| WOE-VIL!
In my years of watching QPR I have
become used to us being dumped out of various cup competitions by
teams from lower divisions. Stockport County in the FA Cup and in
more recent times Cardiff City and Colchester United in the
Worthington Cup. None of those defeats can quite come close to what
we witnessed at Huish Park.
The players were quite simply a disgrace. The date should have told
them that this was not a pre-season friendly but Rangers came out
with a visible attitude suggesting that they thought this was going
to be a stroll. From the first whistle to the last they were made to
look like idiots by a team full of players not good enough to play
league football. If that sounds disrespectful to Yeovil then I
apologise as that is not my intention, but that is the stark reality
of the matter.
It was a really shitty night in Somerset with rain and a driving
wind right into the faces of the Rangers fans in the uncovered away
terrace. Half of them, including me decided to take refuge in the
seated area after about fifteen minutes. Good job as well. I'll be
buggered if I'm going to watch Rangers get stuffed and get fucking
soaked as well!
Yeovil were the better side throughout the first half and took a
deserved lead after 37 minutes. A ball whipped in from the right
wing was pounced on by Chris Giles and fired into the net. That is
the official line but I am not so sure. There was a decided lack of
interest in the goal from Giles and I have a feeling it may have
been another own goal from Aziz Ben-Askar. If it was, his night was
not going to get any better.
At the opposite end Rangers had created nothing and looked like we
had no chance of scoring a goal whatsoever. Our only opportunity
fell to Karl Connolly. The keeper had raced from his goal and
managed to fall over whilst the ball ended up at the feet of
Connolly 35 yards from goal on an angle. All he had to do was have a
touch and lob the ball over the prone keeper into the empty net.
Easy eh? No chance. He decided to shoot first time and ended up
firing high and 20 yards wide of an empty net. That just about
summed up our performance.
Rangers showed a bit more urgency at the start of the second half.
It looked as though they had been on the end of a serious tongue
lashing from Holloway at half time and if we had taken one of the
chances created before Yeovil scored their second it might have been
a different story, but we didn't and it wasn't.
Connolly, Wardley, Bignot and Thomson all had opportunities to drag
us back into this game but they failed to take them, barely
troubling the keeper in the process. I don't know his name but I do
know that he got man of the match. Interesting as he had exactly sod
all to do all night.
The majority of the second half was a nothing affair but it suddenly
burst into the life following the introduction of Yeovil substitute
Kim Grant. The journeyman pro came on after 78 minutes and scored
after 80. Ben-Askar was arsing about on the half way line and
managed to give the ball to Grant. He set of on a run toward goal,
turned inside Mark Perry and fired low to Day's right. The finish
was identical to the Wrexham goal on Saturday and it may be that we
have discovered Day's Achilles heel.
Things were just about to get a whole lot worse. As we pushed on for
a goal to get us back into the game we were being left exposed in
defence. We were effectively playing with just Palmer and Ben-Askar
at the back when the big Frenchman managed to get himself sent off
again. As he and Grant challenged for a high ball, Ben-Askar
hesitated and the Yeovil man headed past him and set off toward goal
again. Ben-Askar then produced a rugby tackle that compatriot Serge
Blanco would have been proud of. He was not quite that last defender
but such was the challenge he left the referee with little option
but to produce a red card.
As the majority of Rangers fans were heading for the exit, Yeovil
added a third through Chris Giles. I didn't see the goal as I was
nearly back to the car but I can imagine that it was as a result of
our defensive shortcomings rather than an incisive Yeovil attack.
I would imagine that the calls for Holloway's head will start after
a result like this. I am not sure what he could have done to prevent
this. He sent out what he thought was his strongest side and they
let him down badly. They took Yeovil too lightly and were rightly
punished for it. In many ways, this is so much worse than the 4-1
drubbing by Colchester last year. On that night we were undone by a
sublime individual talent against Yeovil, we were beaten by our own
lack of professionalism.
All 14 players that were involved last night should hang their heads
in shame. If you turned in a performance like that at work you would
expect to be hauled into the manager's office for a bollocking and I
hope that it will be no different for them. I hope that this will
sting the players into a response worthy of this great club. We
should come out on Saturday and absolutely batter Northampton. We
should be after a bit of revenge after being beaten this year in the
Worthington Cup.
I hope I never have to witness a display like that again. These are
the sort of performances that make people stop coming to matches. I
wouldn't be surprised if this has cost us 500 people off the gate
for Saturday, that will be about £8,000 that this club needs
desperately. I wonder of they will ask the players to cough it up, I
doubt it. The saddest part about the whole thing is that the players
will wander around thinking they are blameless, well they are not
and it is about time they started to show that they want to battle
for this club. I wonder how many of the Yeovil players would love
the opportunity that this lot have got. |