A third defeat to nil in a row with 11 goals conceded in the process for QPR, totally outclassed by an admittedly excellent looking Middlesbrough side but facing harsh criticism and questions from former manager Neil Warnock and, surely, now, their own supporters.

Julien Stéphan’s pre-match comments to the written press were telling.

As quoted by the Hounslow Herald’s Jon Harland, the Frenchman said: “The main target is to stay focused on the football, the performance, and on how we can give more maturity and more experience for these young players. Of course, we have competitive mindset, so we want to win some games until the end of the season, but the main thing now is to give this experience for young players. Their target now, and the objective of these players is to show their quality and to show some improvement each game.”

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. A dozen games of a season left to play, two and a bit months of football to come, for your season ticket money, for your £30+ match ticket, for your £60 trains to Leicester next Saturday, for your half day off work for Birmingham on Wednesday, for your trip to Preston on Easter Monday with no trains running… the reward and reason for existence is now ‘can we get ten games into Esquerdinha?’ Steady on vicar, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here.

Middlesbrough at home was always going to be a difficult game. It’s possibly a contrary thing to say when you lost 7-1 to the team that’s top of the league but I actually think they’re the best team we’ve played across two fixtures this year. Missing seven first teamers (Kwame Poku the latest heralded return from injury not to materialise in fact, each lie incurs a debt to the truth etc etc) Rangers really were going into war armed with a toothpick and a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch.

But that pre-match comment is a rallying cry played on a kazoo, and the ‘resistance’ posed by QPR in this game was shameful.

I cannot recall ever waking up in the morning and looking forward to going to a QPR game less. I’ve rarely been so sure we were going to lose as I was on Sunday morning. Judging by the wide open spaces in the Lower and Upper Loft away to my left it feels like I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t face it, even allowing for Sky’s latest cruel and unusual kick off time (Boro’s last Saturday 3pm kick off was December 20), and watching the players go through the motions it seems they felt much the same.

QPR get outnumbered and beaten up in midfield by much worse teams than this. They’ll convince themselves a 0-0 at Oxford is a good result having lost the midfield from minute one to 90 because 'oooh, how about that Cameron Brannagan'. The division’s outstanding player Hayden Hackney, the wily experience of Alan Browne, the industry and ability of Riley McGree, with Aidan Morris anchoring the whole thing at the base was always likely to be too much for the R’s. Too much ability, too much in numbers, too much in legs – albeit a midfield put together for the same money we spent on Nicolas Madsen, Zan Celar and Jonathan Varane, so something we could quite easily do ourselves by noticing Alan Browne’s quite good or producing the occasional academy prospect. Going in against that with a central two of Isaac Hayden and Varane with Kieran Morgan selected at ‘ten’ would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

But you can tackle them. They’re not superheroes. There’s no force field. It’s not Ruud Gullit. As the home team you are allowed to step onto them and put a foot in. In fact, in these circumstances, that’s probably all you’ve got – niggle, disrupt, tactical fouls, clever bookings. QPR have come out of this game with zero yellow cards. Where is the aggression and enthusiasm with the game in the balance at 0-0 or 0-1 to put a bit of a loosener on Hackney and let him know he’s not just going to be able to swan around all day? Where’s a senior player, at 3-0, cleaning somebody out, taking a card but making it clear that’s it now, no more? Varane and Hayden, as the central midfielders here, managed seven tackles between them in the best part of 100 minutes. Seven tackles and two fouls. I see people talking about Varane as a multi-million pound sales prospect, I look at him here versus the midfielders in red and think I’m losing my damn mind. You want a £10m+ midfielder? It's that lad in red with the luscious hair, not breaking a sweat, turning around and passing the ball forwards occasionally.

The space, the ten square yards of space in front of the QPR back four, which McGree and Hackney just stood in all afternoon, inviting Morgan Whittaker to join from the right when it suited, was ludicrous. You could sit in the stand, full of Peroni, and point to Middlesbrough’s best players and creative hub just being allowed to weigh anchor 30 yards out from goal, dead centre of the field, and nobody within fucking throwing distance. You don’t win games of football losing midfield like this. The league's best player standing by himself while Kieran Morgan plays in a flat front three? Suicidal. For that to be allowed to persist until the 80th minute, when Jake Clarke-Salter came on and Ronnie Edwards was finally asked to take six steps forward and at least put a warm body in that yawning chasm, was complete incompetence from the management and coaching staff, and a total abdication of personal responsibility and pride by the players.

Where is anybody in this whole situation saying to Morgan, or Varane, or Hayden, or Edwards, or whoever it might be, ‘just go and stand in there for ten minutes will you and fucking tackle somebody?' Steve Cook, the club’s most experienced player, the team’s best player through January when results and clean sheets were still being achieved, the former captain of the side, now the most unused of unused subs. No point in even jogging up and down the touchline because he knows he’s not coming on. What a way to treat good people.

I’ve used this line before but fuck it if the players are going to phone it in then why can’t I? Middlesbrough brought a thoughtful, athletic, youthful, creative side to Shepherd’s Bush full of enterprise, intent, vigor and goals. QPR brought a big bucket of shit and a whisk.

It resulted in four Middlesbrough goals and, frankly, if Kim Hellberg’s side had needed twice that for goal difference reasons they could have happily had it. The visiting team had 70% of the possession, 16 shots on goal and seven on target. Joe Walsh more of a coconut shy attendant than a goalkeeper. I wondered if it might have been fairer to send him out for the second half armed. Give him a gun and a little shield or something. "LEAVE ME ALONE YOU BULLIES".

The whole thing played out like a Premier League side having its final run of the summer away at Crawley Town. The difference in everything – skill, ability, control, passing, desire, yardage, first contacts, second balls, fitness, athleticism – was horrifying. Hellberg brought on Adilson Malanda for the injured Dael Fry at one point, which wasn’t really in keeping with the spirit of things, and, I’m sorry, but I had to laugh, watching that guy glide around this absolute mess, like Julia Roberts walking into Staveley Miner’s Welfare. Why he bothered to change out of his club suit is beyond me. Really quite sad, to be honest with you.

First goal, 20 minutes, outstanding Luke Ayling (not every signing needs to be a development prospect) across to Fry out to Matt Targett into Morris and out to Hackney then through to McGree – all unchallenged, all unmarked, no QPR player within ten yards of ball or man at any stage – across to Whittaker, bundled finish, hits Strelec, into the net. Might have been disallowed under the letter of the law as it hit Strelec on the arm, but a goal all the same and a goal that had been coming from the moment the game kicked off and certainly the second that move began. Hot knife, butter everywhere.

Middlesbrough have won all 19 games this season when taking the lead so the only surprise here really was that it took until 68 minutes for them to double the lead. Hackney had beaten Walsh once when played into another hectare of space in the QPR penalty area and invited to shoot, but that one whizzed past the post. When referee Josh Smith erred in awarding a corner rather than a goal kick the lack of attention and concentration in the Rangers rearguard finally, predictably, cost them for real. Ayling lobbed one over Walsh, back into play off the bar, and into the net via Alan Browne who was far more alert and alive at the back post than the leaden footed Richard Kone. You can have an assist from me Luke, if not the miseries who compile the stats, that chip was glorious.

Hellberg, big 'plumber with OnlyFans' vibe, had already made three changes by this point, injecting fresh talent like Tommy Conway and Jeremy Sarmiento into an already dominant display. Having dithered and dallied and pissballed about until minute 71, with a team and set up so far out of its depth it would take it 40 days and nights to swim back to shore, Stéphan finally decided that 2-0 was the time for decisive action and introduced Paul Smyth. Boro scored a third immediately. Hackney played McGree clean through on goal, Walsh managed to save, Boro were first to the second ball and recycled well, Hackney remained in the square yardage of space he’d been in to start with, and this time he went for one himself into the far corner. World pea shelling championship. The space. I just. I can’t speyk.

With one change made there was no stopping the QPR bench now. Substitutes flooded forth. Pissed into a furnace. Quite what Tylon Smith will have got out of five minutes of Championship debut, out of position, in these circumstances, is anybody’s guess. His confidence will have been done the world of good by Morris catching him square on and feeding Conway in behind for an inevitable challenge, foul, penalty and fourth goal which Conway claimed for himself from the spot. A second successful penalty against Rangers this season for the former Bristol City striker. Development club? This place is a career graveyard. Rangers absolutely eviscerated.

I guess, at the very least, Harvey Vale did hit the inside of the post with a nice 20 yarder with the score at 3-0 after Mbengue had actually tackled a Middlesbrough player and won the ball (print it out for a frame) and we can try and convince ourselves it would all have been different had Hayden and Kone not butchered the R’s best chance of the game straight after half time when a goal would have brought the scores level. But not really. One Mbengue break down the right ended with a piece of control that would have made a nice penalty, the next he somehow picked the wrong option out of three right ones. Sort of contestant who takes 'ask the audience' on question one of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, "what is your favourite colour?". The amount of times QPR players kicked the ball straight into the Ellerslie Road stand I started to worry they thought that was the aim of the sport.

It’s been quite a lonely job, this, over the past 18 months, particularly around the time of Marti Cifuentes’ departure. I’ve become a bit of a Marmite character among the QPR support base over the years anyway, you’re either having me or you’re not, but it’s been unusual and tough seeing things one way when the majority of the support base seem to see it another. I’ve thought long and hard about whether I’m wrong, tried to see it from other people’s point of view, but also wondered what it would take to flick the switch the other way. What is going to wake this support base up to questions around whether the people running the place really know what they’re doing? Whether they're qualified for the roles they have?

It’s clearly not thrashings and heavy defeats. Those are just par for our course now. In the last 38 Championship games Queens Park Rangers have lost 7-1, 5-0 on two occasions, 4-0 and 4-1. Three of those have been here at Loftus Road. Two of them have been this week. The team has conceded 11 goals in three games with no reply. It’s conceded 15 times in its last five. Only Sheff Wed have a worse defence in the entire league. The reaction is just a numb, stony cold silence. No booing, no anger, just apathy and acceptance. I had a bit of a shout about the lack of tackling, the lack of physicality, the lack of effort in the first half yesterday and somebody in front turned around and looked at me aghast, like I’d just interrupted a matinee performance of the fucking Mouse Trap. Maybe it is me. This latest tonking wasn’t even taken with a whimper, I looked up from my notes with about 20 minutes to go and everybody had just gone home, sloping off into the night with not a word muttered in anger. If you told me there were 50 people left in the home seats when the final whistle went I’d demand a recount. Thanks for the 4-0 dry humping boys, may we have another?

Sixteenth again, -12 goal difference. Much heralded development squad, four defeats from five, 16th in the league, fourth worst defence, -12 goal difference. U18s, second bottom with only Colchester lower, third worst defence, -18 goal difference. Physical performance coach, performance scientists, head of analysis, operation analysist, performance therapist (might book some time with them myself), recruitment analyst, head of recruitment, director of sporting operations, performance physiotherapist x2, analysts, head of goalkeeping, head of methodology, nutritionist, performance logistic and player care lead, individual development coach, head of performance services, head of defensive coaching, head coach, first team coach, methodology lead U17-21, academy methodology manager, player pathways manager…

Is the person writing the cheque for all of this not alarmed? Is Ruben not sick of sitting in that director’s box watching his club, his team, play like this? I’m sick of it, and it’s not costing me £2m a month. Is the sight of Steve Gallen in the director’s box not embarrassing for him? Same budget, same restrictions, same city, same crowds, third in the league, five wins from six, sellable assets all over the team.

I really thought it would be the Paul Furlong thing, you know. A man of that standing, that character, with that back story, that connection to the club, that length of service, binned off midseason with a quick written farewell shoved out on a Friday night, no on-the-pitch send off from the fans, no interview, no carriage clock, while we make another “methodology lead” appointment for the academy… I thought that would be the thing. Story lasted two days and went away. Crickets. Some even went out to bat for the club over it.

So maybe I’m going to be wrong again but I wonder if Neil Warnock’s comments on Sky after the game might be a bit of a turning point. Another person revered by the support base, the last to truly get a tune out of this club, now really quite radical of eyebrow and spitting truths into the Sky cameras yesterday afternoon. “When I look at QPR, when they made the substitutions, the camera went into the dugout to see them and they were laughing away. I can’t understand that, me. What are they laughing at? They’re getting beat three or four nil. They don’t care enough when it’s like that.”

That’s not ‘bloody Clive going off on one again’, that's not "usual head loss after a defeat", that’s not somebody with a grudge or an agenda, that’s not somebody with any skin in the game at all really. That’s Neil Warnock. And if that doesn’t move the needle a bit, then maybe I do give up.

Or, you know, sack the manager again. Sorry, ‘head coach’.

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

QPR: Walsh 5; Mbengue 5 (Smith 85, -), Dunne 4, Edwards 5, Norrington-Davies 4 (Esquerdinha 85, -); Vale 5, Varane 3 (Bennie 80, -), Hayden 3, Saito 3 (Clarke-Salter 80, -); Morgan 4 (Smyth 71, 5), Kone 4

Subs not used: Adamson, Hamer, Cook, Kolli

Boro: Brynn 6; Brittain 7, Ayling 8, Fry 7 (Malanda 31, 8), Targett 7; Morris 8; Whittaker 7 (Sarmiento 66, 7), Hackney 9 (Gilbert 83, -), Browne 8, McGree 8 (Castledine 83, -); Strelec 7 (Conway 66, 8)

Subs not used: Edmundson, Gilbert, Hansen, Sene, Wildsmith

Goals: Strelec 20 (assisted Whittaker), Browne 68 (assisted Hackney), Hackney 72 (assisted Conway), Conway 90 (penalty won Conway)

QPR Star Man – N/A The beatings will continue until morale improves.

Referee – Josh Smith (Lincolnshire) 6 Weird isn’t it, because he absolutely breezed through a totally uncompetitive match unnoticed and unfussy, but in the Premier League the first goal gets disallowed and the corner leading up to the second is a goal kick. So…

Attendance 15,940 (1,751 Boro) Certainly wasn’t that by the end.

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