Another year, another tricky lower league side for QPR to embarrass themselves against in the League Cup, though however things go at Leyton Orient tonight history tells us it won't make much difference to what comes next in the league.

Leyton Orient v QPR

Rumbelows Cup, first round >>> Wednesday August 11, 2021 >>> Kick Off 19.45 >>> Weather — Sunny, clouding over later >>> Brisbane Road, Leyton, E10

There are few better opponents than Leyton Orient to highlight just how little bearing QPR’s early round League Cup performance will have on their season overall.

Ian Holloway’s Second Division class of 2002/03 were beaten here by Third Division Orient in dramatic fashion. A young winger called Jamal Campbell-Ryce ripped into Rangers for the first, but certainly not the last, time and the home side were 2-0 up by half time which was enough to see them home despite a second half rally that included goals from Andy Thomson and Kevin Gallen.

Although there were multiple team changes, this was still a QPR side of Clarke Carlisle, Danny Shittu, Richard Langley and, for the second half at least, Magic Hat. It had won 4-0 at Mansfield just a few days prior and went on to win its next four league games in a row. A dramatic autumn lull almost cost Holloway his job before the loan signing of Lee Cook kick started a spring charge to the play-offs which ended with a very unfortunate defeat in extra time of the final against Cardiff in Cardiff.

Fast forward to 2007/08 and lower league Orient were booting QPR out of the competition again, this time at Loftus Road. John Gregory had initially recovered a seemingly certain Championship relegation season from Gary Waddock, who’d been hamstrung by a dire summer of desperately poor signings (Czerkas, Ward, Oliseh, Tchakounte, Rehman) from Gianni Paladini’s favoured agents. Wins against Leicester, Coventry, Preston, Luton and others at the end of the campaign to secure safety had seen some optimism return to the place, with effective and pragmatic signings like Lee Camp, Danny Cullip and Adam Bolder starting to be joined by other more eye-catching deals for Inigo Idiakez, Ben Sahar, Simon Walton and Hogan Ephraim.

The team, however, was miles off it. Martin Rowlands was in the form of his life, turning in one of the great individual QPR performances at Bristol City on day one, but the likes of Danny Nardiello, John Curtis, Stefan Moore, Rehman, Sahar and others simply weren’t good enough while Walton snapped his leg in a pre-season friendly with Fulham and was never the same again. Defensive calamities let Orient in for a 2-1 win on Loftus Road’s opening night of the season and Rangers subsequently lost 2-0 to Cardiff and 3-0 to Southampton in the first two home league games. It took until the tenth game of the season, and the sacking of Gregory, for a win to be secured at all, although by then the club had also been rescued from the brink of bankruptcy by the Flavio Briatore takeover.

But it’s not just Orient. Since relegation from the Premier League in 1996, QPR have been to the fourth round of the only major trophy they’ve ever won just once — 2008/09 under Iain Dowie when they upset Aston Villa to win a plum tie with Manchester United which they lost 1-0 depsite Radek Cerny’s heroics. They’ve lost to lower league opponents in each of the last three seasons (Plymouth, Portsmouth, Blackpool) and in eight of the last 11 campaigns which of course takes us back to the Neil Warnock season when Port Vale won in W12 in front of one particularly irate supporter but then went 19 games deep into their league season without losing and won the title in fine style. Whether QPR end up doing brilliantly, terribly, or somewhere in between, chances are it starts with a low key exit from the League Cup in August or September.

How much that matters has been a source of many match previews for this site down the years. The League Cup is the only thing QPR have ever won, and arguably the only thing we’re ever likely to win again, with the glorious potential of a European campaign beyond that - laugh it up all you like but Birmingham, Swansea and Stoke have all enjoyed one in the relatively recent past while Bradford City have been in the final of this competition. Even with the horribly compacted fixture list of last season Brentford followed Leicester, Newcastle, Bournemouth and Brighton in combining a Championship promotion campaign with a run to at least the quarter finals of the League Cup, suggesting a run builds momentum and confidence more than it causes fatigue and key injuries. When Steve McClaren reached the third round, and got a great tie against a Blackpool team absolutely on the bones of its arse at the end of the Oyston’s reign of terror, he rested the whole squad for a weekend trip to Swansea and ended up losing both matches in dire fashion.

But then you’ve got two of our longest distance away trips coming up in the next few days, and then back to London for an early kick off against Barnsley, which is a tough week on and off the pitch. Where would you rather the focus and the first teamers be? Imagine losing Dickie, Dieng, Austin, Willock or Johansen to a long term injury in a game like this tonight (as we've previously done with Jamie Mackie and Ale Faurlin). If indeed it does have to be a choice, there’s only one choice to make. Strike the balance right, rather than just cobbling a team of kids together, and there are some players I would like to see tonight — McCallum, Dunne, Dozzell, Adomah — that should still be good enough to get the job done. Remember, also, that Covid robbed QPR of their pre-season game at Gillingham and although Warbs Warburton was quick to point to it being the first game of the season, and the first game back with crowds, affecting pace and adrenalin levels, there was noticeable drop off and multiple cramps in the final third of Saturday’s game with Millwall — and that certainly wasn’t unique to us in the games I saw over the weekend. Sad and cynical as it is, another so-called ‘free hit’ out against a lower league team might be quite useful for several of our players.

How you solve the problem of the League Cup being used like this, with the declining crowds and interest it brings, or if indeed you see it as a problem at all, is a point up for debate. I quite liked the idea from last season, weirdly repeated by just three clubs this, to play it on the last Saturday of the pre-season when teams generally pick their best team for a last run before the big kick off. Stronger teams, and bigger Saturday crowds, felt like a win-win for the tournament, and therefore no surprise to see it dispensed with immediately by the people who previously thought it would be good PR to hold the draw for it untelevised from Beijing at 4am UK time, or on another occasion from the self-checkout areas of Morrisons in Colindale.

History tells us whatever team QPR put out tonight, and however it does, will have next to no bearing on what the season holds in store.

Links >>> No Jackett required — Interview >>> Campbell-Ryce torment — History >>> Hicks first QPR appointment — Referee >>> Orient Official Website >>> Everything Orient — Forum >>> Orientear — Fanzine >>> Supporters’ Trust >>> Orient Outlook — Podcast >>> East London advertiser — Local Press

Below the fold

Team News: Sam Field is on the medium term injury list, but fellow midfielder Luke Amos is now only a couple of weeks away from some form of comeback after a year out with the knee injury he suffered at Bournemouth. Ilias Chair missed out against Millwall with an unspecified illness but is now back in training, though more likely to make his first appearance of the season at Hull on Saturday than here. With two long distance away games to come, then straight back to London for an early kick off against Barnsley, Warbs Warburton has admitted there will be several changes to his team this evening. Sam McCallum and Jimmy Dunne you would think certain to replace Lee Wallace and Jordy De Wijs, who are often rested for the midweek games anyway, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see some or all of Jordan Archer, Osman Kakay, Faysal Bettache, Andre Dozzell, Albert Adomah, George Thomas and Charlie Kelman step up from the bench into the starting eleven.

When the cup draw was made it felt like a goalscorer bet on Paul Smyth was almost like buying money, but there is some doubt about his fitness for this game after a late withdrawal in the weekend game at Salford with a hamstring problem — injuries did rather plague the Northern Irishman during his time at Loftus Road too. Still, we all know what’s coming if he is fit to play. Harry Smith has been sidelined with jetlag after his summer move from Motherwell and must wait for his debut, while Adam Thompson is out with peculiar lethargy.

Elsewhere: This round of this competition is fairly notorious for a load of disinterested Championship teams getting punted out by lower league opposition, and there were five such upsets in amongst the Tuesday fixtures. Championship new boys Peterborough were roundly trounced 4-0 at home to League One Plymouth while Blackburn were beaten in their first ever competitive meeting with Morecambe, 2-1 at Ewood Park. Three others crashed out (klaxon) on penalties with Barnsley beaten by Bolton, Luton losing at Stevenage and Bristol City defeated at Forest Green Rovers.

Several other banana skins (klaxon) were avoided however as Rhian Brewster finally got that first goal for Sheff Utd in a 1-0 home win against Carlisle, Preston won 3-0 at Mansfield, Stoke beat Fleetwood 2-1, Birmingham squeezed through 1-0 against Colchester and Millwall came out on the right side of a 2-1 in an entertaining tie with Portsmouth. Swanselona won the all Championship affair at Reading 3-0. Wayne Rooney’s Derby County looked bang in trouble when they went 2-0 down early to Salford, but battled back from that, and a further 3-2 deficit, to draw 3-3 with a stunner from Ravel Morrison and then won through on spot kicks.

Five more ties tonight see Blackpool getting an extra date on the Fourteenth Annual Neil Warnock Farewell Tour while Burton Albion and Oxford guarantees another League One side in round two. Nottingham Florist were everything we’ve come to expect in a calamitous ninety sixth minute loss at Coventry at the weekend, they’re back on the horse against league Two Bradford tonight while Cov host their former landlords Northampton.

Referee: Craig Hicks from Surrey gets a first QPR appointment for this one. Details.

Form

Orient: The O’s started their League One season with a 1-1 draw at much-fancied Salford. They finished eleventh in the league last season, although that was rather propped up by an impressive haul of eight away wins. Nobody in the top half of League One lost more than their seven home games (though, to be fair Bolton went up in third with seven home losses too), and everybody in the top half won more than their nine. They went unbeaten for seven games through March and April, threatening a play-off push with four consecutive victories within that run, but slumped at the end rather with one win from the last eight and four consecutive defeats to finish with in which they conceded 12 times. Eight players have been signed this transfer window and 14 have departed including last season’s two top scorers - Danny Johnson, 17 goals, Mansfield, free; Conor Wilkinson, 12 goals, Walsall, free. Orient actually beat our conquerors Plymouth in round two of this competition last season having knocked out Forest Green in the first, but they then had to forfeit a plum tie with Spurs in round three because of the plague. Plymouth beat them in round one the previous season and the O’s have only been further than the third round of this competition once in their history, when they reached round five in 1962/63. That abandoned Spurs game was only the third time they’d been in the third round of the League Cup since 1990/91.

QPR: Rangers have been dumped out (klaxon) of this competition by League One opposition for the last three seasons — Plymouth in the first round in 20/21, Portsmouth in the second in 19/20, and Blackpool in the third in 18/19 — so will now try their hand with a League Two team. However, Orient knocked QPR out of the League Cup from a lower league standing 302 on this ground in 2002/03 when Ian Holloway was manager, and at Loftus Road in 2007/08 under John Gregory. Kenny Jackett and Joe Gallen were the Pompey management team that oversaw their win in Shepherd’s Bush the season before last, but did also lose an FA Cup tie to Steve McClaren’s Rangers in 2018/19 after a replay. Rangers won four of their last seven away games last season, and all of the last three at Stoke, Swansea and Middlesbrough to sneak past the previous season’s total of seven away victories for the campaign. Eight equalled the number of away wins from the club’s 2013/14 promotion campaign and they haven’t won more than that since Neil Warnock’s side won the league with ten in 2010/11.

Prediction: As ever, the team selections are so wild in these things that trying to make a prediction before you know who’s playing is even more impossible than normal. Given Kenny Jackett’s fondness for cup runs, and the disciplined way he sets his side up, I’ll go for a much-changed QPR side labouring somewhat into a penalty shoot out.

LFW’s Prediction Orient 1-1 QPR. Scorer — Albert Adomah

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TacticalR added 17:20 - Aug 11 Thanks for your preview. Our record is so terrible in cup competitions it's hard not to be cynical. On the bright side, given that history, anything is a bonus. 'The League Cup is the only thing QPR have ever won'. OK, but that feels like a different competition to the one we've got today.
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GloryHunter added 22:57 - Aug 11 Great prediction, Clive.
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