| FA Cup Third Round | |
| Saturday January 3rd | |
|
Queens
Park Rangers 0
|
Burnley 0 |
The first Saturday
of January is always a special time to be a football fan. A day
when you can dream of beating the best and set off on a run to Wembley.
A year ago around 8,000 fans made the trip to Chelsea and saw a
brave QPR side fight to the end and lose the match 1-0 but win back
plenty of pride in the club. A year on Rangers faced Burnley in the third round of the FA Cup but any talk of magic, excitement and dreams were nowhere to be seen around Loftus Road as those poor 8,000 of us who turned up were treated to one of the worst games of football in living memory. I don't say that lightly having seen some stinkers at QPR over the years but for neither side to muster a shot of note on target in 94 minutes was quite incredible. The highlight of the afternoon came before the game when Wayne Routledge was introduced to the QPR fans wearing a silly hat and holding up his QPR shirt. It all went downhill from here when the teams came out and the game started. Paulo Sousa continued with his diamond midfield formation but made a few changes to the team. Kaspars Gorkks replaced Hall in defence whilst in midfield Leigterwood started on the right in place of Ephraim whilst Blackstock and Di Carmine started up front. It was a slow start and didn't get any quicker as Rangers huffed and puffed but had no real width to create chances. We looked ok on the ball but rarely looked like causing a problem for the Burnley defence where Clarke Carlisle put Blackstock in his pocket and didn't let him leave until after the game. Burnley had a few long range efforts which were nowhere near troubling Cerny and watching the clock tick down to half time was more interesting than the football on the pitch. Di Carmine had a shot from the left which was parried wide by the keeper but the corner came to nothing. Rowlands was busy in midfield and shot wide of the post halfway through the half before our best move of the game came when Cook and Rowlands combined to set up Leigterwood for a volley inside the box which went out for a throw in. To say that was the closest we came to scoring perhaps best sums up the half. One child sitting behind me was so bored he asked his mum if they could go to Westfield instead of watching the second half. The only effort on goal of note in the entire game fell to Burnley as Elliot volleyed an Eagles corner towards goal and it hit the bar before going over. At half time 0-0 flattered both sides and things didn't improve after the break. Rangers needed more creativity in midfield and some width so for reasons only known to Sousa he took off Cook and brought on Ledesma so we continued with the ridiculous sight of Leigterwood on the right wing. Ledesma was looking to create things but with no width at all Rangers were so easy to defend against and we had to rely on the full backs to get balls into the box and I think I was in more danger of getting on the end of a Ramage cross than the front two were. Hogan Ephraim came on for Mahon to give us
that width midway through the second half but after a five minute
spell where Ramage found space out wide and out in two decent crosses
we went back to playing narrow again and created nothing. Burnley were offering nothing as an attacking force and a last throw of the dice was to bring on Agyemang for Di Carmine but Rangers still couldn't muster a single effort on target. Blackstock was hopeless against the impressive Clarke Carlisle and on the rare occasion we did put a cross in Blackstock was not strong enough against Carlisle and would usually end up on his backside. The referee put us out of our misery with the
final whistle to end what must have been one of the worst games
of football I've seen in years. This was really poor. I think only Gorkss and Rowlands played anyway near their best the rest were an absolute shambles. Blackstock and Di Carmine were woeful up front whilst the midfield was again far too narrow and the only width we had in Cook was taken off at half time. Sousa has some thinking to do before next week's
home game against Coventry where Rangers will need to show far more
attacking invention if they are to avoid a third goalless draw in
a row.
Players Ratings: Cerny 6, Ramage 5, Delaney 4, Gorkss 6, Stewart 6, Mahon 5 (Ephraim 5), Rowlands 6, Leigterwood 5, Cook 6 (Ledesma 6), Blackstock 4, Di Carmine 4 (Agyemang 5) |
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