What a horrible game and Preston are a horrible team. They initiated the dark arts of the game from the off, constantly in the refs ear, constantly whinging, constantly time wasting and constantly fouling. The ref let them get away with it and subsequently lost control of the match resulting in some of the most bizarre decisions I've ever seen. This bloke was the ref when we played Sunderland a few weeks back who sent off their goalie and seemed ok then. What a contrast from today.
We didn't do enough to win the game and we didn't deserve to lose but we played into their hands. We had no invention and constantly lobbed the ball up in the air for their back four to gobble up. ( I think I can confidently say that the ball was in the air for seventy minutes of this game. ) We started the game slowly and predictable and that panned out for pretty much the whole match other than a ten minute rally in the second half that produced nothing. I can only recall one weak shot straight at the goalie from Manning early in the second half. Other than that zilch, which is pretty damning when attacking the loft end when you expect some goalmouth drama.
Not one QPR player can come away from that debacle with a positive. Everything that could go wrong did. The corners were rubbish, we didn't beat the first man every time. The throw ins we lost the ball immediately and our free kicks were ineffective as were all of our substitutions. Ingram didn't look confident and his distribution is worse than Alex McCarthy's ( which takes some doing ) so I hope that Lumley proves to be a better option.
The only thing that made me grin was Holloway doing an impersonation of Preston's Robinson as he left the pitch on 96 minutes. He was making out he was running but was actually going slower than someone walking normally and it took him roughly six hours and twenty nine minutes to reach the touch line ( according to Diane Abbott. ) Ollie for the remaining time repeated this charade in front of the Preston bench until the final whistle but the truth be known he was out Alex Neiled and that was his only response. He couldn't change it or effect it on the pitch during the game which is rather disturbing as Preston were ****ing awful.