| Oxford United 1 v 3 Queens Park Rangers EFL Championship Wednesday, 9th April 2025 Kick-off 19:45 |  |
And breathe – Report Thursday, 10th Apr 2025 23:59 by Clive Whittingham QPR settled their nerves, and their league position, with a welcome 3-1 win at fellow strugglers Oxford United on Wednesday. There comes a point every spring where we conclude Queens Park Rangers are about done. Too far away from the play-offs to threaten a promotion push, too many injured players to put many more results together, too few games remaining to move anywhere very much in any direction – it’s Mykonos time baby. Get minutes into youngsters, try a few things out, start prepping for next season, and let’s get the hell out of Dodge. After all, we’ll say in an early March match preview, it would take an extraordinary series of results from here for QPR to be relegated. I mean, we’d basically have to lose every game, AND Cardiff would have to win five of their last eight, AND Portsmouth would have to win six of their next seven, AND Derby would have to win all of their next four, AND Luton would have to go from one win in ten to eight wins in a week, AND Stoke would have to be good. It’s not going to happen, is it? Let’s be realistic here. After all, with 45 points on the board we’re basically safe already. What 31 seasons of Last of the Summer Wine taught us, however, is there is no situation, however unlikely and farfetched, that can’t somehow be turned into a gratuitous scene of daft blokes accelerating downhill in a bathtub on wheels. Whether the players become complacent, they simply run out of steam, or they too lose concentration and motivation as the beach and a summer of contract negotiations and transfers beckons, what then happens, almost immediately, is QPR give you a beer to hold and set about trying to get relegated anyway. Like they see it as a challenge. Like they enjoy it. QPR do, indeed, lose every game they play, in ever more farcical and convoluted circumstances. Cardiff go from the worst team the Championship has seen this side of Swindon Town to some sort of bastard hybrid of Manchester United circa 1999 and Arsene Wenger’s invincible Arsenal side. Portsmouth’s addition of a turret to the main stand at Fratton Park starts building a hefty body count, clubs as massive as Red Bull Leeds mown down in a hail of machine gun fire. John Eustace from Solihull morphs into Marcelo Bielsa from Rosario, Derby County start to look halfway competent. Luton win a game of football. Stoke successfully complete three passes without killing anybody. Dogs and cats live together and mass hysteria begins to build. Can you be top in October and then get relegated? Let’s win two of the next 24 games and see. Can you turn a run of one defeat in 13 and three points shy of the play-offs into a three-month catastrofuck that ends in league fixtures at Port Vale? I like this plan. I’m excited to be a part of it. The noise of Rolls Royce engines is replaced by the wind against the fuselage as the plane begins to fall from the sky. A glide into the runway turns into a drift towards the ocean. A gentle descent becomes a freefall. And the passengers’ mood changes from not noticing or caring to not believing and denial through to hope and pleading and finally mild terror and peril. Three defeats become five. Five defeats become seven. Tenth becomes 12th becomes 15th. Fifteenth becomes 18th and 18th becomes 20th. The bottom three smell blood in the water and start to circle. And relatives fear he’s using Air Crash Investigation to describe matches again. Most of the rest of the sport find this hilarious. Da fuck they doing over there? The bookies are happy to offer 28/1 on a relegation – although that was 50/1 a fortnight ago and has been dropping almost as rapidly as the team. We took an Aston Villa fan to the Cardiff match at the weekend who, after listening to the tales of woe in the pub for half an hour, glanced at the league table and pondered “what you all on about, you’re going to be fine?”. She wasn’t saying that after watching the Cardiff match though, was she? To be “fine” you are going to have to beat somebody eventually, and playing as Rangers did at the weekend you’re not going to do that any time soon, even accidentally. A first competitive visit to Oxford since 1998 loomed large on the Wednesday horizon, and a frontline of Shirley Temple, Paul Smyth and Crocodile Bennie did not immediately scream points. So, here we are again. Teams emerging through fire, glitter and a copy of the Daily Express. Tense, knotted stomachs. Small, silent prayers. Every seat in the away end taken and a mixture of disbelief and pessimism in the air. The source of your disappointment changes, but the constant is you’re always disappointed. How have we done this to ourselves again? Oxford do their heavy lifting at home. They’ve already won ten on their own patch, the same as Middlesbrough and one more than West Brom at the other end of the division. On Saturday they beat the Championship’s best away side, Sheffield Red Stripe, here 1-0. Gary Rowett would see this as an ideal opportunity for the U’s to move towards their season-long goal of Championship consolidation. I expected them to come flying at us, all high press and maximum aggression, asking whether we had the stones and the energy to go with them. I wasn’t hopeful we’d answer that question positively. Rangers had won one of 24 away games against newly promoted League One sides, the last in August 2021 at Hull. QPR, though, have been in the Championship for ten years now. They have, indeed, done this late season freefall several times before. Ian Holloway, Steve McClaren, Mark Warburton, Neil Critchley and Gareth Ainsworth all suffered them. None of them seemed to be able to diagnose or solve the problem, but neither did any of them get us relegated. Rangers are a deep roller, for sure, but one of their parents is a shallow roller, and so while they’ve run the ground close a few times it never has quite led into actual full blown league fixtures at Grimsby Town. It may not feel like they’re ever going to win a game again, but they do. Often just in time. Often when you least expect it. But a win all the same. This one wasn’t quite knocking over Vincent Kompany’s Burnley at Turf Moor with 4.5% possession on the day they’re meant to be picking up the Championship trophy - Oxford were abysmal, threatening exclusively from Will Vaulks’ long throw and drawing just one first half save from Paul Nardi as Cameron Brannagan tried his luck from far out – but the first half efforts on Wednesday night really were quite a pleasant surprise. Rangers played with an energy, purpose and press sadly lacking from all recent games bar the first half against Leeds. Ronnie Edwards an incisive pass, Nicholas Madsen turn and progress, Kenneth Paal a low cross, and cleared behind. Why pass backwards and sideways when you can do this? Having completed a pathetic seven through balls all season long to this point, it felt like Rangers doubled that total in the first 45 minutes. From the corner Handsome Ron settled nerves with the second goal of his loan spell, headed in at the near post from a Madsen’s delivery. See, it doesn’t have to be so difficult. Jimmy Dunne hooked another corner over the bar when left free at the near post, then did a much better job with a later knockdown from a deep Paul Smyth cross. A header so perfectly placed it couldn’t help force a second goal as Sam Field closed in and local clothes horse Ole Romeny put through his own net. Not quite sure what the home goalkeeper was up to for either goal, and even less certain I care very much. Gary Rowett said afterwards “QPR haven’t really had to work hard to score, and you don’t expect the second goal to be scored a yard off the line in the middle of the goal.” Salty, but correct. Own goals moves back to QPR’s third top scorer in the league this year with a creditable total of four. Such a shame the goal isn’t quite credited to Field. The R's have only won three times in four years without the former West Brom man and his return to the side has made an immediate difference after four defeats and a draw without him. He was terrific here for an hour in a more advanced role than usual before being forced off with concussion, at one point spinning away from his man tight to the touchline and marauding into the penalty area with pace and attacking poise few thought he had in him. You don’t win many games of football losing midfield. QPR’s has been an issue all season, unable to do anything much at all bar execute a grisly, narrow low block. Here it was the reason Rangers won the game. Field, Jonathan Varane and Jack Colback got together as a trio and all had arguably their best games of the season. Oxford were well beaten through the middle, and a comfortable 2-0 half time lead belonged to the visitors as a result. After a day of sunshine and river pubs, train beers and yummy mummies, QPR goals and even Nicholas Madsen looking halfway decent, we were in danger of having a nice time. Songs rolled down from the back of the away end and drifted away with the sunset behind Ye Olde Hollywood Bowl. By far the greatest team, the world has ever seen. There is no substitute for being there. Fans rewarded for their steadfast loyalty and support through three seasons purgatory with something approaching a pleasant night out. The redemption at last for three years of Shawshank and tunnelling through shit. And then, like a microcosm of the season itself, the bathtub set off down the hill again. Sam Field, the game’s outstanding player to this point, suffered a worrying blow to the head and concussion. Given that he was suffering dizziness and later visited hospital it’s pretty clear this was what the bedwetters in rugby now call a “category one” and he wouldn’t be allowed to continue even if he wanted to. Oxford used the stoppage as an opportunity to add former Everton trainee Stan Mills to the Delta Goodrham they’d already introduced at half time. And yet no change was forthcoming from QPR. Dithering and dallying on the touchline. Flip charts and ring binders ahoy. Methodology agogo. Bibs on, bibs off. Players up and down the touchline like a bride’s nightie. Game restarts, and game plays on for really quite some considerable length of time, with the visitors choosing to only field ten men. Frustration in the away end turned to some degree of anger as, sure enough, Oxford used the extra space and man to work Dembele the Lesser into enough space to cross for sub Mills to head past Paul Nardi and into the net with his first touch to halve the deficit. Incredibly, despite Jack Colback’s repeated frantic attempts to get everybody to slow down, Rangers then took a quick kick off without the sub being made even then. Colback’s fury, in part with his teammates but particularly with the bench, was clear for all to see. All ginger hair and flapping arms. Too bloody right as well. What on earth were we doing? From 2-0 up and cruising to 2-1, half an hour left, and arseholes going 10p 50p all over the away end. An 18-month love affair between supporters and manager, tested by recent performances and results, threatened to go all Married At First Sight Australia if the R’s blew it from here. Game management strategies from Zapp Brannigan’s Big Book of War. Whole thing now back in needless balance, QPR started to shithouse the game away. Time wasting over throw ins and goal kicks became chronic. Paul Nardi was eventually booked. The injury feigning and rolling around really became quite shameful and embarrassing to watch. Sub Harrison Ashby completed three full rolls to get him back on the pitch and stop the game, then when the referee rightly called his bluff he went sprinting after him to protest. Just play the game for goodness’ sake. Oxford had shown themselves to be a poor side, easily passed through should we wish, and now here we were trying to piss the clock away. Mitigation was plentiful – Rangers were clearly gassed, we’ve already said how much the team misses Field when he’s not on the pitch, and with further injuries to Kenneth Paal and Paul Smyth the R’s were starting to run out of warm bodies – but still. Fuck me. How had it ever come to this? Amongst it all, as we searched for a replacement for Paal, another farce on the touchline trying to find Morgan Fox to bring on. Get your fucking bib off and get onto the fucking pitch. Flipcharts are very much optional at this point. Another period with ten men to follow while they looked for a replacement for Paul Smyth late on. If this happens again I will go down there and insert that lever arch folder so deeply into somebody’s lower colon that whichever boy is able to pull it out will immediately be crowned king. All QPR games are a disaster more or less under control. Having taken a firm grip of this one initially Rangers were now spinning and spiralling. Oxford, belatedly, discovered there was more to life than long throws, and were much the better team for it. Edwards and Morrison, as they had been at the weekend, formed a classy and formidable barrier to repel them – Morrison still yet to taste defeat as a starter in Rangers colours. When they were beaten, Jimmy Dunne heaved himself in front of Ruben Rodrigues’ shot and Paul Nardi got legs to a speculator through a crowd by Brannagan. Rodrigues put a deep cross into the side net. Like working on an oil rig, everything’s fine until it’s not fine, and the moment it’s not fine it’s the farthest thing from fine. From a pleasant evening out in the sun to grim ordeal under a grill. Tick followed tock for a while, then the clock stopped entirely. When it did eventually run down to 90, rookie referee Bell rightly punished Rangers for their second half behaviour with 11 extra minutes. From praying for the sweet relief of death, to the lesser spotted shins and limbs last minute spectacular on the road. Jack Colback, who’d run his blood to water for the cause, won high and well in midfield to get Rangers up the pitch. Dembele the Mighty, without a win in 15 appearances, set off towards the Hampton by Hilton. Yang Min-Hyeok supported to the left. Time now standing still for the right reasons. Get this pass right, get this finish right, and feast on the goo within. Dembele’s check brought a slip from centre back Nelson. It was all the invitation the munchkins needed. The pass released, the slip finish into the far corner, and a third, game-sealing, game-winning, relieving goal for Rangers past the despairing dive of a beaten keeper. Jamie Cumming? I’m not surprised. You could see my erection from space. An away end deprived of joy for so long dissolved into silliness. Shins from An Audience with Terry Hurlock. Cock like the Pink Panther’s tail. What a carry on. Rangers had won after all. Inform the men. Marti Cifuentes has looked increasingly QPR’d in recent weeks. It happens to everybody charged with guiding this most ridiculous football club eventually. Lee Hoos aged in dog years. Gareth Ainsworth looked like he’d started sleeping at the railway station. Even Les Ferdinand went grey. Your smouldering Spanish good looks and swept fringe are no good to you here my friend. Wait there while we embark on another six-game losing streak for no discernible reason whatsoever. Staring into The Ark of the Covenant is better for your skin complexion than managing this rabble. Cifuentes described the weekend visit by Cardiff as the biggest game since he came to the club which, given what had gone before, was really saying something. I’ve never seen him like he was here. Min-Hyeok’s goal sent him tearing off down the touchline with assistant Xavi Calm to embrace and bundle with the players. At full time he charged the away end, giving it triple fist salutes, chest and badge beating, arms aloft, smile broad and beaming. Usually, it’s polite applause and points to the players, now it’s full Nathan Jones trying to summit the side stand and issue demands to a negotiator. Whatever happened to not getting too high with the highs and too low with the lows, eh? QPR gets you in the end. When Ulysses reached the Sirens, they tried to keep him forever. This is why we can’t have nice things. Perhaps it was adrenaline. Perhaps it was relief. Perhaps it was the start of a goodbye. For now, it’s a win, and that’s all that mattered from this one. Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread Oxford: Cumming 4; Avest 5 (Mills 61, 6), Nelson 5, Helik 5, Brown – (Bennett 12, 5); Vaulks 5 (Bradshaw 75, 5), Brannagan 6; Placheta 5, Romeny 4 (Goodrham 46, 6), Dembele 5 (Matos 90+3, -); Harris 4 (Rodrigues 75, 6) Subs not used: Mizouni, Ingram, Long Goals: Mills 62 (assisted Dembele) Yellow Cards: Brannagan 87 (foul) QPR: Nardi 6; Dunne 6, Morrison 7, Edwards 7, Paal 6 (Fox 69, 6); Colback 7 (Morgan 90+10), -), Varane 7, Field 7 (Andersen 64, 5); Madsen 6 (Ashby 83, -), Bennie 6 (Min-Hyeok 64, 7), Smyth 6 (Dembele 82, -) Subs not used: Kolli, Sutton, Walsh Goals: Edwards 7 (assisted Madsen), Romeny og 42 (unassisted), Min-Hyeok 90+1 (assisted Dembele) Yellow Cards: Nardi 89 (time wasting), Colback 90+7 (foul) QPR Star Man – Sam Field 7 You don’t win many games losing mid-Field. Referee – Elliot Bell (Liverpool) 7 Didn’t do much for the heartrate at the time, but nice to see a referee actually add time onto the end of the game properly when one of the team’s has tried to shithouse the second half away. Some weird odds and ends at times but overall pretty decent. Attendance 11,509 (1,497 QPR) Just as well we won, I woke up feeling like I’d been fucked by a train. 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 Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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