 | Forum Reply | The Boro Match thread. at 23:05 11 Mar 2025
He's not a striker but Paal should have scored in the first half with a clear sight of the goal in the area and he shoots wide. |
 | Forum Reply | The Boro Match thread. at 22:12 11 Mar 2025
I have been lamenting our downturn in away performances for some time. The Boxing Day defeat at Swansea seemed to be the start, apart from Plymouth away, we have been poor on the road for getting on 3 months. Lose at home to Leeds and it will be 8 defeats in 10 which is relegation form. |
 | Forum Reply | Rest of the Championship thread at 21:55 11 Mar 2025
Naturally as soon as we praise Coventry they go and lose at Derby. With Derby and Luton winning it is wide open as to who will go down as starting to bunch up. Oxford are slipping back after the initial good form when Rowett arrived. |
 | Forum Reply | Rest of the Championship thread at 23:03 9 Mar 2025
Portsmouth have half their first team out injured yet still beat Leeds keeping up their great home form. We lose a few players and can't cope particularly in the strikers department. Looks like Coventry were justified replacing Robins with Lampard. Quite staggering he has won 9 out of the last 10. All these added time goals they have been getting has made them shoot up the table. |
 | Forum Reply | Disappointed at 17:50 8 Mar 2025
We have looked even more blunt since we lost Kolli and this has played a part in losing 6 of 8 games. Whilst our attack has been dire for years and never properly addressed in that time we keep getting results like today. Ever since the 7-1 drubbing at Albion a few years back, we have really struggled against them, even though they have no parachute payments just like us. They still challenge the top of the league each season. Sadly our away form has settled into a pattern of defeat after defeat which hadn't really happened in the previous two seasons. I am unsure if our bad form is just on the strikers not scoring or has the team mentally relaxed thinking they are safe and have lost some focus? |
 | Forum Reply | Rest of the Championship thread at 21:59 5 Mar 2025
They did beat Pompey in the last game something we couldn't do in two meetings. Have to see if that win galvanises them in some way. |
 | Forum Reply | VAR at 21:54 5 Mar 2025
Yes a pathetic decision as if a heel gives an unfair advantage. Then a Liverpool defender could have been sent off but VAR ruled no foul. To cap it all against the run of play Liverpool nick it at the end. First Queen's Park last night went two up in the second half and still contrived to lose, and now this robbery by the Scousers. Damn it all... |
 | Forum Reply | Sheffield Utd Thread at 17:20 1 Mar 2025
Unfortunately we just can't seem to draw a game. Having pulled it back to 2-1 in successive games it is annoying not to have saved one of these games like we did at Brammall Lane. The reality is we have now lost five of the last seven games and not having players to convert the chances we create leaves us frustrated even when we play well. |
 | Forum Reply | Away form? at 20:32 24 Feb 2025
OK there may be a bit of over analysis and wringing of hands but what was the game plan to counter Portsmouth's good home form? We looked underprepared and a bit taken aback by their approach as if we had no idea how they play at Fratton Park. Wè may be a mid table side but you should still be prepared to fight, battle, scrap, meet fire with fire and compete all over the park as so many teams are similar and closely matched. We always look like rabbits caught in the headlights when teams play like Portsmouth did. They are supposed to have an injury crisis but they still wanted it more and gave everything for the cause. I couldn't say that about us where we looked like a team of fancy Dan's. I always think we come unstuck at the Den because we don't match Millwall's fight but often in these type of games you have to bin attempts at nice football and get stuck in. These type of opponents tend to bully us into submission and get the match officials onside with them. It is no surprise that the only game Portsmouth lost at home in the last 11 fixtures was against Millwall. If there is one team that will stand up to aggression then Millwall is it and they would match Portsmouth's aggression. This is not a new problem with us as our lamentable record in London derbies in recent times has shown. When we can't play our football against a physical opponent we usually come out second best. We also lost at Derby and it won't surprise me if we complete the trilogy by losing at Oxford too by the direct approach of teams who came up from league 1. It might work for us at home but in away games we need to be better standing up to aggression. |
 | Forum Reply | Known knowns – Report at 12:24 24 Feb 2025
Frustrating that improving at home means we have got worse away but that appears to be the reality. Pompey fans not happy with the ref for the disallowed goal and they felt Dunne's goal was more of a foul than the one that ruled a third goal out. Gifting them 6 easy points is hard to stomach seeing they were in league 1 last season. |
 | Forum Reply | Away form? at 20:54 22 Feb 2025
I rather think people are missing the point about our away form. Nobody is saying it has ever been great. What I am trying to get across is that in the previous two seasons we have won more away than at home and picked up more away points in those two seasons than at Loftus Road. Forget the history of QPR away, the OP I believe is saying we have not been as good away this season in contrast to the past two seasons. Our home form was so bad it perhaps wasn't difficult to be better away and this continued in the early months of this season. Now we are vastly improved at home, away points have dried up where we are struggling even to draw on our travels. It seems Marti has cured our home ills to the detriment of the away form. The last two seasons saw us win away to the two eventual champions but naturally we lost to both at home, Burnley and Leicester. We looked more assured away last season than we do now. It doesn't improve my mood seeing Brentford and Palace have both won four away games on the bounce in the Premier league while we have lost three in a row on the road in the Championship. How big is that gap getting? |
 | Forum Reply | Pompey and Circumstance Match Fred at 18:15 22 Feb 2025
Portsmouth' record in last 11 home fixtures: Won 8, drew 2, lost 1. If that is not doing well at home then I don't know what is. Our record in the gold mess is played 6 won none. Bear in mind we have won a couple of away games not wearing it. [Post edited 22 Feb 18:22]
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 | Forum Reply | Pompey and Circumstance Match Fred at 17:31 22 Feb 2025
Three away defeats in a row. Now the home form is good the away form falters. Six points gifted to Pompey for the season but you can see why they do well at home with their battering ram approach. We need to get rid of the gold kit that seems to induce the opponent to get stuck in to the softies. |
 | Forum Reply | Neil Warnock on Sky as a pundit for Leeds/ Sunderland at 22:31 17 Feb 2025
Warnock made an interesting point at the end that he wouldn't have made any subs as Sunderland boss when 1-0 up. Feels changing the personnel broke Sunderland's grip on frustrating Leeds. Don't know if he is right about that as Sunderland got 6 players booked and were tiring from constant defending but then Neil knows the management game better than most. |
 | Forum Reply | Play Offs? Dream on at 17:18 16 Feb 2025
We probably won't make the play offs purely because one win in first third of the season is a lot of wasted games. Losing at home to Pompey, drawing at home to Plymouth and Coventry (when they were in bottom 3), losing at Derby etc were costly. I think 4 of the next 6 are away but we are not playing as well away now we are good at home. During our chronic home form it was the away results which kept us afloat. I know we drew at Sheffield Utd and Burnley but that doesn't mean we will win the return home games. When we won at Burnley and Leicester we had lost to both at home. Leeds are clearly better than last season and I don't think they will be bottling it in March when they visit. If it was in April possibly they might be wobbling. On paper the last two games against Burnley and Sunderland are tough if we need to win to make the play offs. Nobody is finding it easy to score against Burnley let alone beat them. Those two games might be easier for us if both can't get automatic promotion so they rest a few players for the play offs. It hasn't helped us with Coventry in 7th picking up 4 bonus points in a few days with two added time winners. We have lost 3 of the last 5 matches and Portsmouth away is difficult looking at their recent home form compared to our away form. I think we have too much to do and we can't afford too many slip ups. |
 | Forum Reply | QPR v Derby match thread at 00:18 15 Feb 2025
Great to see us win 4-0 live on Sky again. Shame the Leeds game was not moved to a Friday night. We don't fire on all cylinders for 1230 games. My one gripe is we had 25 minutes to be ruthless and add more goals to the four tonight but didn't. Could have got the GD back to zero. |
 | Forum Reply | A decent season then go all in for next season at 22:20 12 Feb 2025
While I agree we can be competitive as we are in this division, we are well short of the teams at the top so I wouldn't hold out much hope of us doing a Bournemouth or Brentford if we were to win the play offs next season. You basically have to survive the first two seasons up there to get a foothold. The big problem for us is bigger clubs like Leeds, Sunderland and Sheffield United getting double the gate receipts we get. If those three go up this season and come straight back down, they will still have double our gate receipts and will have the big parachute payments as well back in the Championship. We could do a Luton and Ipswich but if we drop straight back down then it is very hard to replicate what the Cherries and Bees are doing unless we stay up. Right now I can't see us ever troubling the top two or three for auto the way things are structured. No doubt if spending clubs like Wrexham and Birmingham come up next season, there are two more clubs who will be looking to make the play offs next season. The players we currently have won't bring us much in sales if Sheffield United only wanted to pay £2million for Dunne. We don't have a talent like Eze to sell for big money so I do think it is extremely difficult to build a budget squad to give relegated Premiership teams a challenge. |
 | Forum Reply | A decent season then go all in for next season at 20:35 12 Feb 2025
The problem with staying at Loftus Road is the capacity so we can't do much with increasing gate receipts so ffp is an issue. Luton will move to a new 25k ground so they can get more income that way to outbid us for new players and pay higher wages for better players. Money talks these days and does shape the leagues with the smallest budgets in the bottom half. We have had a striker issue for over 10 years and they are hard to come by if you have smaller budgets and don't develop clinical forwards of your own. If we don't find a better striker than next season we will continue frittering away chances and dropping points. Right now it is impossible seeing us compete for auto promotion unless stuff like ffp and parachute payments get binned We certainly need to start better next season as we won't keep getting away with one win in 16 games at the start of each season. A lot will depend on how quickly new signings bed in and if we avoid getting as many injuries as we had earlier in the season to disrupt us. |
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