Blackburn were the last opponent QPR beat while holding more possession, but that was 18 months ago and the sport’s current trend is heading in the opposite direction.

Blackburn (1-1-0 WDWL 6th) v QPR (1-1-0 DWD 5th)

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Whoever would have thought Gareth Ainsworth was something of a visionary?

Certainly not anybody unfortunate enough to suffer through his brief time in charge at QPR – a dream job for someone who’d served the club with such distinction as a player which quickly turned into a nightmare when he realised the inheritance he’d been left by his predecessors.

Being back in Austria with Rangers this summer you couldn’t help but reflect on how different the team is now to when we were last there together three years ago.

A happy group, with a manager proven at a high level, on a professional pre-season tour with options all over the pitch. The players stayed behind after both games in Vienna posing for photographs, autographs, and mingling with the fans. Compare that to walloping long balls at Hamzad Kargbo next to a municipal swimming pool while the Slavia Prague fans laughed at us, QPR supporters milling around on the pitch afterwards while the players stayed well away on a separate balcony – only Charlie Kelman making any effort with the travelling fans at all.

Little of this was Ainsworth’s fault, it has to be said. The club had done its money chasing waterfalls at the end of the Mark Warburton reign and then during Mick Beale’s ruinous short time at Loftus Road, and Gareth was left to cobble together what he could with what was left. He rightly identified a need for experienced, senior players, and Steve Cook proved a tremendous addition.

He might have been ahead of the game in another respect too. Twice, despite everything, he won away early that season at Cardiff and Middlesbrough against all the odds and statistics. Now, anybody who sat through the subsequent abject surrenders at Leeds and West Brom, where QPR treated even crossing the halfway line as something akin to making an FA Cup semi-final, will know this was an utterly dire watch and somewhat embarrassing for a club that likes to define itself through its Marsh, Bowles, Francis, Currie, Wegerle, Wilkins, Taarabt types. But it was a little indication on direction of travel.

Football styles and approaches move and change like fashion trends. The sport is incredibly sheep-like. Somebody does something, it works, so everybody does it. Observe the current ridiculous notion that every time you kick off you should plant the ball firmly into touch by the opposition corner flag and give them a throw, because you’ve seen PSG do that. Teams that want possession, want to play out from the back, want the goalkeeper to be a de-facto outfield player, by contrast when presented with a free piece of unchallenged possession on the centre spot now belt it into the main stand John Beck-style. There’s not a lot of original thinking in this game.

QPR under Terry Venables in the 1980s were a trend setter, rather than a follower. The high offside trap, the three at the back, the sweeper, Terry Fenwick cutting about. Barcelona came to poach their next manager from Loftus Road – imagine that now. Bobby Robson's Italia 90 England is lauded in folklore now, but read One Night In Turin and the opinion at the time was that he was a dinosaur holding that team back by sticing to 4-4-2 and refusing to switch to a sweeper system. In utilising two midfielders (Clive Wilson, David Bardsley) as attacking, overlapping, productive full backs, Gerry Francis might have pre-empted things once more in W12 when he was in charge in the 1990s.

In the intervening years you’ve seen the sport go big, aggressive and pacy with lots of pasta for breakfast because Arsene Wenger revolutionised Arsenal’s drinking club. You’ve seen it go completely the opposite way, and Arsenal themselves give up everything that was good about their Invicibles team, trying (and mostly failing) to copy a Barcelona side that had at least four generational talents all together at the same time and could therefore play however they liked. Then Jose Mourinho came along and said Porto/Chelsea/Inter Milan don’t want the ball at all, so everybody did that for a (grim) while. Roberto Martinez changed the ‘out ball’ in English football from one into a channel that turned the full back around, into a crossfield number that opened the whole pitch up and stretched opponents to breaking point widthways instead of length. Inspired, Ian Holloway took bloody Blackpool into the top flight and absolutely went for it – relegated, as you’d expect from a team with Alex Baptiste and Ian Evatt at centre back in the Premier League, but inspiring others to ditch the Mourinho thinking and have a bit of a bloody go at it. Sadly that gradually dissipated into a data-obsessed snooze fest where Sky broke into their regular scheduled programming to do breaking news about Southampton becoming the first team to ever complete a thousand passes in a Championship game at Sheff Wed, while only cursorily mentioning they won 2-1 in the last minute and were extremely fortunate to do so.

Possession, it seems, is off trend again. Arsenal won a league and got to a Champions League final playing a style Tony Pulis would have been proud of, and Arsene Wenger presumably abhors. Russell Martin is now two failed gigs further into his career and is in League One with Leicester City, which is a bit like being in the Scunthorpe Wetherspoons as Zac Efron, but he still can’t score. The Foxes have one point from two games (they were lucky to get that from what I saw of their opener at Notts County) and lost their first home game 2-1 against Burton Albion with 73.4% of the ball.

On the opening Saturday of the Premier League all five teams who won their game had less possession than the opponent – Hull beat Man Utd with 28.3%, Everton had 41.9% against Palace, Ipswich 37.8% against Sunderland, Leeds 43.7% at Forest and Brentford 40.2% against Spurs with which they managed 26 shots on goal, eight on target and an xG just shy of four. This was all rather spoiled by Villa’s abdication at Brighton on Sunday (73% possession, Jeremy etc) but Chelsea’s 3-2 at Fulham on Monday came with 38.1% of the ball. Football now is about moments - moments in both boxes. Pass it around all you like, the game will be won and lost on set pieces, transitions and counter attacks.

A timely moment, perhaps, for QPR to be heading to Blackburn. Rangers were wholly dominant for the entire game against their near neighbours Bolton last week at Loftus Road, breaking Jackett’s Law by registering ten shots on target without winning the game through a combination of great goalkeeping, poor finishing and pure dumb luck. With 55.3%, though, it continued an increasingly weird stat around Julien Stéphan never having won a game as QPR manager when having more of the ball. The last time Rangers did so was against Blackburn, at Loftus Road, under Marti Cifuentes, in February 2025. The R’s have played 66 times since, winning 21 of those, and every single victory came with an inferior possession stat.

The Bolton game, in some ways, mirrored two 0-0 draws against relegated Oxford last year. When given the ball by an opponent of limited ability and ambition, Rangers really don’t know what to do with themselves. In theory that’s not ideal when you’ve been gifted a fixture list that starts you off against last season’s 21st, 20th, 19th, 18th and 14th-placed teams with two of the newly promoted cohort thrown in there for good measure. QPR need to learn how to dominate these situations and ice them if they’re to go anywhere. This team really should be in the thick of the top six race by the time it gets to West Ham on the other side of the international break.

Then again, against Oxford QPR struggled to create a single chance, whereas last week the quality and quantity of efforts on goal win you that game 99 times out of 100. Steve at Loftus IQ is typically brilliant at crunching all these numbers, you should really read him this week here.

Blackburn tomorrow will be another interesting piece in this. An unhappy hunting ground for so many years, Rangers have won two of their last three visits to Ewood Park and Rovers won only four home games in the whole of last season – discounting Sheff Wed the next lowest totals were seven and both those clubs went down. You really should be coming here looking to win if you’re an ambitious side. But if you can’t handle possession, and nobody in the game wants it anymore anyway, then what? Blackburn won here against much-fancied Middlesbrough last week with 29.3%.

Suspect this one may be statistically fascinating to analyse on Sunday night, but really quite dreadful to watch on Saturday afternoon.

Links >>> Chicken tonight? Oppo Profile >>> Ready revenge – History >>> Goblin child – Referee >>> Rovers official website >>> Official website >>> Lancashire Telegraph — Local Paper >>> BRFCS message board and podcast >>> Rovers Chat — Blog

Below the fold

Team News: QPR will be without new signing Boy Kemper until the other side of the international break with an ankle injury. Dennis Cirkin got half an hour on debut against Bolton and the decision must now be made whether to go with the former Sunderland man or trust Kealey Adamson again out of position. Tariq Lamptey also made a surprisingly early debut from the bench last week but looked rusty as hell so you’d expect Amadou Mbengue to retain the starting right back role. Ziyad Larkeche is one other full back option, but his time at the club seems to be at an end with Barnsley linked and you’d expect to see him moved on in the remainder of the transfer window along with (sadly) Rayan Kolli, (potentially) Kieran Morgan and (inevitably) Esquerdinha. Karamoko Dembele is a long term absentee.

Blackburn were dumped out of the League Cup during the week by Sheff Utd, losing 2-1 at Ewood Park. The game came at the cost of Japanese striker Yuki Ohashi who did his hamstring and will miss at least two months of football. Harry Pickering (Harry Pickering) went off at half time in that game but his threat is more minor. Adam Forshaw will return to the squad after a midweek rest. Scott Wharton is a long term absentee.

Elsewhere: The Championship creaks back into life this evening with the third annual Cunt Bowl between Disney FC and Knighthead City, live from The Taco Bell Shack. Things are not well in either project, and both are without a win in the league so far. Even Ryan Reynolds and “RobMac” are bumping into a spending ceiling in year two at this level, while Tom Wagner’s health-related absence has left Brum predictably rudderless and Chris “needs a fast start” Davies was firmly in the locals’ crosshairs after a midweek 6-1 cup humbling by Brentford.

Three lunchtime games tomorrow – because who doesn’t need three televised games of Championship football all kicking off at the same time? – led by Middlesbrough, who haven’t started quite as well as we thought, and West Brom who look surprisingly good under James Morrison who, of course, played for both clubs. Derby are hosting Swansea in case self-flagellation is your thing, and watch out for Stoke away at Wolves – two league defeats and out of the cup, I’m starting to wonder how long Mark Robins is for this particular world. The only thing Stoke like more than spending money on tat is blowing their whole budget with one manager in a transfer window then sacking him in the first week of the following month.

The afternoon games are led by Southampton v Millwall – a clash between two of last season’s “losing” play-off qualifiers. There are awkward away games for two of the faltering relegated teams – West Ham at Watford and Burnley at Norwich. Charlton got a huge win at The BrewDog DJ Booth last week when Valentin Castellanos became the latest player to successfully sit a goalkeeper down with a stuttered run up only to then miss the penalty on the other side anyway (two weeks wages). Nathan Jones’ team probably should back that up at home to Preston Knob End this week.

Sheffield Red Stripe’s attempt to 0-0 their way through an entire season reaches stage three, Cardiff away. Bristol City host Portsmouth while two newly promoted teams meet in the form of Bolton and Lincoln.

A full round of midweek games Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Referee: Ruddy hell, it’s Soft Cell. Details.

Form

- QPR have started the season with a draw in normal time against Millwall, a 3-1 away win at Portsmouth, and a 0-0 at home to Bolton. Three unbeaten having finished last season without a win in six games and losing the last four.

- Blackburn won their cup game against Burton but were knocked out midweek with a 2-1 loss here to Sheff Utd. In the league their tough start on paper has yielded a creditable four points with a 2-2 draw at newly relegated Wolves and a surprise 2-1 home win against much fancied Middlesbrough.

- QPR won on the opening day of the season for the first time since Mark Warburton’s Rangers beat Forest 2-0 at Loftus Road during lockdown in 2020, and the first away win on day one since the 2-1 at Stoke the year before that. The draw against Bolton means you still have to go back to 2016 - when Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’s savage pre-season did at least yield a 3-0 win against Leeds and 2-0 at Cardiff – to find the last time they won their first two. Avoiding defeat here would make it three unbeaten to begin for the first time since Warburton’s class of 2021/22 drew with Millwall and then won at Hull and Middlesbrough to kick off as part of an unbeaten run of six.

- Ewood Park has been a bit of a desert for QPR down the years. The R’s lost six in a row here between 2017 and 2022 as part of a sequence of 12 visits without a win and one success in 18 meetings going back to 1982/83. However, they won 1-0 here last season with a late Paul Smyth header and have won two of the last three games here after an Aynsley Pears own goal and Joe Hodge’s only strike for the club sealed a 2-1 win in 2023/24.

- That Smyth-inspired victory contributed to a truly dreadful Blackburn home record last season. Rovers won only four of their 23 games at Ewood Park – only Sheff Wed won fewer at home. They drew nine and lost ten of the remaining fixtures and the QPR game was part of a sequence of two wins from 16 here. By contrast they won nine away games – the same as promoted Ipswich – including a 3-1 at Loftus Road in Michael O’Neill’s first game in charge.

- A Blackburn win here following their surprise victory against Boro last time out in the league would be only the second time Rovers have recorded consecutive Championship victories since December. The other occasion also involved QPR because O’Neill followed his debut win at Loftus Road with another against Preston a week later.

- These teams last drew a game in September 2016 when the game ended 1-1 at Loftus Road – at that point a third draw in a row and fifth in seven meetings. There have been 17 meetings since without a tie.

- Incidentally QPR’s goal that day was scored by Tjaronn Chery from a free kick – a rare occurrence. In the ten years since only Yeni Ngbakoto (Birmingham A, 2017), Ebere Eze (Wigan H, 2019) and Ilias Chair (Sunderland A, 2022; Middlesbrough A, 2023) have scored for Rangers from a direct free kick. That’s five in 12 years since Niko Kranjcar v Stoke in September 2014. @JTSupple

- Tony Mowbray also doesn’t really do draws against QPR. Since his first game as a manager against Rangers finished 3-3 at West Brom in 2006 (Stewart, Gallen, Nygaard) he has won 11 and lost five of 15 meetings without a tie.

- Blackburn are the last opponent QPR managed to beat while holding more possession – a 2-1 at Loftus Road in February 2025 with 52.9% of the ball. Rangers have won 21 times since, in 66 games, always with less of the ball than the opponent. The 0-0 against Bolton, in which the R’s had ten shots on target (Jackett’s law) came with 55.3% possession.

Prediction

In our Prediction League for 2026/27 we’ll once again be handing out prizes for being top at Christmas and overall winner from The Art of Football - sample the merch from our sponsor’s newly extended QPR collection here. Just three of you had a 0-0 on your coupon against Bolton. JB007007 won both prizes last year and has kindly agreed to keep up tradition and offer his irrational dislikes of each of our opponents this year…

“I’m really torn with Blackburn. Although I disliked them back in the 90’s when the money came in courtesy of Sir Jack Walker and it annoyed me seeing Blackburn shirts popping up being worn by dead heads 200 odd miles south that didn’t know about them previously, they did try - and succeed - in giving Man Utd a bloody nose on several occasions.

“Later, when slimeball Steve Keen came along during some similar relegation battles to ourselves, and again more recently under the Venky’s, they appear a basket case and have often been useful in my thoughts when trying to identify three teams worse than ourselves. However, I do like Tony Mowbray and I think he’s a good manager that gets the best out of teams. Just a shame that he has Cantwell running around screaming at every little challenge on her.

“Onto this weekend and, although they lost in midweek in the cup, they did very well last time out in the league to beat one of the division’s favourites and, with home advantage again, will see us as another potential three points. I thought we played some good attacking football against Bolton and with better finishing would have won by a good margin ourselves. I know it’s been covered, but we do look fitter and better conditioned for the rigours of the Championship so will be more difficult to beat particularly away.

“I think this is a difficult one to call so will sit on the fence with another goalless draw.”

JB’s Prediction: Blackburn 0-0 QPR.

LFW’s Prediction: Blackburn P-P QPR.

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