Redknapp Denies Former Club

The R's looked to continue their unbeaten run in 2013 in the early kick off against in form Spurs. Could the run carry on or would Tottenham continue their record of scoring in every away Premier League game this season on their way to victory?

With the game being an early kick off there were many unwanted alarms going off to get us all out of bed to get up to Loftus Road in time for the 12.45 kick off. Jess and myself opted for the early arrival and a Nandos before the gameand then made our way to the ground where the rest of the gang assembled in the Lower Loft for the pre match discussions regarding team selection. The buzz was still evident from Lofty, PK, Luke and Jenson, however Sam, Jess and myself were lacking that buzz as we missed out on that memorable night.

Two changes were made to the side that won at Stamford Bridge. Hoilett and Granero missed out through injury and were replaced by Shaun Wright-Phillips and the returning Ji-Sung Park, who walked straight back into the R's starting line up after being absent for nearly two months through injury.

Early in the first half the R's survived a scare in the fifth minute when Jermain Defoe's shot was expertly pushed onto the post by Cesar, however the rebound fell at Adebayor's feet and the Togo striker seemingly had an easy chance to open the scoring but found Cesar's cat like reactions too good as Cesar managed to push the ball over the bar.
Spurs continued to push the R's but struggled to break the strong defensive line that was being shielded well by Derry and Mbia, it's a shame that Park was not putting in the same shift as his team mates as he looked unfit, three yards off the pace and like he had eaten too many noodles over the Christmas period. He will only get worse over the next few weeks as Chinese New Year approaches........
SWP created the best chance of the half all on his own when he turned former R's loanee Kyle Walker inside out and advanced into the Spurs penalty area before beating another defender and then scuffing his shot wide. He could've taken the ball further in all honesty but that was more like the SWP that we knew before he signed for us 18 months ago.



At half time the gang gathered on the concourse in a very happy mood and thinking we looked quite solid defensively. The only thing we lacked was attacking creativity but with Spurs being so quick going forwards we had to be cautious with our approach to the second half.

The second half was very much more of the same with Spurs doing the majority of the attacking and Rangers' defending brilliantly in their numbers and were lead by their two leaders at centre back, Ryan Nelsen and Clint Hill.
Spurs had two great chances in the second half. Firstly a free kick from Kyle Walker that fizzed just past the far post and also were denied again by Cesar after Dempsey's shot took a deflection in a busy penalty area.
Five minutes from the end SWP could have won it for the R's as he broke into the Spurs penalty area and just as he was about to shoot the ball was nipped off him and uncharacteristically he took a tumble.



It's fair to say that every R's fan would have taken a point from this fixture and after a gutsy performance from Harry's Rangers' we have remained unbeaten and the game plan we are using is definitely working against the stronger and better attacking teams.
We had 10 bravehearts out there today that carried Park through the 90 minutes.The South Korean was slow, chasing around like a headless chicken and letting his team mates down. How he even got into the starting eleven over Faurlin, who has been fit for the last few weeks, needs to be questioned. Park has brought a lot of good marketing and getting a Far East following but he's become a liability on the pitch for us and is lacking in the quality that other players in our squad have. It will be interesting to see if Park is ousted from the team once Harry has completed his transfer dealing during this transfer window. My opinion is that he needs to be removed and be told to train harder to get into the starting eleven.

Our Man of the Match is spread out over a few players today. Two players gaining two votes each are Shaun Derry and Adel Taarabt. Fabio received three votes from Jess, Sam and Luke however with a total of 4,503 votes the man of the match is Ji Sung Park............ only joking, I wouldn't let our Korean fan base get away with that, as they tried to vote Park as our December player of the month without even kicking a ball.
Our Man of the Match is Fabio for an energetic display that involved keeping track of Aaron Lennon and Gareth Bale throughout the 90 minutes, whilst also doing his best to support SWP in an attacking presence down the left wing.
Julio Cesar also gets a special mention from the gang for his display in goal today and keeping a second Premier League clean sheet on the spin.

Queens Park Rangers

• 33 Julio Cesar
• 06 Hill
• 15 Onuoha
• 17 Nelsen
• 20 Fabio
• 04 Derry
• 07 Park Ji-sung
• 10 Taarabt
• 11 Wright-Phillips
• 40 M'bia Booked
• 12 Mackie

Substitutes

• 01 Green
• 05 Ferdinand
• 21 Ben-Haim
• 32 Faurlin
• 09 Cisse
• 37 Bothroyd
• 39 Campbell

Tottenham Hotspur

• 25 Lloris
• 05 Vertonghen
• 16 Naughton
• 20 Dawson
• 28 Walker
• 07 Lennon (Sigurdsson - 79' )
• 11 Bale
• 30 Sandro (Parker - 25' )
• 10 Adebayor (Dempsey - 69' )
• 18 Defoe
• 19 Dembele Booked

Substitutes

• 24 Friedel
• 32 Assou-Ekotto
• 33 Caulker
• 02 Dempsey
• 06 Huddlestone
• 08 Parker
• 22 Sigurdsson

Ref: Probert

Att: 18,018

There were some excellent exhibitions of diving on show today, but the best was saved to last as PK made his way down the stairs on our exit from the stand and he took a tumble but despite the best efforts of Lofty, Jenson and myself he still ended up taking the fall and ended up laying on top of two chairs and dropped the newspaper he had acquired from the floor and had started reading before falling over himself. A funny way to end the day!!

Lofty will return as the R's travel to across t East London and Upton Park for our visit to West Ham.

Keep the faith!!

U R'SSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!