Cardiff and QPR, two clubs with plenty in common, meet in South Wales on Sunday hoping their more sensible approaches can yield success this season.

Cardiff City v Queens Park Rangers

Championship >>> Sunday August 14, 2016 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather — Cloudy, dry, warm >>> Cardiff City Stadium

Rivalry used to be a simple thing at Queens Park Rangers. We hated Chelsea, and they hated us.

But being out of the Premier League for 15 years separated the warring factions during which time Chelsea were stuffed full of dodgy Russian money and changed beyond all recognition, acquiring hordes of new fans who’d never heard of QPR before — in fact, many of them had never shown any interest in football before.

Disregarding the weird West London food chain, where Fulham and Brentford both seem to hate QPR who in turn seem rather confused and non-plussed by it all, Rangers were left to find grudge matches elsewhere. Little spats with Luton and Stoke blew up along with, bizarrely, some needle with Cardiff City — a club some 150 miles away that hadn’t played Rangers in a league fixture at all between 1982 and 2001.

Familiarity soon bred contempt though. Over the past 15 years, QPR and Cardiff have found themselves entwined in promotion and relegation battles at the same time. The Welsh side won the 2003 play-off final in their own City 1-0 after extra time at QPR’s expense. They then returned to buy the star name in the Rangers side Richard Langley, while Gareth Ainsworth came the other way and won promotion with Rangers a year later anyway.

When QPR finally got themselves into a position to compete for promotion to the Premier League under Neil Warnock in 2010/11, it was Cardiff and Craig Bellamy who posed one of the biggest obstacles. Thankfully Dave Jones’ side was best known for its late season chokes, and Rangers took the title. Cardiff were promoted later under Malky Mackay.

And the comparisons don’t end there. Both clubs have Malaysian owners who have been on steep learning curves since buying their respective clubs five years ago.

Both have had difficult experiences with managers. Tony Fernandes wrote a blank cheque for Mark Hughes who used it to complete his 2005/06 Premier League sticker book using Kia Joorabchian’s client log. Harry Redknapp then came in and did what Harry Redknapp does — lots of money spent on lots of wholly short term solutions.

Vincent Tan was seen as a typical, clueless, meddling foreign owner when he started undermining, and eventually sacked, Mackay despite the promotion, only for it to turn out that he’d been spending the club’s money in less than legitimate ways, while racially coating off players and board members alike. Ole Gunnar Solksjaer was supposed to be some sort of great managerial white hope, but that only ever seemed to be based on a couple of good season in Norwegian football and a fascination with the Football Manager computer games.

Tan also, infamously, changed the colour of Cardiff’s kit from blue to red, because it played better with a Far Eastern audience.

Now, firstly, this idea that there are millions of people in Thailand, or wherever, absolutely desperate to support Cardiff City if only they played in red, or Hull City if only they were named after an aggressive wild animal, is ridiculous. But more importantly, as the Premier League rattles towards 20 foreign owned clubs with 20 entirely foreign starting elevens, I struggle to understand the logic and mentality of foreign owners who come to this country and do things like that.

Surely it’s the 150 years of tradition, the presence of ages old clubs at the heart of their community, the ancient rivalries that have grown up over time, the passing of football club support from father to son etc that makes the English league so attractive to television companies, and therefore rich foreigners, in the first place. If not, why not just invest in some other league, where everything costs a lot less? So why, having bought into all of that, would you then want to change the colours, or the name, and cart the team off around the world to play friendlies on converted baseball diamonds?

Tan has since realised the error of his ways, though not befiore huge swathes of the club’s support has found other things to do with their Saturday afternoons.

Thankfully Tony Fernandes has been mindful of that side of things at QPR, overseeing the restoration of the club’s badge from the monstrosity that was left behind by Flavio Briatore, and finally getting the first team playing in a proper QPR strip — though Lee Hoos and plenty of others had lots to do with both.

Both clubs find themselves in similar situations again. Both have calmed their spending, realising that chucking good money after bad was achieving no results on the pitch and simply making lots of twattish footballers rich. Both are now in the Championship, with limited chances of making the play-offs this season, which certainly isn’t what the respective owners will have signed up for in the first place.

Both are now doing things in a more sensible, considered way. Both can only hope that in the medium term that leads to them challenging each other at the top of the league once more, only this time from more stable foundations.

Links >>> Six inches from promotion — History >>> Solid Cardiff lack in attack — Interview >>> Linington takes Cardiff trip — Referee >>> Hashtag Realism — Podcast

Ian Holloway’s QPR team secured a last minute win at the old Ninian Park ground thanks to a goal from Richard Langley at the business end of the 2002/03 season.

Sunday

Team News: Jamie Mackie is a long term absentee while Ariel Borysiuk is working his way back to fitness after an ankle injury. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink says new signing Yeni Ngbokoto has work to do to reach the extreme fitness levels everybody else in the squad has been working hard to reach all summer, but he may be given another start here.

Cardiff signed Welsh international Emyr Huws from Wigan during the week and he may make his debut here. Fabio, one time QPR loanee, has left to join Middlesbrough. Fool. With two games played and no goals scored, Adam Le Fondre must surely be pushing for a start in attack.

Elsewhere: Round two of 746,832 got underway last night with Brighton stating their intent with a 3-0 victory against Nottingham Trees, who didn’t look too bad themselves despite the one-sided scoreline.

Now what of the Aston Villa Train Wreck? A late defeat at Sheffield Owls last weekend, and absolute catastrophe at Luton Bastard Town during the week including a farcical own goal, nothing quite says welcome to the lower level than a home match with Rotherham today. Thank you for coming home, sorry that the chairs are all worn. One optimistic soul on the Villa message board this week said the club could basically cease to exist altogether if they don’t win today. No pressure there then.

The game of the weekend is probably the televised Saturday evening match between Norwich, who won big at the Mad Chicken Farmers on day one, and the Sheffield Owls.

That leaves eight matches at 15.00, some of them intriguing — Newcastle v Huddersfield, Nigel Clough’s Burton Albion against dark horses Bristol City, Champions of Europe looking to recover from their opening day shellacking by QPR at home to Birmingham — and some of them less so — Preston v Tarquin and Rupert, Wolves v Waitrose, Brentford v Ipswich.

Newly promoted Barnsley host the Derby Chokers, while the Mad Chicken Farmers have a local derby at Wigan which is probably the last thing they need right now. Owen Coyle running out of Lancashire clubs beginning with B to manage now — Bury next?

Referee: James Linington from the Isle of Wight is the man in the middle for this one, his first QPR appointment since a League Cup defeat at home to Carlisle almost a year ago to the day. Full history and stats available here.

Form

Cardiff: City finished six points shy of the play-offs last season despite not spending a penny on players, and that campaign was based on one of the league’s best home records. Only Hull City lost fewer games on their own patch than Cardiff, with Hull and Leeds the only sides to win on this ground in 2015/16. A dozen wins and nine draws, with just 20 goals conceded, a formidable record at the Cardiff City Stadium. New manager Paul Trollope has found goals hard to come by in his first two games though, with a host of chances missed in last weekend’s 0-0 at Birmingham and a 1-0 extra time defeat at Bristol Rovers during the week.

QPR: Goals were meant to be QPR’s problem this season, but two games in they’ve already notched five from five different scorers — Seb Polter, Tjaronn Chery, Conor Washington, Yeni Ngbokoto and everybody’s second favourite own goal of all time. A big area to improve this season from last is the away form. QPR won just four of their 23 away matches in the league, and lost at Forest in the FA Cup as well. Two of those victories came against Huddersfield and Wolves in August, meaning Rangers only won two of their final 20 road matches last season (Rotherham and Reading).

Betting: Our tame professional odds compiler Owen Goulding says…

“QPR face their first away game of the season with a trip across the border to Cardiff. A very decent opening win against - albeit it has to be said- a poor Leeds side, was very welcome. I must admit personally it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen such an organised Rangers side, where every player seemed to know their duty. The pressing game Jimmy was renowned for at Burton was apparent also and a pleasure to watch.

“Cardiff started the season with a decent scoreless draw at Birmingham and will be looking to build on that on Sunday. Cardiff are a team going through transition rather like ourselves but goals however look at a premium to me for this one. It looks a cagey affair and so I’m looking at the 0-0 half time market for a bet for this one. 13/8 with Paddy Power looks worth an investment to me.

Cardiff v QPR - 0-0 Half Time Correct Score @ 13/8 (Paddy Power)

Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion Dylan Pressman tells us…

Optimism worked out in week one but we are not going to win every week. I predict a tight affair at Cardiff ending in a 1-1 draw with Seb Polter keeping scoring for the second Sunday in a row.

Dylan’s Prediction: Cardiff 1-1 QPR. Scorer — Seb Polter

LFW’s Prediction: Cardiff 0-0 QPR. No Scorer

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wrinklyhoop added 13:24 - Aug 13 I wonder if both Tarquin and Rupert will travel up to Preston?
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TacticalR added 23:45 - Aug 13 Thanks for your preview. All good points about the blunders of foreign owners. Since Tan has take a back seat Cardiff have done pretty well given the lack of spending on players. I do wonder whether, if Cardiff were promoted, Tan would want to push himself to the fore once again.
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TacticalR added 23:45 - Aug 13 Thanks for your preview. All good points about the blunders of foreign owners. Since Tan has take a back seat Cardiff have done pretty well given the lack of spending on players. I do wonder whether, if Cardiff were promoted, Tan would want to push himself to the fore once again.
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