Rumarn Burrell’s hot streak continued with a brace of goals, Richard Kone returned to form spectacularly, and QPR made it three wins from four games with a victory against West Brom at Loftus Road on Saturday.

It didn’t immediately stand out as a recipe for a sumptuous luncheon. An epic struggle between the teams sitting 12th and 13th in the Championship at the start of play; the visitors on a run of five straight away defeats, the hosts with one win in five on their own patch. The Boeing derby – 7-4-7 records both. The giants of QPR facing the titans of West Bromwich, making them both appear normal sized. It just needed David Mitchell on coms.

For 45 minutes, on a day when all four seasons came to Loftus Road at once, that’s exactly what we were served. A bumbling, shuffling, shambling football match in which the aim of the game seemed to be keeping the ball out of play for as long as you can, as often as possible. Jimmy Dunne belted one into touch almost straight from the kick off – AND IT’S LIVE. Joe Wildsmith worked one of several hilariously bad West Brom goal kick routines and then skied the ball high over the Ellerslie Road stand and into Mick’s greenhouse via a pane in the roof. Good grief.

Jonathan Varane shot over the bar when placed reasonably enough to do better in the only significant goalmouth action of a half which West Brom attempted to control through the medium of spurious head injuries.

LFW official counsel (not a salaried position) probably not wild about the idea of casting aspersions here but I did find the powers of recovery - from players apparently at death’s door when QPR had the ball - once the play had been stopped really quite remarkable. Four times, lay down, demand the game is stopped, sit up, scream at the referee, walk to the touchline, sprint back on. Lather, rinse, repeat. Rum stuff from a team whose manager lost his playing career to one of the sport’s worst ever head collisions, and corrosive to the spectacle when it’s commander in queef Gavin Ward in charge of policing it all. I particularly enjoyed the one where West Brom were so unconcerned about their own teammate they played on with an attack the referee seemed happy to play out, only for everybody to come over all concerned once QPR had won the ball back and gone forwards themselves. I know referee’s hands are tied by the bed wetter’s switchboard on these things, but it’s funny how these liberties don’t get taken in James Linington’s games isn’t it?

I feared for the match report as the clock ticked down to half time. We’d pretty well exhausted all the different ways of saying “dog shite” at Norwich last week, and spent all our best graphic sexual imagery and lines from The Thick Of It at the Ipswich home game. What, exactly, were we going to talk about? Relatives fear he may be about to use old episodes of Air Crash Investigation as a metaphor for QPR’s performance again.

Then, suddenly, without warning, a football game broke out. A real one. With some skill and things happening and moments to get excited about. Nicolas Madsen sprang to life, first sweeping a glorious ball out to the left to stretch the play widthways, then receiving back and delivering a note perfect cross into the area where his central midfield partner Jonathan Varane made a rare foray forward and headed purposefully down and into the bottom corner for his first of the season. With his quality and physique Varane should score far more goals than he does, but you don’t need to be a particularly good player to net when the service is that good. Madsen’s redemption arc steepens still further.

The fact the goal was scored in the time created by West Brom’s constant histrionics was enough to induce a mild hard on, but unfortunately the Baggies had pisballed about so much and for so long there was still yet more time to be added in which Ilias Chair pulled up lame. A big blow to him just as fitness and form seemed to be returning, and to his team who were cast into such disarray and confusion they almost shipped an immediate equaliser – Paul Nardi gave it the strong wrist treatment and was able to thread a save back out through a crowd of players with no rebound.

More action in five minutes than there’d been in 45 prior, and a whole different complexion on the second half.

From quiet beginnings this one blossomed into a real cliffhanger, and it did so because one thing both these teams do have this season is good strikers. Summer signing Aune Heggebo is top scorer for West Brom with seven in all comps, and five of those had come in the last four outings with braces against Swansea and Coventry. Rumarn Burrell, meanwhile, had two in his last three, six in his last ten, and seven overall since moving from Burton Albion in the summer. Burrell has scored in each of his last four home games – the last QPR player to score in five successive league games at Loftus Road was Tjaronn Chery during 2015-16. Those two would be the stars of the second stanza.

The joy of Burrell is he makes it happen for himself. QPR have been cursed with a decade or more of mostly dreadful strikers who simply weren’t up to the level, but it’s not an easy place to play up front. We’re not a striker factory in the way certain other clubs, often quite mediocre ones like Blackburn, are able to regularly turn out 15+ goal forwards. In our kinder moments we’ve given the likes of Conor Washington and Zan Celar the benefit of the doubt because of poor, or non-existent, service; not playing the players to their strengths; forcing guys to play as lone strikers when they’re really not suited to it. Burrell, whose career path is one of somebody absolutely desperate for a game of professional football wherever he can get it, isn’t arsed about any of that. He’s going to run, and run, and run some more. He’s going to chase you around and not give you a moment’s peace until you give him what he wants. His work rate is frightening. The amount of times he tracked back into the wide areas to provide cover for full backs often lacking when you have Karamoko Dembele on the wing was noticeable.

Richard Kone, another who’s had to scrap for everything he has, wasn’t far behind in the distance covered. The narrative recently has been around his lack of goals and apparently declining form. I’ve never bought into it. Kone, even when not playing well, gets you up the field. At Blackburn after his late introduction QPR were suddenly 15-20 yards further forward even though they were protecting a single goal lead on the road. Here that big arse and thigh combo was back in full flight, bashing and barging centre halves all over the show.

It proved a lethal combination for a West Brom side far below the sum of its parts and really laying bare the inexperience of its 34-year-old manager. With Joe Wildsmith recalled in goal and looking distinctly nervous about the prospect, and Chris Mepham having his usual ropey afternoon against the club he supports, Kone and Burrell were able to have an absolute field day, charging about, closing things down, forcing errors. Mason’s insistence his team play out from the back continued regardless presumably in the hope it would eventually yield better results, but hope isn’t a strategy and the home strikers sensed blood in the water. Albion were unbeaten in six games against QPR prior to this but this is the worst side we’ve seen from The Hawthorns for some time and they happily played their way to a deserved defeat, stubbornly sticking with suicidal strategies and tactics that patently weren’t working and played right into the strengths of Julien Stéphan’s 4-4-2 set up with a high press. Mason made just two substitutions, and one of those three minutes into stoppage time. No, no, no, let her speak. I'm trying to get fired.

Burrell scored twice, and really should have had a first QPR hat trick. All three incidents followed along similar themes – tireless running from Rangers’ front two, a lot of faffing about in the West Brom defence.

Alex Mowatt has lost just two of 14 career appearances against QPR with a goal and four assists thrown in for good measure. The sight of the Albion midfielder usually has us rolling our eyes at how long he was allowed to stay at Barnsley, handing the QPR midfield our own arse every time we played him, without us showing any significant transfer interest in him. Here, though, he was dreadful – three aerial duels all lost, two of three ground duels lost, and a pair of passes in the build up to Rangers’ second goal that made me wonder whether we had actually signed him after all. The first looping, bobbling nonsense back towards his own goal but Mepham under immediate pressure from Burrell, the second recovery effort smacked straight into Richard Kone’s shines in the penalty box and rebounded perfectly for Burrell to touch out of his feet and finish. Confidence in the Jamaican now so high two of his team mates were already celebrating in back play before he got the shot away.

That made it all the more remarkable that Burrell somehow hooked over an open net when Kone flicked a long Paul Nardi clearance into a Chucklevision tribute between Wildsmith and Mepham who to-me-to-you’d it long enough for Burrell to nip in between the pair of them, steal the ball, and send it just too high of the gaping goal. Nick London once announced “here’s the hat trick” before Nahki Wells hit an effort identical to this into the net at home to Cardiff, he’d have been rowing back faster than Steve Redgrave had he been at the mic for this one.

No matter. There was more to come as QPR cranked up the pressure and continued to find their visitors taking short cuts. Instead of just dealing with a long ball forward from sub Steve Cook, George Campbell decided to try and leave it out for a throw in allowing Richard Kone to out muscle him, keep the ball in play, flick it back over his head, beat him for strength and set off towards the penalty box. There the Ivorian faced a defensive combination of Bielik and Wildsmith, both of whom he beat with ease, and Burrell was able to sweep in a second and Rangers’ third. In the nonsense world of official assist statistics, Kone is credited with one for the first Burrell goal but not the second.

That goal was required to settle nerves. Heggebo had briefly halved the deficit with his own contribution – a beautifully angled header you couldn’t help but admire and applaud. Unstoppable for Paul Nardi, who really deserved a clean sheet after a brilliant double save just before the Burrell miss which denied first Styles and then Campbell when they looked favourites to score. There was even a first half moment where he sprang from his box to win a header – who is this new man?

It would have been something of a robbery had the visitors got it back level. Rangers were well worth their points, and could have had them stitched up sooner had Rhys Norrington-Davies been awarded a penalty when he surely should have been for Campbell’s barge in the back as he accelerated into the area onto a superb Nicolas Madsen slide-rule pass.

I’d usually say that would be a given as a foul and a free kick anywhere else on the pitch, but actually given it fell in one of Gavin Ward’s ten minute spells where he simply turns the whistle off and decides he’s not giving anybody, anything, under any circumstances ranging from a trip up to a cruise missile attack, I’m not so sure. Richard Kone, obviously brought down on halfway, had his appeals turned down as West Brom broke for a Heggebo toe wide. Sub Paul Smyth, clearly hacked down in the back of his calf muscle, told to get to his feet. That these stints of outrageous leniency often follow straight after periods of excruciating pedantry – Varane treated to a word on the standstill, which is like a word on the run except we all have to wait for Gavin - only adds to the allure of the division’s most frustrating referee.

The R’s were a good deal more grateful for a stoppage time board that offered up only seven extra minutes to a half with three goals, five different substitution stoppages, injuries, time wasting late in the day and a medical emergency at the front of Ellerslie Road which seemed to cause a delay to the game of at least that amount of time by itself. I was genuinely settled in expecting double figures, and wouldn’t have complained too much if there’d been 13 or 14 twinkling through the gloom in bright red lights. Seven!? Ward’s timekeeping about as sound as the rest of his officiating. Both sets of fans had turned on him by the end, and that’s not unusual. Shouldn’t be officiating at this level, and everybody in the division knows it.

Still be a shame to finish on the referee. Three wins in four, two points off the play-offs, and three goals scored in successive home games. This, like the Hull game before, took a while to get going, but was terrific fun when it did.

The work rate, quality and threat of the strikers is a joy to behold after our barren years in that position – quite the contrast from the 1-0 loss at The Hawthorns last Easter where the home side were able to comfortably play out a single goal win and clean sheet with ten men for the whole second half such was the insipid nature of QPR’s attack. Madsen’s quality on the ball and Varane’s physicality in the centre of the park were very welcome after last week’s Carrow Road no-show. A tough week ahead, but we’ll cross those bridges as they come.

The defence still creaks and croaks a little bit – the Nardi double save came from Mbengue trying to cover a brain fart so potent it incurred a ULEZ charge with a dive, the actual Albion goal came with Jake Clarke-Salter out on his feet and Stéphan perhaps a little slow with the introduction of Steve Cook and Paul Smyth which could really have happened a good ten minutes earlier than it did.

The Frenchman was down to a crimson rollneck by the end, with his side purring their way to a comfortable home win. Purpose up front, pace in wide areas, precision from midfield. High press, high intensity, hard yards and huge efforts. A lot of fun, in the second half at least. You don’t mind paying to watch hot nonsense like this. Well, unless you’re in the away end that is.

Links >>> Photo Gallery >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread

QPR: Nardi 7; Mbengue 6, Dunne 6, Clarke-Salter 6 (Cook 77, 6), Norrington-Davies 6; Saito 5 (Smyth 77, 6), Varane 7, Madsen 7, Chair 6 (Dembele 45+7, 6); Kone 8 (Frey 90+2, -), Burrell 8

Subs not used: Poku, Hayden, Morgan, Morrison, Walsh

Goals: Varane 45+4 (assisted Madsen), Burrell 59 (assisted Kone), Burrell 87 (assisted Kone)

Yellow Cards: Norrington-Davies 90+4 (kicking ball away)

WBA: Wildsmith 4; Campbell 5, Bielik 5, Mepham 4, Styles 5; Johnston 5, Molumby 5, Mowatt 4, Grant 5 (Brany 90+3, -); Maja 5 (Price 64, 6), Heggebo 7

Subs not used: Bostock, Diakite, Dike, Gilchrist, Griffiths, Iling-Junior, Taylor

Yellow Cards: Grant 39 (foul)

QPR Star Man – Rumarn Burrell 8 Someone who goes to Scunthorpe, Grimsby, Falkirk and Cove Rangers for a game REALLY wants to play football. Great find. Great signing.

Referee – Gavin Ward (Surrey) 4 Has an infuriating tendency to switch between ten-minute spells where absolutely everything is a foul to ten minutes where absolutely nothing is, randomly and without warning. You’ll be playing in a game where every tiny piece of contact is a foul one minute, only to find yourself on the floor nursing a gunshot wound while he’s waving play on the next. Maddeningly inconsistent.

Attendance - 16,745 (1,744 away) Thankfully, given what happened elsewhere in the Championship on Saturday, it’s good news about the spectator who required medical assistance.

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

qprbenjamin163 added 19:47 - Dec 7 Great report. Really good to read the appreciation of Kone who hasn't stopped impressing me even in this barren spell. He has actual class and a football brain and it shows, goals or not. The only thing I'd disagree on is the 'redemption arc' of Madsen. For me, being better than he was doesn't make him good. Brilliant delivery for the first goal for sure but, whilst he wants the ball more than he used to, he still drifts around and against teams who get properly stuck in (W Brom were definitely not that) he continues to struggle and disappear. Weird that he seems to be first name on the team sheet but I guess that's indicative of the lack of quality we have in that defensive midfield position. The little we saw of Morgan made me think he could operate there but we haven't continued down that path which is a shame to me. Really good report, thank you.

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Marshy added 21:30 - Dec 7 I’m loving watching Burrell play. He seems to have all the attributes you want in a striker. Blistering pace, exemplary work rate, gets in all the right positions and scores goals. It’s a lot to wish for, but could we end up with a 20 goal player by the end of the season. As for the game it wasn’t the best quality, but we definitely deserved the win. One thing I think we do need to work on, is trying to keep the ball on the ground more. How often yesterday were there endless headers going backwards and forwards like ping pong between ours and the Albion players. Quite frustrating to watch. Fingers crossed Chair isn’t out for too long.

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stainrods_elbow added 22:23 - Dec 7 We're still very much a work on progress, but the 2nd half was certainly encouraging again - harum scarum stuff at times, and we had Nardi to thank for keeping us in it, but Burrell got us over the line, with a bit of help from the improving Kone (who needs to improve). I think this season is likely to be steps forward and back, and both team and manager have work to do to convince me they can achieve any kind of consistency, but that's also the Champ, which I'd say JS still has plenty to learn about. (We need to become faster learners.)

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JAPRANGERS added 23:26 - Dec 7 What has happened to Saito of late? Clive has given him the lowest score of all our players at 5. Is he nursing some injury I wonder?
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stainrods_elbow added 02:59 - Dec 8 Saito will be OK - he's a class act. It's the likes of Varane, Vale and Kone who need to step up.
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WhitstableHoop added 13:57 - Dec 8 Another superb report Clive. I wondered if the teams had swapped kits. QPR playing more like West Brom do when they play us and West Brom playing like us when we play them. Good to see them getting a taste of their own medicine. It doesn't happen too often so making the most of it. Dare we dream to carry this form into the Birmingham game on Tuesday?
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extratimeR added 18:05 - Dec 8 Yes, great report Clive, very pleased with praise of Kone, his "target man" hold the ball stuff. is so important. Central defenders must hate playing against him. Burrell and him good understanding, getting worried about Madsen, people will be watching these videos, passing the ball forward. completed passes. the lot above us notice this stuff. Cheers Clive!
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W9R added 20:42 - Dec 8 Totally buy in to your Madsen's "on the third day" redemptive arc. Last season Madsen played from that notorious Karl Henry manual "How to jog slowly and never stray more than 5 feet from the centre circle". Now he's throwing himself into the game to huge effect including in the first half a chase back and launch into a horizontal helicopter tackle that deserved a "good as a goal" pat on the back.

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TacticalR added 17:56 - Dec 9 Thanks for your report. It must be nice to have some goals to report on. For the first goal, what was Varane doing so far forward? I must admit, before he scored I had been thinking how badly he was playing. Kone is not only providing Burrell with assists, but creating the space for him and other players to play in. Burrell is developing a knack for being in the right place at the right time. We have got a threat up front, but it has been neutralised in some games. Fortunately this game wasn't one of them. Although West Brom don't look great, Heggebø's goal was excellent.

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