Saints-Qpr predictions

[trousers]

I feel a 0-0 in my waters

[trousers]

http://www.clubfanzine.com/QPR/v2.showNews.php?id=18597

 

Losing is a tough routine to get out of and at the moment the QPR players, bereft of confidence and commitment, look like a losing team from the moment they come out to warm up. We need to nip this in the bud now or risk it carrying into the start of next season. Still, it could be worse, we could be Southampton.

 

Five minutes on Southampton

In a division where seventeen of the twenty four teams are former Premiership teams in various states of despair or recovery few would want to swap places with Southampton. Playing in a half full soulless bowl of a stadium with an unknown manager, a hated chairman, debts up to their eyeballs and with a team made up almost entirely of their senior academy graduates only a recent run of three wins and a draw in five matches has given the Saints any hope at all that Bury and Hartlepool does not beckon for them next season. Now second bottom of the Championship, it is just six years since Gordan Strachan led the then top flight saints to an FA Cup final.

 

As an outsider looking in the reasons for this swift and dramatic demise always seem to come back to the current chairman at St Mary’s Rupert Lowe. It was his decision to appoint Plymouth manager Paul Sturrock to replace Strachan in 2004 and then sack him ridiculously early in the following campaign. I still maintain that Sturrock would have kept Southampton up that season - they certainly would have stood a better chance than they did with Lowe’s next madcap scheme which saw Steve Wigley promoted horrendously out of his depth and then left in the job just long enough so there was not enough time for his successor, Harry Redknapp, to claw back the deficit. A remarkably similar farce to the one Charlton repeated three seasons ago.

 

Redknapp initially stayed on as Southampton embarked on their first season outside the top flight in twenty seven years but controversially returned to Portsmouth in December 2005 to be replaced at St Mary’s by George Burley. Lowe had also turned to former England Rugby World Cup winning coach Clive Woodward and everybody’s favourite football visionary Simon Clifford (must have had a big dressing room to get the egos in) to work in the background. Burley did what he always does with teams in this league - spent lots of money, built an attractive team, took it to the play offs, and lost. If you enjoy heartbreaking knockout defeats then George always has been and always will be the man for you.

 

Off the pitch Lowe left, and then returned, as Michael Wilde and then Leon Crouch had a go at running the club only to then step/be moved aside. Burley left to take over as Scottish national manager last season although in truth the budgeting restrictions being imposed on the playing staff was never likely to be Burley’s taste and the Saints were sinking alarmingly close to the relegation zone. Another harebrained scheme to appoint former player Jason Dodd and John Gorman as managers to the end of the season fell flat on its face when the pair failed to win a single match, QPR won 3-2 at St Mary’s, and so in February Nigel Pearson was given his first chance as a number one after years of being an assistant at clubs like Newcastle.

 

Pearson has never inspired me very much, I think it’s the voice, but he is showing now at Leicester what a good manager he has the potential to be and indeed at Southampton last season he kept them up with a last day of the season win at home to Sheffield United. So they sacked him. Naturally. Despite the Premiership parachute payments and transfer fees received for Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale and Kenwyne Jones topping £20m the Saints said they were skint - a bigger case of financial mismanagement you would struggle to find in the Football League - and as a consequence Pearson went as a cost cutting measure.

 

Lowe and the board then turned to another crazy plan - to run the first team and academy side as one under the guidance of a coach with a record for developing young talent. That man was Jan Poortvliet, a Dutchman whose knowledge of the Championship last summer could have been summed up on the back of a postage stamp with a thick pen. First team players like Marek Saganowski, Stern John, Grzegorz Rasiak, Nathan Dyer have all been sent out on loan while Poortvliet was left to struggle on with the kids. The idea is admirable but flawed. Even at a wonderful academy set up like Southampton’s you can only ever hope to bring through two or three first team ready players a season at the absolute most. To rely on it for the entire team is madness. Southampton could easily have won at Loftus Road earlier this season with the addition of just one or two senior players - they actually left Chris Perry and Stern John on the bench that day as Oliver Lancashire was sent off for a naive tackle on his debut. There’s little wonder Southampton fans have been marching on St Mary’s before games this season demanding answers and heads on sticks. I bloody would be to.

 

With the money that has come into this club since relegation, the facilities they have, the academy they have and the support they can potentially pull in it is absolutely criminal that they find themselves in their current position. Money lashed out with little forward planning, one poor managerial appointment after another, one harebrained scheme after another. Southampton make QPR look like a normal and well rounded club.

 

Poortvliet resigned six weeks ago and was replaced by his alarmingly orange assistant Mark Wotte. Southampton now have Saganowski back in the team, Jason Euell and Rudi Skacel are getting a game, as is Chris Perry. They have Adam Lallana and Andrew Surman, another two super products of their academy, and just lately they have looked capable of pulling off a miracle escape. Having only won one home match all season until last month they have now beaten Preston and Cardiff on their own patch and lifted themselves to within two points of safety. Their survival at this level both short and medium term remains highly doubtful though.

 

Men to watch

The two latest hot properties to roll off the Southampton production line are Adam Lallana and Andrew Surman. South African born England youth international Surman has been around a little longer but both are highly regarded and sought after by clubs higher up the ladder. Lallana you may recall scored a wonderful goal at Loftus Road earlier this season, running from his own half via a one two to equalise for the ten man Saints. The goal and Lallana’s performance deserved more than the 4-1 result he eventually went home with.

 

Up front Southampton have been persevering with David McGoldrick for most of the season. Another youth team graduate and very, very raw. He’s quick, no doubt about that, and a foot race between him and Damion Stewart would be an interesting spectacle tomorrow, but he misses a lot of chances and has a long way to go before he could justify consistent selection in a Championship team. Southampton have recently turned to jason Euell who burst onto the scene in the premiership as a junior in the old Wimbledon side around the same time as Carl Cort but has since struggled to make an impact at Charlton and Middlesbrough while sturggling with injuries. He scored twice in a recent 3-0 win at Ipswich Town.

 

As previously stated the return of Marek Saganowski in January from a loan spell with Aalborg in Denmark has provided a much needed boost to the Saints forward line. The Pole burst onto the scene in this country when initially arriving on loan from Troyes in France. he scored ten goals in the final ten games of the 2006/07 season as George Burley’s side made a late run to the play offs. That unsurprisingly prompted the Saints to splash out on a permanent signing during the summer ahead of competition from, Burnley. Saganowski has never hit the same heights since though, and scored just three times in the whole of last season. Nevertheless he has returned refreshed in 2009 and has six goals to his name already including a brace in an impressive home win against play off chasing Preston.

 

Further back left footed midfielder Rudi Skacel has always looked prettyy good against QPR. he almopst joined Ipswich last summerand has suffered with injuries this season but is back in the team now and must be watched closely. Morgan Schneiderlin, another midfielder, was a £1m capture from Strasbourg in 2008 - Southampton’s last significant outlay.

 

At the back former Wimbledon and Tottenham defender Chris ‘the rash’ Perry needs no introduction. neither does goalkeeper Kelvin davis, superb in heavy defeat at Loftus Road earlier this season but normally good for a howler a game against us - the one against the back of Paul Furlong’s head at Portman Road springs to mind, as does Ray Jones’ wonderful goal at St Mary’s two seasons ago. Worryingly despite that Davis was linked with a January transfer window move to Loftus Road by some papers.

 

Prediction

A game we are well capable of winning but in our current state it’s impossible to see where the next maximum point haul is coming from. Southampton are desperate for points and I think a draw is probably the most likely outcome, though I’d back Southampton to win this before I would us.

Southampton 1 QPR 1

[Lets B Avenue]

Prediction: No bloody programmes at five to three.

[Kingsbridge Saint]

3-1 to Saints. First time Ive thought a win was on the cards for a long long time. Surely a reaction after the late Derby equaliser. We have been playing well on the whole for the last few weeks. Might just all come right Saturday.

[eelpie]

Brilliant spot, trousers. I expect their manager has done an equally good analysis of our team's strength and weaknesses. Are we a better team than the one that played so well at Loftus Road (despite naively gifting QPR easy goals)?

 

I nervously predict 1-1.

[saint lard]

A disapointing draw methinks,especially after the lacklustre display against Derby,it was hardly inspiring.

 

Hope i'm completely wrong.

[Ponty]

We will kill them.

[Windmill Arm 2]

QPR are suffering from a dip in form, so with this in mind I strongly predict that Saints will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory today.

 

COME ON YOU REDS PROVE ME WRONG!!!!!

[Dalek2003]

I can't think about it.

[Saint Fan CaM]

I have a horrible feeling that this is the game we will look back on and say "thats the game that sent us down".

 

Head : Saints 1 - QPR 3

Heart : Saints 2 - QPR 1

 

I pray that the lads come out fighting today and Blackstock has a mare.

[Saint_Jonny]

I've got a bad feeling about this all of a sudden.. kind of nervous now as i'm about to leave for town.

 

COME ON YOU SAINTS!!!!

[SaintRobbie]

2-1 Saints win today.

 

Why?

 

QPR will be over confident and expect to easiliy beat us after the humiliating thrashing they gave us at Loftus Road. They will under-perform.

 

Sagga will net x2.

[Leicestersaint]

Must win - will win - 4 : 2

[SaintRobbie]

Bloody hell Trousers - that is an awesome find - there is a QPR fan there who knows our Club better than his. Very good summary of Lowe's incompetence from a neutral that.

[trousers]

Bloody hell Trousers - that is an awesome find - there is a QPR fan there who knows our Club better than his.

 

Yeah, I did find that a bit odd!

[Under Weststand]

Thinking nothing but positives today we absolutely have to win this so 2-1 Saints.

That was a good article from QPR you found there trousers.

[St Chalet]

2-1 Saints with a real squeaky bum ending

[trousers]

Southampton 2-0 Queens Park Rangers

Saganowski (23)

Lallana (64)

 

Bookings:

Saeijs (7) Blackstock (34)

Skacel (72)

Euell (86)

 

Attendance: 18392 (1174 away)

 

 

Winning number of penalties scored at half time - 7

 

Temperature - 13 degrees celsius

Precipitation - None

Visibility - Good

 

 

On a mild spring day Southampton and Queen's Park Rangers met in a League match at St. Mary's. Saints won the toss and decided to kick towards the Northam first half. Surman passed it to Lallana who passed it to James who passed it to Saga who passed it to Gillett who passed it to Skacel who passed it to Euell who passed it to Saga who scored. 1-0 Saints ...

 

Are you a timelord?

 

Well, he got the "mild spring day" bit right....

[Lets B Avenue]

Prediction: No bloody programmes at five to three.

 

Even fewer at 3.05!!