Match Day Thread Preston North End v Queens Park Rangers Deepdale 9/4/2022

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LAST TIME OUT

FORM GUIDE

PNE 8 QPR 5

QPR HERO

Rodney William Marsh (11 October 1944) is an English former footballer and football coach; he later worked as a broadcaster. A forward, he won nine caps for England between 1971 and 1973, scoring one international goal.

Brought up in the East End of London, he played youth football for West Ham United before he made his professional debut with Fulham in March 1963. He scored 22 goals in 63 First Division games before falling out with the management and taking a £15,000 transfer to Queens Park Rangers in March 1966. He helped the club to the 1967 League Cup and to consecutive promotions through the Third Division and Second Division. In March 1972 he was sold to Manchester City for £200,000. He featured in the 1974 League Cup final defeat but his time in Manchester was largely disappointing and he left the UK the following year to play for American club Tampa Bay Rowdies.

He had a successful career with the Rowdies and went on to coach the club from 1984 to 1986 after previously having brief spells coaching New York United and the Carolina Lightnin'. In the 1990s he began work as a broadcaster on Sky Sports, before he was sacked in January 2005. Since that time he has appeared on numerous reality television shows, and helped to run an American-based property development company with his son. In 2015, Marsh started co-hosting a radio show about football on SiriusXM, titled Grumpy Pundits. His co-host is Irish broadcaster Tommy Smyth.

Queens Park Rangers
Marsh moved across West London to join Queens Park Rangers, then in the Third Division, after manager Alec Stock paid out a £15,000 fee in March 1966.[16] QPR finished third at the end of the 1965–66 campaign, eight points outside promoted Millwall.

His first full season with Rangers was his most successful, as he formed an effective strike partnership with Les Allen, whilst Roger Morgan and Mark Lazarus delivered reliable service from the wings.[17] Marsh scored his first hat-trick for the club in a 4–0 win over Middlesbrough.[18] He scored 44 goals in 53 games as the club became Third Division champions; his 30 league goals made him the division's top-scorer. QPR also won the League Cup, with Marsh setting Rangers on their way with four goals during a 5–0 victory over Colchester United at Layer Road.[18] They needed a replay to overcome Aldershot, before they beat Swansea Town, top-flight Leicester City, Carlisle United and Birmingham City. Their opponents in the Wembley final were West Bromwich Albion, who had won the cup the previous year. The "Baggies" took a two-goal lead before half-time, but Rangers fought back in the second half and on the 75th minute Marsh scored what he described as "the defining goal of my career" when he made a mazy run past numerous defenders before finding the net with a 25-yard shot that went in off the post.[11][19] Lazarus scored QPR's third goal six minutes later to win the game 3–2.[20] A week after the final Tottenham Hotspur manager witnessed Marsh put in a strong performance against Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic and he offered to pay QPR £180,000 for Marsh and Morgan, but his offer was rejected by chairman Jim Gregory.[17]

The 1967–68 season saw a second successive promotion as QPR reached the First Division as runners-up in the Second Division, ahead of Blackpool on goal average. Marsh was again top-scorer with 14 goals despite missing the start of the season with a broken foot.[11] He signed a new four-year contract in the summer.[11]

Rangers were unable to compete in the top-flight, and Marsh himself struggled with injury as the club suffered relegation with only 18 points to their name.[16] He broke his foot in pre-season training for the 1968–69 campaign and missed the opening months; during this time the club struggled as Stock resigned before the season started, and he was replaced by Bill Dodgin in a caretaker capacity.[21] By the time Marsh recovered from his injury manager Tommy Docherty's first 28-day spell in charge at Loftus Road had come and gone.[22]

In summer 1969, Marsh was sent off in a friendly against Rangers after punching Kai Johansen in retaliation for a kick Johansen gave Marsh.[23] In the 1969–70 season he and Barry Bridges shared 46 goals equally between them, as QPR finished in ninth position. They also reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, which was then the club's joint-best achievement in the competition.

Marsh again hit 23 goals in the 1970–71 campaign, as Rangers again finished in mid-table obscurity under the stewardship of Gordon Jago. However Marsh lost his captaincy to new signing Terry Venables.[24]

He hit 20 goals in the 1971–72 season to finish as the club's top-scorer for the second successive season. Before the season began he signed a new contract on the understanding that he would leave the club if they could not achieve promotion by the end of the season.[24] QPR were still in the hunt for promotion by the time that Marsh was sold – they eventually finished a few points short, however the sum offered by Manchester City was too much for the club to refuse.[25]

PNE Team News

Liam Lindsay will serve the second and final game of his suspension in this fixture following his red card in the defeat against Derby County.

Ched Evans, who missed Tuesday’s Lancashire derby victory over Blackpool through injury, will be assessed ahead of the weekend.

There are no fresh injury concerns, though, with everybody coming through the midweek win unscathed.

The Opposition

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Queens Park Rangers have spent the large majority of the campaign occupying a Play-Off spot and at times even pushing towards automatics.

However, their recent form has seen their chances of finishing in the top six diminish, with the R’s having lost six of their last seven matches.

Currently five points outside of the Play-Off spots, a shot at promotion is still on the cards, but they will need to put together a strong run in their final six games of the campaign in order to get there.

Key Stats

After collecting 16 points from a possible 18 on the road between November and January, QPR have struggled away from home lately, losing six of their last seven away games.

QPR’s main creative spark this season has been Chris Willock, having scored seven and assisted 11, but a hamstring injury has ruled him out for the rest of the campaign.

Josh Earl, who scored his first professional goal in the reverse fixture against the R’s, is one appearance away from making 100 in senior football.

Our Last Victory
PNE’s last win over QPR came in October 2020 away from home, with penalties either side of half-time from Daniel Johnson and Scott Sinclair securing the three points for Alex Neil’s team.

Man In The Middle

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Tony Harrington will take charge of his first Preston North End game of the season on Saturday.

Harrington has, however, refereed 19 PNE matches in his career, with the most recent of them being the defeat at home to Brentford last term.

So far this campaign, he has held the whistle in 20 matches – including one Premier League fixture – and he has shown 65 yellow cards and one red.

 

Preston North End 2 Riis Archer Queens Park Rangers 1 Gray pen

PNE line-up: Iversen; van den Berg, Bauer, Hughes; McCann, Whiteman, Browne, Johnson, Cunningham (Murphy, 70); Riis (Maguire, 45), Archer (O'Neill, 90). Subs not used: Ripley, Rafferty, Sinclair, Diaby.

QPR line-up: Mahoney; Odubajo, Sanderson, Dunne, McCallum; Field, Dozzell, Amos (Thomas, 57), Johansen; Chair (Gray, 69), Dykes (Austin, 68). Subs not used: Kakay, Ball, Gray, Adomah.

Attendance: 10,873 (721 QPR fans)

Referee: Mr T Harrington.

When your lucks out, your luck is out Rangers with a massive injury list on the back of a terrible run of form, needed to change their line aup after the warm up, keeper Westwod being replaced by youngster Mahoney, although beaten twice neither goal was his fault and every effort he had to deal with he saved. He played well but his opposite number turned in an outstanding goalkeeping display, stopping the vsitors from being a couple of goals in front by the break.
Rangers dominated the first period against a North End side that had been on a massive bender since beating Blackpool on Tuesday night, our inability to pass to anyone in the same coloured shirt was staggering although we did seem to find perfect passes to white shirts in the stands. The crowd was also muted as well, all added to a low tempo first half from the home side apart from a brief couple of higghlights.
Rangers had chances galore, Dozzell clean through couldn't beat the Dane, Chair denied when presented with a chance by some hapless defending again Iversen got a finger tip to it.
On the stroke of half time after the goal Dunne denied at the back stick , the Dane was immense.
Way to slow in our build up although we had two chances to score, Riis denied by a great defending tackle by Odubajo, Browne effort cleared from the line.
The goal came just befor the break, Hughes who had been waiting for the ball for about a week, eventually received it put in a decent cross, Riis got infront of the defender to flick the ball home. He promptly limped off with a hamstring injury which probably means his four week cruise around the West Indies can start earlier than planned.
A slight tweak so McCann a bit higher up the pitch, made us better, could have scored from a corner, ball cleared from the line, did score when Archer picked up the ball on the right of the penalty area, made his way across the box before finding a bit of space and blasting teh ball home.
Rangers coud have folded but they didn't, had chances to reduce the lead, some good blocks and another excellent save from a corner by Iversen.
The game opened, making it an entertaining watch we had chances to put the game to bed, but Mahoney denied Maguire twice and Archer, Johnson fired narrowly wide. Still Rangers wouldn't fold we still had to defend desperately at the time as they kept on coming, they were rewarded in the dying stages when their outstanding player Tony Harrington awarded them what looked like a soft penalty, Gray sent Iversen the wrong way.
Take the points and also good to see Mikey O'Neill from the youth set up get a few minutes on the pitch.

Preston North End manager Ryan Lowe said:

"It's back-to-back wins which I'm pleased with. There were large parts of the game I wasn't pleased with, but we did create some great chances. We gave them a wake-up call at half-time and told them to get in their faces and they did that.

"I'm pleased with the goals and I thought maybe we should have had a couple more. I thought Daniel [Iversen] was deserving of a clean sheet at the other end, but it wasn't to be today."

QPR manager Mark Warburton told BBC Radio London:

"It's very frustrating. I'm pleased that we created so many chances. We have got to take them, it is as simple as that. We had three clear-cut chances in the first half and more in the second half.

"We gave away two very soft goals. I thought we looked very dangerous. We didn't get our rewards. Five goalkeepers out is somewhat unprecedented, but young Murphy [Mahoney] stepped up."

 

You give us a better write up than anything else I've read on here. Cheers MaClad

 

Try to be fair only way to be