City 0-2 Q.P.R

[Callabinho]

The way its going we will pass ourself's in to league one!

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

No quality upfront. Fryatt just isn't good enough, even at this level. You can't win games if you can't score goals. We need fire power,and the defence seems to lack understanding between players.

[QPRDW]

Having read through many of the posts and the odd idiot one from QPR supporters following our match on Saturday, I thought that I would break a habit of a lifetime and put forward a few thoughts myself about the match and where necessary put a few misconceptions right. Don’t dismiss me and tell me to f**k off to my own board, I am sure that after a good result you guys will look on other teams boards and read the comments. Go on admit it, you do. Firstly, I would say that Leicester are certainly the best team that we have played by a country mile this season, a decent passing side, but dare I say it, a typical Paulo Sousa side.

Sousa, has now managed three sides in the championship, us, you and Swansea. And there are common denominators with each team that he has put together:

1. His teams play football and move the ball around the pitch giving the opposition less possession of the ball and also time to regroup and defend in numbers if necessary;

2. His teams tend to be very meagre in terms of goals against, although he is managing to buck the trend with Leicester City this season.

3. His teams don’t score a lot of goals, (see no.1 for this reason).

Once Sousa has his defence sorted then your team will begin to pick up points but don’t expect a goal fest every game, there will be a lot of nail biting for you guys in the future that is if you manage to stay awake for the whole 90 minutes!

Going onto Saturday’s game. Now, Derby away aside, we have played some outstanding football and as the results have shown we have literally blown teams away. Just check on the postings on last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning on the Ipswich forums to see how well we played against them and their thoughts about us, then check the McBoro sites from the previous weekend, the Sheff Utd sites, who are even now talking about us and so on and so forth, so in a way it is a shame that you did not witness the fast free-flowing football that has been the hallmark of our success this season. But what you got instead, although the first 15 minutes were pretty well dominated by us, was a team with a plan B. A Sousa team does not have this.

Last season at our place, we were flying, scoring goals for fun, thinking of changing the name of the club to Queens Park Rangers Four! Then Leicester came to town and Nigel Pearson had a game plan that had us sussed. He made sure his forwards pressured our defenders and stopped us playing from the back to the front. The plan worked, despite us taking the lead, and yes I do remember the Leicester players taking every opportunity to time-waste. Next time you are 1-0 up away from home with 30 minutes to go, you watch your players begin to slow things done, it will happen, it is football, and referees don’t get fooled. Hence 7 minutes injury time on Saturday.

We came, we dominated early and we scored, we then, as a result of obviously a good scouting report on Leicester, knew that they would come forward with their plan A and stick to it. Warnock knew this and set the team up accordingly. We still had our chances, and before you spout that this is biased drivel from a starry eyed QPR fan, I called the foul for the disallowed goal we had before the ball hit the back of the net, it was a push. I have also have had the misfortune of watching the R’s for nigh on 40 years, so the word, optimism and expectation are usually missing from my dictionary, but I always live in hope, usually to be badly let down. But, yes I am enjoying this moment, because as a QPR supporter, like Leicester supporters, it doesn’t come along that often.

But for many of your supporters to have a right dig about the way we approached the game and the ‘professionalism’ shall we say adopted by the team, and the direct route and robust style of play, I will say this is laughable and also a bit of pot and black kettle callings. There was four bookings during the match, two for each side, one of ours was for time wasting and the other for a foul committed by that well known footballing thug Akos Buzsaky. Now compare the yellow cards that we received with those and the offences that brought them for your team, the first one for you was a leg breaking tackle and it was only through our player jumping out of the way at the last minute, did a serious injury become avoided. The second was for a blatant pull back on Taraabt. You may point at the incident regarding Gorrks and Howard, in my Arsene Wenger style, ‘I did not see it’, I was actually planted at the top of the stand at the far end of the ground, so can only take your word for it. But let’s not be shy here, Howard is never backwards in coming forwards in leading with his elbows either. And can any of you Leicester supporters remember a manager you had a few years back, name of Martin O’Neill? If I remember correctly, he loaded his midfield with the likes of Savage, Lennon and Izzet if I am not mistaken, decent footballers, but not unknown for leaving their feet in when the opportunity arose, and then also the likes of Walsh and Marshall, no angels either. Memories are indeed very short.

Neil Warnock, footballs answer to Marmite. Personally I have always liked the guy, why? Well I suppose it is the bit of the rebel in me that is anti-establishment and he seems to have built up this kind of aura about himself. Hoofball manager, at times yes, but when circumstances require, if you have a team and no money then that seems to be the norm in England, to build a team that is big, strong and pacey. But Warnock has inherited and bought players that are certainly not suited to hoofball, the likes of Taraabt, Faurlin, Buzsaky and Ephraim. But what he has also brought with this is a new steel to the side, the likes of Derry and Hill, and a player that will run through brick walls and score goals as you witnessed on Saturday, Jamie Mackie. He has engendered into the flare players a work ethic, and he has created a great team spirit. As a man manager he is probably one of the best. Does he care about his reputation with opposition fans, not a monkeys.

Now I have also met Neil on a couple of occasions, one time at the end of last season I paid to play in his team against a Keith Curle XI, made up of supporters, in a game to raise funds for the QPR Community Trust Charity. The game was played on the Saturday morning after the end of last season, a full ninety minutes. He was there from 8 in the morning, and left about 1.30 in the afternoon, despite being a pundit at Wembley for the FA Vase final. He spent so much time chatting about football, wanting to find our thoughts on the club and was really interested about supporters tales of games gone by. He will not refuse an autograph or a photo with anybody. He is a thoroughly decent bloke, who speaks his mind, like many a Yorkshireman, but will defend his team to the hilt. He has not moaned about the referees this season, (and I thought the ref on Saturday was biased towards your lot!). Yes we have had five penalties this season, and four of them you would have agreed with, the fifth, against Ipswich, and if you watch the footage the decision was actually not to our benefit as Buzsaky had lashed in a 20 yarder as the ref blew. But Warnock does not get sent to the stands, if he was that bad with refs I am sure this would be the case. But sadly football supporters, join in on a media opinion of a bloke and think that it is all bad.

Warnock has bought 9 new players this season, he has spent less than £4million on these players, Sousa has spunked ¾ of this on one player. Jamie Mackie initially cost £125,000 with add-ons, he has scored 8 goals, even if he doesn’t score again this season, this is still money well spent. Warnock is a good manager for this division, Sousa, I fear for you is not. But what I would say, is how many of you guys, genuinely would swap Warnock for Sousa?

And finally our support, no we are not a big club, never pretended to be, 14,000 at home is a decent attendance, tickets aren’t the cheapest, we have a ground that is old, cramped and land-locked and right in central London where land is not cheap, or easily available. We also have four Premiership teams within a 10 mile radius, two of them members of the so-called ‘big-four’ and another in the Champions League this season. So competition is hot. To become a QPR supporter it is either a generation thing, a delusion or indeed a dedication to masochism. When we are poor the away support falls away, when we are good then more people travel. Seems to happen with a lot of teams, including Leicester, but before slaging us off, we support our team, like you support yours through shear dedication and not for the glory, so appreciate that we turn up in blue and white hoops and not the reds of Manure, Liverpool or the Arse, or the blue of the scum down the road from us, who really have come out of the woodwork in recent times. When we got relegated to League One a decade ago, we still averaged 14,000.

So that is my slant on things, we are doing well, but we are QPR, which means we could win the league this season, we may get in the play-offs, we may finish mid-table or we could get relegated! Who knows, at least life isn’t boring being an R.

[CosbehFox]

Most disappointing thing about the game was that we were firmly tactically out-thought on this one. Not for a lack of trying or effort. But QPR had their tactics completely spot on. Having their whole team push up, having their wingers chased down the full-backs, playing Shaun Derry in a role which involved lots of running and looks like a headless chicken but nevertheless providing a screen to their defence when clearly Gorkss and Connolly are average defenders. As the QPR fan says it was a performance which reminded me of us at Loftus Rd.

I'll save myself using the words 'Pearson' for the 600th time since July but all those folk who were saying he's negative, we had a rubbish season last year, he was a let-down against Cardiff first leg....well here's the other side of the coin, a bloke whose done nothing more than suggest he's a managerial charlatan who can't spot an eye for a player and thinks too much of himself.

[DanTheFox07]

Ive only just seen the goals, Omg what the hell was our Defence doing for mackie`s second, might aswell just scored the goal for him! Morrison looks like weak link at the back im afraid!

[philce]

Firstly, I would say that Leicester are certainly the best team that we have played by a country mile this season, a decent passing side, but dare I say it, a typical Paulo Sousa side.

But for many of your supporters to have a right dig about the way we approached the game and the ‘professionalism’ shall we say adopted by the team, and the direct route and robust style of play, I will say this is laughable and also a bit of pot and black kettle callings.

You may point at the incident regarding Gorrks and Howard, in my Arsene Wenger style, ‘I did not see it’, I was actually planted at the top of the stand at the far end of the ground, so can only take your word for it. But let’s not be shy here, Howard is never backwards in coming forwards in leading with his elbows either.

I thought your post made sense till I finished reading!

Lets just say you are welcome to your opinion and we will have ours.

If Howard had elbowed someone in our penalty area then you would be here moaning about that, swings and roundabouts maybe, but from comments made before the game your manager is well known for his comments to officials during the game, I noted that he sat down after the incident (and the handball shout later), after standing at the edge of the technical area barking at players/officials for the whole game.

Paddy Kenny's antics after he fell over catching a high ball should have earnt him a booking.

Yes you are a good side, but as has been said before, dont need to play like that to win, we played like that with Martin O'Neill because we were skint and couldnt sign the type of players that the pasing game needs. Hence the rough and ready side you mention. Yes its not pretty, but results count. I dont remember looking forward to a trip to Sheffield United with Warnock in charge, normally a kicking on and off the park.

Im still not sure if we escaped or missed out when it looked like Warnock was coming here, he just isnt liked among fans due to comments he has made about us!

[QPRDW]

I thought your post made sense till I finished reading!

Lets just say you are welcome to your opinion and we will have ours.

If Howard had elbowed someone in our penalty area then you would be here moaning about that, swings and roundabouts maybe, but from comments made before the game your manager is well known for his comments to officials during the game, I noted that he sat down after the incident (and the handball shout later), after standing at the edge of the technical area barking at players/officials for the whole game.

Paddy Kenny's antics after he fell over catching a high ball should have earnt him a booking.

Yes you are a good side, but as has been said before, dont need to play like that to win, we played like that with Martin O'Neill because we were skint and couldnt sign the type of players that the pasing game needs. Hence the rough and ready side you mention. Yes its not pretty, but results count. I dont remember looking forward to a trip to Sheffield United with Warnock in charge, normally a kicking on and off the park.

Im still not sure if we escaped or missed out when it looked like Warnock was coming here, he just isnt liked among fans due to comments he has made about us!

Seem to remember a few quid being spent on Lennon, as we were in for him at one point when he was at Crewe.

Paddy Kenny play-acting? The guy suffered a sprained ankle on landing, hence he then struggled with his drop-kicks and did not take any dead ball kicks for the remainder of the game, and please do not forget 7 minutes of injury time was added so the referee took everything into account.

As about being a good side and not needing to play like that to win, give yourselves some credit, as it was obvious to us QPR supporters that plan B was in operation given the way that you guys were playing, sometimes teams do win playing ugly, even Arsenal on the odd occasion, (not comparing us for one moment), Newcastle won ugly many times last season. Sousa's team cannot mix it up, Pearson's team did.

The Howard 'penalty' incident? I've seen Howard play many a time, for Luton and Derby and good player that he was, he was also a thug around the penalty area and not too shy to dish it out with his elbows, (you wait to see Kris Boyd though). Howard was sandwiched from the footage I have now seen and yes another ref could have given a penalty, but my feeling is that many more would not have done. The handball incident you mentioned? I think you were more clutching at straws there pal. The ball was blasted at Matt Connolly from all of two yards, straight at his midrift, if it hit his arm and I am not sure, then the alternative was that it would have hit him in the chest/stomach. No advantage was gained in any way whatsoever as the direction of the ball was not compromised. If that incident was against a Leicester player and a penalty given, then you would have gone balistic, do not deny it. Double standards and all that.

Pre-match interviews Sousa was already trying to influence the referee, I watched his pre-match interview on Leicester Player and he was already bemoaning us as a 'nasty' side and queried why we had already gained 5 penalties this season. Don't think that these interviews don't hit the maintstream media and get to be read by the referees because they do. Well being a 'nasty' side, prior to Saturday we had averaged 1 booking a game, nasty eh? committed one of the lowest number of fouls during a match, 'nasty' again, and no doubt paid shedloads to bribe the referees into giving penalties galore. Now log onto QPR Player and watch the penalty decisions given to us, two against Barnsley, one against Sheff Utd, one against McBoro and one against Ipswich and you will see that the only once disputed by any defenders was the first one against Barnsley, and I am sure that if that was a Leicester player fouled you would have screamed 'penalty', because it was a foul. The penalty given against Ipswich the referee was right in front of the incident and blew at the same time that Buzsaky blasted the ball into the top corner from 20 yards, with the players still not influenced by the sound of the whistle. If anything the awarding of the penalty was more detrimental towards us.

Finally, with Warnock constantly in the ear of the fourth official, so you said, well lets be honest, these guys have a hard skin, they are not dishonest individuals as Paulo Sousa suggested in his post-match interview, if Warnock would go too far then he would be sent to the stands. If you think that his behaviour during a match influences results then you are deluded my friend, because otherwise every bloody manager would behave in this manner, if anything such behaviour, if it is detrimental to the officials would work against QPR not for them. Think about the logic. No, the fact is that Sousa is grasping at straws to cover up his own inabilities. I liked Sousa at QPR and was furious when he was sacked, because I thought that he was building something, slowly but surely for the future, (funnily enough he did get sent to the stand once, ironically against a Warnock Crystal Palace team), but now listening to him, I have lost respect. He is not a man, he is a coward, he will not look at what he needs to do for his team, but concerntrate on excuses. Leicester may be better off now getting rid, rather than watching a goal-less season pan out.

[z-layrex]

I miss Nige.

I'm not slagging off Sousa I still believe in him and the boys, but I miss Nigel too.

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

Having read through many of the posts and the odd idiot one from QPR supporters following our match on Saturday, I thought that I would break a habit of a lifetime and put forward a few thoughts myself about the match and where necessary put a few misconceptions right. Don’t dismiss me and tell me to f**k off to my own board, I am sure that after a good result you guys will look on other teams boards and read the comments. Go on admit it, you do. Firstly, I would say that Leicester are certainly the best team that we have played by a country mile this season, a decent passing side, but dare I say it, a typical Paulo Sousa side.

Sousa, has now managed three sides in the championship, us, you and Swansea. And there are common denominators with each team that he has put together:

1. His teams play football and move the ball around the pitch giving the opposition less possession of the ball and also time to regroup and defend in numbers if necessary;

2. His teams tend to be very meagre in terms of goals against, although he is managing to buck the trend with Leicester City this season.

3. His teams don’t score a lot of goals, (see no.1 for this reason).

Once Sousa has his defence sorted then your team will begin to pick up points but don’t expect a goal fest every game, there will be a lot of nail biting for you guys in the future that is if you manage to stay awake for the whole 90 minutes!

Going onto Saturday’s game. Now, Derby away aside, we have played some outstanding football and as the results have shown we have literally blown teams away. Just check on the postings on last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning on the Ipswich forums to see how well we played against them and their thoughts about us, then check the McBoro sites from the previous weekend, the Sheff Utd sites, who are even now talking about us and so on and so forth, so in a way it is a shame that you did not witness the fast free-flowing football that has been the hallmark of our success this season. But what you got instead, although the first 15 minutes were pretty well dominated by us, was a team with a plan B. A Sousa team does not have this.

Last season at our place, we were flying, scoring goals for fun, thinking of changing the name of the club to Queens Park Rangers Four! Then Leicester came to town and Nigel Pearson had a game plan that had us sussed. He made sure his forwards pressured our defenders and stopped us playing from the back to the front. The plan worked, despite us taking the lead, and yes I do remember the Leicester players taking every opportunity to time-waste. Next time you are 1-0 up away from home with 30 minutes to go, you watch your players begin to slow things done, it will happen, it is football, and referees don’t get fooled. Hence 7 minutes injury time on Saturday.

We came, we dominated early and we scored, we then, as a result of obviously a good scouting report on Leicester, knew that they would come forward with their plan A and stick to it. Warnock knew this and set the team up accordingly. We still had our chances, and before you spout that this is biased drivel from a starry eyed QPR fan, I called the foul for the disallowed goal we had before the ball hit the back of the net, it was a push. I have also have had the misfortune of watching the R’s for nigh on 40 years, so the word, optimism and expectation are usually missing from my dictionary, but I always live in hope, usually to be badly let down. But, yes I am enjoying this moment, because as a QPR supporter, like Leicester supporters, it doesn’t come along that often.

But for many of your supporters to have a right dig about the way we approached the game and the ‘professionalism’ shall we say adopted by the team, and the direct route and robust style of play, I will say this is laughable and also a bit of pot and black kettle callings. There was four bookings during the match, two for each side, one of ours was for time wasting and the other for a foul committed by that well known footballing thug Akos Buzsaky. Now compare the yellow cards that we received with those and the offences that brought them for your team, the first one for you was a leg breaking tackle and it was only through our player jumping out of the way at the last minute, did a serious injury become avoided. The second was for a blatant pull back on Taraabt. You may point at the incident regarding Gorrks and Howard, in my Arsene Wenger style, ‘I did not see it’, I was actually planted at the top of the stand at the far end of the ground, so can only take your word for it. But let’s not be shy here, Howard is never backwards in coming forwards in leading with his elbows either. And can any of you Leicester supporters remember a manager you had a few years back, name of Martin O’Neill? If I remember correctly, he loaded his midfield with the likes of Savage, Lennon and Izzet if I am not mistaken, decent footballers, but not unknown for leaving their feet in when the opportunity arose, and then also the likes of Walsh and Marshall, no angels either. Memories are indeed very short.

Neil Warnock, footballs answer to Marmite. Personally I have always liked the guy, why? Well I suppose it is the bit of the rebel in me that is anti-establishment and he seems to have built up this kind of aura about himself. Hoofball manager, at times yes, but when circumstances require, if you have a team and no money then that seems to be the norm in England, to build a team that is big, strong and pacey. But Warnock has inherited and bought players that are certainly not suited to hoofball, the likes of Taraabt, Faurlin, Buzsaky and Ephraim. But what he has also brought with this is a new steel to the side, the likes of Derry and Hill, and a player that will run through brick walls and score goals as you witnessed on Saturday, Jamie Mackie. He has engendered into the flare players a work ethic, and he has created a great team spirit. As a man manager he is probably one of the best. Does he care about his reputation with opposition fans, not a monkeys.

Now I have also met Neil on a couple of occasions, one time at the end of last season I paid to play in his team against a Keith Curle XI, made up of supporters, in a game to raise funds for the QPR Community Trust Charity. The game was played on the Saturday morning after the end of last season, a full ninety minutes. He was there from 8 in the morning, and left about 1.30 in the afternoon, despite being a pundit at Wembley for the FA Vase final. He spent so much time chatting about football, wanting to find our thoughts on the club and was really interested about supporters tales of games gone by. He will not refuse an autograph or a photo with anybody. He is a thoroughly decent bloke, who speaks his mind, like many a Yorkshireman, but will defend his team to the hilt. He has not moaned about the referees this season, (and I thought the ref on Saturday was biased towards your lot!). Yes we have had five penalties this season, and four of them you would have agreed with, the fifth, against Ipswich, and if you watch the footage the decision was actually not to our benefit as Buzsaky had lashed in a 20 yarder as the ref blew. But Warnock does not get sent to the stands, if he was that bad with refs I am sure this would be the case. But sadly football supporters, join in on a media opinion of a bloke and think that it is all bad.

Warnock has bought 9 new players this season, he has spent less than £4million on these players, Sousa has spunked ¾ of this on one player. Jamie Mackie initially cost £125,000 with add-ons, he has scored 8 goals, even if he doesn’t score again this season, this is still money well spent. Warnock is a good manager for this division, Sousa, I fear for you is not. But what I would say, is how many of you guys, genuinely would swap Warnock for Sousa?

And finally our support, no we are not a big club, never pretended to be, 14,000 at home is a decent attendance, tickets aren’t the cheapest, we have a ground that is old, cramped and land-locked and right in central London where land is not cheap, or easily available. We also have four Premiership teams within a 10 mile radius, two of them members of the so-called ‘big-four’ and another in the Champions League this season. So competition is hot. To become a QPR supporter it is either a generation thing, a delusion or indeed a dedication to masochism. When we are poor the away support falls away, when we are good then more people travel. Seems to happen with a lot of teams, including Leicester, but before slaging us off, we support our team, like you support yours through shear dedication and not for the glory, so appreciate that we turn up in blue and white hoops and not the reds of Manure, Liverpool or the Arse, or the blue of the scum down the road from us, who really have come out of the woodwork in recent times. When we got relegated to League One a decade ago, we still averaged 14,000.

So that is my slant on things, we are doing well, but we are QPR, which means we could win the league this season, we may get in the play-offs, we may finish mid-table or we could get relegated! Who knows, at least life isn’t boring being an R.

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

This is a balanced and sensible post. Well said.