Kaspars spooks the Owls

Today we saw the last game before an international break that I’m sure a few of us will welcome to recharge our batteries before the long run into the festive period of fixtures. Sheffield Wednesday was our destination.

The Lofty Heights took to the road in a full car with Jenson driving Lofty, PK, Sam and Me to took the “long ol poke” up to Sheffield Wednesday mid-morning and encounter no drama’s on the road and once again made our predictions for the weekends fixtures in the Premiership, Championship and FA Cup 1st round ties to see who would take home the £20 prize money at the end of the day.

Two changes were made to the team that drew 1-1 with Crystal Palace. Peter Ramage came in for Gary Borrowdale (stomach bug) at left back and Gavin Mahon returned from injury at the expense of Alessandro Faurlin.
Matt Connolly, who had been ruled out for a few months with glandular fever, returned to the R’s bench.



Rangers started the game off with the lion share of the possession and had a good effort on goal after Mahon and Taarabt exchanged passes before the Moroccan fed in Buzsaky but he wildly blazed over the bar.
Soon the possession would have its reward and on 10 minutes it came.
Taarabt stroked a lovely reverse pass into the path of Jay Simpson and he raced past the Wednesday defence and slotted calmly past Lee Grant in The Owls goal.
Four minutes later and it really should’ve been 2-0. Taarabt once again was the provider as he played Routledge in and with only Lee Grant to beat his shot hit the left hand post n was cleared to safety.
Rangers were ruing the missed opportunity as the scores were levelled soon after.
Johnson was played in down the left side of the Rangers stretched defence and curled around Cerny, who did get a slight touch on it, and brought the game back level.
The goal shifted the power to the home side and they really should’ve taken the lead. The Owls attacked the R’s right hand side, Varney beat the sliding Fitz Hall (who was injured in the challenge) and then took aim at goal and Cerny was able to tip the ball with his foot onto the post and then the Rangers defence managed to scramble the ball away.
Due to Hall’s injury it gave Matt Connolly the opportunity to come on and return in his favoured centre back position.
Rangers did have a few efforts on goal before the half ended but the game went in evenly and was pretty fair in my eyes.

Half time saw us wonder around the poor facilities that were on offer today. Just one refreshment bar was available to us and the queues were pretty ridiculous. Even when the good were finally received the cup of tea and coffee that Lofty and Jenson had purchased were described as just slightly flavoured warm water. We soon went back to our seats to take our places ready for the second half.



In fairness the second half wasn’t the most entertaining encounter and I really have few things to offer here.
The Owls enjoyed a good start to the half before Rangers created a few half chances but it looked as if the game was going to be heading towards a draw.
With 20 minutes left Alessandro Faurlin entered the fray at the expense of Buzsaky, which shocked a few of us, and this helped Rangers take a little more of a hold on the game.
With 82 minutes on the clock we had our winning goal of the game.
Faurlin took the corner on the right hand side and ,as many of our corner usually do, the corner went to the front post and there was Gorkss to thump a header home for his first ever goal for the Superhoops.
Following a few nervous moments at the end of the game followed but we managed to hang on and bring the three points home to West London. This also meant that the R’s rose to 4th in the table.



In reflection of the game you would have to say that a fair result would’ve been a draw but considering that we have dropped two points against Blackpool, Plymouth, Newcastle and Palace it was nice to see us win in an ugly fashion for once. The International break now will give the players a chance to rest up ready for what is going to be a busy period between the end of November and mid January so hopefully this will help us to continue our charge up the table and racking more points up.

Sheffield Wednesday: Grant, Spurr, Buxton, Hinds, Miller (McAllister 72), Tudgay, Potter, O'Connor, Varney, Simek (Wood 72), Johnson (Clarke 76).

Subs not used: O'Donnell, Sodje, Esajas.

Goals: Johnson (14)

QPR: Cerny, Ramage, Mahon, Hall (Connolly 30), Leigertwood, Routledge, Buzsaky (Faurlin 68), Gorkss, Watson, Simpson, Taarabt (Vine 88).

Subs not used: Heaton, Agyemang, Alberti, Ephraim.

Goals: Simpson (10), Gorkss (82)

Referee: Mr N Miller

Attendance: 19, 491


We now move onto the Man of the Match. There were some encouraging performances out there. Gorkss and Connolly played very well at the heart of the back four. Mahon was exceptional on his return and showed us exactly why we missed him. Today’s Man of the Match, as selected by Lofty, has been awarded to Jay Simpson. He worked his socks off up front on his own and was chasing everything he possibly could. He also took his goal very well indeed!

Well that is us done for two weeks now and we will look forward to returning back just before the Doncaster visit. Hope you all enjoy the break!

U R’SSSSSSSSSSS!!!!