'Arry's boys haven't picked up a single point on the road yet this season
Queens Park Rangers are yet to get off the mark on the road this season. Next up? A trip to Mark Hughes' Stoke. Andy Brassell takes a look...
It's always nice to see a familiar face - or at least unless you're Queens Park Rangers, and that familiar face is Mark Hughes. No away match really makes the heart of an Rs supporter leap with joy at the moment but with the team back in the bottom two and plenty of work to do on their form on the road, they must start at some point, however unappealing the venue.
It is stretching the realms of belief to suggest that Hughes might spare a thought for his old club given the misery of his own tenure there - and that it took his some time into his spell at the Britannia to rebuild his own reputation after the battering it took - but QPR have to look for crumbs of succour somewhere.
There is no escaping the bleakness of that away record. Ten matches and ten defeats, with five scored, and 24 conceded. It is a run that has now become a footballing equivalent of the yips, moving from the merely sporting into the psychological. Inevitably, it is now even beginning to effect QPR's solid home form, which is the best of any team in the bottom half of the table.
The stunning comeback win over West Bromwich Albion on December 20th took Rangers out of the bottom three and up to 15th, on 17 points from 17 games. Significantly, the rate of a point per game would have seen a team avoid the drop in two of the last three seasons.
It's not exactly gone according to plan since. They've lost four and drawn two of the six games that have followed, if we include the FA Cup humiliation by Sheffield United at Loftus Road. This period should have been a form of respite, with four out of their last five fixtures at home but having scored just one goal in that quartet, they're bang in trouble again.
Worryingly, the hardest at home appears yet to come. Southampton, Arsenal, Tottenham will all have visited Rangers by the start of March, with Chelsea and West Ham to follow further down the line - so the travel bug needs curing, and now.
Very little of the fare served up on the road by Harry Redknapp's team has been totally unpalatable. They produced creditable displays at Southampton and Chelsea to name but two. In their last outing from west London, Rangers enjoyed the lion's share of possession (55%) and had 17 shots at Burnley. Then again, they had 16 efforts in the loss at Arsenal and 17 in the away game before that, at Everton.
That makes the problem clear; individual errors, especially in the division's worst defence, are costing them dearly. To provide a reliable base away from home, Redknapp needs to decide on a best defensive shape. QPR played 4-5-1 at Everton, commuted to a 3-5-2 at Arsenal before going 4-4-1-1 at Turf Moor. It is difficult to master the basics among all the chopping and changing.
Basics will be key on Saturday. Stoke's home retains a fearsome reputation, not least for the way in which they blew Arsenal away in a pulsating first-half display back at the start of December, but the reality is a little different. The Potters have won four and lost four of ten home matches to date, numbers not exactly suggesting an impenetrable fortress. Moreover, Aston Villa, Leicester and Burnley - three of the division's weakest sides by any unit of measure - make up a trio of the victors, with Chelsea having taken three points there most recently.
So if you fancy Rangers to make it eleventh time lucky and follow the lead of their fellow strugglers, they are well-priced - 6.05/1 for a win, with the draw an attractive 4.03/1
Interestingly, despite Tony Fernandes' public show of support for Redknapp, he is still favourite to be the next Premier League manager to leave his post at 11/10 (scroll down to 'Next Manager to Leave). So you could even argue that Hughes has the chance to push his successor at Loftus Road nearer to the exit door, despite the public proclamations to the contrary.
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