Queens Park Rangers lost their fifth straight game on Tuesday night to add more misery to their season, which is going from bad to nightmare proportions.
They are now the worst team in the current form table, sitting below winless Sheffield Wednesday. They do though have the Owls and Rotherham United below them in the main standings. All this does not bode well for the visit of runaway Championship leaders Leicester City this coming Saturday.
Downward Spiral
Gareth Ainsworth is not just in a hot seat; it is practically boiling. During his present tenure in charge of the team. he was caretaker boss twice in the 2008/09 season for 11 games in total, he has only five wins from the 27 he has been in control of.
The latest defeat, a 2-0 reverse at West Bromwich Albion, was another lacklustre display that was handled diplomatically by the boss.
Speaking to the QPR Official Website after the game, which turned on the hour mark when the Baggies were awarded a penalty and saw Jimmy Dunne sent off, he said. “We had a plan and it was working until that silly penalty. I don’t think we really needed to make that tackle, especially with the game-plan working up until that moment.
“We had got them and the West Brom supporters frustrated until the game turns in that moment – we lose Jimmy with the red card as well as going behind, and that has killed us.”
The gaffer gives his reaction 🗣 pic.twitter.com/IBXNqm0fH1
— QPR FC (@QPR) October 24, 2023
Looking for any positives is always hard when the tide is always turning against you, but Ainsworth has recently said that he will keep fighting. So it was no surprise when he took what he could from another defeat.
“I didn’t really see West Brom hurting us until that moment, but they are West Brom – they are good side with some great players and tonight we made some silly errors that weren’t football-related. That’s the biggest disappointment for me.
“I thought we had some good moments in the first half, some breakaway moments and going into the second half, we had a plan to ease the pressure and move forward. However, you can’t do it with 10 men or by giving penalties away, it’s tough.”
Writer’s View
It never rains but it pours. QPR are in a deluge right now, and no matter how you dress it up, it doesn’t look like the sun will shine anytime soon. Ainsworth is fighting, but it is constantly a losing battle. Bad luck, bad decisions, just bad. When you’re down at the bottom enduring a run that is seemingly endless, everything goes against you.
Stranger things have happened in football, and that will always be the hope, but if QPR gets anything from this Saturday’s game against Leicester it will be a minor miracle given the two sides form.
