue over Steve Cook and new loanee Rhys Norrington-Davies over Esquerdinha. However, he left Joe Walsh in goal, which was a bit perverse. Why not replace him with Nardi? Let’s hope he’s still planning to do that, but didn’t want to give Walsh the hook straight after a 7-1 defeat because that would have been too humiliating for the lad.

That meant we lined up as follows: Walsh in goal; Jimmy Dunne, Liam Morrison, Mbengue and Norrington-Davies as the back four; Jonathan Varane and Madsen in front of them; Smyth, Vale and Karamoko Dembélé as the attacking trio; and Kone up front.

The changes made a difference, at least to begin with. Walsh was clearly under strict instructions not to play it out from the back and he abandoned the goal kick routines that have proved so hopeless in the last few games. He was also better protected, with the combination of Mbengue and Norrington-Davies proving more effective than Cook and Esquerdinha at shielding the left flank. It only started to go wrong in the last 10 minutes of the half when, infuriatingly, he reverted to rolling the ball out to the centre backs.

We played with more intensity than we did against Coventry, putting a string of attacks together, and got our reward when Paul Smyth scored in the eighth minute. Vale put in a good daisy-cutter across the goal from the right-hand side, Kone sidestepped it and Smyth netted from the centre of the box. Cue Smyth’s trademark celebration.

We continued to play well, with the Northern Ireland international drawing a foul on the edge of the box in the 17th minute and the Charlton keeper having to get down smartly to save the resulting free kick from Madsen. But, bit by bit, the visitors came back into it, hitting the bar in 27th minute, and dominating the last 20 minutes of the half. We were letting them have too many chances – five shots to our four in the first half – and would have been punished by a team with better finishers. Having said that, we ended strongly, with Norrington-Davies hitting the left-hand post with a header from the centre of the box following a training ground routine that almost came off.

When we came back out for the second half, Stéphan substituted Smyth for Kolli, which was mystifying, given that Smyth had been our best player up until that point. Did he injure himself when he did his front flip? Or was Stéphan following orders because Christian Nourry wants to sell the Algerian in what remains of the window and was hoping he might get a goal? It’s worth noting that during the pre-match press conference, Ian McCullough, the football writer, asked Stéphan if he was solely responsible for picking the team and the Frenchman replied: “Is that a joke?” He went on to say that, yes, of course he picked the team. Did he protest too much? I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Within 10 minutes of the restart, the Addicks equalised. A searching cross from Tyreece Campbell found Rob Apter in space on the right hand side, who sent a bouncing ball towards the goal. It seemed to happen in slow motion, with Walsh rooted to the spot as the ball bounced past, unable to react in time. Were we going to lose as a result of another poor performance from the keeper?

After that Stéphan made some better substitutions, bringing on Saito for Dembélé in the 59th minute, and Burrell and Esquerdinha for Vale and Norrington-Davies in the 68th. Playing two strikers up front gave us a bit more oomph and we looked the side more likely to score in the last 20 minutes, which we duly did. The manager’s final change was to replace Varane with Isaac Hayden, one of three last-minute signings, in the 81st minute.

Saito was greeted with a huge cheer, followed by a rendition of ‘Sway’, and his impact on the game grew as he settled in. He had a right-footed shot from outside the box saved in the 74th minute, and went on to score a great individual goal in the 84th minute. He picked the ball up on the half way line, dribbled it towards the Loft, went round a defender, then placed the ball in the far left-hand corner, taking out the keeper.

The entire stadium erupted with un-contained joy, although whether it was the brilliance of the goal, the fact that it was scored by a returning fan favourite or just sheer relief that we might actually take all three points, it’s hard to say. I think in my case it was largely relief.

We did a decent job of holding on for the remaining 10 minutes, helped by the fact that the visitors ran down the clock by making a double substitution in added time. Charlton were so desperate to claw one back, with Nathan Jones becoming increasingly hysterical on the touchline, they left themselves open at the back, and in the 96th minute Kone found himself in behind, with no one between him and the keeper. Had it been any other QPR striker, or indeed any of our attacking midfielders, I wouldn’t have been at all confident, but Kone looked supremely composed, as if he was never in any doubt he’d score. And score he did, calmly putting it past the keeper and sealing the points for the R’s.

We needed a result to settle our nerves and the team delivered, chalking up its first victory of the season. Indeed, this was our first home win since the 4-0 drubbing we gave Derby on February 14th. It was a good team effort, suggesting no downing of tools under Stéphan, which is a relief, and was marked by some great individual performances, notably from Dunne, Varane, Madsen, Vale, Saito, Burrell and Kone. That’s two for two for the Ivorian, who celebrated at the end by lifting an imaginary crown and placing it on his head – King Kone! If he can carry on scoring at this rate, with Saito and Smyth getting half a dozen a piece, we might actually have a shot at promotion.

Okay, okay, let’s not get carried away. This was our first win in five games in all competitions and against a newly promoted side. When we come back from the international break, our first game is Wrexham away, which won’t be easy, followed by Stoke, who are currently third in the league. The players we’ve brought in over the summer should make us competitive in this division, but Stéphan has yet to find his best starting line-up. Let’s hope it all falls into place quickly next month when several players should be back from injury, notably Kwame Poku.

You can watch the highlights on Sky Sports here.