Hoop Dreams - QPR FC

Just over a month of not posting on here and I’ve regrettably missed so much of QPR’s incredible start to the season.


Is incredible over-stretching the point? In the context of how this club performed last season on the pitch, the utter shambles of so much of the board’s actions off the pitch and the general feeling of inertia and discontent around the place, I don’t think it is.

In every department of their team, Rangers are performing way above expectations and what seemed possible last season. At the back, just two goals conceded so far with a settled goalkeeper as well compared to a team which shipped goals for fun and consistently put itself on the back foot throughout last season. In the midfield, a healthy amount of competition so that a player like Akos Buzsaky has sat on the bench for most of this season so that even when star players like Alejandro Faurlin are injured, as is currently the case, there is enough back-up in the squad to weather any resulting deficiencies. And in attack, a number of players scoring for fun, including Jamie Mackie who came to the club to a noticeable lack of enthusiasm from most quarters but who has shown himself to be one of the most exciting players to pull on the Hoops shirt in the last few seasons.

From all the excellent performances which I have completely failed to report on, the 2-2 draw at Derby County was perhaps the most enjoyable and most out-of-character, in comparison with last season once again. Knocked for six by two breakaway goals, Rangers showed such depths of character to keep knocking away at Derby and to finally be rewarded with two of the most thrilling goals I’ve seen them score in a long time.

Were they both pretty goals – far from it, though the technique Mackie showed to score the equaliser was unquestionable? What they did show though was an immense desire to get at the opposition, to almost literally batter them out of the way until the required result was achieved. When Patrick Agyemang, a player who refused to celebrate a goal last season such was his dismay at the direction the club was heading in, is busting a gut to run from the halfway line and score, you know a corner could well have been turned.

The reaction on the bench was the equal of the hard work on the pitch, a draw celebrated like a Cup win and another indication that whatever you would knock Neil Warnock for, it wouldn't be a lack of enthusiasm for football. The best managers give the impression that very little matters for them outside of the game, with the obvious exception of their families (and perhaps not even them). I’d put Warnock in that category and that is a quality which could drive this club to success.

Enough harping on about the Derby game then, which could be well forgotten amid the flurry of wins since, but in looking back at the season so far, it is still oddly the stand-out game for me. Rangers have played some eye-catching football at Loftus Road this season where they are still to let in a league goal, but in showing that they had a Plan B, that if need be they would resort to getting balls and bodies into the opposition’s box, I believe they showed some of the qualities needed to get promoted from this league.

That is still a long way off. Tonight another game, the visit of 'no-one likes us' Milwall, that might require them to win ugly, to be patient and be willing to fight for every minute of the match. What could have been a faintly depressing or just mediocre night could be another memorable mark in QPR’s upward rise. They remain the team to watch in the Championship right now and I hope, as ever, to not miss quite so many of their games on this site as well.