The team I’d like to see starting tomorrow night is: ………………….…Lonergan…………. Fredericks….Stearman..Burn….Ream… …………….Tunnicliffe…..O’Hara…. …..LVC…………Cairney……….Pringle.. ………………….Dembele…… But that won’t be the one selected by Kit. In today’s press conference he confirmed that Jazz Richards took a knock in the Stoke game (actually it was from a bad foul tackle that brought a booking for Crouch) and is out. Jamie O’Hara and Tom Cairney will be back in the squad, while the usual suspects Parker, Williams and Garbutt are back in full training but not in contention. No mention of Matt Smith which is mildly interesting since the BBC have been touting rumours since last Monday that he’s fit to play!? More importantly no mention of Ryan Fredericks, although that one I’d take as good news. I guess the first consideration is whether kit will stick with the Stearman/Burn partnership? Frankly on showings over the last two games he’d be ‘clueless’ if he didn’t. And if he does, who gets the LB spot – Ream or Husband? Well though he did against Stoke, have a feeling that Kit won’t give the job to Ream. Matilla (confirmed on the Official website as MOTM) showed in the Stoke game exactly how the defensive midfield role should be played. Cramp got the better of him 10 minutes or so in that game (hardly surprising given the amount of ground he covered in what was his first match) and maybe another coming so soon after is asking too much. Whatever, Kit is always going to fancy Tunnicliffe to partner O’Hara, who has name already on the team sheet. Ahead of them it’s simply a matter of who gives way to Cairney; because you can take it that McCormack and Dembele also already have their names on that team sheet. Unfortunately I believe it will be LVC. Wrong in my view as you’ll have gathered, but there you are. So reckon he’ll go with: ………………………..Lonergan…………….. ..Fredericks….Stearman…Burn……Husband… ……………..Tunnicliffe…..O’Hara… …..Cairney………………….……Pringle…. ……………<..McCormack..>…… ……………………..Dembele…… Not hugely different from my own preferred XI. In fact, taking LB out of the equation, on the face of it it's only McCormack for LVC. The significant difference however is in the system we'd play.
As C58 mentioned - I see in his pre match talk Symons mentioned every recovering injured player except Smith !!! Didn't say if this injection had worked. I just have a feeling Symons doesn't rate Smith for some reason, only fan power seemes brought him back from Bristol. This lineup is not going to happen but I'd like to see ………………..Lonergan…………….. ..Fredericks….Stearman…Ream……Husband… …………..…..Mattila...........… .....Cairney………O'Hara..........LVC……. ……......…..Burn……Dembele… Thought Mattila played well, his passing was accurate and didn't lose the ball that much when put under pressure against Stoke. Think I'd start with Burn in a back 5, and see if that could release Fredricks & Husband, if not, revert to Burn up front to occupy their Center backs with Dembele feeding off him, then in the 70th minute after allowing LVC to run himself into the ground going box-to-box, bring on McCormack to harass a tiring defense.
Thought Symons might want a helping hand for plan B, it gets boring watching 10 grown men passing the ball around before it gets passed back to their own keeper to kick it up front.
It seems that every other game these days an ex-player (favourite?) turns up for the opposition. Tonight it's Paul Konchesky. please log in to view this image Looking forward to Ryan Fredericks giving him an absolute roasting!
Kit out! As ever, no plan B: he had no idea how to change the game once it was clear we were much better than them - we just carried on in our superiority. Same old, same old.
Well the omens were right there in the extra bright lights tonight and at last we’ve broken the ‘Live TV’ gremlin. Lost for words really, so rather than eulogise about how good that was as a team performance and because I’m still struggling to decide who was MOTM, l’ll simply post this link to allow you to enjoy the goals: http://www.skysports.com/football/fulham-vs-qpr/report/339632
Really pleasing performance tonight. From the moment we scored early-on and QPR did not equalise (still seemed offside to my perspective) and we took the second, the QPR lost their shape and it was one-way traffic. Should have made it 6 in the second half. Really have to agree with C58 - I could not pick any MOTM. Building on a strong FFC back line, the midfield workrate was the best I've seen: O'Hara developing so much play; Tunnicliffe working really hard with Cairney and Pringle and later LVC all really stretching poor QPR. Angella and the rest of the defence got outplayed. Best yet from Dembele, and McCormack finding form and the goal. I could get used to this. Roll on Wolves.
Someone forgot to tell QPR this was a derby game - made us look like Barcelona. Best performance in a good while. Total team performance and good in both halves ! Great Dembele - McCormack threat, Hussled for every ball. O'hara controlling the game. Space all over the pitch. It was a perfect game. I said after the Stoke game we have the quality players to be a good side - tonight it all clicked and should be a great confidence boost. Fair play to half of their fans for staying to the end - their team tonight were woeful. Good on Kit for getting the players up for this match. I have nothing against QPR but I have a few QPR fans at work and I'm looking forward to Monday.
A great overall performance by the team, if I had to choose one player, for me it was Fredericks, who I thought was outstanding, he's quick, good defensively, going forward he caused QPR all sorts of problems. A word on the Ref who I thought let the game flow, and allowed some good meaty challenges, and controlled the game while not having to get his book out too often. Symons has to keep the same starting team for Wolves on Tuesday barring injuries
Husband and Pringle were absolutely roasting Perch in the first half, making him look absolutely dreadful. Fredericks was outstanding and I greatly appreciated the sense of calm that seemed to emanate from Stearman. Kay Voser continues to have the almost criminal man bun. My man of the match is Dembele. Obviously he got substituted before the end, but after grabbing his goal so early he played with great confidence throughout. He was outpacing and outmuscling the QPR defenders and carried us forward repeatedly until McCormack seemed to wake up after 25 minutes (McCormack was then very good for the remainder of the game, but honestly looked quite disinterested early on). His energy provided a focal point of the great endeavour of our midfield and fullbacks and he looked like a £10m striker tonight. Obviously he's going to have many worse nights than tonight, but he was top notch exactly when we needed him.
Barely got seated when our first went in.,as the game progressed my thoughts were how long can we keep this up. A great team performance one of the best I have seen for several years, My M O T M, just shading it Dembele. Lets hope it now all upwards, league wise.
That's exactly what I was thinking. I remember us leading 3 -nil against them under Jol and the second half being nail biting. I think we won 3-2 in the end.
QPR were as pathetic as the blue smoke bomb their fans let off in the 70th minute but, as the saying goes, “you can only play with the hand in front of you”. And did our boys play! I’ve not seen a better team performance since … well, since 2nd October 2011. Some 20 hours later I’m still hopping about over MOTM. Can’t be Lonergan, who had nothng to do apart from swooping on one header and kneeling for Austin’s limp attempt. Can’t be Woodrow, who bust his pre-match twitter boast of scoring twice with his two shots to date then with his one and only shot in this match, pulled it wide. Tempting though it might be to give it to the ‘born again’ LVC, who when he came on ran QPR ragged, that would be irrational. But isn’t it terrific to be able bring someone like him on and actually increase the pressure on the opposition. So who? Frankly the others were all 5 star .To pick one based on petty criticism is undeserving – with the wee exception perhaps of McCormack, whose first touch at times could have been better and he really should have added to his two goal tally. (I know, being churlish when I said I wouldn’t. But there you are.) If forced into a decision I’d say two players contributed just that little bit more to the team effort: Moussa Dembele He was hungry all night. Whenever the ball was cleared by our defence, so long as it was in open space, Moussa was there first. He held the ball up well, always looking for options – indeed the cliché ‘defending from the front’ would apply. And of course there was his superbly headed goal. Ryan Tunnicliffe Since coming into the team after his suspension Ryan has been a transformed player. Last night however, he surpassed anything we’ve seen so far. He was unrelenting and so full of energy for the full 90 plus minutes. There was also the support and confidence he added in the brief first half period when QPR could have got back into the game. All of that said I still can’t bring myself to single out one player as MOTM, so I’ll chicken out and go for this man:
