An attractive performance and pre-season win against a strong Fiorentina side on Saturday was marred slightly by QPR’s old injury foe rearing its head again– LFW’s new summer signing Tom Morgan was at Loftus Road.

Having been based in Durham for the best part of the past four years let me tell you – these have been barren times for the northern QPR fan.

QPR games that I can feasibly attend have come few and far between. When Christmas arrived, and I went back south, I usually got the disenchanted, ragged bit of our year that includes mostly losing at home to Norwich (or sometimes Cardiff, as a treat). When otherwise in Durham, I would carefully select the northern away games that are a) within my budget (uncharacteristic of LNER services) and b) potentially winnable (hmmm).

This took me and my Newcastle-supporting travel companion to Rotherham (2022/23) where we lost 3-1 and Taylor Richards was spotted doing his shoelaces up while defending a counterattack. I’ve been to Middlesbrough twice; we lost both games 3-1 and on both occasions that was more of a cricket score than a football one. Sunderland (2023/24) - an insomnia-curing 0-0 that I had decided to invite all my mates to. Huddersfield (2023/24) - lost 2-1 after I rocked up to in shin-pads in preparation for my own Sunday League game. Who’s this wanker, etc?

The best part of these games has usually been the journey there and back, because it certainly hasn’t been the football. I enjoy meeting new, thereafter recurring faces, and exploring places. I will not be going back to Rotherham any time soon, but I’m (reasonably) glad I went. Each return south at the end of the academic year, coinciding with pre-season and the first few games in August and September, fosters in me a newfound optimism for the coming season. The return to the (somewhat) safe proximity of Loftus Road where I’ll watch football that simply can’t be worse than the unspeakable horrors I’ve been subjected to in North/South/West Yorkshire.

Sometimes, I’ll be repaid with last August’s trip to Coventry (ouch) and then be revitalised by games like Charlton the following Saturday. One week I can’t bear to hear any combination of the words “Queens”, “Park” and “Rangers”, the next I’m singing along to Jeff Beck and watching Mbengue assault the corner flag after Kone has stormed through on goal and put the ball in the back of the net like a real number nine.

Now back south permanently, watching QPR make shrewd, good-looking (if at least on paper) signings in short-staffed positions, I find myself once more in that optimistic frame of mind. The sun is shining, England’s white ball fixtures against India have been a welcome distraction from the heart-wrenching tactical disasterclass orchestrated by Thomas Tuchel, and I’m ready to return to the Crown & Sceptre and pretend the only team that exists is QPR. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

For me, the first live game of this year’s period of optimism was Fiorentina, a historically prestigious team that has travelled to England seemingly with the intention of touring its finest Championship stalwarts. You want to know the second tier of English football? You get yourself to Roads Loftus (11 straight years a Championship stadium, 19 of the last 23 years spent in this league) and Vicarage (five years a second tier club, 13 of the last 19 years here). Of course, it could just be they fancied getting an advance sight of Udinese’s inevitable deadline day “buys” ahead of time.

Fiorentina is the most exotic opponent I’ve seen us play in pre-season since my dad took us to Barnet to watch us play Dundee Utd in the summer of 2015. So exotic, in fact, their name appeared to be misspelled on the scoreboard. Is this Serie A’s storied Fiorentina? The Viola? The Fiorentina of Batistuta and Nintendo shirts? The Fiorentina of Baggio, Antognoni, Passarella, Toldo and briefly our own former great Mauro Zarate (who you may remember from such films as Harry Redknapp trying to send him back to West Ham in the same transfer window he’d loaned him because he heard a part-used Callum McManaman might be available instead)? Or is this Florence? Florence of the Medici, of the Renaissance, of the Uffizi gallery? Florence of da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Brunelleschi? Well, why not both? Welcome, ACF Florentina.

Nevertheless, I was excited about this one, it felt to me a good opportunity to soak up the sun, see what tinkering Julien Stéphan would do to the side, while getting to watch a team that had competed in Europe last season. The Viola fans, exchanging the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore for Cathedral del Loftus Road, bottles of Chianti for pints of £7 Carlsberg, and Michelangelo’s David for our own Ronnie Edwards, had not arrived in W12 in abundance. Evidently a weekend punctuated by visits to Westfield didn’t appeal. Never mind lads, you’ll love Watford on a Wednesday night.

Stéphan had named a strong starting 11. Without injuries, I’d say close to our best. This backline of Pierce Charles in goal (wearing number one), the Boy Kemper on the left, a centre-back pairing of Dunne and Edwards, and Mbengue marauding, slashing and killing as he pleases on the right seems to be his first choice defence. A midfield three of Chair, Madsen and Vale, with Madsen sitting deeper in a sort of 4-1-4-1 formation to receive the ball and turn as the other two would push on and find space. On the left was Paul Smyth, on the right Burrell, Dembélé a long way off yet and Saito on the back row of the directors’ box. Poku began on the bench, with Richard Kone starting as the number nine.

There was also still no Rayan Kolli. That omnipresent issue may become more pressing given the worrying loss of Kone after just six minutes. Down with nobody around him, for the second time in four pre-season friendlies, it was heart-in-mouth time once more for a support base hoping and praying we might have a live one on our hands here after a decent first season in W12.

While the medical department began to look more and more like a hospital ward at the Battle of Stalingrad last season, Kone was something approaching ever-present, even getting up and running off an apparent hamstring injury in an all-action display away at Preston. Stéphan has shown his desire to play with a front two and while Burrell spent a pesky three-month period on the sidelines Kone had to partner any of Kolli, Bennie or even Harvey Vale through the back half of the campaign. We know what our forward line looks like without Burrell, but we don’t without its aggressive, physical, dedicated number nine. Thankfully he’s been appearing, unaided, upright and facing front, in today’s videos from Heston so we’re hopefully still on course to reach August without our first meltdown occurring. That said, player of the year Nicolas Madsen didn’t reach half time either, banging the turf with his palm as he went.

On came Alfie Lloyd to play in the more traditional striker role. Behind him, the interplay between the midfield three for the first 30 was extremely positive. Facilitated by a constant desire to create and play out by the defence - typified by some at times quite excellent distribution from the Man City loanee Charles who showed exactly why Rangers have been so keen to bring him in for so long - Madsen, Vale and Chair repeatedly got on the ball, and immediately looked to play forwards and quickly.

After 15 minutes, Ronnie Edwards found Vale midway through the opposition half, who then turned briskly and played through Lloyd whose neat control was rather let down by a hurried effort wide of the right-hand post.

It was an absolute pleasure to see Chair back fit and playing, dropping into pockets of space, demanding the ball, and looking to unlock the Florentina defence whenever possible. He’d looked rusty in the Austria friendlies but his positivity here quickly induced a penalty. Chair found Smyth on the left of the box, standing up and skipping past the endangered Dodô, and hitting the deck with a shout that I could hear from F Block. Madsen, to this point celebrating a new (REDACTED) contract with an excellent game pulling the strings from midfield, stood up the former Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea and sent him the wrong way to give the Rs a deserved lead.

That would, however, be the last Madsen contributed to the proceedings. After the last two years there will be intense scrutiny of QPR’s medical and performance departments this season, and having already lost Obikwu and Saito in the July friendlies this has been an inauspicious start. All well and good spending real sums of money on actual football players, but for naught if we can’t keep these, our most sellable assets, on the pitch, playing each week. Kone and Madsen really would be something approaching a worst-case scenario for Stéphan. If we happen to lose more players to injury in the Bromley/Wimbledon double header, then we might once again be seeing a children’s crusade lining up against Millwall in the League Cup.

Breath. I was impressed with Varane, Madsen’s replacement. A like-for-like, Varane seemed determined to get on the ball, turn, and find a forward pass whenever possible in a way that inspired hope for a better forthcoming season from him. The midfield interplay did not therefore suffer too much from Madsen’s withdrawal, and not five minutes later the ball was in the net again, but this time from Boy Kemper on his home debut.

Chair, once again on the ball and finding space on the edge of the box, found an overlapping Mbengue to his right, and his first time (!), delicately floated (!!), cross (!!!), bounced under Lloyd’s boot, and squirmed out to the edge of the box where Kemper collected it, sorted out his feet, and toe-punted the ball past De Gea and into the bottom right corner. QPR deservedly two to the good, playing some really pleasing football. Supporters of NAC Breda in the lower South Africa Road stand rewarded for their touching banner. Everyone’s happy.

Florentina have already spent close to £80m on their team this summer, and this was a strong line up, but Rangers had been the better team and they’d truthfully not offered too much going forwards but for a long ball over the top on the half-hour mark. Moise Kean ran on and Charles came out of the goal to meet him at the edge of the box, applying just enough pressure to put off the former Evertonian so that his chipped attempt dropped wide of the goal. They did however pull a goal back seconds before the end of the first half, with the last Dodo playing a ball inside of Kemper down the right-hand side to Alex Jimenez, exiled from Bournemouth “pending the outcome of an investigation into social media allegations” (sexting a 15-year-old girl) according to the BBC. Jimenez, who had already threatened to expose Kemper’s… put politely ‘lack of speed’, got beyond the Dutchman and cut the ball back to the centre of the box for Arthur Atta to fire at goal. Despite his first attempt being well saved by Charles, there was not much he could do about the follow-up, and as the half-time whistle went, QPR were only up by one goal.

After a cheerful half-time show of fan penalties against the goalkeeping academy coach who initially seemed determined not to be beaten, especially not by small children, the match resumed with the same 11 that had gone in at half time, except for a change of goalkeepers. Ward replaced Charles, and looked similarly capable with the ball at his feet. Jimenez furthered his claim to be one of the world’s biggest bellends, barging into Kemper off the ball on 50 minutes which resulted in a few afters.

The two-goal parity was restored on 53, when a freekick from the left swung in by Harvey Vale evaded Handsome Ronnie and fell at the edge of the box where Kemper put his head where it hurt to get the ball back into a dangerous area. From then, Alfie Lloyd, whose industrious and tenacious style of play was evident throughout the game, battled well to get beyond his man Gudmundsson to the byline and prod a ball back into the six-yard box where Paul Smyth was able to twist and nod the ball into the right bit of the side-netting. Watching it live I felt if I tried to replicate the way Smyth angled his neck for that I’d do myself a serious mischief.

The wholesale changes came at around the hour. Morrison and Clarke-Salter reunited as the centre back pairing, replacing the very impressive duo of Dunne and Edwards (do fuck off Burnley); Larkeche was back at left-back despite limping off against Wycombe; and a lesser spotted Hevertton Santos (who Morgan and Poku didn’t seem remotely keen on passing to) came on at right back for Mbengue. Varane remained the holding midfielder with Morgan and Isak either side of him. Bennie on the left, Lloyd remained up front, and Kwame Poku came on to play on the right.

Poku looked really promising. That he only played 30 minutes today suggests to me we are managing his minutes, and not throwing him in too early, or exposing him to too much, especially when Saito and Dembele are MIA. It should be one of our primary objectives to keep him fit, because he was lively and he single-handedly made things happen. Not three minutes after his introduction was he taking on his man down the right wing, nutmegging him, and then driving inside on the right before taking on another player and setting the ball for Morgan on the edge of the box which he flashed just wide of the left post. Whenever he got on the ball, Poku looked like he meant business. He welcomed his opposing right back to England by toasting him a nice brown colour for the entire duration he was on the pitch. They embraced at the full time whistle, that was about as close as the visiting full back got to the Ghanaian winger. This is the player I hoped we’d signed. His improved fitness situation could be a gamechanger.

Unfortunately, a minute later QPR were once again pegged back, as a lofted ball over the top from Nicolo Fortini was brought down and tucked under the onrushing Calum Ward by substitute Roberto Piccoli. Arms up from Morrison and Ward to claim an offside that wasn’t given, but it did seem quite easy for the Italian centre forward to escape their clutches.

The tempo of the game sort of died with the substitutions, as is customary in these games. Fiorentina threatened twice more, with good hold up play from Mandragora on the 80th minute to free Croci on the edge of the box who spun but couldn’t quite find the top corner with his snapshot attempt. Four minutes later Croci turned provider, putting a fabulous arching ball into the box for Mandragora on the edge of the six yard box, having lost Adamson (on for Lloyd 15 minutes from time) at the back post, who really should have done better with the headed attempt, instead glancing the ball wide of the post.

It was an impressive showing, I thought we looked positive, always seeking a forward pass, while putting together some excellent passages of play. Admittedly, the visitors gave the impression of a team a week behind us in their pre-season, but I liked what I saw a lot. The caveat is of course the injuries. Props must be given to the club for identifying and improving areas of vulnerability, such as the goalkeeping department and fullbacks, but two of our most high profile bits of business, in Charles and Lamptey, have histories of injury problems. These will need to be sorted out if we are to compete consistently, and to a high level this coming season.

For now, though, I’ll remain optimistic. The football looks great, and I’m so glad to be back at Loftus Road. Long may the sun shine. FT QPR 1-2 Bolton.

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

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