...bit late, but as usual! Unfortunately I was one of the mugs who travelled down to Swansea yesterday... THE GAME I think I said before the game that I would have been happy with 4 points from Norwich and Swansea, but with our draw with Norwich we needed 3 points yesterday. The first worrying sign was no striker (we seem to be a bit short of those!!!) and Taarabt playing up front on his own. That was mistake number 1. Mistake number 2 duly followed- give Swansea and early lead. And the mistakes kept on flowing throughout the first half, time and time again we make ourselves look like a pub team. Swansea didnt have to work hard for their goals, both were poor defending and generally didnt get out of 1st gear in the first half. At half time I think all rangers fans were calling for the same thing - bring on a bloody striker!!! And play two up front. Against swansea you have to play 2 up front so you have 2 players to mark both Cb's when they go wide from goal kicks. Finally HR brought on Zamora and Granero. And it had an instant impact. Taarabt took a shot from wide and Vorm could only parry it into the path of Zamora. Cue the fightback....well any decent team would wouldnt they? Nope, not us. Gift them a 3rd goal within minutes which completely shook any positivity we had out of our system. From then on it returned to proceedings much like the first half although we did actually have a few decent attacks when we could be bothered. THE RATINGS CESAR - 5 - didnt look fit, and we now know he wasnt. first and second goals he didnt have much help with, but tbh could have parried both into better areas. 3rd goal was a disgrace to let him score from there, and the fourth not much chance tbh. kicking was awful and even managed to concede a corner from a kick out. TRAORE - 4.5 - got skinned every time and was poor all day. gave the ball away far too often and didn't look like a PL player at all. was often out of position and that was evident for the second goal. HILL - 6 - better than most, but found life tough. let michu go a number of times and one he just stood there with his hand in the air claiming offside - he should know better. didnt do enough for me to actually affect the game for us really. SAMBA - 5.5 - somehow let michu shove him off the ball for the 4th goal and didnt win as many headers as he should be winning. ONUOHA - 4.5 - shocking performance much like traore and often out of position, gave the ball away and couldnt cope at all. DERRY - 4.5 - rightly subbed off imo as the midfield as a unit were awful. just didnt do enough to help the team. MBIA - 5 - full of energy and had a couple of nice links with adel but also showed the other side with another dive (that the ref bought!) and gave the ball away alongside derry. JENAS - 4.5 - awful. looked well off the pace and barely did anything. didnt win any 50/50 challenges and often caught out of position. passing woeful. TOWNSEND - 6 - a few bright moments but didnt do enough to create chances - although very little support was around in the middle of the box. again, like hill stood claiming a foul when we could have won the ball and been in with a shot. often caught in possession. MACKIE - 4.5 - did nothing really. faded out of the game for most of the half he was on for and rightly subbed really. barely noticed him. TAARABT - 6.5 - our most likely source of anything positive but struggled v two massive CB's on his own in the first half unsurprisingly and was clearly frustrated. tried his best and had a few decent shouts. complete lack of any support though. SUBS: ZAMORA - 6.5 - bright and got stuck in. clever bits of play and helped taarabt massively. got us back in the game but doesnt look fit at all. GRANERO - 4.5 - calmed the midfield down for the first 5 mins of the second half but then faded and we ended up in the same situation as the first half. overpowered and out numbered. SWP - 4.5 - nice volley but that was it really. THE FINAL WORD Well absolute disgust and anger was over many r'ss fans faces yesterday. What a utterly disgraceful and shocking performance from so called football players. The lot of them never turned up and didnt look like they gave a bloody damn. How far did we have to travel to watch that pile of dross. I can only hope they travelled by coach so their journey home took longer than mine. I didnt clap any of them at full time as they were a disgrace to watch - summed up by Clint Hill at full time holding both hands up to the fans to say sorry!!!! How on earth can we perform so badly? We could barely string a run of passes together and cant seem to do the simple things right? Swansea looked the much much better side by far and had easy work for the three points. Our midfield may as well not have been there as they were chasing shadows for 87 mins (three mins after half time was the only time we played well). How can players who consider them selves to be PL players have such a lack of basic football awareness, ability and bottle? We yet again cant keep the ball from OUR OWN throw ins, we have no ideas of corners or free kicks and its more of a kick it and hope type of thing. What a utter shambles and mess we are in. Im sorry, but we have no chance of staying up based on that game. We drove all the bloody way from Sussex to go and support that lot and quite frankly I dont know why I bloody bother anymore. Seven wins from our next 12 games? We have won two from 26 so far. Not a hope in hell. Time to accept relegation and have a mass clear out in the summer. Some may say thats throwing the towel in, but the PL has ruined the soul of our club and ripped out all the hard work everyone put in to get us up to this level. Time to start again and build a new side for the future. This lot have let us down time and time again. But one thing I do know, I wont stop going to matches as I can't. Its one of those things, you just have to. Just want us to show some passion and fight and not roll over like we did yesterday. The above may not make much sense, but that reflects our 'performance' yesterday. Nothing made any sense. HR got it badly wrong tactically, and the players never bothered to fight.
Oh and we have to attack to score! Yet again we gave them too much respect - get in their faces and have a go!
Very much the story of our season in 90 minutes. I really salute those of you who travelled and were let down yet again...
Quality stuff from Judo as usual. I feel very bad for all the lads on here that go to a lot of our matches and spend a lot of money, only to be served up such disinterested sh*t. Its a disgrace.
Thanks mate. I think you hit the nail on the head - it is a disgrace that the players obviously hold us fans in such disregard that they cant even be arsed to work their socks off. Things wont always go well, but fans cannot complain too much if every single player gives their all - and at the moment it just isnt happening.
FFS go and watch non-league if you want a love-in with the players. Too much money at our level now. That said I still believe Harry doesn't want to be made a fool of. See what happens after the break. Then have a go........
Great post, Judo. I specially liked the comment about the PL ruining the club's soul, though not sure I entirely agree... Suspect the soul took a battering when Chris Wright took over and ****ed up, then it got a right pasting from Eccles and Bluebottle too.
Great post, the only thing I can add is I genuinely don't think you'll need 40 points, I think it'll be 35/36. After Man U, there are plenty of winnable games. Swansea is a tough game, Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal (Cup)mall failed to win there. It only takes 2 wins on the spin and thinks start to look different.
Well, I think we recovered that in our promotion year - everyone was fighting for the same cause and everyone was together. now we have bits and pieces, and a clearly divided dressing room.
I cant see us getting anywhere near 35 tbh. Of course I may be wrong, but I just cant see these bunch of mercenaries getting that high. HR has also said 2 wins change things - but again, we have only one two games all season, and we just dont have enough goals in us to win matches regularly.
Brave report Judo, that must have been tough to write, well done mate. Don't throw in the towel yet though. The team are now off to Dubai to re-group. A far more resolute performance against United will lead us into the critical matches against Southampton, Sunderland and Villa in March. It is time for Redknapp to earn his money.
I know it's hard to be positive and it's not for me to come on here and tell you otherwise but as an outsider you strike me as a Jekyll and Hyde team. The brilliant performances against Fulham, Chelsea, Spurs and City and then the tame performances against Liverpool, Swansea and Norwich.
Two wins in 26 games and now we need at least 6 in 12, the sums don't add up. If we were playing well and losing unluckily you might think there was a chance, but in all honesty our position flatters us...
We all genuinely respect your views on here mate as you make some great points. The last one there is spot on in terms of performances - but thats what worries me. Last year our run in contained many of the big sides so we had nothing to lose and performed well. We just couldnt beat the teams around us. This year our run in contains all the sides around us - and normally that is a good thing - but with QPR, as you say we do the opposite
I would agree up to a point. Winning promotion masked the crap going on in the background. Bluebottle and Eccles were smart enough to realise that what Warnock pulled off in such a short space of time, and with a pretty modest budget, was nothing short of a miracle. In some respects I don't blame them for cashing in when they did coz the money/gamble required for the next stage, i.e. a PL campaign, was mindblowing compared to what they'd been prepared to put up for players previously. The timing of bollocks and we know the rest all too well. Well done for making the trip yesterday, Jude. That road system coming back out again confused the **** out of me the last time I drove it; kept getting in the wrong lane and blocked by umpteen buses!
Yep, agree with that - FB and BE let Amit take control as they knew he would do a better job. Then they just took their money and ran - and im pleased they did - TF, despite what some people have said against him has been brilliant for the club. Im sure eventually he will get it right, but not this year. We seemed to find a decent parking area 10mins from the stadium and actually got away quite well - somehow!
from a neutrals perspective who was at the match then all i can say really is you have got some really good players and produced in flashes some good football...but what you dont have is a good manager who looked as if he is not that bothered anyway. ok he says the right thing in interviews and that but i have always found him so overrated its un true....Anyone and everyone who loves football would have bet their life's savings that qpr would be comfortable in the premiership with the players you have at your disposal but you had sparkey at the start and rightly so you got rid, but what did your boss do he went with the hype of redknapp who coincidentally was never in the frame for the England job at any time, it was all media bullshit as usual. It is redknapp who decides the training , also picks the side and directs the players on which way to play. It is his fault you are not a bad side just badly managed by an overrated manager...
Cheers Judo Good report and have to agree with most of it. As for the NPC, we werent even a good team when we got promoted. We may have won the league but that was down to a few key players. Once they got found out in the Prem there was never any plan B. Mathematically we can stil do it, personally just dont see where the goals are going to come from?
