Premier League Match 12 - QPR 1 Southampton 3

QPR player (insert name here) collects his Wages

Since the season started, Saints people including me have trolled out the excuses about playing in-form teams and playing teams who are in the top half and all that stuff which ultimately gets you nowhere.  Well today we’re up against a team who are undeniably the worst in the league as they are rock bottom and haven’t won a game yet. 

QPR are managed by Mark Hughes who had a stellar career, the highlight of which was being one of the stars of our greatest Great Escapes back in the day, playing in the famous Dellhurst Park match and forming with Chris Marsden Football Genius, a midfield pair who kicked the living crap out of anything that came near them.  He had prepared for that stellar career defining moment by playing for those football nonentities Man United, Chelsea, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.  So – not a bad player but as a manager – mainly shite and never more shite than this season as he’s spent a fortune on old lags who are on their last big pay day and combined them into a team that is bottom of the league, without a win all season.  On the face of it they’ve done the most bizarre thing for these times of austerity and spent a fortune on players with no resale value and paid them stupid wages.  That level of stupidity makes you wonder if they’ve got relegation clauses in their contracts.  None of the transfer deals were stranger than the signing of Julio Cesar to play in goal who must be on mahoosive money.  No harm in signing a new first choice keeper but they’d already signed Rob Green, paying him (one assumes) pretty well and he’d only played one game, even if that was a 5-0 defeat.  Other notables are Bobby Zamora who doesn’t like football which is nice to know if you’re paying someone over £50 grand a week to play football and Andy Johnson who never plays due to injury, probably caused by consistently diving on his face.  There best player seems to be Esteban Granero in midfielder who along with Cesar, must wonder what the hell he’s doing there, until he gets his payslip every month.  A quick look at QPR fans views reveals that the general feeling is that they’re ok going forward but have a ‘Championship standard’ defence…. Sounds familiar.

With crushing predictability, the build up in the media has all been about which manager is getting the sack for losing.  Call me mad but I think we’re going to go well today.  I was impressed by us last week aside from the shitty goal we let in and with the same side out there, I think we’ll be fine.  Tony Fernandes the QPR chairman has been very vocal in his backing of Hughes and though he hasn’t said so, the Don must be backing Nigel as Nigel made no mention of a horses head in his bed at his weekly press conference.

Unsurprisingly given the decent show last week but surprisingly, given that he always changes something, Nigel kept the same team and the same subs for this game.  The aforementioned Zamora and Johnson were nowhere to be seen for QPR but they did have Djibril Cisse up front who I’ve always thought was a player with a much bigger reputation than he deserves.  Granero and Taarabt in midfield but the defence did indeed look dodgy including Bosingwa, Traore and Anton Ferdinand, none of whom are any good at defending.  “One Nigel Adkins” was booming out from the away end and the QPR faithful responded with a deafening  “One Mark Hughes” though that second bit may be a big wobbly dangly lie.

The opening fifteen minutes of the game were decent from us and we looked the better side by a mile with the passes zipping about and QPR’s midfield in particular, not getting to grips with ours.  The first chance consisted of a barrage of short passing leading to Lallana playing a 1-2 with Gaston and firing his attempted ‘goal of the season’ volley just over Julio Cesar’s crossbar.  Another five minutes go by before we’re close again as Punch cuts in off the right win and curls in a cross which Adam bungs himself at but can’t quite reach and it bounces, beats the flailing Cesar and bounces away off the left hand post.

QPR’s players decide that collectively, it would be good if they actually put in some effort to earn their £50-£100 grand a week as Adel Taraabt weaved his way past Clyne and Fonte with some wonderful close control on the run before firing at the near post where a large Gazzaniga shaped object blocked it well.  Gazza was not looking so great from QPR’s next attack though as Hoilett let fly from 35 yards and the keeper pushed it round the post with an element of luck and floppy chocolate wrists.

These were really isolated incidents of QPR pressure in amongst Saints dominance and on 25 we took the lead.  A Gaston corner was headed out to Cork who learned from last week and instead of turning back towards his own goal, headed it back into the mixer which Gaston teed up Jose for a massive mis-hit shank which fell to Punch, who due to a combination of Cesar and Bosingwa, managed to hit the bar from about two feet out.  As the ball dropped, in piled Sir Rickie to head the ball into the net and to cop Diakite’s swinging boot in the face.

So, 1-0 up and I expected QPR to come roaring back at us and for it to be like the Alamo with us praying for the half time whistle.  The reality however was that we kept playing, kept the ball and continued to look the more likely to score with QPR offering only sporadic threat.  Cisse decided to take a break from being shite in the middle and decided to have a go at being shite on the wing.  Trouble was that he got a cross in and no one was there as no one could be bothered.

It got even better in the last minute of the half as Clyne saw a cross blocked by Traore who really should have got to the 2^nd ball but couldn’t be arsed when faced with Clyne’s greater determination.  England’s next Number 2 fed Punch who cut along the top of the box, past a half arsed Faurlin before hammering a left footed effort into the far corner giving Cesar no chance.   Being Saints fans, we know shite defending when we see it and this was Exhibit A.  No determination to win the ball from Traore and no closing down from Dopey Ferdinand.  Fantastic finish though and 2-0 as the half time whistle blew.

One assumes that Mark Hughes gave QPR an almighty blocking at half time whilst Nigel read a poem or quoted from ‘The Art of War’.  Nigel also must have read something which contained reference to ‘dozing off and make a game of it’ as we put no challenge in on Taraabt as he received a throw in and allowed him to swing a cross into the box where Gazza made Hoilett’s job easy for him by rushing out like a twat and getting nowhere near it.  So, 2-1 and once more, we expect a QPR bombardment.

But it didn’t happen.  A clearly tiring Gaston was replaced with Steven Davis on the hour mark and Saints kept playing and kept dominating.  It should have been 3-1 almost immediately as we cut through the defence before Sir Rickie cushioned a great header down to Punch who from 10 yards out, shanked a right footed shot into the floor and wide.  That man Punch was at it again a minute later, this time expertly pulling down Shaw’s cross and swivelling before smashing a half-volley inches wide of the far post.

In response to the near misses and the re-assertion of our dominance, Hughes decided to bring himself on, only it wasn’t, it was Shaun Derry who must be about 42 by now.  The move predictably failed to stem the flow though Derry did at least look interested and Punch worked himself another opening on the left before forcing Cesar into a good save as he went for the far post.  Both teams then made substitutions with Nigel replacing the excellent Shaw with Danny Fox and Hughes, a goal down a going nowhere, deciding to replace a right back in Bosingwa, with another right back in Fabio (who is a left back if I’m not mistaken).  This is a really strange one when you consider that he had Shaun Wright-Phillips, brother of the legendary Bollocks Wright-Phillips, on the bench.

Ryan Nelsen was a one man defence for QPR so any time Sir Rickie wanted to make life easier for himself and remind himself of playing against League 1 defenders, he just peeled onto Anton Ferdinand who has made a pretty decent living out of being Rio’s brother, which has helped cover his lack of ability.  Sir Rickie’s knock down found Yoshida whose acrobatic scissor kick was acrobatically turned aside by Cesar in 'one for the cameras' style.  It was merely delaying the inevitable though as QPR couldn’t be bothered to defend a short corner, allowing Morgan to advance into the penalty area and hammer in a cross which was nicely finished by Rio’s brother.  The celebrations of Gazza with the fans behind the goal and Gaston on the bench tells you all you need to know about the club at the moment.  I know I take the piss out of Nigel for his dial-a-cliche interviews but ‘Together as One’ – yeah, baby!  Ten minutes later, game over, away win.

Nigel: It won't be me!

Well that was fucking brilliant.  We never stroll any game of course but this was pretty close as we dominated it virtually from start to finish – a team against 11 individuals and not very good ones at that... ind you, Ryan Nelsen would have solved many of our early season woes.  Due to the way our season has gone so far, until the 3^rd goal you always feared the punt into the box followed by defender / goalkeeper calamity and QPR spawning a 2-2 but in truth, we pissed it.  Everything about it was outstanding from the team to the supporters and the best bit was the support for the manager.  Mark Hughes must have been a bit jealous of the support that Nigel got but then, Nigel has achieved two promotions whereas Hughes has achieved the square root of fuck all at QPR.

The 4-4-1-1 formation is really working and the catalyst has been Jack Cork who, after our abject midfield display at West Brom, has come in and transformed that area.  We now have a defensive base to the midfield which allows Adam, Gaston and Punch to go and do their thing.  They went and did their thing before but we had no one there for when the screwed up and lost it.  Some of the play going forward was breathtaking today as we passed and moved and QPR couldn’t get near us.  We did over-elaborate at times and I found myself pulling out the ‘someone fucking hit it’ eloquent phrase on more than one occasion so thanks to Anton for doing it for us.  No one had a bad game today and if I start mentioning names when I’m going to have to mention all of them. Punch was The Man today – absolutely superb and showing ability and hard work which he’d successfully hidden for the best part of two years. 

The only team selection that Nigel has to make for next week is in goal as Gazza was horribly at fault for the goal and looked a bit uneasy throughout.  If it was down to me I would go for Artur Boruc but it really could be any one of the three in goal against Newcastle next weekend.  Having had a field day with the ‘loser gets the sack’ nature of the QPR game, the media are looking for something extra to tag on next weeks game.  Well it isn’t a local derby (no shit) and it isn’t really a 6 pointer so it has to be about Pards and there being a grudge.  Can’t see it myself as Pards was a League 1 manager when he was executed by The Don and he’s a Premier League Manager now and Saints have had the same elevation in status.

There were those rumours though….