There will be an unofficial Tottenham Hotspur reunion at Villa Park on Tuesday night and there is little chance of radio silence between now and then. The stakes could hardly be higher for Tim Sherwood, Chris Ramsey and Les Ferdinand but the men who spent last season in the same dugout, live around the corner from each other and are not averse to meeting up for a beer will not be turning off all lines of communication now it is two against one.
Ramsey would normally call Sherwood for a chat “every four or five days” and he sees no reason to avoid contact with the man he spent four years working alongside at White Hart Lane, at academy and first-team level, because of a make-or-break game between Aston Villa and QPR. “Me, Tim and Les live probably 10 minutes from each other, so sometimes there is a pint to be had,” the QPR manager, said. “I’m sure we’ll speak before the game. One way or another.”
With Ferdinand, in his role as QPR’s director of football, watching from the stands at Villa Park, it will be left to Sherwood and Ramsey to go toe-to-toe on the touchline. Not that sparks are likely to fly. While Sherwood kicks and heads every ball, Ramsey prefers to take a back seat and there was no sprinting down the side of the pitch when Bobby Zamora submitted his entry for goal of the season here.
“I was a little bit more animated. But what can you control? If you’re standing there and there are 30,000, the players can’t even hear you, you’re doing it for yourself,” Ramsey said. “That’s why the three of us worked in harmony [at White Hart Lane] because different personalities complement each other. But, listen, we’ve all got a rollicking in us to be dished out, don’t worry about that.”
As much as Ramsey is desperate for the victory that would see QPR climb out of the relegation zone, he fully expects Sherwood to drag Villa clear of the scrap at the bottom. “Without a shadow of a doubt, I think he will keep them up. He has a good squad, players who have the wow factor and he knows how to manipulate those players. If I was a betting man, which we’re not allowed to be, I would be putting a bet on him keeping them up.”
QPR’s survival prospects no longer look so forlorn on the back of this unexpected rout. Eduardo Vargas opened the scoring with a superb 25-yard dipping shot, Charlie Austin added a second with a far-post header and then came that jaw-dropping goal from Zamora. Outpacing Joleon Lescott in the inside-right channel, the 34-year-old flicked the ball on the run with the outside of his left boot, lobbing the stranded Boaz Myhill and putting West Brom 3-0 up inside 42 minutes. A touch of genius.
Victor Anichebe, with a header from eight yards, pulled back a goal just before the hour-mark and chances came and went to score a second before Youssouf Mulumbu’s dismissal for an elbow on Joey Barton put any thoughts of a home fightback to bed. Barton, rifling home a left-footed shot in injury-time, added a fourth and promptly called for Austin, who took his tally for the season to 16, to get a chance with England.
“It helps if you play for certain clubs to play for England,” Barton said. “Certain people who haven’t done as well as Charlie, who has scored so many goals in a struggling side, seem to be shoo-ins in the England side. I suppose who do you drop to put Charlie in there? That is probably the issue but no doubt they have got their eye on him and if he keeps scoring goals, they can’t ignore him. This is his first year in the Premier League and if he gets to 20 goals it would be phenomenal.”
As for West Brom, Saturday’s home game against Leicester City has now taken on greater significance with such a tough run-in. “Maybe that’s a bit of a reality check for us for the rest of the season,” Chris Brunt said. “We’re not quite home and dry yet.”
Man of the match Matt Phillips (QPR)
