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Reflections: QPR 2-0 Blues

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Luke Turner’s take on the disappointing defeat yesterday afternoon…

It was an extremely frustrating afternoon for the 3,000 Blues fans who travelled to Loftus Road to see a pretty poor performance from their team.

QPR are a team who weren’t in very good form and have had a mediocre season. They were there for the taking, if our players had turned up.

I don’t think Blues had a single shot on target in the first half and were punished by two quick fire goals.

First, Ryan Shotton gave the ball away needlessly down the right hand side and James Perch capitalised to set up Tjaronn Chery who’s shot found its way into the bottom corner.

Then, just a few minutes later, QPR got in behind Shotton`s side again and Sebastian Poulter won a penalty, going down over the on-rushing Michael Morrison.

Junior Hoilett dispatched the penalty with no problem and gave QPR a 2-0 lead which they barely had to work for.

It was so disappointing to concede the goals in this manner and we gave ourselves a mountain to climb.

There was a massive incentive before the game to close the gap to the play offs following Derby County`s defeat in the early kick off and Sheffield Wednesday`s draw the night before.

There was no fluency to our game, passes were going either sideways or backwards most of the time and when it did go forward, it was just a long hoof up to Donaldson.

I’m going to be a bit harsh and criticise the team selection made by Gary Rowett. I thought he would maybe bring back Paul Caddis to add more attacking threat in the right back position.

The way Blues fans sang Caddis` name perhaps suggests what they thought of Shotton`s personal display and how they would like the Scot back in the team.

Also, I have to question why Jon Toral, arguably our best player, was left on the bench once again.

I know we spent £1.5m on Fabbrini and he set up the goal on Tuesday but I felt this game was tailor made for Toral and his strength would’ve been ideal being up against Karl Henry.

Fabbrini worked hard but, ultimately, his link up play wasn’t good enough and he wasn’t quick enough to exploit any openings ahead of him.

Prior to the game, I wanted David Cotterill to start and he did. But I feel that he just didn’t do enough and, as poorly as Shotton played, Cotterill didn’t really help him out defensive wise.

There were only really a few players who can say their performance was credible. They were Paul Robinson, Tomasz Kuszczak and at times Jacques Maghoma.

We huffed and puffed in the second half without really creating anything. QPR were content to sit back and let us play in front of them.

Jon Toral came on and showed some neat interchange but, by then, I think the players had given up any hope of a comeback.

Of course it is a huge set back as we had the perfect opportunity to close the gap to the play offs and we haven’t taken it.

Five points out of our last five games simply isn’t good enough and we need to start performing how we know we can do.

There haven’t been too many games where we have played as bad as yesterday so hopefully that will be the game they can get out of their system.

We must move on quickly and put it right. We don’t want the season to just dwindle away after being in such a strong position.

In fact, we still are in a good position. Winning our game in hand would still close the gap to just one point.

But, first, we need to start with the other games and that begins on Thursday night with a very tough game against Hull City.

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