The gaffer had his press conference yesterday but he didn't actually say anything so I've been hanging on to see if any team news pops up. McDonald and Fredericks are obviously out. Indications are that Kalas and Ayite are very doubtful and Malone has a 'slight hamstring problem'. The good news is that Madl was in the sqad against Nottingham Forest and although he didn't play, should be okay for this one. In some ways the injuries may not be a bad thing; it's maybe the time for Jokavonvic to stop tinkering. For instance, I gather Piazon was one who 'knew his way to goal' on Tuesday so surely deserves another chance. I'd go for the same group again with only a couple of changes in the starting line-up: ........................Button.............. ...Odoi....Sigurdsson...Madl...Sessegnon.... ............Tunnicliffe...Parker... ....Piazon........Cairney.........Aluko... ....................Martin........ No Kebano, who wasn't in Tuesday's squad, and no LVC, who for some reason isn't in the Gaffer's eye. The U23 game today may tell us more about either/or.
Hope you pick this up from Down Under rosc. QPR will be without left-back Jake Bidwell who suffered a serious shoulder injury in the 1-1 draw at Burton on Tuesday,
I really want the boys to win this. For everything to click into place , the near misses to hit the mark and for us to defensively shut the game out. To really put a shift in, hustle and pressure them for the whole game. I really think the team can do this. Except when we fanny around with backwards and sideways passes in our half though , obviously! COYW
The man looking after today's game is Lee Mason. Mr Mason or Mr Inconsistency as he has been labelled, was a reasonably familiar figure when we were in the other Division. In the Championship we've seen him once. The 1-0 defeat at home to Millwall in August 2014 when he booked 3 players, all Fulham; Hoogland, Bodurov, Stafylidis. And that is the one consistent thing about Mr Mason - he regularly books more home players than away ones. His difficulty is not so much that he gets a lot of 'big' decisions wrong, rather that he lets an awful lot of little ones go, which favours a robust away side. This season he's only been given 3 games so far - all in the Premiership - and that may say something. In those, he's given out 8 yellows. Last season he ref'd 34 games and dished out 96 yellows and 3 red.
I take it we are sending Martin back at the end of the loan. Thank God we didn't shell out a permanent fee for him. Can we end the loan early? Ship him back to Derby and get in an actual striker.
Two pens missed in one match, absolute joke. Not just that but so many chances and we can't take them. The failure to sign a proven goalscorer will cost us this season.
Yeah, it is difficult Craving. If you had one of those new fivers for every What If ? today you'd have had enough to offer Jimmy Floyd Piggybank a bung. For now all I can bring myself to do is pick out two of them: * if Cairney hadn't missed that penalty in the 5th minute we would have bluttered them * if Parker hadn't gone off (presumably injured) we wouldn't have lost the midfield and gone on to win
How the hell did we lose that. If we had a half decent striker we would have won by a hat full - again. I really hope the decision to take Parker off was because of a knock, if not that was a really poor decision. Again I point fingers at Chris Martin, thank goodness we only have him till January. He's not match fit and cannot hit a barn door. QPR were so poor it is criminal that we can lose today to them.
Has Jokanovic even bothered to look at any Videos of Chris Martin when he was scoring freely at Derby to look how to play him, I keep repeating myself Martin IS NOT A LONE STRIKER. All last season I wonder if Jokanovic had bothered to watch videos of Fulham players to see their strengths but it was obvious he hadn't bothered. This coach is beginning to really annoy me, he wants us to keep possession and slow passing out from the back, in all our games we have had the most possession percentage but no end product, but our attackers seem doomed from the start, the instinct of getting quick shots on goal seems to have been coached out of them as the players want another touch or pass, there's nothing instinctive about their play. The only time the passing works is when we attack quickly and have teams running back towards their own goal. Other then that the slow build up gives them time to get back and defend in numbers.
Obviously...and without the frustrating expletives.....I still cannot believe that we did not win the match by maybe 4-1 having wasted so many chances - 25 shots including 2 penalties and 3 open goals. We have a strong midfield but it seems to count for nothing without a cutting edge. I'm really not sure about Chris Martin, or is it how we are playing him? Certainly the play became more straightforward when Matt Smith came on. Frankly, Rangers deserved nothing from the game and walked away with 3 points which we threw at them as an early Xmas present. I'm kinda hoping that things will gel with a win, but maybe that's taking Glass-Half-Full a bit too far. Nothing to lose my having a Bilic-style team-bonding session.....
2 dodgy penalties, right result, just made it more entertaining and a hell of a lot of fun in the away end! Cheers!
Is there still actually some QPR fans around on here?? Thought most of you left in embarrassment after the last few derby results.
