Well, as I am on the long journey back to Sussex I thought I would write my match report. But the problem is, where do I start to explain that? THE GAME One decent shot on target in the whole game says most of it. It was a mixture of defensive tactics, complaceny and bad performances from crucial players. We actually began ok, had a lot of possession and forced them back, but its the same old story of not taking enough shots. Neither side was playing well, but we did look the more likely to force a breakthough (although it didnt look very likely!). It was a poor game tbh, not much to talk about apart from the fact that our final pass was poor. Just as the half was coming to a close Kranjcar found a bit of space to the right of the D and fed a nice ball through to Austin who took a quick shot which was going straight at the keeper. A save surely, but no, it went through his legs and crawled over the line! 1-0 Rangers! Not deserved though. The key message at half time would be to keep it tight for 10 mins or so. However, as has been a common theme this season we came out half asleep and let in a sloppy goal which was scored from an acute angle from the left edge of the area. That should have woken us up, but our performance got worse and worse. Touches were bad, little movement and very slow build up play. We had a couple of half chances when AJ and Hoilett came on. We still looked more likely to score simply because of our possession, but then on 85 minutes they go and score from a corner. No time left to pull a goal back, and a lovely journey home now. THE RATINGS GREEN - 6.5 - cant believe the first goal went in, and just as we were under pressure at the end to equalise he sent a free kick into the stands. Claimed crosses well but didnt have a huge amount to do. ASSOU-EKOTTO - 6.5 - many good runs forward but had noboby ahead of him most of the time. Tried to create chances with little support. Gave up at the end though, which allowed them 2/3 chances to get a 3rd. HILL - 6 - average. won many headers but struggled to control their striker and the defence overall looked vulnerable at times. He got dragged out of position quite a lot. DUNNE - 6 - gave possession away a lot and clearances tended to fall back to doncaster players. Did make one nice pass to johnson though. SIMPSON - 5.5 - part of our problem right hand side throughout the game. Struggled to link with Phillips and gave easy passes away. Dragged out of position a fair amount. BARTON - 6 - probably the best of a bad bunch in midfield. Gave a bit of protection to the CB's and switched the play well on a number of occasions, but the midfield didnt function as a unit. JENAS - 4 - cant think of much that he did right really. Touch was awful which led him to make a poor slide tackle to try to regain the ball at the end. Passes were awful and he went missing for large parts. ONEILL - 5 - lack of pace didnt help him and he struggled to support Austin. Passes not brilliant, but seemed to be the only one trying to move into space unlike Jenas. KRANJCAR - 4 - stuck out on the left wing again which is madness. But he doesnt look fit enough to me. Kept on coming inside, leaving nobody for BAE to pass to. Showed little creativity. PHILLIPS - 3 - shocking. The only thing he managed to do today was get out of bed. Every time the ball went to him he either lost it or went backwards. No thought to go forwards and beat a man. Also ended up holding his arm in the game so could be injured again. Pathetic performance though. AUSTIN - 6 - must be getting so frustrated at the lack of support. Nobody within 20 yards of him most of the time. Forced to come deep to get the ball and until AJ came on it left a gap in the middle. What he did do he did well. Won headers to get possession back. SUBS: JOHNSON - 6 - why is he not starting. He brought a bit of pace to our attack and gave them something extra to think about. HOILETT - 5.5 - came on far too late but showed composure and had the ability to keep the ball unlike his counterpart on the other wing in Phillips. FINAL WORD As you can tell, it wasnt pretty. Our midfield was awful and gave nothing to Austin. We barely managed to create a chance against a Doncaster side there for the taking. They were scared to attack us, until they realised we had no ideas. Phillips was awful and most of our attempts at creating something unfortunately went to him. He constantly passes backwards and seems like he cant beat a man or shoot. Today definitely saw the entrance of complacency and arrogance for sure. When we went 1-0 up thanks to a mistake by their keeper we thought that was it. Our build up play is far too slow. We just casually passed it around with no urgency or pace. Movement was also awful. We just couldnt find any space. Now, the tactics. For a while now we have all said we have been lucky to win certain games, and that we just dont attack enough. Today was the same. Lucky to be winning, lack of shots. But this time we didnt get lucky with a win. Today we got found out and punished. We shouldnt be losing games like that - it reminds me of Scunthorpe away in our promotion season. We are too negative. We HAVE to play a 2nd striker against teams like that. We didnt giv them enough to think about up front until AJ came on. Also, Kranjcar on the left?!? He cannot play there. He naturally moves into the middle, leaving BAE exposed and with no body ahead of him to pass to. Harry has his part to play in the performance today - he should have learnt from that in the Charlton game. Against the top teams we will struggle with these tactics, and have been lucky to win several games (Ipswich, Yeovil etc...) As I said, our build up play is painfully slow which allows the opposition to re group and get men behind the ball. I said I felt we had to win against Charlton, Doncaster, Bournemouth, and Blackburn. Now eve more pressure on the latter two. 6 points a must. Also its typical that we wait for Burnley to lose for weeks and then dont take advantage when they do.
That's a pretty fair summary Judo. It reflects what I watched on a stream unfortunately. I'd like to add something constructive, but words fail me at the moment. Thanks for the report and have a safe journey home.
Just got back with Judo and read his match report. Have to say its spot on. The only thing I would add is that Phillips also managed to put the right shirt on today. He was truely lousy on the pitch though. Was it £4 million we paid for him? Well it looks like we were turned over big time in that deal. I thought that wingers were supposed to either run down the wing and cross or cut inside and shoot. It appears he cant do either very well or often enough. As Judo also said Im sure he isnt fit, he was holding his arm for a large part of the second half. Jenas wasnt much better. Harry surely must realise that we need to change tactics. If we carry on like this we wont go up, we've been lucky so far, until today when we got caught out.
Should also add a great turnout today, in excess of 1800 R's. Its a shame the team went missing though, the fans deserved more today.
Pretty much what I've been saying all season, the only difference is we didn't fluke this one. How can anyone be happy with this win lose or draw?
On a brighter note Ossie, it could be the kick up the arse they need. The faithful must also get behind them Tuesday night. We're all in this together and we can all play our part.
Apart from that Wubba had a very good pie, that's the first positive post I seen tonight - hope you're right! PS. I had a top top curry!
Yes of course, I almost forgot about Wubba's pie positivity. I had a marvellous tandoori chicken myself last night. But the best curry I ever had was in Barcelona, it was a chicken tikka-takka.
Just watched the highlights and he was at fault for their first. He looked so lackluster. That's the one thing that's unforgivable in Pro football. With the amount of money they're on, the least you should expect is for them to try. I hope a few of them are ashamed of themselves tonight.
Sussex, was Phillips really THAT bad (Trust me all I've seen is the result, nothing else) ? It's hard to work out how a player plays sometimes fantastic, skilful attacking football one week (as he has at times), and the next week play as awfully as you suggest. It just seems weird to me. Any ideas ? Injury ? Lazy ?
I think he should be moved inside. He's never a winger. He reminds me of Sir Les. He looks and carries himself like him and has a thunderbolt of a shot. Sir Les was also initially deployed as a winger. ( For those of us young enough to remember. ) The rest is now built into QPR folklore.
I didn't think he was worse than anyone else, it was just a shocking performance overall. TFLS had to pick a lame off target hill effort as our best shot. Kranjcar was worse than him on the other side.
Exactly what I'd do, give him 4 or 5 games in a free role with Hoilett and Philips either side and tell him to make that position his own. If he doesn't deliver, play Carroll.
I remember Leslie very well before he went to Turkey, never rated him at all. Could not believe it was the same player when he returned
Thanks Judo....I can feel the dissapointment in that post It is a stark contrast to your others.... Take solice in the fact that you are one of our travelling army that do the club proud every game Would love to hear from Col....
Staines, I think he was that bad, however I think he does have a problem with his arm and maybe that is mentally holding him back. My post was written immediately after a 4 hour drive home, so with hindsight it is possible that my opinion was a bit harsh. If he isnt 100% though he shouldnt allow himself to be on the pitch. And neither should the physio. With Krancjar playing wide left, and an inneffective phillips wide right, both wingers gave little thought to protecting our full backs when we were defending. When on the attack 99% of the time phillips, after receiving the ball, simply just passed it back to simpson. Krancjar on the other wing went missing for most of the game and a lot of the time was in an inside left sort of position which left our left back exposed. As nines has said we need to get behind the team on tuesday but Harry must take most of the blame yesterday. The team was set up in such a way that we would always struggle. Having said that if the team had had the correct attitude, we should still have won. As it is they turned up and thought the game was won as they got off the coach. In reality we got exactly what we deserved, nothing. Lets hope Harry learns fast.
