Paddy makes Swans pay the penalty.

Tonight the R's faithful travelled over the border to Wales, in the first of two away games in four days, to battle against a high flying Swansea side sitting in fourth place in the table. Here is how the Lofty Heights crew saw the evening unfold.

Due to difficulty getting time off work the crew were down to three members tonight with Sam and Jenson being given the honour of being driven by me in what is the first away game I have driven to since Barnsley away last season.
On our journey I received a text from Gobi at about 16.30 saying that he had just won £70 on a fruit machine at Cardiff Gate services..... jammy git is all I can say!
Having stopped ourselves at Cardiff Gate services we managed to get to the Liberty Stadium at 18.45 and got ourselves in the ground so we could relax with a drink before taking our seats shortly before kick off.

One change was made to Saturday's team that drew 0-0 with Norwich, Akos Buzsaky dropped out through injury and was replaced by the returning Alejandro Faurlin.
Gavin Mahon, who signed a one month contract yesterday, replaced Mikele Leigertwood on the bench.


Before the game both sets of fans gave the family of a fallen soldier in Afganistan as they laid a wreath on the centre circle. The crowd showed the upmost respect, a great way to honour such bravery and bought two sets of footballing fans together before the starting whistle.



The game started off free flowing with both sides looking to use their crisp passing styles to try and create openings and it was on nine minutes that the first chance came about, and it was the visitors that created it.
Swansea failed to clear a corner properly and Hogan drove a cross in and Mackie got onto the end of it only to hit the outside of the post and side netting.
Swansea were enjoying the possession side of things but it was the R's that were the more dangerous attacking wise in the first half, however Swansea were given the perfect opportunity to take the lead as Clint Hill was somehow adjudged to of fouled Nathan Dyer in the box and the Referee pointed to the spot altho it looked as if the Linesman/3rd official, whatever name they go by now, had awarded a free kick and Swansea were given a great opportunity to open the scoring.
Before the penalty was taken I said to Jenson that the penalty would go bottom right as we looked at it, so when Cotterill placed his penalty to the bottom right and Kenny pulled off a good save to push the ball around the corner and justice was done as it was never a penalty, well from our angle anyway.

At half time the scores remained 0-0 and it was then that I received a text from Michael Whelan, despite having a near dead phone battery, saying that Swansea World had said on air that the penalty should never of been given and that it sounded like the R's were on top. Personally I thought it was a fairly even half and Rangers' had the better of the chances, was just hoping that the second half would be better attacking wise for us.

The second half saw Rangers' sit back a lot more and allowed Swansea to dictate possession a lot more as we looked to hit them on the counter attack.
Chances were few and far between during the second half but its without doubt that the best chance fell to Mackie twenty minutes into the half.
Connolly found Taarabt and the R's captain flicked a ball through to Mackie as he ran on one on one with Swans 'keeper De Vries and the Scottish International took one to many touches in my opinion and De Vries made a decent save from close range.
Later in the half Hogan cleared a Pratley effort off the line as the teams played out the half and the game ended 0-0.

It would've been nice to see the R's be more adventurous in the second half as me did look content to sit back and let Swansea control the midfield up until the final ten to fifteen minutes when we did come on strong. The first substitution could've been made earlier as we could've gone and nicked a late winner, but who am I to question Warnock's tactics after the fantastic start to the season that we have had.

Tonights Man of the Match drew three different votes from us three in the car with Paddy Kenny being voted for by Jenson because of his penalty save and another clean sheet, Sam voted for Shaun Derry for another battling performance in midfield and I voted for Heidar Helguson as I felt his work rate tonight was superb, he was chasing down defenders and done well to hold up the ball as we broke away. With it being a tie we did seek further votes from Shamie and Gobi and our eventual winner with three votes goes to........ Shaun Derry.


Swansea City: Dorus De Vries, Ashley Williams, Alan Tate, David Cotterill (Joe Allen 46), Darren Pratley, Andrea Orlandi (Craig Beattie 85), Nathan Dyer, Stephen Dobbie (Frank Nouble 66), Garry Monk, Scott Sinclair, Angel Rangel.

Subs: Yves Makabu-Makalambay, Neil Taylor, Albert Serran, Marvin Emnes

Bookings: Monk (20), Tate (37), Pratley (41)

QPR: Paddy Kenny, Clint Hill, Shaun Derry, Adel Taarabt (Tommy Smith 80), Heidar Helguson (Patrick Agyemang 80), Alejandro Faurlin, Jamie Mackie, Kaspars Gorkss, Kyle Walker, Matthew Connolly, Hogan Ephraim (Leon Clarke 90).

Subs: Radek Cerny, Bradley Orr, Fitz Hall, Gavin Mahon.

Bookings: Gorkss (17), Faurlin (60), Taarabt (80)

Referee: Mr S Hooper

Attendance: 16, 742 (470 QPR)

The journey home saw me challenge myself against the clock to see how quickly I could get us back to Jenson's as last year he posted up an impressive 2 hour 15minute journey time from the Liberty Stadium to his, so I thought I'd see if that could be beaten. After the 170 mile journey back I posted a time of 2 hours and 4 minutes, which included the time it took to get out of the car park not bad really I thinks. The nicknames of Rubens and Schmacher are now being touted for me..... we'll see what happens from here.