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Free scoring QPR prepare for live battle with Derby - full match preview
Free scoring QPR prepare for live battle with Derby - full match preview
Friday, 23rd Oct 2009 16:55

QPR have won twice and scored eight goals already this week, and will look to continue that flying form at a traditionally happy hunting ground on Saturday night in front of the BBC cameras.

Derby County (19th) v Queens Park Rangers (10th)
Coca Cola Championship
Saturday October 24, Kick Off 5.30pm
Pride Park, Derby


People are talking about QPR. I mean actual, genuine people. In the pub on Thursday night five-a-side team mates were asking questions like “what’s going on at QPR then?” And for once they were not referring to a managerial sacking, or some seepage of F1 controversy into our board room. I have even heard this week, and you may wish to hold onto a loved one at this point, somebody say they were “looking forward” to QPR being on the television this week so they can see what all the fuss is about.

Wouldn’t it just be typical of QPR to go into these games against Derby and Leicester live on the television and play like absolute idiots? I’d blame myself for using terms like “the best football you’re ever likely to see from a Championship team” and “almost completely flawless” when trying to sum up the Preston and Reading performances to friends. I’ve been saying “wouldn’t it be just typical of QPR” quite a lot lately but, self destruction at Swansea apart, nothing we are doing at the moment is typical of any QPR side I can remember seeing since the early 1990s.

Every single player is on top of his game, everybody wants the ball, everybody looks confident, there are two or three viable options for every pass. This is a team that was playing what I would call ‘channel football’ as recently as 12 months ago i.e. using long balls in behind full backs to win throw ins and corners as a primary attacking strategy. We have gone from the arse end of the game to the Arsenal of the Championship in a very short period of time and it is great to see. Every QPR game at the moment is a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining experience.

This will of course never continue. No team can maintain this form, this performance level, indefinitely. Even Manchester United have blips. QPR are once again without at least seven players this weekend including Lee Cook, Matt Connolly and Mikele Leigertwood who you would think would almost certainly be in or around the first eleven if fit and Ben Watson, Martin Rowlands and possibly Jay Simpson who I would label as being absolutely pivotal to the way we play and the success we’re having. The squad is well equipped and the stand ins are doing well so far but the simple fact is Patrick Agyemang is not as good as Jay Simpson, Gavin Mahon is not as good as Martin Rowlands and so on. It will take incredible belief from this group of players to ride the ever increasing list of injuries and suspensions and maintain their current standards.

If a dip or lull is going to happen, and unless we’re going to be this year’s 100 points and 100 goals champions it’s a matter of when rather than if, it would be nice if it could happen after this week so the people at home can see a QPR team playing the way we are, and so I don’t look like a lying toad in front of all the people I’ve been enthusing about us to. At Pride Park where QPR have never lost, against a mediocre Derby side with a lengthy absence list of their own, there’s no reason to believe the crash will happen this Saturday other than it being typical of our team to do just that.

Five minutes on Derby
Recent History: As with Reading on Tuesday night QPR come face to face this weekend with a team that lived the Premiership dream and are now suffering the consequences of falling from grace. With the likes of QPR reject Paulo Wanchope in the side and Jim Smith at the helm Derby were an attractive and entertaining Premiership force in the late 1990s and were promoted back there again from this league in 2007. Their second visit to the top flight since the inception of the Premiership was a disastrous one, a season that it will take this club many, many years to fully recover from.

In 2006 Derby attracted Scottish manager Billy Davies from Preston. he had done well with North End, guiding them to the play offs in both his full seasons in charge. Alas as many managers have found at Deepdale the resources just aren’t there to make that final kick for the big time. He left for Derby, a club with more than twice the support of Preston and one with recent Premiership pedigree. George Burley had just left after following up a play off season with one of underachievement and Davies set down his intention to have the Rams back in the top division in three years. In the event, he achieved inside 12 months.

Davies was right, the job was a three year one, but in a position to push for promotion in January he added six new faces to his line up and went for it - ultimately overcoming the odds to beat West Brom in the Wembley play off final. Derby were not even close to being good enough to play against Premiership opponents every week. The signings of Robert Earnshaw and Kenny Miller did little to rectify that and Davies seemed more bothered during the summer with resolving his own contract situation and that of his desired assistant David Kelly.

Derby won an early Monday night football game against Newcastle at Pride Park but incredibly failed to win again in the entire season - relegated long before a final day hammering by Reading with a record low total of one win and eleven points from 38 games, they also conceded 89 goals. Davies was a victim of his own success. he took Derby up to soon and was then fired midway through the season when things clearly were not going well. Paul Jewell, his replacement, initially promised better when he could get his own players in in January and then when eight new signings in the transfer window, at considerable expense, actually seemed to make the team worse he fell back on the excuse of it being an impossible job in the first place.

Despite lurid allegations about his sex life appearing in a Sunday tabloid and his failure to win a game in six months in charge Jewell was kept on for the start of last season and made a further eight permanent signings and three loans in preparation for a tilt at the Championship. Derby now had a squad so bloated that it had to train in two parts - the folly of changing managers quickly and attempting to paper over cracks with one new signing after another there for all to see. Jewell was eventually dismissed after Christmas with derby languishing towards the bottom end of the league.

His replacement was Nigel Clough, son of legendary former Derby boss Brian who brought the league title to the Baseball Ground back in the 1970s. Nigel cut his teeth managing at Burton Albion, guiding them up through the non-league ladder and into a new stadium before building a side that won promotion in the Football League for the first time last season despite the best efforts of his temporary replacement Roy McFarlane. Clough Junior is a much more quiet and thoughtful man than his demonstrative father and seemed happy to settle for life at Burton - certainly his decision to join Derby came as a surprise to me and I think initially he was in awe of the task facing him. Burton were part time last season, with a squad of 20. Derby’s playing rosta numbered nearly 50.

Off the field Derby have been dogged by similar dodgy financial goings on, and an ABC loan, as ourselves. On it they now face another rebuilding job as Clough attempts to cut playing numbers and wage bill expenditure in half while keeping them competitive in this division. It’s a three year job at least, probably a five year one, but it took Clough ten at Burton and if he thinks he will be able to spend that long getting it right at Pride Park he has another think coming whatever his surname.

The Manager: Nigel Clough, in case you have been on the moon, is the son of the legendary Brian who won the league championship with Derby County and European cup twice with Nottingham Forest. Where Clough senior loved the limelight and controversial out bursts Nigel is a quiet, family man who built his managerial reputation in ten years at Burton Albion during which time he promoted them into the Conference, oversaw the move to a new stadium, took Man Utd to a replay in the FA Cup and ultimately built a side that took them into the Football League despite the best efforts of his replacement Roy McFarlane last season. Clough has stressed since his arrival that the job of rebuilding Derby is a massive one that will take time – having inherited a squad so large he had to split training into two sessions to accommodate them all Clough has spent the summer mostly clearing players out rather than adding new ones and I’m sure, if you asked him, he would say it is likely to be three seasons minimum before they are in a position to challenge in this league again. If he thinks Derby County will give him the ten years he had at Burton, or even the three years he needs here, then he may end up being sadly mistaken and only results at pride Park are keeping the wolves from his door at the moment. May be able to trade on his family name to keep him in the post longer than others may get and in truth Derby need to stick with him and give him his three to five years to reshape a club that was obviously in a serious mess when he arrived.

Three to Watch: Derby’s chief threat to QPR on Saturday is likely to come from wide areas with wingers Lee Croft and Gary Teale both in very decent touch so far this season. Croft, a product of Manchester City’s youth academy who has previous experience at this level with Cardiff and Norwich, is an easy player for visiting supporters to dislike with his propensity to hurl himself to the ground under the most meagre of contact and also seems to be carrying more and more excess weight with each passing season - the old adage about having the physique of a professional darts player rather than that of a footballer very appropriate here. However he is a very effective wide player in the Championship, reaching the byline and delivering quality balls into the box with decent regularity. He has one goal from 11 starts this season, coming in a 3-0 Pride Park demolition of Sheffield Wednesday, since moving from Carrow Road on a free transfer during the summer.

If Croft is more of a thoughtful, Lee Cook type of winger whose main strength lies in the quality of the final ball then Gary Teale is much more the direct, Wayne Routledge style player in the Rams’ midfield. Teale made 184 appearances for Wigan as they rose up through the leagues to the Premiership after starting his career in the lower Scottish divisions. He found himself surplus to requirements at the JJB when they reached the top flight and Billy Davies brought him to Derby initially in January 2007 when the Rams spent big in the transfer window to push on for the Premiership. He is only now really finding his feet with the club though having previously been loaned out to Plymouth and Barnsley. He has three goals from 14 appearances in wide areas this season and while obviously not quite good enough to cut it at the highest level has plenty in his locker to trouble Championship full backs.

A big day therefore for both Peter Ramage and Gary Borrowdale with derby heavily reliant on these two, and the unpredictable Kris Commons, in the absence of Paul Green and Miles Adison who would normally partner each other in the centre of the Rams midfield and feature heavily in this part of the preview were it not for their respective injuries.

Up front Derby boast another one of those players that is always highly sought after by Championship clubs but never quite cuts the mustard in the higher league. When Rob Hulse first came through the ranks at Crewe he partnered Dean Ashton in a lively attack and I actually thought at the time Hulse was the better player. Although injuries have sadly curtailed a career that took him all the way to the England squad it is clear now that it was Ashton who had the Premiership quality rather than Hulse who has, like so many Derby players, struggled to make an impact in the top flight while always doing a steady job in the Championship. Not steady enough to justify the money spent on him in transfer fees down the years, some £5.8m, or the interest in him during the summer from Middlesbrough and others. But he will be a threat all the same and has three goals to his name this season so far.

Links >>> Derby Official Website >>> Derby Message Board

History
Recent Meetings:
QPR have never lost at Pride Park and kept up that record in January this year in Nigel Clough’s first game in charge, winning by two goals to nil and securing one of only three away wins in the league all season in the process. The R’s were good value for their success with Wayne Routledge volleying home a first and Mikele Leigertwood stroking home the second before half time and only a fine save from Roy Carroll denied Hogan Ephraim a third after the break. The only downside was a first half cruciate knee ligament injury sustained in innocuous circumstances by Martin Rowlands resulting in him being ruled out for the rest of the season. Rangers then went and won 3-0 a Blackpool on the Tueday night sparking hopes of a play off push but the R’s failed to win again on the road during the 2008/09 season.

Derby: Carroll 5, Albrechtsen 5, Todd 4, Nyatanga 6, Camara 3, Barnes 6 (Barazite 70, 5), Green 6, Addison 7, Commons 6, Varney 4 (Davies 59, 6), Hulse 5
Subs Not Used: Bywater, Savage, Teale
Booked: Camara (foul), Todd (foul)

QPR: Cerny 7, Connolly 8, Gorkss 7, Stewart 7, Delaney 7, Routledge 9, Leigertwood 8, Mahon 8, Rowlands 6 (Ephraim 12, 8), Cook 6 (Alberti 90, -), Helguson 6 (Di Carmine 64, 6)
Subs Not Used: Hall, Blackstock
Goals: Routledge 22 (unassisted), Leigertwood 36 (assisted Routledge)

Rangers lost comfortably at home to Derby in September last season amid bad tempered scenes off the pitch. A snap decision by the QPR board before the match to introduce a category system of ticket sales meant tickets for the match with the Rams suddenly went up to £40 for adults in most parts of the ground and fans leafleted outside the ground before the match while the Derby fans took great delight in branding the home team’s owners ‘greedy bastards’ throughout the match. On the field QPR suffered in the negative atmosphere, turning in their worst performance of the season to this point and losing 2-0. Derby took 80 minutes to take the lead, Albrechtsen headed in from a corner, but they sealed the win with a last minute strike from Emmanuel Villa.

QPR: Cerny 5, Connolly 6, Stewart 8, Hall 7, Delaney 6, Mahon 5 (Leigertwood 70, 6), Parejo 5, Rowlands 6, Ledesma 5 (Agyemang 77, 5), Buzsaky 5 (Cook 56, 7), Blackstock 5
Subs Not Used: Camp, Ramage
Booked: Ledesma (dissent)

Derby: Carroll 6, Connolly 7, Leacock 8, Albrechtsen 8, Stewart 7, Barazite 7 (Davies 84, -), Green 8, Addison 8, Pearson 7, Ellington 6 (Villa 76, 7), Hulse 7
Subs Not Used: Bywater, Kazmierczak, Nyatanga
Booked: Leacock (foul)
Goals: Albrechtsen 80 (assisted Barazite), Villa 89 (assisted Barazite)

Head to Head:
Derby wins – 16
Draws – 15
QPR wins – 11

Previous Results:
2008/09 Derby 0 QPR 2 (Routledge, Leigertwood)
2008/09 QPR 0 Derby 2
2006/07 Derby 1 QPR 1 (Rowlands)
2006/07 QPR 1 Derby 2 (Smith)
2005/06 QPR 1 Derby 1 (Nygaard)
2005/06 Derby 1 QPR 2 (Ainsworth, Gallen)
2004/05 Derby 0 QPR 0
2004/05 QPR 0 Derby 2

Played for both clubs:
Dean Sturridge
Derby County 1991-2001
QPR 2005-06

Ian Holloway did many good things as manager of QPR and he will always hold a special place in my heart for what he did for this club, but the signing of Dean Sturridge will not go down as one of his finest moments.

Born in Birmingham, Sturridge signed pro forms at Derby County in 1991 and made his debut a year later in a 1-0 defeat to Southend United. Still only a young man Sturridge had to bide his time to get a run in the County team, so spent time on loan at Torquay in 1994 - scoring five goals in just ten outings for the Gulls. Back at Derby he looked a more confident player and became the Rams first choice striker for the 1995-96 season. His twenty goals that year helped Derby to second place in the First Division and promotion to the Premier League for the first time. Sturridge and Derby made a strong Premier League debut the following campaign, with the Ram’s finishing a creditable twelfth and Sturridge netting 11 goals and impressing so much he was linked with a big money move to Arsenal. He stayed with the Rams in the top-flight for another five seasons, scoring 53 goals in all for Derby before manger Jim Smith left in 2001 and Dean found himself out of the first-team picture.

He joined Leicester City in a £350,000 deal however he couldn’t capture the same kind of goal scoring form at Filbert Street , dropping behind heavyweights Trevor Benjamin and Ade Akinbyi in the pecking order. Injuries meant he left after just ten months to join Wolves on initial loan deal. His four goals in just two outings led to a permanent move on Christmas Eve 2001.

Two successful seasons followed, where his goals helped the club to reach the play-offs in both campaigns, wining promotion the second time around with a 3-0 win over Sheffield United. The striker didn’t enjoy much of Wolves’ season in the top-flight though as injury and new signings limited him to just five appearances and he spent time on loan at Sheffield United. Sturridge never regained his place at Molineux and in March 2005 joined QPR on a free transfer.

Although injury had taken its toll on the player, Rangers manager Ian Holloway believed he had picked up a bargain who, if he got fit, could be a secret weapon in his team’s Championship campaign. However over the eight short months that Dean was at Loftus Road he spent more time in the treatment room than any other player in the history of the club. So much so that the injury column on this very website is named in Dean’s honour - link. He played just 11 games for the club without scoring before his contact was terminated – not before time. A subsequent interview by LFW with Gianni Paladini revealed that the medical tests done when Sturridge first joined the club were less than strenuous - link.

A short spell at Kidderminster followed before he retired last season to become a pundit on BBC Radio. Now working on his coaching badges, with hopefully a physio on stand by.

Links >>> Derby 0 QPR 2 Match Report >>> QPR 0 Derby 2 Match Report >>> Match Report Archive >>> Connections and Memories

This Saturday
Team News: Both teams have substantial missing lists for this game. Ben Watson’s second sending off of the season on Tuesday rules him out of this game and the Friday night clash with Leicester as well with a two game suspension. Lee Cook, Martin Rowlands and Matthew Connolly are all long term absentees while Hogan Ephraim is recovering from an operation to remove floating bone from his ankle joint and Angelo Balanta is still troubled by a groin injury. Jay Simpson limped off the field against Reading before the hour mark and is doubtful.

Derby are just as battered and bruised with central midfield lynchpins Miles Addison and Paul Green both out. They are also without loaned Everton striker James Vaughan, Stephen Pearson and Steve Davies. Giles Barnes, one of the Championship’s hottest properties when they were promoted four seasons ago but struggling with fitness and weight issues more recently, is also out as is Fredrik Stoor, Chris Porter and Ben Pringle. Clough has added experienced attacking midfielder Bryan Hughes to his line up for this game, on loan from Premiership side Hull City.

Elsewhere: The Championship starts early this weekend wwith Watford and Sheffield Wednesday contesting a live Sky match on Friday night. On Saturday the stand out games look to be the clash between promotion chasing Sheff Utd and Cardiff at Bramall Lane, relegation haunted Plymouth and Ipswich at Home Park and Middlesbrough’s first game without Gareth Southgate at Preston. Leaders West Brom go to Coventry.

Referee: After Andy Hall’s typically infuriating performance on Tueday night Rangers will be glad to get back a much more clam and thoughtful match official on Saturday. Although Mark Haywood allowed a crucial goal against Rangers that seemed to have been scored with his hand by Chris Eagles he is a pretty reasonable official who will give a game every chance and keep his cards in his pocket where possible – all a far cry from the eccentricity on show on Tuesday at Loftus Road.

Links >>> Dean Sturridge Memorial Injury List >>> Arthur Gnohere Discipline Counter >>> Tony’s Championship Preview >>> Referee Preview >>> Referee League

Form
Derby: Derby may currently be languishing towards the bottom end of the Championship table but that masks very decent home form. The Rams have won four of their six games at Pride Park this season, including their last two against Bristol City and Sheffield Wednesday without conceding a goal. Having said that Barnsley (2-3) and Sheffield United (0-1) have both come here and won this season. It is the away form that is letting Clough’s side down so badly with two draws and five defeats, including a 6-1 annihilation at Cardiff, so far. They come into this game on the back of successive away trips to Leicester and Middlesbrough where they picked up one point and failed to score.

QPR:Rangers are in simply electric form at the moment. They have two wins and eight goals to their name this week alone and come into this match on a massive high after the demolitions of Reading and Preston. The R’s have been beaten just twice this season in the league, and have lost only one of their last nine games in the Championship - and that was at Swansea when reduced to nine men. Rangers’ goal difference is better than everybody apart from the top three, they have scored more goals at home than anybody apart from Cardiff and have won twice on the road this season already, at Cardiff and Scunthorpe, having only won three times away from home in the whole of last season. The R’s have never lost (two wins and two draws) at Pride Park.

Prediction: While it would be typical of QPR to underperform on the television, and while I appreciate I am increasing the chances of that happening ten fold by saying this, I just cannot see us losing this game. On a wide open pitch at a ground we enjoy playing at and against meagre opposition I expect QPR to come and get at least a point here if not more.
Narrow win  

Links >>> Championship Table >>> Total Form >>> Home Form >>> Away Form >>> Prediction League >>> Fantasy League

Photo: Action Images



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