New owners and new manager

Last updated : 11 December 2007 By Tony Scholes

The game was rightly called off back in August following the sudden and sad death of Ray Jones, the young QPR player who was involved in a road accident in the early hours of the morning.

Since that original date there have been changes at both clubs. Like us QPR have a new manager and also new owners. Our match preview back in August hinted at the takeover by Flavio Briatore and a few weeks later he took control of the club.

Manager John Gregory has gone, as has Mick Harford who took over as caretaker. The new man in charge is Italian Luigi de Canio.

The new man, like Owen Coyle, was appointed too late to make any changes to the squad in terms of permanent signings, although he has strengthened by adding another three players to the list of loan signings to take the total to nine this season.

Harford brought in Rowan Vine (Birmingham), Jason Jarrett (Preston) and Martin Cranie (Portsmouth) in on loan deals whilst the new man has added Plymouth's Akos Buzsaky (and this will be made permanent in January), Scott Sinclair from Chelsea and Derby defender Bob Malcolm.

He'll have more money to spend in the transfer window whilst before he arrived they splashed out £900,000 to sign Mikele Leigertwood from Sheffield United.

They are currently bottom of the table and haven't won since the first Saturday in November when they recorded a 2-0 victory over Hull and a run of defeats came to an end on Saturday with a 2-2 draw at Scunthorpe.

Click HERE to see QPR's results this season


As far as we are concerned we need to start winning home games, and this week is the time to start with this game followed by Preston on Saturday. Only two home wins in the league this season, yet six on our travels. It is most un-Burnley like and now surely it is time to make those away wins count by following them up with a home win.


One to Watch

The signing of Akos Buzsaky from Plymouth was probably the one that led to Ian Holloway deciding his future lay away from Home Park, so disappointed was he to lose his influential midfielder.

Plymouth had made him a good offer and hoped he'd sign a new deal, but the Hungarian turned it down and when it was clear he wasn't going to stay they allowed him to move to QPR on loan with the deal to be made permanent in January, ensuring they got some money for him.

Capped nine times by his country he moved from MTK Hungaria to Porto in Portugal in 2002 when a certain Jose Mourinho paid £400,000 for him. He failed to establish himself there and was initially loaned out before playing for their 'B' team and in 2005 was brought to England and Plymouth by then manager Bobby Williamson, initially on loan.

So well did he play that the fans just about demanded that the club sign him permanently and they did that, paying Porto £225,000 for him. He got off to such a good start that Premiership clubs were quickly tracking him and he did look set for a move to either Bolton or West Brom.

It didn't happen and he fell out of favour somewhat when Tony Pulis became manager, starting only seventeen games during the 2005/06 season and being used more as a substitute. Things did improve under Holloway when he got 27 league starts in the following season.

This season he'd started eight games when they finally let him move on to QPR, ensuring they did at least get some money for him. He's settled straight into the side and has played eight league games for them, netting three goals including the two on Saturday in the draw at Scunthorpe.

He's impressed against us before for Plymouth - he's one we will need to keep an eye on.


Team News

Suspensions have been hitting QPR recently. Dexter Blackstock has just completed a three match ban after being sent off at Stoke and will return tonight.

However, midfielder Martin Rowlands is ruled out with a one match ban following five yellow cards whilst both Adam Bolder and Rowan Vine play their last games before serving one match suspensions.

Blackstock will almost certainly come back into the side whilst the other debate is whether young Chelsea player Michael Mancienne will be fit to return at the back after a hamstring injury. It's likely that he'll miss out and we can expect them to line up:

Lee Camp, Bob Malcolm, Damion Stewart, Zesh Rehman, Chris Barker, Akos Buzsaky, Adam Bolder, Mikele Leigertwood, Scott Sinclair, Dexter Blackstock, Rowan Vine. Subs from: Jake Cole, Sampsa Timoska, Angelo Balanta, Gareth Ainsworth, Marc Nygaard, Ben Sahar.

Click HERE to see the full QPR squad

There's nothing Ranieri or Benitez about our team. No tinkering, just a straight forward same again. Owen Coyle hasn't made a team change yet and looks almost certain to start with the same eleven players again tonight for the sixth successive game.

Stephen Jordan and John Spicer are fit again but will have to wait their chance with even a place on the bench proving difficult as we look to name the same sixteen.

Burnley's team will surely be: Gabor Kiraly, Graham Alexander, Clarke Carlisle, David Unsworth, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott, Chris McCann, Alan Mahon, Kyle Lafferty, Robbie Blake, Andy Gray. Subs: Brian Jensen, James O'Connor, Joey Gudjonsson, Steve Jones, Ade Akinbiyi.


Last Time Round

When a new season gets underway, above anything you want to get off to a winning start and that's just what we did a year ago when we beat Queens Park Rangers 2-0 at the Turf.

Steve Jones - two debut goals as we got the season off to a good start
It was very much Steve Jones's day as he grabbed both goals on his league debut for the Clarets, becoming only the second player to achieve that in post war football, following on from Warren Joyce who scored both in a 2-1 win against Port Vale just twelve years earlier.

The first half was hardly riveting stuff and the visitors probably came the closest to scoring. Twice Australian Nick Ward missed opportunities whilst at the other end our best chance was nothing more than a half chance for Kyle Lafferty following a superb through ball from Alan Mahon.

The second half saw a big change, a much better performance, and we finally got our noses in front. Mahon's ball was too far in front of the forwards but Andy Gray forced veteran keeper Paul Jones into an error and as the ball fell loose Jones was onto it very quickly to hit home into the empty net.

We switched things round, Micah Hyde and Wade Elliott came on, and almost immediately we doubled our lead. Jones collected the ball from Frank Sinclair, moved across the pitch some twenty-five yards out before unleashing a screamer into the corner that Jones could do nothing about.

Mahon's free kick missed the target by inches, Jones saved brilliantly from Hyde as the Clarets took total command and the only surprise was that we didn't add to the score. A 2-0 win on the opening day was without doubt good enough, it was the biggest win of the day and left us top of the league on alphabetical order from Luton and West Brom.

The teams were;

Burnley: Brian Jensen, Frank Sinclair, Wayne Thomas, Michael Duff, Jon Harley, Steve Jones, James O'Connor (Wade Elliott 62), Chris McCann, Alan Mahon (Garreth O'Connor 89), Andy Gray, Kyle Lafferty (Micah Hyde 62). Subs not used: Stephen Foster, John McGreal.

QPR: Paul Jones, Marcus Bignot, Matthew Rose, Damion Stewart, Mauro Milanese, Steve Lomas (Ray Jones 66), Gareth Ainsworth, Martin Rowlands (Scott Donnelly 79), Nick Ward, Lee Cook, Adam Czerkas (Marc Bircham 71). Subs not used: Jake Cole, Patrick Kanyuka.


Previous results against QPR

Previous 20 Seasons

Season

Div

Ven

Result

Att

Scorers

2000/01

1

a

1-0

11,427

Mullin

..

h

2-1

14,018

Smith Taylor

2004/05

C

a

0-3

15,638

.

.

.

h

2-0

10,396

Akinbiyi(2)

2005/06

C

a

1-1

12,565

McCann

..

h

1-0

11,247

Gray

2006/07

C

h

2-0

12,190

Jones(2)

.

.

a

1-3

10,811

McCann



Click HERE to see all our results against QPR