A second 0-0 draw from another borderline unwatchable game of dreadfully low quality for the level - it seems QPR are determined to really make me earn my money this week.

First item on today’s agenda, a petition to stop Oxford United and Queens Park Rangers ever playing each other again.

This should really have been written into law after the abandonment of the 1986 League Cup final but a few (mostly disastrous/terrible) fixtures slipped through the net in the late 1990s. These sides hadn’t met competitively for nearly 25 years bar the odd League Cup tie and Gareth Ainsworth contriving to lose a friendly here 5-0. If that didn’t reassert the need to never play this fixture again then a recent four-match rendezvous has now gone on three games too long. QPR have remained undefeated, but the two 0-0 draws this year and last season’s 2-0 Rangers victory at Loftus Road must be among the worst games to ever be played at this level of football.

The travelling faithful have been rewarded for the efforts and expenditure this week with 180+ minutes of football with no goals. QPR have had just four shots on target in that time.

The reasons/mitigation/excuses for this latest session of footballing water torture were much the same as they were for Saturday’s scoreless epic at Stoke City. Rangers are simply missing too many players through injury – too many quantity, and too many quality. Only Harvey Vale returned in time for this game, and only as far as the bench and a cameo five minutes from time. Julian Stéphan is missing key players right down the centre of the team, he’s unable to achieve consistency of selection in a 4-4-2 formation that relies on partnerships across the line-up, and he’s missing his top scorer and high press merchant Rumarn Burrell for whom the formation is most beneficial.

There are certainly questions to be asked about why the manager is sticking so rigidly to the system despite the absence of Burrell and co, why he’s so slow to make in game changes, why he often doesn’t use all his bench while citing player fatigue as a big factor in the recent downturn. Once again the two up front, this time Richard Kone and Daniel Bennie with Rayan Kolli on the bench, struggled more than most. Often the wrong way around, with Kone dropping deep as a ‘ten’ while the other, smaller, more skilful man goes up as a target ‘nine’, it doesn’t feel like this system suits any of the forwards currently available to us.

They have every right to cite lousy service. Paul Smyth was improved on his Saturday efforts here, and came closest to scoring in the first half with a curling effort which was saved by Cumming up in the top corner. An official site man of the match felt punchy, but the Northern Ireland international was involved in what good stuff Rangers did produce before half time and a cut back for Bennie to shoot might yielded a tap in for Richard Kone with a slightly longer leg. Karamoko Dembele, bar one first half crossfielder, was again fairly lamentable on the right side.

I gave the team a bit of a pass at the weekend – one more pass than they managed themselves – because Stoke are half decent this season, have the league’s best defence, are on the cusp of the play-offs, and it’s a difficult place to go. None of those things can really be said about Oxford, second bottom of the league, five points adrift and, on this evidence, looking it. You won’t play a team as poor as this again this season.

This really should have been a win, even for a depleted visiting side. And, hey, if Daniel Bennie had got a toe to the one piece of quality Rangers produced from wide all night in the dying embers of the game (Harvey Vale a sumptuous cross), or Steve Cook’s 30-yard frustration reliever had dipped a bit instead of leaving an eight ten split at The Hollywood Bowl, or Jimmy Dunne had got a better connection on a wicked Nicolas Madsen free kick, or that Smyth chance had gone in before time then a win… it might have been.

Jamie Cumming in the home goal remained largely untroubled though, if we’re being honest with ourselves. One good save in the first half. In fact it was Joe Walsh coming under the heavier fire and making the better saves. If you are looking for a positive then it’s another clean sheet, three straight now in the league, and while that owes a lot to the deep and no-nonsense reteaming of Steve Cook and Jimmy Dunne, it’s been a credit to Walsh that he’s been able to step back into first team action as calmly and effectively as he has given what happened to him at the start of the year. A fine save up in the top corner on the hour preserved the deadlock and denied Sam Long what looked a certain goal, while later Stan Mills skied over when he had to score. Amadou Mbengue heaved himself in front of two brave blocks in quick succession to stop the shots reaching Walsh on another occasion.

Of far greater challenge than the opposition were the conditions. Rain came down in sheets throughout the 90 minutes, clogging the playing surface, driven down the ground by a howling wind which made placing the ball for set piece situations nigh on impossible. This was not the night for football in a three-sided wind tunnel and must have been close to a postponement or abandonment at various points. If you can’t keep the ball still long enough to get it back in play from a corner or goal kick, can you carry the game on?

It meant you had to have some sympathy for players trying to put a bit of football together. Play it along the ground, stuck in the mud, or skidding away off the slippery top. Put it in the air and it blows off towards the Severn Estuary. It was an incredibly difficult night to play in, but not impossible and some of the passing from both sides was hilariously bad. Nicolas Madsen’s late attempt at a simple five-yard pass which sent the flying off into the away end was one way to sum it up. QPR foolishly electing not to swing a corner in under the crossbar in the gale force wind but instead go short and then have Karamoko Dembele pass it to the nearest Oxford player with the whole QPR team committed upfield another. The U’s ran the length of the field on a counter and if you want to know why I’m a bit pissy and hissy with Dembele at the moment, watch who was the last QPR player to chase back and try to rectify that situation.

It's amazing for a squad that’s supposedly been recruited to a possession-based game model just how poor we are with the ball. We’ve won 11 games this year and four at the end of last since were last victorious with more of the possession than an opponent (Blackburn, 2-1, February 4, 2025). The 4-4-2 and fastest transitions in the EFL can be exhilarating when it works – Leicester, Birmingham, Hull, Wrexham – and remind you of Ian Holloway’s first spell here. But when we’re required or expected to be more front foot and dominant we really struggle. The theme of the Oxford games over the last two years is both teams trying to give each other the ball so they can sit in and counter attack, which has resulted in these dreadful spectacles. One wonders what the narrative would have been had an Ainsworth side turned out in a 4-4-2 formation and produced the two performances QPR have this week.

The last thing anybody present needed was another ten minutes added to the end. The second last thing was another QPR injury. Unfortunately a nasty looking knock and extended treatment for Brazilian left back Esquerdinha provided both – Paul Smyth and Will Vaulks both saw yellow for scuffling in the aftermath of the original challenge. As on Saturday, some of the refereeing from this time Will Finnie was utterly perplexing. Three times a throw in on halfway changed hands, and then when QPR were eventually allowed to proceed Nicolas Madsen was obviously pulled back as he surged towards the area and play on was waved. The histrionics and performative nonsense prior to every corner, followed almost entirely by the decision he was always going to give anyway, was infuriating.

Not a good night at the football. Not a defeat, which is positive number two. Injury hit midtable team doing injury hit midtable things. Awkward away games navigated, two homers to come. But it was, all in all, dreadful stuff, and anybody pretending otherwise is kidding themselves.

If Oxford do succeed in staying in the Championship for 2026/27 then let’s have a truce. Shake hands, two points each, don’t play the games. Don’t play the games ever, ever again.

Links >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread

Oxford: Cumming 6; Long 5, Helik 6 (Spencer 46, 6), Brown 6, Currie 6; De Keersmaecker 5, Vaulks 5 (McDonnell 70, 5); Mills 5 (Phillips 76, 5), Brannagan 5, Peart-Harris 5 (Dembele 90+2, -); Lankshear 5 (Harris 70, 5)

Subs not used: Ingram, Yonak, Leigh, Romeny

Yellow Cards: Vaulks 58 (fighting)

QPR: Walsh 7; Mbengue 6, Dunne 7, Cook 6, Esquerdinha 5 (Norrington-Davies 65, 5); Dembele 4 (Vale 85, -), Madsen 5, Hayden 5 (Field 75, 5), Smyth 6; Bennie 5, Kone 5 (Kolli 76, 5)

Subs not used: Adamson, Edwards, Hamer, Morgan, Smith

Yellow Cards: Dembele 55 (delaying restart), Smyth 58 (fighting)

QPR Star Man – Joe Walsh 7 Shown great character to come back into the team confident and playing well after what happened to him earlier in the season. Clean sheet not to be sniffed at here in challenging conditions.

Referee – Will Finnie (Luton) 5 Probably not quite up to this level at this stage of his career – some strange stuff across the board here. I suppose if we’re saying you’ve got to cut young players like Daniel Bennie slack while they learn the ropes and get up to speed in the Championship you do have to afford that same empathy to referees starting out in their careers.

Attendance – 10,478 (1,497 QPR) Atmosphere = flicking the lights on and off for a bit.

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