Successful dribbles: 31. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Koki Saito falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Jimmy Dunne was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
There was no pressure on him and nowhere he had to be. Queens Park Rangers lost a goal to a decision that took half a second and will be discussed all week.
Richard Koné was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.45. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Ilias Chair falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Marked 9.26 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Daniel Bennie was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Ilias Chair was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Kieran Morgan is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
At 24 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Marked 8.98 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Queens Park Rangers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Queens Park Rangers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ridwan Hassan is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilias Chair is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Ilias Chair was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.15. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ronnie Edwards has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
7 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Queens Park Rangers has to find a result from somewhere.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Queens Park Rangers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ronnie Edwards is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Reading go through and Queens Park Rangers go home, 0‑1 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 30 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Queens Park Rangers are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A first appearance Ridwan Hassan will want to forget — 5.66
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.66, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Ilias Chair was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Justin Obikwu is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Marked 8.92 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Queens Park Rangers are no longer polite ones.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Ilias Chair falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
21 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
16 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
39 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Ilias Chair was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 19 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Queens Park Rangers can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Queens Park Rangers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Justin Obikwu falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Kader Dembélé had Queens Park Rangers level again within 2 minutes, and Blackburn Rovers never got to play with a lead at all.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Ilias Chair's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Queens Park Rangers can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Queens Park Rangers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilias Chair is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Koki Saito was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.35. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The offer from Charlton Athletic for Justin Obikwu was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Queens Park Rangers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 23 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ronnie Edwards is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Ilias Chair. 2‑0 against Charlton Athletic, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Queens Park Rangers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Jimmy Dunne falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
48 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Queens Park Rangers, another week without a signature from Steve Cook.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ilias Chair and Queens Park Rangers agree another 4 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Queens Park Rangers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ilias Chair is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.