Elegant Chaos

Sigh.

This was bad. Apparently we have an injury crisis. We certainly have some sort of crisis, although I fear that it may be more to do with the players' spirit.

My theory is that none of the players understand why George Santos is played for every game when he is fit, and that they are understandably pissed off about it. He started on the bench this time, but ended up on the pitch by the end, up front. Why oh why?

It must be an absolute kick in the teeth for the likes of Stefan Moore to see Santos picked before him up front, and then to be brought on and played out of position on the wing.

I really don't mind watching us lose (although of course I'd rather watch us win), but I do mind when we look tactically inept, as if Holloway is just trying random throws of the dice to see what will happen.

The unrest in the terraces is rising, and I've a nasty feeling that Holloway's job will be under pressure soon.

Blimey. When I looked at the Norwich team sheet, I thought that we were going to be ripped to shreds. As it turned out, the most surprising thing was how absolutely, utterly spineless Norwich turned out to be.

Maybe they had a massive row on the coach (or with the coach?), or all got out of their respective beds on the wrong side that morning, but with the honourable exception of Dean Ashton, nobody in yellow and green looked remotely interested in winning this game. Ashton was combative, and within twenty minutes or so sported a Terry Butcher style bandage to prove it, but on his own he couldn't do enough.

QPR played well, but not, to be honest, that well. We didn't look as fluid as we had against Plymouth, but somehow by half time we found ourselves three goals to the good. Nygaard grabbed the opener with a header, then Furlong nicked the second from a Lee Cook free kick.

At that point, Bircham went off with a knock, on came George Santos, and my heart sank (along with a substantial number of Rangers fans who booed in response to his arrival). Here we go, I thought, time to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - but no! Play continued for a minute or two, a cross came in, the ball popped out of the box to be met by an on-rushing Santos. Normally George's idea of a gentle weighted pass ends up in row Z, so I didn't have much hope - but miracle of miracles he hit it well, kept it low, and it thundered through a group of players and defected into the goal.

Bit late this report...

All the details can be found here.

This was one of those funny games where we played some really nice football, created countless chances, and scored only once. Meanwhile Plymouth had one shot, scored one goal. Arse :)

From a Rangers point of view there were some promising signs. The team looked more balanced at the back, with Evatt and Shittu paired in the middle, and no sign of Mr Santos. Gallen played on the right, which was a little weird with both Ainsworth and Langley warming the bench, but overall it seemed to work. It looked like we'd been working on some specific things in training, with Royce passing the ball short quite a bit. We were keeping the ball on the ground well, playing it around patiently in midfield, and then putting some telling diagonal crosses in for the towering Nygaard to knock down. Unfortunately we just couldn't convert enough opportunities into goals.