QPR 0 Argyle 2
Otherwise known as, “Two-nil, and by more luck than judgement we avoided making a pig’s ear of it, unlike Saturday”.
If the train journey back (23.45 sleeper, no berth, urrrrgggh) was arduous, at least there was the comfort of three points. I’d had a good time, as well: met up with my brother, had a couple of pints of Tim Taylor in the Goldhawk and some food and enjoyed the atmosphere and chat of one of my favourite football grounds. There’s something deliciously old-school about Loftus Road: the peeling blue paint; the closeness of the crowd to the touchline; its location in the middle of a housing estate - it’s a proper football ground.
Sadly, Rangers and Argyle struggled for long periods to persuade us that either of them were proper football teams. The game wasn’t dull: it was just very poorly played. Both teams struggled for rhythm and to put more than two or three passes together without one going horrendously astray. Martin Rowlands terrified the life out of me for the first twenty minutes: he was murdering poor Shelly down our right; then, inexplicably, Gregory had him swapped wings with the utterly anonymous Stefan Moore and Sawyer made much more of handling “Magic Hat”. Daniel Nardiello looked sharp, but unacquainted with the offside law and Blackstock was as we lovingly remembered him - dangerous when he looked like he could be bothered, as a header which Luke touched on to the bar proved (inexplicably given as a goal-kick: Andre Marriner may be a Prem ref but he was indifferent here - and I’m being kind).
Down the other end, most of our good stuff was coming through Buzsaky, who was dominating Bolder and Leigertwood in midfield and who went close and then not so close with a couple of free-kicks. Timar and Connolly, in particular, seemed hell-bent on raising the collective blood-pressure of the GA. To be honest, neither of them look solid enough for this league. Connolly was very nearly responsible for sending us in behind as a woefully short back-pass let Leigertwood in. Happily, Luke chose that moment to play our “Get out of jail free” card and produced one of four or five top-drawer saves. The debate about who is our best keeper is, for now, at an end - on this performance, Luke deserves the jersey for the foreseeable.
Two poor teams was the consensus at half-time. Fifteen minutes into the second, he game was effectively over as a contest. First Halmosi - again, AGAIN, the best player on the pitch beat the hapless (and rubbish) Zesh Rehman so comprehensively he ended up on his backside and finished sublimely in the bottom right hand corner. Then he headed Connolly’s penetrating cross back across the area to allow Norris to crash home from eight yards. In between, Rowlands hit Luke’s cross-bar with a free-kick. You sensed it was not Rangers’ night.
It wasn’t. Argyle controlled most of the rest of the game at a canter and played some really quite sublime passing and moving on the break which could, maybe should, have widened the margin of victory. Gregory waited until the 81st minute before introducing Israeli international and Chelsea loanee Ben Sahar, which made sense neither to me nor the understandably downbeat Rs I chatted to on the tube back to Paddington. His pace unsettled us and in that ten or so minutes QPR had enough chances not just to get back in the game but win it outright. Luckily, Luke, as I said, was on top of his game - and QPR had neglected to bring their collective shooting boots.
So there it was: a win at a place we last triumphed at in 1973. There remain serious questions about our future however: the defence is in a terrible state; our midfield all look alarmingly like they’re playing for the shop window and the squad looks paper-thin, at least in terms of quality. Now that the rumours of a January fire-sale have been given legs by the manager, really for the first time since Williamson left I fear for our survival in the Championship, if not this year then certainly next. And a relegation fight this year is a certainty if, as is distinctly possible, two or three key players leave - say, Norris, Halmosi, Ebanks-Blake. Imagine Argyle without those three and then tell me who you expect us to beat. It’s not even as though we can secure replacements for those likely to leave: if we can’t even manage to secure a player like Jermaine Easter, then we really are struggling.
We need money. Lots of it. And we need it yesterday.
