QPR brought Charlton’s promotion hopes to an end with a comfortable 1-0 win at Loftus Road on Saturday.

QPR finally, finally registered their first double of the season by beating Charlton 1-0 at Loftus Road. There were a lot of similarities between this and our single goal success at The Valley before Christmas – on both occasions Rangers were thoroughly good value for the points and deserved to win by more, and in both games it was QPR that wanted it more and looked like the side chasing the play offs.

If I was a Charlton fan I’d be asking serious questions of my club and judging by the “Pardew sort it out” chants emanating from the School End yesterday those who watch the Addicks week in week out are way ahead of me on that. With empty spaces evident across the upper tier of the away end it seems some have become weary of questioning their expensively assembled team and cock sure manager and simply given up on them. It’s not hard to see why.

On paper Charlton have a superb team. At kick off yesterday I reckon most QPR fans would have taken at least seven and possible as many as nine Charlton players ahead of their opposite numbers in Hoops. Leroy Lita or Dexter Blackstock, Andy Gray or Angelo Balanta, Lee Cook or Hogan Ephraim, Matt Holland or Gavin Mahon, Darren Ambrose or Gareth Ainsworth and so it goes on. They have a left back with a decade of Premiership experience and we have Damien Delaney, Bougherra and McCarthy were both signed on the back of excellent form in this league from Sheff Wed and Leicester, Greg Halford hasn’t quite made it in the top flight but has always been very good in this league. Possibly only Nicky Weaver, who again looked overweight, indecisive and accident prone, and Chinese captain Zheng Zhi, name me a more overrated player in the Championship please, would lose out to Camp and Rowlands if you were picking a team from both squads.

Yet there was only ever one team in this. Charlton took until the 87th minute to register a shot on goal and spent most of he first half watching QPR’s slick passing game go on around them. By the end of the match the Addicks had resorted to falling out with the referee and each other – they looked a rag tag bunch. A team assembled for the thick end of £10m, boasting three loans from Premiership teams, and they recorded one tame shot on the goal in 90 minutes against a QPR side that cost less than half that and wanted it at least twice much despite having nothing to play for on the league table.

The QPR team that did the business sported a couple of changes from the draw at Hull last week. Michael Mancienne was dropped to the bench as his return to Chelsea becomes more and more inevitable and Matt Connolly was recalled at full back. Up front Patrick Agyemang’s hamstring injury ruled him out and Angelo Balanta replaced him in the attack. Gareth Ainsworth started wide right again despite an illness overnight, Akos Buzsaky returned to the bench after a month out with an ankly injury.

Charlton brought Lee Cook back to Loftus Road for the first time in a competitive fixture since he was sold by the R’s last summer. He was the Addicks’ man of the match against Southampton last week, a game where he set up a goal for substitute Andy Gray in the second half. Gray was rewarded for his header against the Saints with a start on Saturday, up front alongside alleged QPR transfer target Leroy Lita. Nicky Weaver returned in goal after a suspension.

Many have questioned exactly what motivation the QPR players have to perform in the remaining games while the players themselves have insisted they know they have to perform now if they want to be back in the team come August. Whatever the truth of it is there was no doubting the effort and commitment on Saturday as the R’s flew out of the traps and took the game to Charlton right from the off. The two strikers worked really hard and the midfield pressed Charlton very high up the pitch forcing the visitors to concede possession and denying them a chance to settle in the game.

Hogan Ephraim saw the first shot of the game saved comfortably by Weaver after two minutes. Before the keeper could draw breath he had Angelo Balanta bearing down on him after a wonderful flowing move involving Connolly and Mahon. After a good first touch Balanta snatched at the chance somewhat and hammered the ball into the lower Loft. With England youth coach Steve Wigley in the crowd Balanta certainly did his chances no harm at all with a performance befitting somebody far more experienced.

Damien Delaney had a shout for a penalty waved away when Halford pushed him under a Rowlands free kick in the area, everybody’s favourite referee Trevor Kettle was poorly positioned and waved the appeals away. Whatever possesses footballers to put two hands in the back of an opponent in the penalty area and push them I don’t know, but Halford got away with it on this occasion.

Rangers took the lead after a quarter of an hour. Damion Stewart knocked the ball into the right channel towards Dexter Blackstock but Patrick McCarthy seemed to have the situation under control. The Charlton centre half allowed the ball to bounce though and Dexter didn’t need a second invitation – he nicked the ball off his opponent’s toe, shrugging off a cynical shirt pulling offence, beat him into the penalty area and left him flat on the floor with a neat turn. All that remained for Blackstock was the finish, and he slid the ball confidently past Weaver and into the far corner with his left foot. Blackstock now has four goals in five games, a bright end to an otherwise dismal season for him.

The former Southampton man showed a lack of awareness minutes after scoring when he failed to recognise the potential for a step over that would have put Hogan Ephraim through on goal – it almost didn’t matter though as Patrick McCarthy continued to do his best impression of a pub footballer by hammering a twenty yard shot inches over his own cross bar with Weaver well beaten.

Charlton simply weren’t at the races and only had a header over the bar from Bougherra up for a long throw from Halford to show for their efforts, if you could call it that, in the first 25 minutes. They were forced into an early change as well as Lee Cook’s injury problems returned to haunt him. Cook collapsed in the centre circle clutching his thigh after a clash with Rowlands and while there was clearly no foul or malice in the challenge it left the winger with a dead leg that he tried to run off for a couple of minutes before leaving the field to be replaced by Luke Varney. Cook got a massive reception from the home crowd that left the visiting fans in the School End somewhat bemused. The general consensus in Block F was that the lack of gloves was a crucial factor in Cook’s early withdrawal.

The flow of play down to the Loft End started to relent when QPR were dealt an injury blow of their own. Following a forty yard cross field run that resulted in him giving the ball away when a pass to Ephraim was on Fitz Hall then picked up what looked like another groin strain and had to be replaced by Michael Mancienne. Matt Connolly came in to partner Stewart at centre half with the new arrival slotting in at right back. I can’t say I was overly confident with that defensive line up, mainly down to the lack of real talkers and leaders in it, but with Stewart mauling Lita and Connolly looking classy as always I needn’t have worried. On the one occasion Lita got away from the big Jamaican in the first half he drew jeers from the crowd with a fresh air shot on the edge of the penalty area.

The Cook and Hall injuries disrupted the game though and Rangers never quite got back into their stride until after half time. The midfield wasn’t pressing as high up the pitch and, not for the first time, Rangers seemed quite happy to try and cruise through to the break on their one goal lead. Thankfully Charlton, with Gray completely anonymous in attack, were neither good enough nor committed enough to take advantage and a 1-0 deficit at the break flattered them.

QPR started the second half as they had done the first, taking the game to Charlton in and around the visiting side’s penalty area. Two early corners almost yielded a killer second goal but Balanta headed straight at Weaver when well placed to do better. Blackstock almost showed him how it was done from a third Rowlands delivery, hanging in the air with almost Les Ferdinand like athleticism but heading a foot wide of the far post with Weaver beaten.

De Canio made his second change of the match little more than five minutes after the restart. Gareth Ainsworth, no doubt still suffering the effects of his stomach bug, was replaced by Buzsaky who was given a great reception on his return from injury. Ainsworth had certainly done his bit for the team while on, tearing into challenges and opponents with his usual vigour – I got the impression that Cook didn’t very much fancy being on the end of one of his body checks before he went off.

It was good to see Buzsaky back, but he looked a little off the pace throughout the second half and struggled to get back to his usual self. That’s understandable after a period out injured, hopefully he’ll turn on the style at Norwich next week. Shortly after coming on he hit the deck under pressure from Matt Holland, the fall was theatrical but it was a definite foul, Mr Kettle decided to award a free kick to Charlton instead, much to the fury of the home fans. After accusing him of going to ground too early there the referee proceeded to award Buzsaky three or four free kicks for equally theatrical dives. Consistency not a strong point of our match official.

Martin Rowlands continued to be the outstanding influence in the QPR midfield and as the hour ticked by he came within inches of doubling the lead with a thirty yard free kick that flew just over the bar. Nicky Weaver appeared to touch it on its way, and he was congratulated for the save by a couple of team mates. Mr Kettle pointed for a goal kick.

Charlton withdrew Andy Gray a short time later, so dangerous and full of goals at Burnley, so lacklustre and laboured in a Charlton shirt, and replaced him with Chris Iwelumo who immediately got to grips with Stewart by elbowing him in the face. The referee penalised him for that, but didn’t do so again for the rest of the match despite his arms flailing into the face of opposition players every time he went anywhere near the ball. I’d penalise him every time if I was refereeing – it is not legal to forearm smash an opponent every time the ball approaches.

Iwelumo missed Charlton’s best chance of the game which all came as a result of one of Damien Delaney’s rampaging runs down the field. For reasons known only to himself Delaney raced into the centre forward position as Ephraim brought the ball into the Charlton half and when the move broke down QPR were desperately short of cover. Halford took the ball down the Charlton right, into the space vacated by Delaney, and crossed into the six yard box where Ambrose knocked the ball back to Iwelumo who controlled, turned and spooned a presentable chance over the bar from little more than five yards out. He should have scored. Delaney piling forward is a great attacking weapon for us, but there’s a time and a place and he left us really short on that occasion.

Delaney picked up his 11th booking of the season for maiming Zhi in the first half, and picked up a nasty knock that inhibited him for most of the second but he battled through to the end with De Canio short of bench options after Hall’s withdrawal.

That Iwelumo chance was a brief moment of respite for the Charlton defence and the visitors were soon on the back foot again as Ephraim headed wide, Blackstock fired a shot off target and Balanta just couldn’t get himself in the right position to head a looping ball into the box towards goal, in the end it flicked off his head straight to Weaver. Pardew sent on Semedo for Zhi as time ticked down but it made little difference – both were as bad as each other.

De Canio sent on Leigertwood for Ephraim to set up a five man midfield to protect the lead, Balanta dropped back from the attack to a wide midfield role with Buzsaky on the opposite side.

The frustration was starting to get to Charlton with Bougherra warned twice over dissent and then booked for clattering Dexter Blackstock. Iwelumo was booked for dissent, as was Patrick McCarthy who must surely be one of the worst defenders we’ve seen at Loftus Road since John Curtis was with us. In fairness to the Charlton players Kettle gave some very questionable decisions against them on the day and the fans in the away end really seemed to be losing their rag with him in the second half.

This wasn’t Kettle’s worst game by any means, this is a man who holds the record for the lowest mark ever given by this website of course, but he’s a very poor official and Charlton suffered more than us for it on Saturday. The vast majority of his problems come from his positioning. Normally you’ll see a referee run from corner flag to corner flag diagonally across the pitch so he’s always looking through play towards a linesman and close to the action. Kettle doesn’t do this, he referees in what my old refereeing mentor used to call “the fat man’s square” which is a technique used normally by Sunday league refs too big to get up and down the pitch. He ran in a 30 by 30 square around the centre circle throughout the match and that meant that decisions in and around the penalty area were regularly being made from a long way behind play.

There were three occasions in the game where two players were running towards goal side by side and a handball appeal went up. Now I’m not saying any of them were handball but Kettle wouldn’t know, because instead of looking through the incident towards a linesman he was 30 or 40 yards back down the field looking at the players’ backs. It was the same with a number of corner or goal kick decisions he had to make and got wrong – one of which resulted in the booking of Iwelumo for arguing about it. He doesn’t put himself in a position to give the right decision and consequently far too many of his calls are based on complete guess work and crowd reaction. He’s a really poor official this bloke – another seven yellow cards in this one, including a late one for Damion Stewart for a foul on Chris Iwelumo that the big striker bought off him with a disappointing piece of play acting.

Considering Ephraim’s high lunge on Halford had passed by without a free kick even being awarded earlier Stewart’s booking looked harsh. From the free kick a shot from Halford dropped safely into the arms of Lee Camp. The tame shot from Halford was the first, and last, shot on target that they managed in the entire game and brought sarcastic goal-like celebrations to the right side of the away end. At least they have maintained their sense of humour through a dire second half to the season.

Rangers should have sealed the game with a second goal when a cross field move resulte in Buzsaky receiving the ball to his feet on the right side of the penalty area. A repeat of his fine goal against Stoke looked on but for some reason he tried to cross it to Rowlands and overcooked it, sending the ball across the face of goal and out for a goal kick. 

The witching hour approached with four minutes of added time striking fear into the hearts of the QPR fans so used to seeing their team blow advantages in the added time at the ends of games. Charlton hadn’t threatened much in the previous 90 though and continued to look toothless in the extra period, in fact it was Rangers who should have scored another goal themselves. As the Addicks pushed forward Martin Rowlands broke up an attack on the edge of the area and then sprayed the ball to the left to Mikele Leigertwood who, with Balanta up in support, had the whole Charlton half to himself and quickly made his way into the penalty area before somehow mishitting the one on one chance wide of the post. He should have scored, and with the atmosphere at Loftus Road deafening by this point it may well have lifted the roof off the stadium if he’d managed it.

The seventh card of the game, incredible really in a match of so few fouls, went to Akos Buzsaky, for preventing the taking of a Charlton free kick a minute from time.

There was no outpouring of relief at the final whistle as normally happens when a team has hung onto a one nil win – the home crowd had been in full voice for all of stoppage time and most of the last ten minutes safe in the knowledge that Charlton wouldn’t score if they stayed there all night. A couple of games of head tennis in the QPR penalty area was as good as it got for Pardew’s men.

The third bottom spot in the Championship is currently being fought out between four teams very similar to Charlton – former Premiership sides in big grounds who missed their chance to make an immediate return, overspent, and are now in serious trouble. Charlton have the second best side in the league on paper this season for me and haven’t even made the play offs. If I was a betting man I’d be backing them to go the way of Southampton, Sheff Wed, Coventry and Leicester rather than actually succeeding in making a return to the big league. If they do manage to get back up I can’t see it being with this group of players or this manager. One of the two has to change because clearly the player aren’t playing for Pardew – either he has to go or they do or we’ll be doing another double over them next season.

If Charlton are heading one way QPR are clearly heading in the other. This was another excellent home performance from the R’s, worthy of a bigger score than it managed to accomplish. The defence played superbly against what looked on paper to be very tough opposition and coped very well with the upheaval of losing Hall in the first half. Fitz hasn’t been fit since he joined us in my opinion and I’d be surprised if we saw him again this season – he’ll be an asset after a solid pre season I’m sure. Few would back Damion Stewart to be playing much of a part next season but he was excellent in this game and a worthy man of the match winner. Rowlands was excellent in midfield and Blackstock superb in attack with a well taken goal to boot. I was also impressed with Balanta who has come on in leaps and bounds since his naïve performance at Watford in his first game – even then he set up two goals so he’s clearly got something about him. I’d like to see him start the next two games as well – this experience will prove invaluable to him next season.

On now to Norwich and West Brom. I’m a big believer in momentum in football and with our current unbeaten run stretching to seven games we’ve certainly got plenty of that. If we can get through the next two games without defeat that will set us up beautifully for next season. On this evidence there’s no reason why it can’t be done.

QPR: Camp 7, Connolly 7, Stewart 8, Hall 7 (Mancienne 34, 7) Delaney 6, Ainsworth 6 (Buzsaky 51, 6) Rowlands 8, Mahon 7, Ephraim 7 (Leigertwood 79, 7) Blackstock 8, Balanta 7
Subs Not Used: Crowther, Lee
Booked: Delaney (foul), Stewart (foul), Buzsaky (obstructing a free kick)
Goals: Blackstock 15 (assisted Stewart)

Charlton: Weaver 5, Halford 5, Bougherra 4, McCarthy 4, Thatcher 5, Ambrose 5, Holland 6, Zhi 5 (Semedo 73, 4) Cook 5 (Varney 23, 6) Lita 4, Gray 4 (Iwelumo 60 6)
Subs Not Used: Randolph, Wagstaff
Booked: McCarthy (foul), Bougherra (dissent/foul), Varney (dissent), Iwelumo (dissent)

QPR Star Man – Damion Stewart 8 - An excellent performance from Big Damion to keep Leroy Lita quiet for a full 90 minutes. He dominated the loaned front man in the air and across the ground, nullifying Lita’s big pace threat with ease. The biggest thing for me was Stewart maintained concentration for a full 90 minutes, and never let Lita out of his sites. It’s the mental focus that often lets him down but not yesterday, one of his best performances for the club.

Referee: Trevor Kettle (Rutland) 4 - As detailed above, a poor official. Really badly positioned for just about every decision he has to make and another seven yellow cards shown – of which I’d say only three or four were just. So many of the cards he hands out are for dissent at decisions he’s made a mess of.

Attendance: 17,035 (2700 Charlton approx) - Biggest crowd at LR this season and just about the best atmosphere. The Charlton fans were pretty quiet and directed much of their singing at their team and manager in protest – understandable looking at their performance. Fantastic noise down the Loft End in the final five minutes and stoppage time.

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