I listened to the BBC London radio commentary this afternoon. They were obviously very biased in QPR's favour but they were particularly scathing of our keeper. I seem to remember at some point they said Gazzaniga had been suspect all game and they'd rather have Gazza in goal!
Our defence
- Thread starter lamby
- Start date
To be fair, on the Radio Solent live commentory they specifically said that Lallana was at fault, but we will have to watch the replay to be certain. However he more than made up for it, as did Gazza, he did, if Solent are to be believed, deal well with most that came his way for the rest of the game, you have to remember he is totally inexperienced at this level, and has not had much time to learn, I am sure KD is coaching him.
Shaw looked knackered to me when he came off and he is only young. So would say it's a case of fitness yeah.
As far as I can tell that when Shaw tired, Fox came on and did a very adequate job, so he won't get any stick from me.
I suspect it's the same reason Chamberlain wasn't played for full games for a long time. I believe it's because 17YO's have not fully developed physically and need to be treated a little more gently.
Vin
It's a little bit of this and little bit that the first team games are so much more intense than the age-group games he's used to playing. Not surprising at all that he can't last the 90 yet but he will get there.
I agree, Fox is perfectly capable of playing for 20 minutes against a tiring winger!
It's called team work, still part of the squad, so get behind him if you want him to want to play well for us.
It's a curious one. Think Shaw on for Fox against WBA was just to dip his toe in the water, then think Fox has just come on to close out the games and make sure Shaw doesn't run himself into the ground and get an injury or something which at his age would be terrible, and Fox's delivery late in games is always extra valuable. Personally though I don't think Shaw has looked particularly tired when he's come off, but if it is something to do with fitness I think we can trust our physio-come-manager!
Watching online, he was very poor. He only made the one really glaring error for the goal where he charged out only to get nowhere near the ball and allow the ball to gently bounce into the middle of the net, but he was incredibly shaky all game. He almost muffed a simple save which nearly trickled in under him, came out a few times and whiffed at thin air, just didn't seem to have any confidence or be comfortable on the pitch. Not exactly damning at his age, these are things you can expect every now and then from a young keeper of any level, and whilst we don't have a Spurs-like situation of having Hugo Lloris warming the bench, we do have options. Wouldn't be surprised if Nigel utilised one of those options, also wouldn't be surprised if Nigel stuck with his man. We'll all be speculating until next week I suppose!
I also had to put up with that biased commentary. I remember them saying that and just before they said it one of them asked the other why Gazzaniga had not picked up the ball at one point. The other guys answer was because he is not very good! They were very critical of him but the most annoying thing was that for about 3/4 of the game they referred to him as Gazz-ing-ga!!!! Idiots!
The goal was blantently Gazza's fault, if he didn't make the ridiculous short trip in to no mans land, where he had no chance of getting to the ball first, it was a comfortable and very very simple catch. I'm sorry, but Gazzaniga looks very subject, 2 clean sheets and a further 2 points would have been in order from 2 mistakes. There were other examples in todays game where QPR could have scored, but as no one was playing as a striker for them, there was no one to capitalise.
I was rather hoping for one today at half-time, but a comfortable away win is quite enough for me.
First clean sheet in a home win over Norwich would do me a treat!
Fair comment..... but it should have been 6 points out of 6 he is proving to be just a tiny bit unreliable. Those two points we dropped would have had us out of the drop zone!!
Total agreement with this statement - was going to write the same. Our back-four does not contain anyone of EPL standard - Clyne could be in the future.
Adkins said he subbed Shaw in both games, because he is a young lad and needs to get match fit...cramp I presume. Shaw looks the real deal and was more attacking in this game.
On Sky, a commentator mentioned our fragile defence. The other man replied, 'Defence isn't fragile, but they have a fragile keeper.' Gazza was at fault for their goal and didn't seem to look that confident. Also has a tendency not to hold onto the ball, but to bounce it down...very risky. I thought he should play today, but not sure now..