Team: Smithies, Onuoha, Hall (Konchesky), Angella, Perch, Henry, Tozser (Phillips), Chery (Polter), Luongo, El Khayati, Washington
Subs Not Used: Ingram, Diakite, Faurlin, Petrasso
Attendance: 14,796 (including 3,664 R’s fans)
Good trip, good food, and a nice pint preceded what turned out to be more of the same dross served up to the travelling faithful, who deserve better, in a stadium without any soul, any character.
A referee who at times, made decisions that were simply unreal…maybe he just had an off-day…or maybe he should be relegated to refereeing ale-house!
However, nothing can disguise just how poor we were again, second best all day long, and the pain of losing to a poor relegation franchise outfit.
Last week we looked organised, with tempo and purpose, but on Saturday we looked disjointed, weak and uninterested!
And the positives…none! JFH chose to change things round…best he does it again on Tuesday night.
Ah, there was one positive…good to meet Marian!
Till the next time.
Jimmy Murray
Championship strugglers MK Dons recorded their first win in four games as they defeated QPR at Stadium: MK.
The hosts led when captain Dean Lewington rifled in his first goal of the season past Alex Smithies.
The Dons earned a penalty when QPR’s Paul Konchesky fouled Josh Murphy, but Smithies saved Murphy’s spot-kick.
Nedum Onuoha gave away a second penalty in injury time, and substitute Ben Reeves stepped up to fire past Smithies to seal the win.
The win was vital for Karl Robinson’s relegation-threatened side, as the team immediately below them in the Championship table, Rotherham, made it back-to-back wins with victory over Sheffield Wednesday.
QPR brought on top scorer Matty Phillips to try to get back into the game, but he was unable to add to his tally of seven league goals as his late effort, was blocked at close range by Kyle McFadzean.
It was only QPR’s second defeat in 10 league games, but they slip to 12th, and now look out of contention for a play-off place.
MK Dons manager Karl Robinson: “I think everything we’ve set up to do this week has been sensational and I really want to thank everyone for their hard work – and that includes all of the backroom team as well.”
“Together as a group I think we have put a team on the pitch that was worthy of the three points.”
“We had a game-plan to come to life in the second-half because we didn’t want to be out of it in the first-half.”
“I thought we looked very disciplined and we showed what we were about with our attitude and desire.”
QPR boss Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink: “I think if we are playing like that in the second-half then we do not deserve to win any matches.”
“We came out of the dressing room thinking we had already won the game – but we hadn’t scored yet and the game was still level.”
“They won the second balls and put us under pressure and from the first minute in the second-half they put us under pressure and that is not good enough.”
BBC Sport
We parked up on an Industrial estate then went looking around for a decent lunch and decided on ‘Frankie and Benny’s’, close to the stadium.
There must have been around 4,000 R’s fans spread across the whole top tier behind the goal and also in part of the bottom section.
What a soul-less place it really is! The first song from the home contingent was briefly after they had scored their opening goal!
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink made a number of changes to the starting line-up…without success. The franchise club were awful in the first-half, but unfortunately so were we.
There was further bad news when Grant Hall pulled up near the end of the half, which looked ominously like a hamstring problem? Paul Konchesky later went to full-back and Nedum Onuoha moved over to centre-half.
The home side upped their game after the break and they went close on three occasions within the period of a few minutes, which included an R’s defender clearing the ball in front of the goal-line. This was followed soon after with them taking the lead through Dean Lewington.
Paul Konchesky was penalised for a foul on Josh Murphy in the box, but Alex Smithies saved his spot-kick.
The referee had made a good start when he booked one of their players for diving in the box early on, but later he made the ridiculous decision of penalising Karl Henry when he was clearly trying to retrieve the ball late in the game!
Josh Murphy had tried to prevent him gathering the ball and as Henry resisted he forcibly pushed him. The referee then stepped in and booked both players!
Nedum Onuoha gave away a penalty near the end and they made no mistake doubling their score.
We had one shot on target and with little cohesion on show, we didn’t really resemble a team. From a very good performance the previous week, probably the best of the season, this was back to square one. I always try to look for the positives but I’m really struggling to do so!
Pleased to meet up with Marian from the message board before the game (thanks for buying a couple of badges Marian) and spoke to Eamonn briefly who was also over from Ireland.
Many thanks once again to Jimmy for the lift.
Steve Russell