Coca Cola Championship
Saturday December 8th  
   
Scunthorpe United 2 Queens Park Rangers 2
M.Paterson A.Buzsacky (2)
J.Forte  
   

 

   
Team Line Up
   
         
   
1. Lee Camp
   
           
25. Bob Malcolm
28. Zesh Rehmann
5. Damion Stewart
3. Chris Barker
           
14. Martin Rowlands
32. Mikele Leigterwood
7. Adam Bolder (c)

34. Scott Sinclair

           
   
10. Akos Buzsacky
   
           
   
26. Rowan Vine
   
   
Subs  
Marc Nygaard on for Scott Sinclair  
Sampsa Timoska on for Zesh Rehmann  
Gareth Ainsworth on for Akos Buzsacky  
Subs Not Used  
Jake Cole
Angelo Balanta  

Rangers losing run came to an end yesterday but we could still only pick up a point at struggling Scunthopre which left us bottom of the table and four points adrift of saftey. After last weeks trip to Blackpool I opted to stay at home for this one so here are some views of the game from fans who did make it from the Yahoo QPR Mailing List.

Jim Frayling

Two bits of quality saved us. Our defence should have lost us the game. Buszaky should have won us it. Frankly with even half a clue how to defend set pieces we'd have won. Scunthorpe had done their homework on us and had an excellent tactic of taking set pieces very quickly so that our normally half-organised defence couldn't even get half-organised.

Watch their first goal. Anyone involved in that goal at any level of football should be ashamed. It's a near post tap in with seemingly no pressure. At the very least if you can't win the ball basic common sense tells you that you make it as hard as possible for the other bloke. So frustrating, especially when we'd been playing some good stuff up front and Scunthorpe looked a bit scare of us running at them.

I can't remember such a muted atmosphere among Rangers fans away from home when we've been winning. It's as if we didn't dare to believe until nearer the final whistle and we all knew an equaliser was inevitable. That it was fortuitous shouldn't hide our huge inadequacies in defence.

Our goals were two moments of brilliance. The first you just knew was in if the keeper didn't get a hand on it. He didn't and it flew in from 25 yards. The second an excellently deceptive free kick from wide curled into the back post. Both deserved to win the game on their own. The fact they didn't is criminal. Other points to make are that Sinclair was highly ineffective. Bolder added a bit of spice to the midfield along with Rowly and Leigertwood. Barker and Stewart were average, Rehman and Malcolm anonymous and trying to avoid any calamities. Vine linked play well but ran wide far too often considering he was playing as a lone striker. When that's your job you should never go wider than the penalty area - like Les used to for Newcastle.

We need to sort the defence out so we can play 4-4-2. Vine adds enough to the midfield and in movement to allow us to compete with teams packing the midfield. Right I'm out of time. We really should have got all three points but our defence just didn't allow it.

Nick Barton

Just arrived home and let me tell you all never to decide to go to Scunthorpe the day after a christmas party, it is not a good idea, watching the Rangers at the minute certainly ain't no hangover cure, perhaps it helps being mightily rough as it probably glosses over the edges a bit of just how bad a game it was.

There may have been 4 goals and 2 absolute crackers by Busacky, but to be honest it was pretty awful stuff from both sides. Scunthorpe are not a good side, today was there for the taking and yet again the fact that we CANNOT defende any type of set piece was glaringly obvious, every time the ball was pumped into the box I half expected poor Campy to be picking the ball out of the net, its a nightmare for the boy he just doesn't know what his defenders are going to do, there is no coordination in the back four at all, on an individual basis Stewart did OK, Rehman didn't do anything wrong but as a unit they are an accident waiting to happen I'm afraid.

Super Bob manifested himself back into the Bob we had at the Sheff W game and Barker although gradually getting better is very slow and got found out a few times by their winger. Legs had his worse game for a long time he wasn't able to find a Rangers shirt with the simplest of passes, Bolder again was poor, Rowly and Sinclair pretty anonimous apart from excellent flick to Vine which should have set up Buzz for his hat trick only for him to blast over the bar.

Don't get me wrong a point is a point and I was happy to stop the rot a little bit, but this was not good, we had enough on that field to beat Scunthorpe today but we didn't, the main problem is basic football, we aren't doing it right short passes going astray headers from defence never finding a Rangers player, it amazes me that every other team we play always manage to find a player on their own team with headers, but we never do, they just go up in the air to an opposing player.

Onto Burnley on Tuesday which will be tough, again a point will be nice, 3 would be excellent, but we desperately need to shore up that defence quickly if we are to get ourselves out of trouble, my heart cannot take much more it got to the point today where I just shut my eyes every time the ball went into the box, not good. I don't know if its just me but there seems to be a malaise around the club that come January we will buy our selves out of trouble, we need to ensure that we are not too far adrift to save our season.

Dave Thomas

I'm afraid we are back to the bad old days of supposed post-match comments like this being ghost-written by somebody who thinks it's their job to spin everything into a positive and make every dropped point and every mistake into a tale of bad luck. Look at it: "two-goal hero", "wonder goals", "purring with delight", And then three uses of 'disappointing'.

Saying that we keep 'throwing away goals' is true - up to a point. But it still smacks of pretending it's all down to bad luck, really. Answer me this - who exactly is this stuff aimed at? And do they think we are all 10-year-olds? I don't want - or expect - to see the team slaughtered for not winning. But I would like to read something more imaginative than so-and-so is disappointed. It's journalism at its laziest and poorest. And, yes, Buzsaky's strikes were both fantastic. But what about the result and the performance?

If I am wrong and this is really De Canio's honestly held view of today's game, then I don't hold out much hope for us - or for him. We were better today than last week at Blackpool - and I am reasonably happy with the point. I thought Scunthorpe were a decent side and made it hard for us. But there is still so much not right with the team, it's hard to know where to begin in improving it.

An observation. Why do we always finish every game - winning, drawing or losing - on the back foot, desperately defending (deep) and showing little attacking intent or ability? After Palace had scored their second on Tuesday, we might as well have all gone home for the effort we put in to claw it back. In the 92nd minute today, a long punt upfield from out of defence landed over the head of one of their defenders, who had time to bring it under control and head it back to his keeper, without a QPR player in 10 yards of him.

I would have thought the first thing an Italian manager would have done is tighten up our defence. But look at Scunthorpe's first goal when it's shown on TV. And that sums up our marking from corners. Scunny had a lot of corners today and the times we weren't even switched on to their being taken was depressing. Sinclair was anonymous and Vine too well marshalled to pose any great threat. We could have gone behind 2-1 when a low shot across Camp hit the far post and shot across the face of his goal and out to safety. Other than Buzsaky's goals - one a shot out of the blue that looped over the keeper, the other from a free-kick, which he buried at the far post - the only other real chance fell to Buzsaky, who hit a first time shot over the bar after a good flowing move.

Quite what the point was of bringing on Ainsworth at the 90th minute, I am not entirely sure. Timoska was an improvement on Rehman when he came on. But the team are nervous every time the ball is in the area. There is not much harmony back there either from the amount of shouting and blaming that was going on. This nervousness transfers to the fans, too. Interestingly, an impressive 1,000 or so Rangers fans began the game in good voice but the longer the game went on, the more frustrating it was to watch - and we got quieter and quieter, even though we were twice winning. It goes to show that, as fans, we know what we're watching. It's just a pity that those whose job it is to report on games like this are too timid, too useless or just plain too toadying to do likewise.

Happy with the point, very enjoyable trip to a decent ground - but don't try and pretend all is well in the garden, because it ain't.