S-Clarke

Get the feeling we haven't made the most of that sloppy start from QPR.

Queens Park Rangers defender Fabio is available to play against Southampton on Saturday after overcoming a long-term hamstring injury. Park Ji-sung (knee) is unavailable, Bobby Zamora (hip) is a doubt, while Stephane Mbia is suspended, Kieron Dyer and Hogan Ephraim are available after overcoming their respective calf and hamstring problems, but Andrew Johnson (knee) is out.

I imagine this is just twitter waffle.

Just remember, 2 years ago Blackpool sat 7th with 28 points in December. They were relegated. I think they're a decent outfit, but nothing special. They just have nice combinations down the spine. Noble/Nolan and Diame compliment each other perfectly. But when they hit their batch of fixtures against the top sides, and go on a bad run of form, they'll slide down the league.

Why on earth would you encourage any team to ''come onto us'' with our defenders? Madness. We're not good enough to be able to deploy that tactic. We just need to keep the ball well, condense the play when they have it and close them down all over the pitch.

Our GK position is the weirdest thing about this year. We didn't really make up our minds in the summer regarding it, and we were probably a little too loyal to Kelvin.

I'd change very little from the Swansea game. Alot is being made out about Swansea missing loads of players, but I can only really see Flores, Taylor and their GK as the missing trio. We handled Pablo pretty well, and he's a very quick and technical player. Our shape and defensive setup was perfect, and over 90 mins it's as consistent as we have been in that sense.

We need a new CB and a new LB, without question. That's probably being worked on as we speak. We could also do with an upgrade to Puncheon in the RW position, and a ''powerhouse'' type of midfielder. Someone who is strong enough to retain the ball when put under pressure. As good Morgan is technically, he's as light as a feather - same can be said for Davis, Cork and JWP. We don't really have a dominating type of CM. A lot of the success West Ham have enjoyed is down to the combination in midfield - a ball playing midfielder, and a strong, dominant powerful CM in Diame. Could do with loaning out JWP for 6 months to a NPC team, in order to open up the space in the squad.

Probably better off getting down to Comet and making the most of their clearance sales, not sure how old the TV is - but if you're talking 12 months or so, it's probably not worth fixing it economically wise.

on 72 mins, a 1-0, that ball should have been launched as far up field as possible. I'm all for playing football from the back, but there are just times in a game and games in a season where you just do what has to be done. Swansea weren't going to create anything as we nullified them in general play, which makes it even more frustrating as we gave them that goal. They didn't have to work.

That's pretty much as I see it. If you go back looking at the midfield, then you're looking too far into it. The mistake was the clearance, as straight forward and simple as that.

Doubt it. Will be a very nervous and tight game though. 1 goal will decide it IMO.

TBF, if you want something from the kiosks then you need to leave at around that time. Any later, you'll queue up for 20mins only to be told there's nothing left.

Got a hunch that the fate of either manager rests on this game, although QPR's is in a slightly more precarious position. I should see it as a positive that QPR haven't won yet, but that makes me bloody nervous if I'm honest. They're going to win at some point with the players they have. But at least we're going into it with QPR still in the same state, with the same manager. I don't rate him and neither do QPR fans. Glad we're not going to get the ''new manager bounce'' from this game that I felt was inevitable a few weeks ago.

Villa lead, not good at all.

You're right about Mayuka, still very much an unknown quantity whose reputation is growing due to not playing. Similar happened with Tadanari

We had a couple of moments where we got in behind, Swansea threw their bodies on the line and blocked. I just don't think we played that badly today.

What a weird thread.

Maybe we could have seen Mayuka at some stage, but if NA had taken off Gaston and we'd still have not won he'd have been hung out to dry.

We were alright though, In control of the game. I didn't feel there was a need for any radical changes. He's been criticized for making the subs in the final third before, and now he's criticized for not making them. He can't win.

Very little wrong today in terms of the team, and the setup. We had a good shape about us, closed down well and retained the ball intelligently throughout the middle of the pitch. If there was one criticism, it was our lack of final third impact at times. I thought we should have worked their back 4 more than we did, as we had the game in our hands at stages of the game. I was delighted to see Cork back, and felt he added a much needed energy and grit to the middle - as well as being able to see, and make a simple pass to retain possession. A nice solid debut from Shaw too, didn't do much wrong and has good pace to recover when needed. The substitution was understandable though, as he was out on his legs towards the closing period. The goal was embarrassing though, again. The blame has to go to Gazza who played the most ridiculous pass you're ever likely to see, you can't really blame Yoshida because Gazza set him up for a fall there - although one criticism i have of Yoshida is his lack of strength, he was pushed off the ball by Nathan Dyer for petes sake. Overall we should have won that, we didn't, and it's the same old avoidable goal that cost us it. If we did that last year we'd have been punished, so god knows why we're doing it this year. One of our back 5 seem programmed to see red at some stage within a game. Maybe one day we'll keep a clean sheet...

There was nothing wrong with the selection, the subs or the tactical setup today. One avoidable goal cost us the win. Which is very frustrating, because we did little wrong today.

Eh? we have a special one here.

I doubt he'll start. NA said as much in his last pre-match conf. - he hasn't been able to put out a settled back 4 all season, and he's now got the opportunity to do that. I doubt he's going to change it around again.

Poor effort at a wind-up thread. 1/10