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Magilton hunts first home win as Accrington visit in cup - full match preview
Magilton hunts first home win as Accrington visit in cup - full match preview
Tuesday, 25th Aug 2009 14:39

After a disappointing start to the league campaign QPR return to cup action on Tuesday night in a competition that brought all manner of hope and optimism with it earlier in the season as Rangers won 5-0 at Exeter.

Queens Park Rangers v Accrington Stanley
Coca Cola League Cup
Tuesday August 25, Kick Off 7.45pm
Loftus Road, London, W12


A fans’ survey dished out to the Loftus Road faithful during the summer asked supporters to tick the description they felt most appropriately summed up the club as it is now. Farce was not there sadly, just various corporate management speak options like ‘exclusive’, ‘cold’, ‘fashionable’, ‘exciting’ and so on and so forth.

While the survey was much needed, if the answers were taken on board, a lot of the answers missed the point fairly spectacularly and I found myself using a lot of the additional comment boxes trying to get across how I felt as a supporter about my football club at the moment. Much as toffs with double barrelled surnames and six figure salaries from a marketing company named after the three surnames of its original toffs would like to tell you QPR can be summed up in three words it can’t – whether they be desirable, classy and boutique as the board would like or expensive, frustrating and nonsensical as many of the supporters would currently suggest. A football club is a transient, complex thing that cannot simply be stereotyped or categorised for the purpose of a survey or anything else.

Unless you support Accrington Stanley that is. Who are they? Eh? Drink milk or Ian Rush says you’ll end up playing on Tuesday night. Throw in the odd flat cap and whippet and David Lloyd wowing Shane Warne with tales of his weekend break in LA (Lower Accrington) and this could possibly be the most stereotyped team that isn’t Barnsley to grace the Loftus Road pitch for quite some time.

QPR should be reasonably pleased to see them too. Even allowing for our numerous recent disasters in this competition both at home and away this should represent a fairly straightforward path into the next round against a team that rattled round the lower reaches of the bottom division for the whole of last season and looks like doing the same again this term. A win, if indeed a win is achieved, would be just what the doctor ordered after a start to the season that could have gone either way after two draws to start but has since turned in the wrong direction. QPR have got progressively worse since winning 5-0 at Exeter in the first round of this competition and could do with a moral boosting win here, and again on Saturday at Scunthorpe to kick start the season prior to the international break.

Anything less than a win here and the knives will be out.

Five minutes on Accrington
Recent History: Accrington reformed in 1968, two years after the original famous old club went bust. However it is only in the last ten years under manager John Coleman that the club has strode forward, back into the Football league for the first time in 44 years. While Coleman built a side that would go on to win three promotions in seven seasons on the pitch local businessman Eric Whaley rebuilt the club and stadium to make it fit for league football once again. Promotion, when it came, was at the expense of Oxford United in 2006 - ironically the club that replaced Accrington back in 1962 when they were voted off the league ahead of their bankruptcy.

As well as Whalley’s money Accrington won the Northern premier Division on the back of £250,000 received as a sell on fee from Blackpool following Brett Ormerod’s £1m to Southampton. ormerod had started his career with Stanley and joined Blackpool initially for £50,000 - money that Coleman was able to use to build his promotion winning side. They arrived back in the league in 2006 but it has been a struggle since they returned with finishes of 20th, 19th and 16th achieved so far and chairman Eric Whalley stepping down earlier this year.

Stanley have also been involved in a scandal recently, with four players from both clubs charged with illegally betting on a dead rubber between Accrington and Bury at the end of the 2007/08 season. Bury won, as the players had bet that they would, and the authorities were called in when bookmakers noted suspicious betting patterns prior to kick off. Five players ended up fined or suspended, four of them from Accrington although only Peter Cavanagh remains in the squad of those implicated by the investigation.

The latest problem is a £300,000 unpaid tax bill that hangs over the club like a black cloud. Manager John Coleman lamented this draw as a likely defeat with little financial reward for his team but record goalscorer Paul Mullin has been upbeat about the potential of the League Cup to carry Accrington.

out of their present difficulties with a big third round draw if they can become the latest in a long line of lower league clubs to humiliate QPR in this compeition in recent years. Accrington are now charged with maintaining their league status on a strict budget with a squad of no more than 20 players. Manager John Coleman has two permanent signings and a loan waiting to come in but must shift players off his books first. Craig Lindfield is training with Stanley following his release from Blackpool, Ross Lloyd has been told he can leave Liverpool and is keen to make a previous loan arrangement at the Fraser Eagle Stadium permanent and Leeds defender Tom Lees is ready to come in on loan. Accrington though must move a player or two out, possibly through the retirement of John Mullin, before they can move another in and that rather sums up the difficulty faced by managers at the bottom level of the league, and John Coleman in particular.

The Manager: John Coleman celebrated ten remarkable years in charge at Accrington earlier this month and will hope to mark the occasion by maintaining the club’s league status that he fought so hard for. Coleman was a real non-league journeyman as a player, but a prolific goal scorer into the bargain. He played for ten different clubs and notched 500 goals – potency that earned him England semi-pro honours and numerous player of the year awards.

Strangely Accrington were never one of Coleman’s teams as a player – he was picked up by Stanley, who were then in the Northern Premier Division One, from Ashton United who he narrowly missed out on promotion with prior to moving. Accrington’s rise under a decade of John Coleman charge has been meteoric with three promotions and five cups culminating in promotion back into the Football League in 2006. The manager had never played at Football League level before himself, but has done well to keep Accrington in the bottom division on the most miniscule of budgets.

Coleman won the Conference manager of the year in 2006 when he guided Stanley back into the Football League, his third promotion with the club, and is currently only behind Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger in time served. He is easily the longest serving Football League manager and Accrington’s longest ever tenure, and most successful one, by some distance. He gave up a teaching career to take on the job full time after winning promotion into the Football League.

Three to Watch: Had things turned out differently this summer QPR could have been facing Accrington defender Dean Winnard in league action rather than through the luck of a cup draw. The 19 year old product of Blackburn’s youth set up was interesting our Championship rivals Doncaster Rovers during the summer but with Sean O’Driscoll only offering a trial and a permanent contract already on the table at nearby Accrington the defender elected to drop down to the bottom division in the hunt for first team football. Winnard was a regular in Rovers’ Premiership reserve team which means he has certainly faced better strikers on a regular basis than he will find in League Two – although Accrington’s goals against record so far is not the best and they have shipped six in the last two matches.

Stanley have boosted their attack this season with the signing of 18 year old striker Billy Key on loan from leicester City. The stocky Irish youth international, who once bagged 14 goals in the first five matches of Leicester’s academy season, is yet to get off the mark in three appearances for John Coleman’s men but is allowed to play this evening under the terms of his six month loan deal from the Walkers Stadium. His goalscoring record in junior football is formidable, and he has 50 to his name in just the last two campaigns alone at Leicester. he was watched by Accrington’s League Two rivals Cheltenham, and newly promoted League One side Wycombe before joining Accrington for the first half of the season at least.

Assuming (possibly a dangerous thing to do) QPR do turn up and do a professional job on Tuesday night you would imagine the busiest man on the park, and the one Accrington need to play well if they are to cause an upset, is on loan Leeds United goalkeeper Alan Martin. The Scottish keeper is one of those strange players, very much like our own Chris Plummer back in the day, that cultivates an excellent reputation for himself despite never actually playing for his senior club. His performances at reserve and youth level with Motherwell were enough to tempt Rangers before he had made his senior debut but he eventually decided to head south with Leeds. He signed a new deal there in 2008 but, again, still awaits a competitive start and has so far played all of his senior football in the Conference on loan with Barrow last season. The Scottish Under 21 keeper admitted he had no idea where Barrow was prior to signing for them and Accrington represents a step up in quality for him this season while he continues to await his Leeds United bow.

Links >>> Accrington Official Website >>> Accrington Message Board

This Tuesday
Team News: QPR are said to be chasing the signature of Arsenal striker Jay Simpson but will not complete that in time for this match. Lee Cook is a long term absentee with a knee complaint and Martin Rowlands is not yet fit to return from his opening day ankle knock (it is looking like it will be after the internatuional break before we see him again now) but Angelo Balanta is fit and ready to go. Accrington have only one confirmed absentee - John Mullin misses out from the weekend with an ankle injury sustained in the defeat at Aldershot.

Elsewhere: Sunderland got things underway in the second round of the League Cup with a comfortable 4-1 win at Norwich City on Monday night – the Canaries have now scored 13 and conceded 16 in just six matches so far this season. The pick of the ties in this round is saved for television on Thursday as Man City travel to Crystal Palace but there are one or two ties to catch the eye on Tuesday. Blackburn and Bolton have both made poor starts to the Premiership season and neither will fancy their first task in this competition with Rovers trekking down to League One side Gillingham, Simeone Jackson and all, and Wanderers going to Tranmere Rovers. Burnley have fared rather better in their first Premiership season and were a real cup team last season but would probably admit they could do without a midweek jaunt to Hartlepool tomorrow.
br> Referee: Craig Pawson from South Yorkshire gets his first ever QPR appointment on Tuesday night. This is his second season on the full league list as a referee and he took charge of Accrington twice in his first – a 1-1 home draw with Notts County and a 2-0 win for them at Macclesfield. Elsewhere Rob Shoebridge is booked in for the Peterborough v Ipswich game just ten days after being taken off the list following the nightmare goal that never was at Bristol City v Crystal Palace.

Links >>> Dean Sturridge Memorial Injury List >>> Arthur Gnohere Discipline Counter >>> Pawson in charge of QPR for first time >>> Referee League

Form
QPR: QPR’s only win so far this season has come in this competition – a 5-0 rout of Exeter that promised more that has yet to materialise. At home QPR have been held to score draws by Blackpool and Nottingham Forest so far, taking the lead in one and coming from behind in the other. Rangers have lost to lower league opposition in the early rounds of this competition for six of the last ten seasons, and were beaten by Northampton on a seventh occasion when we shared a league. Last season’s trip to Man Utd was the first time we have successfully been through three rounds of this competition since 1988/89 when we beat Cardiff, Charlton and Wimbledon on the way to a 5-2 defeat at the hands of Nottingham Forest.

Accrington: Stanley lost 3-1 at Aldershot on Saturday with two goals from our old charge Scott Donnelly doing the damage. They lost 3-0 at home to Northampton during the previous week but that came off the back of two wins against Lincoln in the league and higher division Walsall in the League Cup to set this tie up. Last season they finished 16th in League Two with only four away wins to their name all season – we got just the three ourselves you may recall. Stanley crashed out in the first round of every cup competition last year – losing to Wolves in the first round of this competition and getting beaten twice by Tranmere in the JP Trophy and FA Cup. They do have some recent League Cup pedigree – beating Nottingham Forest 1-0 in 2006 shortly after winning promotion from the Conference.

Prediction: As ever on these occasions if the manager does not mess with the team too much (although Magilton has done that much pissing about with it already it is going to be hard to tell if it is back to normal or messed with again whatever he picks) and the attitude of the players is right then we will be fine. At Exeter we had enough quality, and it removed its collective finger sufficiently far from its rectum in the second half to put the Grecians to bed with something to spare. We should do that again on Tuesday against an Accrington side that isn’t even close to being as good as the Exeter one we took apart. Should. But then we should have beaten Blackpool and Plymouth and Forest and so it goes on. Professionalism is the watch word here.
Rangers by three clear goals

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