By Laurie Fitzgerald
Queen’s Park Rangers reignited their quest for Premier League survival when they beat in-form Arsenal 2-1 at Loftus Road on Saturday.
The win means that while Rangers are still in the bottom three with seven games still remaining, defeat for Blackburn tonight at home to title-chasing Manchester United will lift the R’s out of the relegation zone.
While there are plenty of positives to take from the weekend, the main issue for Mark Hughes‘ side is their run-in will hardly be the envy of those around them.
Having overcome the Gunners, their next game is a trip to Old Trafford, while they still have to go to Manchester City and Chelsea as well as face Tottenham in their penultimate home game.
Facing the top five in their final eight matches is a horrendous run-in and would give most teams little hope of avoiding the drop; but playing the top sides seems to bring out the best in the Hoops in recent weeks.
As well as beating Arsene Wenger’s men, QPR also came back from two goals down with less than 15 minutes remaining to beat Liverpool a fortnight ago and end a run of six league games without a win.
That slump in form was made all the more strange when you see the teams they failed to beat, with defeats to Bolton, Wolves and Blackburn emphasising their failure to beat teams around them.
Rangers have developed the ability to beat anyone on their day, but then demonstrate a jekyll and hyde nature by losing to anyone as well.
Much of this may be down to the fact that there were many changes in January that are only just starting to gel together, not only in the playing staff but also on the management side.
Hughes was appointed following the surprise sacking of predecessor Neil Warnock, who had guided the club back into the top-flight for the first time in 15 years.
Owner Tony Fernandes wanted a manager that he felt shared the same sort of ambition for the club that he had, and backed the former Manchester City boss in the winter transfer window to help build a squad capable of preserving their Premier League status.
Nedum Onuoha, Djibril Cisse, Bobby Zamora, Taye Taiwo and Samba Diakite were brought in to add greater quality and more options in what would be a tense conclusion to the campaign.
Making these number of additions meant it was going to take time for Hughes to get the best out of them and to get them playing as a team instead of a group of individuals.
Their recent displays have been disjointed and they’ve contributed to their own downfall, not least of all in their indiscipline where they have had sending offs that ultimately lead to defeats.
Former Liverpool striker Cisse was brought in to add firepower to the Rangers side, but he has almost had as many sending offs as he has had goals.
While the 30 year-old still has another three matches to serve of his latest suspension, QPR still have enough within their squad to defy the odds in the coming weeks.
When you have the likes of Zamora, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Heidar Helguson, Joey Barton and Adel Taarabt in your ranks, then they can cause a few more surprises this season.
Many will write them off when they look at their remaing fixture list, but the West London outfit have the players and the manager to defy the odds and shock more of the big boys.
Considering their remaining matches then they are going to need to – but QPR’s topsy-turvy season may have one or two more twists and turns left in it.
So what do you think? Will QPR stay up? Or will their daunting fixture list be too much for them to overcome? Leave a comment and let us know your views.
