Slick in possession and slack with their finishing, QPR glided over, round and right the way straight through newly promoted Bolton at Loftus Road on Saturday, and in the end all they had to show for it was a scoreless point.

This is one of those ask-me-in-six-months sort of performances and results.

If Queens Park Rangers are wallowing around in their usual trough of 15th - passing the ball out from the goalkeeper and playing aesthetically pleasing football while unable to finish teams off and still struggling to record a single victory in a game where they dominate possession - then we’ll say the writing was on the wall. Two home games against two teams with big centre half pairings to begin with, two draws for a team that took four penalties in the first of those and missed all of them. Stop waving it around and start fucking.

League One play-off winners Bolton looked poor to me. Not all those who Wander are lost - former Newport stalwart Josh Sheehan gave a tidy and accomplished central midfield performance that belied a career that has yet to see him play this level by age 31, and giant defenders Chris Forino, Lewis Brunt and Akin Famewo just about held firm – but they were a team a long way shy of the standard of this game and only clung to it by their finger nails courtesy of a career highlight performance from jobbing number two goalkeeper Jack Bonham. A real Belgian motorway of a team.

They go home with a point regardless. Steven Schumacher is yet to concede a goal in three games managed against QPR with three different clubs. This is a guy who knows how to scrap a result out of games like this, and if Wanderers make a Championship season out of doing this to teams on the road (they’ve already beaten Preston at home) then, again, this result will be cast in a different light. For now, these are the games you need to ice if you’re to get anywhere, and the standards we need to aspire to if we’re to achieve as a club once more.

If, however, 2026/27 goes as we hope for Rangers, then it’ll quickly become the trendy contrariest’s favourite Tweet/message board post to say the signs were all there, even in a 0-0 draw, even against one of the league’s poorer teams. Julien Stephan’s men were undoubtedly the better side, very easy on the eye, and worthy of a victory. They had 18 shots on goal to Bolton’s two, ten on target (Jackett’s law) to the Trotters’ nil, 40 touches in the opposition penalty area to the visitors’ eight. You win this game 99 times out of 100, and at this stage of the season it’s arguably performance as much as result that matters.

It was a dominant display. With Ronnie Edwards' high class midfield anchoring and Jimmy Dunne and Jake Clarke-Salter dressed in dinner suits behind him, the hosts were able to attack at will and with impunity throughout and failed to win the game more through pure dumb luck than anything else. Just one of those days.

The chances came early, and frequently thereafter. Harvey Vale’s curled effort from the edge of the area was tipped over by Bonham from under his crossbar after three minutes. Vale dribbled a less potent effort at the keeper shortly after that when stand-in left back Kealey Adamson cut a ball back his way. Ilias Chair, fresh from a lead off double against Portsmouth on day one, had his own sighter at the keeper after a quarter of an hour. Koki Saito’s low cross to the near post was met by Richard Kone and saved by Bonham with his legs. Within 60 seconds of that Vale and Chair combined to free the Ivorian beyond a busted offside trap and into a one-on-one situation which the keeper won out in again. You have to give Bonham his due in all of this. We’d said he was a weak link in this Wanderers side who would need replacing if they’re to compete at this level, but these were good saves – particularly the Vale one. That said, Kone really should have scored at least one and had something of an off day leading the line having rotated with Rumarn Burrell from last week’s winning side. Couldn’t hit water if he’d been standing in a boat, but I guess at least he was missing with intent.

The game continued in this fashion unrelentingly. A chipped Chair free kick was headed down by Dunne and back across by Poku but nobody was able to convert in the ensuing scramble. A lovely touch and pass on a crossfield ball from Amadou Mbengue freed Poku into a space where he could have crossed early or driven into the box himself but strangely did neither. When Bolton dared to commit for a corner in the final minute of normal time they found themselves facing a three v one breakaway led by Koki Saito and Thierry Gale’s foul was an absolutely brilliant take-one-for-the-team yellow card to bring the whole thing to a halt.

Schumacher tried to stem the tied with experienced Ben Davies from the bench at half time (four centre backs, Jeremy etc.) but Adamson saw a shot deflected over from Kone’s lay off, Koki Saito hit the deck looking for an unlikely penalty, and Kone headed one up for Vale to try and nod past the goalkeeper only for Bonham to save yet again, all in the first ten minutes of the half as the flow continued in one direction.

Sometimes you need one to go in off your arse, so they say. Kone’s certainly got plenty of that. When he totally mishit one on the hour from Poku’s cut back and Bonham was still able to contort himself into an unconventional save of the resulting lob, you did start to feel like it might be one of those days.

Cliché central. Mind you, you don’t often see a manager make four substitutions at once to try and force an issue (four substitutes, Jeremy etc.). Stephan sent on Burrell for the misfiring Kone, Madsen to add craft alongside Edwards’ commanding class, and debutants Dennis Cirkin and Tariq Lamptey to refresh both full back slots. Balls very much out of the bath on this one. Unfortunately, not much of it really worked. Cirkin looked terrific at left back, a real highlight, but Lamptey was so coated in rust after 18 months on the sidelines he was more rust than boy and certainly off Mbengue’s level. Despite Burrell’s introduction the attacking threat waned through the final half hour and, I have to say, I was surprised to see these two full backs risked this much, this early, given their respective histories.

Dunne side footed wide having come forward for a corner, Chair tricked into the area and hit the deck to ask his own questions of referee Ed the Duck. Bonham made a rare mistake, losing a cross in the sun and treating his opponent to another corner in the final minute but that opportunity slipped away onto four added minutes of nothing. It felt like the West Londoners had punched themselves out, in all honesty.

The whole thing really was brimming over with QPR. A late Bolton winner? The cast changes and liberties are taken with an ancient script but Hamlet always dies in the end? Not this time. Fortunately, one bit of our season preview it seems we did get right is just where on earth the Trotters are going to find goals from this year. Sam Dalby was withdrawn on the hour for a palpably unfit Ryan Hardie who has always been a bit middling at this level anyway, and while I’d quite have liked Rangers to have a sniff of John McAtee when he was at Grimsby Town he’s now 13 appearances without a goal. Three clubs in the bag and it’s all the same club. Nothing to offer, but didn’t stop offering that.

Bar a half-hearted penalty appeal on the hour there really was no threat at all here. Pierce Charles was free to play as a de-facto outfield player - spraying one glorious pass after another out to either flank with either foot. Teams already clocking on that it’s pointless pressing here, just try and get back in shape so he can’t go over/round you. Wonderful, but we need similar accuracy in the other final third. QPR with nearly 55% of the possession, and fail to win. That record goes on. Now 66 games and 18 months since we were last able to finish off an opponent while holding more of the ball than them. This has to be conquered, and it’s the team we last did it against up next.

It actually reminded me of a home game with Newcastle early on the Neil Warnock Premier League season. In a televised Monday Night Football against the Magpies, Rangers played some sumptuous stuff, with Shaun Wright-Phillips in electric form, hit the woodwork on numerous occasions, and ended up settling for a 0-0 the visitors were singularly fortunate to get. At that point the optimism of the promotion season and late transfer window activity following Tony Fernandes’ takeover flushed through the club and a draw in that manner felt like just the beginning. There were big wins against Wolves, Stoke and of course Chelsea to come in short order, but the team and club was flawed and by the final day needed other results to go in their favour to stay up.

With games and results like this, at this point in the season, you only know with context and time.

QPR: Charles 6; Mbengue 6 (Lamptey 62, 5), Dunne 7, Clarke-Salter 7, Adamson 6 (Cirkin 62, 7); Edwards 7, Vale 6; Poku 6 (Madsen 62, 6), Chair 7, Saito 6 (Smyth 76, 6); Kone 5 (Burrell 62, 5)

Subs not used: Alemayehu, Varane, Lloyd, Ward

Yellow Cards: Clarke-Salter 75 (foul)

Bolton: Bonham 9; Larrazabal 5 (Dong 67, 5), Brunt 7, Forino 7, Famewo 6 (Davies 46, 7), Conway 6; Sheehan 7, Erhahon 5, Gale 5 (Iling-Junior 59, 5); McAtee 4 (Hardie 59, 4), Dalby 4

Subs not used: Christie, Harrington, Ritchie, Watson, Toal

Yellow Cards: Gale 45+1 (foul), Hardie 73 (foul)

QPR Star Man – Ronnie Edwards 7 All class in everything he did out of position. He’ll be brilliant wherever you put him, he’s that (right) sort, but we haven’t bought him to play here. The centre of midfield obviously needed work this summer and has yet to be properly addressed - hence we begin with a winger and a central defender playing in there. The one we have added, Glen Kamara, was ominously absent from even the bench after his first half hour of action at Portsmouth.

Referee – Edward Duckworth (Preston) 6 Of all the yellow cards Bolton could have picked up in their rear-guard action I was surprised it was Hardie’s near post challenge on Dunne that finally drew one. Applied the new countdown hands high in the air rules sporadically, when it suited him, and only when it meant he didn’t have to penalise anyone for it.

Attendance – 17,402 (1,750 Bolton approx.) Tolerant.

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Pictures - Ian Randall

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