Oxford United travel to Loftus Road on Tuesday to face Championship side Queens Park Rangers in the second of the Carabao Cup.
Ahead of the game, we have spoken to QPR website LoftForWords and they have kindly answered some of our questions.
Read: Match Preview – QPR v Oxford United
Where do you think you’ll finish in the Championship this season?
I was optimistic, certainly more optimistic than I’ve been for many years. Before the season started, I had us fifth in our predicted table in the Season Preview. I haven’t seen anything to dissuade me from that so far, we’re capable of having a very good year.
Who do you think will get promoted?
The rest of the top six in that preview was Sheffield United, Fulham, Bournemouth, Cardiff, (QPR) and Middlesbrough just ahead of Millwall. Sheffield United looks like a dreadful call at this point. There’s always a relegated team that doesn’t adapt at all and I thought it would be West Brom, with an ageing squad not matching the manager’s ethos.
While Sheffield United’s team on paper is good and the manager has done well at this level before, he currently seems to be trying to shoehorn a squad built for three at the back into a 4-4-2. The rest don’t look like bad calls, although Stoke have started well.
Who do you think will finish in the bottom three?
I’ve gone for Derby bottom, although they’re doing better than I thought. Hull as the worst of the promoted teams because I just don’t see that club ever succeeding for any period of time with that ownership. And then Huddersfield just from Preston. Again, little to suggest I was too far off in those thoughts so far.
Key player(s) for QPR?
Stefan Johansen makes the whole thing tick. Not a player I’d ever previously really noticed much at Fulham, who were all about Tom Cairney whenever we played them, but as soon as he came in on loan last year you could see what a good player he was and he’s improved us no end. I think we’ve only lost in six of his 24 appearances so far.
Any absentees through injury or suspension?
Yes, unfortunately having done very well for Covid and injuries last season, we’re rather racking them up early on. Lee Wallace is out at left-wing-back with a hamstring injury and his replacement Sam McCallum is yet to play through illness. Lyndon Dykes upfront has that same bug. Moses Odubajo is just coming back off a ban and Jordy De Wijs twisted his ankle at the weekend.
We had a tough week with trips to Hull, Middlesbrough and then an early Saturday home game, so I’d expect a very scratchy team selection here. We’ve loaned out Faysal Bettache, who was excellent in the first round at Leyton Orient, and Conor Masterson a centre back, which strikes me as strange as I think they’d both have played here. Might have been better to wait a week.
Thoughts on Mark Warburton?
Very impressed. We’ve got incrementally better for every season he’s been in charge, while at the same time having to sell our best players. He took over a side that had won only three games in the whole second half of 2018/19 under Steve McClaren, and from that, he had to sell player of the year Luke Freeman, defender Darnell Furlong, and Mass Luongo who had been a midfield mainstay.
16 went out that summer, 16 came in – just £50k was spent and yet the team got better, finished higher in the league, played some lovely football and really progressed. From that, he had to sell Ebere Eze who was the best player in the division. We couldn’t keep Nahki Wells or Jordan Hugill permanently, Grant Hall and Toni Leistner the centre backs left, and Ryan Manning and Bright Osayi-Samuel departed for a pittance after contract wrangles.
Again, the team got better. The recruitment was spot on. Higher in the league, more wins, more goals, more away wins. We’re now in a position where no Championship club has won as many games as us in 2021, and we’re genuine dark horses for promotion, this despite spending the last seven years cutting and selling to hack the wage bill back from its obscene £80m p/a high under Harry Redknapp. I think he’s terrific, and we’re a much stronger team and club for coming through a couple of sticky patches without sacking him.
A word on your team’s playing style?
Like I say, he’s also done it playing a really attractive, attacking brand of football. As well as the January arrivals, a big part of last season’s turnaround (we won three of the first 23 and 15 of the second 23) was a switch to a back three and wing-backs.
Barnsley rather blew that apart at the weekend and we had to shuffle back to a 4-3-3 – injuries may dictate something similar on Tuesday, but in general, we play three at the back, all of whom are good footballers, and we attack predominantly down the left with Wallace combining with the excellent Willock and Chair to dangerous effect.
Any Oxford players you would like to see in your team?
I think we’ve done quite well enough with Rob Dickie thanks! He’s starting to look like he could potentially go up another league still. I was impressed with Rob Atkinson last season and would quite like to have seen us go for him, though we’ve already got Yoann Barbet in that left centre half position who’s very decent and Atkinson did rather get run over the top of in that Blackpool play-off semi-final. I’ll be perfectly honest, I haven’t seen you yet this season to make a judgement.
Thoughts on Oxford?
As I say, haven’t seen you this season. I thought a semi-final defeat was about right for you last. Decent team on your day, but very rarely beat any team in the top ten and were well second best to Blackpool in the semi-final.
I would guess that’s a satisfactory season for that group of players, though you guys may disagree. The big missed opportunity was the year before when you were well on top against Wycombe at Wembley and then got sucker punched. There’s been a lot of talent go out of the team, the Brentford lads, Dickie, Atkinson, so it’s difficult to maintain a promotion push. It feels like you’re at about your level, but you may think I’m talking bollocks here and you’d know more about it than me!
I’m always intrigued by the juxtaposition of Karl Robinson as a progressive manager who likes his sides to play an attractive, purist-pleasing style of football, while at the same time being a bit of a gobshite.
Form
Yet to lose. The draw was fair against Millwall, we were very fortunate to get away with a poor second half against Orient and we gave Hull a good hiding bar a ten-minute storm after halftime. We were fantastic up at Middlesbrough playing with ten men for most of the second half, and Barnsley took us apart for 45 minutes on Saturday before we made changes and they decided to shut the shop which sparked a comeback. Every game so far has been fiercely entertaining. It would have been great to be back anyway, but it’s especially so to be there to support this team, these players, and this manager, playing this way.
What do you think the score will be?
Who takes it more seriously? I strongly suspect we’ll put the scratchiest possible team out, and therefore may struggle if you go for it with a strong line-up. Warbs was very angry about having to play Boro away (our longest trip of the year) on a midweek straight after we’d been at Hull, and then on Wednesday not the Tuesday, and then have our Saturday game brought forward to lunchtime by Sky.
We’ve got a big game at home to Coventry on Saturday – a win in which will position us very nicely going into the international break. Sad as it is, and I’m usually a big advocate of taking the cups seriously (Brentford, Bournemouth, Leicester, Newcastle all combined promotion campaigns with runs to the quarter-final of this, so it can be a momentum builder as much as a burden) I think we’ll go very much second string and may suffer for that.
Random fact about your club?
Formed by the amalgamation of St Jude’s Institute and Christchurch Rangers. Jude, our cat mascot, is named in honour of that, and because Gerry Francis kept a black cat in the stadium when he was manager through superstition. When Flavio Briatore bought the club, he hated black cats (an Italian thing apparently?) and ordered the mascot gone. An initial attempt to spray paint the head of it silver nearly killed the bloke who wears the costume. We replaced it with Hull City’s tiger mascot, for reasons unknown.
When Tony Fernandes bought the club, he brought the cat back, as a fan-pleasing move, but because the club’s wonderful down’s syndrome youth team were called The Tiger Cubs, and they love the Tiger, we now have a black cat, and a Tiger wandering around on matchdays. St Jude, by the way, is the patron saint of lost causes, so we were screwed before we’d even really begun!
