QPR's Loss - Sheffield United's Game

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- Photos from the game (QPR, wearing their third strip of black and yellow)

Guardian/Mark Tallentire - Blackwell sticks to his guns and sees Sharp shoot down QPR
"... Kevin Blackwell stuck by the Sheffield United side who lost their previous league match in the final minute and had Saturday's game won before his players had even broken into sweat - proof, if newly rich QPR needed it, of the value of knowing your best team and sticking by it.
Things could hardly have got better for the United manager, who saw Billy Sharp, scorer of only six goals in his first season, rattle in half that in under an hour. "If we had been as inventive as we were today, we could have beaten Birmingham [last week]," he said. "That team deserved to keep playing, though, and I wasn't going to change it. Not a lot of teams will be able to handle us if we play like that."
At the final whistle Blackwell said that last season's top scorer, James Beattie, sidelined after knee surgery in the close season but ahead of schedule in his comeback, turned to him and said, "I've got a job on to get back into that side." The manager said he had agreed with the former England forward but Beattie's goal threat is an option that will be difficult to ignore. "He will do a week's hard running and, if everything goes to plan, he will start football work on Monday week. I thought we wouldn't see him on the training pitch until the end of September but he could be back in contention by the end of August."
On this evidence Blackwell's team will be a force whenever Beattie makes it back, with the 21-year-old Sharp, the only one of their starters lacking Premier League experience, a certainty to fill that gap on his CV. "Strikers are at a premium and as long as he realises what he's about - hard work, getting in the box and finishing chances - Billy Sharp can be whatever he wants to be," Blackwell said after seeing the previous summer's £1m dud signing score with a flying header, a neatly taken shot and a tap-in after a scramble from a corner.
Sixteen of the 24 teams in this division have Premier League experience and, even though QPR had the best finish of the lot, fifth in 1993, the Blades look more likely to get back there this time around.
Iain Dowie took over at Loftus Road only in May, has seen the summer's recruitment drive realise a bunch of well-paid free transfers and loans and may already be looking back on his acrimonious spell with Simon Jordan at Crystal Palace as a golden spell, when he at least got to choose the players. Struggling to integrate Flavio Briatore's loan signings into a mid-table team must be difficult enough but, when we were treated to the unedifying sight of two Spanish-speaking loanees arguing over a free-kick at three down, it underlined the problems he faces.
Dowie, who has warned Emmanuel Ledesma about his gamesmanship and admits he still needs a goalscorer, wryly excused "one of the biggest teams on the planet" for their inability to defend set plays and promised to work on it. First, he must find his best team and stick to it. Man of the match Billy Sharp (Sheffield United) Guardian


Telegraph/Peter Gardner -
Billy Sharp repays Sheffield United manager Kevin Blackwell’s faith with hat-trick
Sheffield United (2) 3 Queens Park Rangers (0) 0
Billy Sharp readily acknowledges that a £1.5million transfer back to his boyhood heroes, Sheffield United, where his career commenced as an emerging teenaged striker before a £100,000 move to Scunthorpe, was far from successful.
However, the arrival as manager of Kevin Blackwell, successor to Bryan Robson who had brought back Sharp from Scunthorpe where his prolific marksmanship did much in helping secure promotion to the Championship for the Lincolnshire club, provided the catalyst.
Sharp admits: "Things were not going great last season when the new manager arrived. But the fact that he's shown faith in me has made me have more faith in myself. Just to get a place in this team with so many other top class strikers here is an achievement. So if I want to stay in the team, the goals will have to keep coming."
They came in profusion on Saturday, a hat-trick after 51 minutes destroying a wretched Queens Park Rangers and making nonsense of their status as pre-season title favourites. So inept and out of touch were the visitors that their first attempt on goal was delayed for an hour when Emmanuel Ledesma, one of manager Iain Dowie's foreign imports on loan from Real Madrid, venomously struck a post.
Thereafter Rangers offered a more positive offensive contribution with the home goalkeeper, Paddy Kenny, forced into a string of splendid saves, notably from Daniel Parejo, the other Real loanee. However, the damage by then had been done and Dowie said: "Our inability to defend set plays cost us dearly."
Sharp's awareness both inside and outside of the penalty areas proved Rangers' undoing. Said Blackwell: "His all round play, apart from in the box, was the best I have seen from him." ... Telegraph


Sunday Times/Nick Townsend [Reposted]
"...In contrast, the visitors looked an assembly of individuals who have only recently been introduced. And that includes the manager. Even in the P45 league - such is the desperation to escape it, there have been nine managerial departures in the past 12 months - Iain Dowie is the newest appointment. He arrived in May with the knowledge that QPR’s multi-billionaire and millionaire owners are high maintenance and require a swift step up to a more ostentious upmarket lifestyle. Dowie’s Hoops need to prosper, otherwise, you suspect, Briatore & Co will soon have him jumping through them.
On a day when it might be said that United’s arch-poacher was simply too cunning for the Rangers, this first defeat for the Londoners demonstrated that it will require more than some exotic loanees to elevate them to the elite at the first time of trying. If there was a suspicion that Dowie’s side were flattered by victory last week at home to Barnsley, this confirmed it. The moneybags have not spent extravagantly, but have compensated with some impressive-sounding attacking loan personnel in the shape of Daniel Parejo from Real Madrid, Emmanuel Ledesma from Genoa, and Matteo Alberti from Chievo.
However, it is at the back that Rangers look liable to capitulate. In the first half their rearguard was dreadful, and while they flitted as prettily as exotic butterflies around the United area in their stylish black and yellow strip they simply never looked like finding the net. After the interval, they perked up a little. As Dowie put it, “they showed in the second half the quality they have on the ball. Now they just have to settle down and get used to the system.”
Yesterday, that class was never sufficient to trouble a rampant home side who, after a season when there was still a whiff of recrimination about their Carlos Tevez-in-duced relegation in 2006-07, are clearly determined that this season should be all about regeneration as a potential Premier League force...." Times


The Sun/Tony Little - Sheff Ut 3 QPR 0
"....Blades could have had more as QPR fell apart.
Sharp was inches away when his angled drive flashed wide of the far post, while Michael Tonge was foiled by the diving Cerny after an earlier shot was blocked.
Sharp, 22, added his third at the Kop end in the 51st minute with a shot from close range as the visitors failed to clear a corner.
QPR went close late on when an Emmanuel Ledesma shot hit a post.
Daniel Parejo’s low strike was then smothered by Sheffield keeper Paddy Kenny.
QPR boss Iain Dowie said: “We were 2-0 down after 13 minutes and had a mountain to climb.
“It will take time for some of our foreign players to settle. Everyone was on Cristiano Ronaldo’s back when he first came to this country — it takes time to adjust... The Sun


Mirror/Rory Smith
"... It could have been even worse for the London side. The shaky Cerny did well to hold Stephen Quinn's volley and was fortunate to see sub Danny Webber fire wide from Henderson's lay-off.
At the other end, Dowie's men barely threatened. Emmanuel Ledesma - author of at least one dive that would have scored highly up the road at the National Aquatics Centre - rifled against the post and Dexter Blackstock's follow-up was denied by an impeccable challenge from Ugo Ehiogu.
But the Loftus Road boss insists there is no reason to believe his side cannot justify their status as promotion favourites.
He said: "Let's not overreact to one defeat. We had a mad 20 minutes where we didn't defend set pieces properly, but I felt we came into it more in the second half.
"I've always said we may need a goalscorer, but apart from that I don't see the need to go and panic buy before the end of the transfer window. We have the ability to make the dream come true."
HOW THEY RATED
SHEFF UTD
Kenny 6, Jihai 7, Morgan 6 (Ehiogu 7), Kilgallon 6, Naysmith 6, Halford 7 (Cotterill 6), Speed 6, Tonge 7, Quinn 7, Henderson 7, SHARP 9 (Webber 6).
Manager Blackwell 7
QPR Cerny 5, Connolly 6, Hall 6, Gorkss 5, Delaney 6, Ledesma 5, Parejo 8, Leigertwood 6, Cook 5 (Alberti 6), Balanta 5 (Di Carmine 6), Blackstock 6. Mirror


Sheffield United - QPR: See Also

- Report Compilation - "QPR's Suffer Worst Loss to Sheffield United"

- Earlier QPR vs Sheff Ut Reports and Comments

- Clive Whittingham/LoftForWords - Match Report

- Simon Skinner/QPR Net - Match Report

- Sheffield United Rivals The Blade Report - Match Report