It’s seven & hell for shocked McClaren
STEVE McCLAREN might have to dig out that old umbrella to protect himself from the downpour of abuse after this bashing.
His QPR side simply caved in as the Baggies enjoyed their biggest win for 11 years.
McClaren looked foolish in
2007 when he stood on the touchline at Wembley, brolly up and rain belting down, as his England team lost to Croatia and failed to get to the European Championships.
Now he is without a win in three since taking the Loftus Road job and his side sits bottom of the Championship.
There is no money at QPR, there is a change of chairman and McClaren is left with a young, inexperienced team that will struggle to recover.
The Wally with the Brolly has got no lolly, so what does he do?
“It’s one of the worst days in my career, the manner in which it happened,” said shell-shocked McClaren.
“At 3-1 we collapsed and that is unacceptable.
“Unacceptable to the fans, unacceptable to us, the players, the club and we have to do something about it.
“I’m shocked. I never saw that coming. I’m now angry.
“There are a lot of things going on behind the scenes with embargoes and fines but these young players need reinforcements.
“You need to go through the fire sometimes to come out the other end.”
Rangers got themselves back in the game and were level at 1-1 and optimistic at half-time, even if West Brom did look the better team.
It was Matt Phillips who put the Baggies ahead in the
29th minute.
QPR were level five minutes later when defender Joel Lynch pounced.
Harvey Barnes, on loan from Leicester, hit the post minutes after the restart, giving Kieran Gibbs his first West Brom goal from the rebound.
Jay Rodriguez put away two penalties – both for fouls on Dwight Gayle – and the latter got a goal himself in between.
Phillips then grabbed his second and Hal Robson-Kanu made it seven late on.
“It was a good day for us,” said Albion boss Darren Moore.
“Poetic justice” was how he described the 95th-minute penalty miss by Kenedy that ensured these two sides finished with a point apiece.
Warnock admitted he had not seen the Newcastle winger’s wild hack at Victor Camarasa in the first half – a juvenile playground tantrum that was somehow missed by referee Craig Pawson and his assistants.
But the penalty struck by the Brazilian in the sixth minute of injury time was so desperately poor it was almost as if he was overcome by shame at the prospect of being an undeserving hero.
“It would have been devastating to lose at that stage,” said Warnock, whose team were unable to take advantage after Isaac Hayden was sent off in the 66th minute.
“My dad used to say, ‘What goes around, comes around’ so I think that the penalty miss was poetic justice.
“I never even saw that Kenedy should have been sent off in the first half, like the referee I looked away and missed it. The fourth official saw it to give a foul but it was one of those things.”
Nor did Warnock think the penalty decision, given for handball as his skipper Sean Morrison tried to block Yoshinori Muto’s cross, was on the right side of the justice scales either.
He added: “I think his arm was close to being outside the box. His body is inside the box but it was a hairline decision. I’ve no complaints if you put your hand up.”
It was a dramatic ending to a game that had plenty of effort from both sides but was pretty low on quality.
It had the odour of an early season relegation battle and the whiff of scandal seemed to affect Kenedy when he had a chance to give the Magpies their first win of the season.
Players sometimes hear voices in their heads before they step up to take a penalty – usually long-buried doubts or echoes from misses in days gone by.
If Kenedy is a religious man then he might have heard his own conscience yelling: “Mate, you’re having a laugh here, aren’t you? Don’t you dare.”
The result was that Neil Etheridge palmed away the spot-kick for the Cardiff keeper’s second penalty save in as many matches.
Newcastle manager Rafa Benitez admitted the effort was a poor one but he was less forthcoming about whether justice was done. When asked if his loanee from Chelsea should already have been sent off, Benitez said: “There were too many things that I didn’t like during that game.
“There were too many decisions that can go in your favour or against you. “They say there was a tackle on Javier Manquillo. In the end, I think we cannot complain about the referee. “He gave us a penalty that he thought was right and we didn’t take our chance. “With those other things we can talk and talk but it will not change anything.” Hayden – who was called off the bench at half-time – was shown a red card only 20 minutes later for a reckless hack at Josh Murphy that was as pointless as it was gratuitous.
That should have been the point at which Cardiff made the most of their dominance and got themselves a win. But even though their energy and the skill of both Murphy and Junior Hoilett unsettled Toon, Warnock will know the finishing from the likes of Kenneth Zohore will have to improve if the Bluebirds are to defy predictions and survive this season. Warnock added: “There’s never a dull moment, I thought it was a good 0-0. I am quite pleased with the whole afternoon apart from not scoring.
“In the last third we could have done better with the ball and created better chances and our free-kicks were poor today, so things to work on there.”