| Middlesbrough 0 v 2 Queens Park Rangers SkyBet Championship Saturday, 2nd September 2023 Kick-off 15:00 |  |
Dozzell's spectacular arrival drives QPR's latest Riverside wonder - Report Monday, 4th Sep 2023 07:31 by Clive Whittingham QPR made it four wins from five visits to Middlesbrough's Riverside Stadium, and added to their collection of spectacular goals on this ground, with a 2-0 victory on Saturday inspired by a 30 yarder from an unlikely source. The St Jude’s Institute which started all this nonsense off in the first place took its name from the Patron Saint of Lost Causes. How very QPR, you may think, and say, and laugh along with your mates in the pub who support “the Arsenal” via the means of “the television” when you inform them of that fact. Of late though - and by ‘of late’ I mean several decades - they’ve been anything but. A lost cause overall, sure, but a sanctuary for football’s down and outs, projects and punts? Ain’t nobody got time for that. Get me another four loanees mate. As media, computer games and football’s lamentable ‘banter era’ has driven the focus and discussion increasingly away from the sport’s long form – i.e. the actual bloody 90 minutes on a Saturday – towards short term sugar fixes and viral clips, so signings have become the be-all-and-end-all. Are we “cooking”? Only if we’re signing players. We live in a disposable world – food, fashion, plastic, football players. Don’t like this one? Fuck it off and buy another one. Those who spent a summer haranguing the club to make Austin’s loan permanent – “this isn’t Austin, where’s Austin, nan stays in the cage until Austin” – quickly moved onto the dual track of directly messaging Austin and his wife about how shit he was, and re-engaging with the club about signing another “fucking striker”. QPR, for years, while publicly billing themselves as a “development club”, have duly obliged. Nine permanent or loan signings last season, 19 heading the other way in one form or another; 13 in and 14 out the season before; 14 one way 16 the other the year before; 16 in and 19 out in Mark Warburton’s first year in charge. And so this goes on, and on, and on. Always another player. Frequently another manager. A footballing Goldilocks, briefly parking their bum on a chair, bed or centre half, who’s been perfectly good enough for somebody else, and immediately deciding it’s not for us. Spending and spending all the time. Churning and churning more than a provocative Polish Eurovision outlier. Steve McClaren’s “team of men” one of the more egregious examples, but people’s champion Mark Warburton was just as guilty. Always another signing. Just another six or seven more. When QPR are often at their best is when you put them on the naughty step and take their toys away. When you can’t spend money, sign players, or replace people who’ve only been here for 20 minutes themselves you have to work with what you’ve got. Maybe get on the training ground with a few of the discarded waifs and strays and see if there aren’t some marginal gains to be had by, I don’t know, coaching them? Playing a system that suits them? Having an adult conversation with them? And lo, here is Andre Dozzell, up and about in a fresh nameless shirt after taking a thick Middlesbrough boot to the chops, working an intricate three pass exchange with Ilias Chair and Jack Colback, to create space on the half shell for him to widen an angle on his favoured left foot and burn the whole barn down from 25 yards with a shot into the far top corner. QPR are doing a nice line in shots off both posts this year – Jack Colback and Andre successful, Sinclair Armstrong desperately unlucky not to be, perhaps these things do even themselves out over time. The away end at Middlesbrough is situated conveniently immediately behind the point of the pitch Dozzell drew his boot back and let rip on his technically immaculate shitpinger, it was in from the moment he struck it and it gave me an erection so big and shiny several ships altered course in the North Sea. I could hear Andy Sinton from where I was standing.
It was a fine strike to add to a recent collection that includes brilliance from Jordan Hugill, Rob Dickie and Chris Willock on this ground where Rangers have now won four from five visits. Maybe we should just boot Dozzell in the mush more often? After 48 starts, 29 sub appearances, no goals and one assist, most had started to wonder just what exactly it is he does. His two-game transformation from passenger to leading man, asked to go forward and actually affect play while Sam Field and Jack Colback mind the shop, a fine example of a management team looking for solutions, rather than problems, with what they have to work with rather than abdicating responsibility and demanding further expenditure. Could this be where Gareth Ainsworth and Richard Dobson come into their own? They built a reputation at Wycombe wringing every last drop out of players many others had given up on and now they’ve got absolutely no choice other than to put faith in players that other managers, fans and the club wrote off as not good enough, not old enough, not arsed, not to their style, not for them, and demanded a replacement be signed. You’ve got one senior striker who’s injured, and beyond that you’ve got Sinclair Armstrong, Rayan Kolli and Charlie Kelman. You can moan about it or you can muck in and work with what you’ve got. Is Rayan Kolli ready for this? Probably not. Is he going on now with 20 minutes left to play away at Middlesbrough? Yes he is. And so he should. Did he do fine? He did more than fine. And just look at that barnet. Michael Carrick, who’d come dressed as a dad who’s no longer allowed to see the wee’uns, seems to be doing the opposite. He’s added 12 new players this summer, ten of them permanently, including our own social butterfly Seny Dieng who’s so far let 60% of every shot he’s faced go into the net, and £5m Atalanta striker Emmanual Latte Lath who spent the afternoon running clean through on goal and missing. Amidst much flapping of flags and banging of drums by way of an atmosphere, the home side attempted to set to work against an opponent you could have had at 7/2 if you’d wanted, but mostly found the imposing frame of Steve Cook in their way. A succession of headed clearances, timely interceptions, and get out of my pubs marked him out as an early man of the match contender. The first of several proficient saves from Asmir Begovic came after 25 minutes from Isaiah Jones on an angle and ten minutes later the Bosnian keeper did the same thing again on the opposite side to deny Lath. Another, similar, chance was also repelled well, though would have been flagged offside had it been scored. QPR, though, were playing well. If Ilias Chair was grumpy about the Championship’s outright ignorance of his qualities through another transfer window it wasn’t immediately apparent – off and away behind Paddy McNair down the left flank twice in the opening two minutes. Paul Smyth on the other side welcomed Lukas Engel to this level by grilling him a nice toasty brown colour over a 90 minute torture session, bursting past him and sticking a lethal cross-shot right through the six yard box 20-odd minutes in. Both Boro full backs looked massively uncomfortable with what they were being asked to do and who they were tasked with marking. Chair and Smyth had both had sighters on Dieng’s goal immediately preceding Dozzell’s opener. It had been coming. One of the biggest criticisms of the Watford debacle on day one was it was like we’d never even heard of Watford or Valerian Ismael, let alone watched them or him play. Just so horrendously naïve to what they were going to try and do to us and wide open as a result. Obviously we’ve added Cook and Colback to things since then, and both of them were in the right place at the right time so often in the first half you wondered if they’d been sent an advance copy of the script, but more importantly it also looked and felt like Lee Hoos has loosened the purse strings enough to stretch to a VHS recorder and Middlesbrough season video. Boro mostly spent the afternoon pisballing about in front of us, 50 yards away from the goal, as is the style of the time. That meant our recent problem of wilting after 60 minutes wasn’t such an issue, because you don’t expend much energy watching and scratching your head. When they did try and advance they frequently passed the ball straight to Colback, Sam Field or Kenneth Paal – often in 30 square yards of space – because clearly the work had been done on ‘if they do this it means they’re about to do this so if you park yourself there they’ll just give it to you’. What problems we did face were often of our own making. We took one throw in backwards and backwards again to Begovic who messed the pass back up, and then moments later did exactly the same thing again in the same situation. Colback dished out a couple of bollockings. A free kick given away in injury time was chipped up for McNair to head down and Begovic to save and the keeper had to come and bravely tackle through Lath right on the apex of the penalty area when, yet again, Rangers got a back pass badly wrong. Steve Cook leaving the fray injured felt like a big blow. He’d been brilliant. Time for the first of this year’s eight sightings of Jake Clarke-Salter from the bench. Boro were always going to come on strong at the start of the second half to retrieve the situation and so they did, regularly targeting Osman Kakay on the right of the back three. Begovic picked up where he left off, saving brilliantly from Lath, then having committed everybody forward for a cleared corner QPR faced a monumental counter attack of four against nobody at all and when Colback’s attempt to bring the whole thing to a close with a red card failed the game looked to be up – Dozzell ran the full length of the pitch to brilliantly slide in, avert the danger and cement his star man credentials. Boro wanted a penalty for a big Sam Field lean in soon after, referee Thomas Bramall played advantage into a one on one situation between Lath and Begovic and, well, we know how those turn out. Carrick made two subs, and then two more, casually bringing Lewis O’Brien on, as you do. Brought a gun to a knife fight and then pulled out another gun. Mind you, the guy in charge of the public address system screaming “Josh Coburn” didn’t exactly instil the same sort of fear as when it was Juninho and Ravenelli in these parts. You don’t need to shout mate, that’s why they’ve given you the microphone. The whole thing was running out of steam somewhat. In the side stand, some absolute virgin decided to start blowing a whistle he’d brought from home. I’ve seen funnier episodes of Miranda. Sam Field stopped entirely, believing a free kick had been awarded, allowing Boro to storm through. Don’t score off this, don’t score off this, don’t score off this… phew. Bramall held a Zoom conference on the touchline about the whole thing.
QPR had played well against Ipswich and Southampton for no reward, held back by a good goalkeeper in the first instance and woeful finishing in the second. Here, neither were an issue. Smyth’s destruction of Engel, even with Hackney there to help out this time, was total. His cut back was on point and caused carnage. Go onnnnn. Chair’s shot was miraculously stopped on the line. Aggggghhhhhh. The rebound fell to Jack Colback. Surely now… And he lashed home. Mwahaha. Prior to kick off the only player on the pitch with more goals for QPR than Chair and Field was Jonny Howson with two own goals, now here’s Colback with two in two. Not sure that’s what we bought him for, also not sure I care. To our left, the hormonal teens and blokes so well fed they haven’t been able to see their own dick since the days of Ayresome Park, so keen to engage previously, either went very quiet, or left. Armstrong, who we felt had been a little more conservative and reserved here, perhaps learning to conserve energy rather then burn out after an hour but less fun for it, was replaced by Kolli, who came on and started winning headers. How tall is he? Difficult to tell under there. Pray for Darragh Lenihan, one minute expecting to win a routine ball in the air the next trapped in a Tina Turner video. The referee added six to the end of the game which, with all the substitutions, goals, injuries, and imaginary whistles, would have been at least twice that on the opening day of the season. Colour me shocked they’ve given up with that after a fortnight. Still, having sat through ten extra minutes leading 2-1 at Cardiff I’m not complaining. There was a late Clarke-Salter goalline clearance and a Begovic camera save to prevent another nervy finish, but Boro were spent a long time before the final whistle, and QPR were thoroughly good value for an excellent and deserved victory. Gareth Ainsworth has undone another button and added a necklace. Clearly he’s pleased with the direction of travel. Many more performances like this and he’ll be bare to the waist but for a gold medallion. Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread Boro: Dieng 5; McNair 4, Fry 5, Lenihan 5, Engel 3; Howson 5 (O’Brien 69, 6), Hackney 5; Silvera 5, Rogers 6 (Greenwood 58, 5), Jones 6 (McRee 58, 6); Lath 4 (Coburn 69, 5) Subs not used: van den Berg, Barlaser, Gilbert, Glover, Bilongo Bookings: Greenwood 77 (foul) QPR: Begovic 8; Kakay 6, Fox 6 (Larkeche 85, -), Cook 7 (Clarke-Salter 45, 6); Smyth 8, Dozzell 8 (Duke-McKenna 85, -) Colback 8, Field 6, Paal 7; Chair 8 (Willock 85, -), Armstrong 6 (Kolli 72, 7) Subs not used: Archer, Dixon-Bonner, Kelman, Adomah Goals: Dozzell 43 (assisted Colback), Colback 71 (assisted Smyth) Bookings: Colback 50 (foul), Chair 65 (foul) QPR Star Man – Andre Dozzell 8 Nice to have several choices in this for once, but the narrative pick has to be Dozzell. A spectacular first goal for the club, and arguably just as important a magnificent sliding tackle to avert the three v none counter attack at the end of the first half turning into what felt like an inevitable equaliser. So, that’s what he’s for. Referee – Thomas Bramall (Sheffield) 7 Best game I’ve seen him have, though that’s not saying a lot. Six minutes added to the end of each half, given everything that went on in both, suggests they’ve already rowed back fairly substantially on this season’s trendy clampdown. Attendance – 25,671 (563 QPR) If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via our PayPal account loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk. Pictures — Ian Randall Photography The Twitter @loftforwords Ian Randall Photography Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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