Queens Park Rangers 3 - West Bromwich Albion 1

Submit your ratings for this game by clicking here:

Ratings submitted so far: 8

Brendan Clegg:

Well that was awful.

Starting 11 outfield made sense but dropping Griffiths seemed a bit from nowhere. He’s made mistakes but there is enough backroom coaching continuity to tell Mason he’s the best ‘tried’ keeper at the club. Honestly it just smacked of amateur inexperience again. Get your own man in January if you need to… an experienced head, but don’t drop a kid for someone who has proven to be nowhere near it.

First half was up there with the worst games I’ve ever seen. Both sides were rubbish. QPR went long, made it horrible, pressed Mowatt immediately and on a tight pitch gave our wingers no room.

We had no answer, didn’t keep it well enough, didn’t pass it fast enough when the opportunities were there and didn’t win enough 2nd balls. It was also bitty with loads of stoppages.

Still, we’d pretty much made it to half time before we went to sleep AGAIN for a late goal… every man back but absolutely no pressure on a cross and a free header from close range. Absolutely woeful.

No changes at half time but wingers switching sides did improve us. Personally I’d have been a bit radical and put Diakite on for Mowatt to focus on winning 2nd balls and getting it forward quicker.

We just started to get into it before we gifted a calamitous 2nd… over playing when Mowatt was pressed, he lost it cheaply and 2-0 it was.

It could’ve been more… they missed a sitter through Mepham and Wildsmith messing up.

I recall Campbell missing our own sitter by shooting straight at the keeper with the goal at his mercy before Heggebø superbly headed home a half chance to give us hope. Fair play - it was a very deliberate finish which looked almost impossible from where he was.

With better crossing he might have scored again but in the end we threw the game away with another slapstick goal.

Campbell stopped playing and started hugging Kone who shrugged him off, jogged away and squared the ball for Wildsmith to parry onto the striker’s foot.

Inept and embarrassing… but we changed nothing else until it was over.

Overall it was a jumble of rubbish. We got easily beaten by a crap team who didn’t have to work for their goals and we had no answer to their basic approach.

I’m sure we’d all love to be proved wrong but Mason is what he is - a novice totally out of his depth. I can’t defend the players but they are utterly rudderless and there isn’t a plan, an identity, or anything that shows promise of jam tomorrow. It will get worse if we don’t act soon… it is so obvious.

• Wildsmith - 5 Didn’t inspire confidence
• Campbell - 4 Qpr pressed him and targeted him. What was he doing for the 3rd. Is he a footballer?
• Bielik - 6 Just about okay, did pass it well sometimes
• Mepham - 5 Full of errors
• Styles - 6 at least had a go
• Mowatt - 5 couldn’t handle their pressure and strength
• Molumby - 5 A ‘thinks he’s better than he is’ performance. Wasted so much by trying passes he can’t do or dribbles he can’t make.
• Grant - 5 Got physically matched and therefore totally nullified
• Maja - 5 the odd good touch and ran about but our passing was crap
• MJ - 6 Ran into blind alleys but had a go
• Heggebø- 7 strong and an incredible header

• Price - 6 put the yards in
• Bany - 5 looked quite weak

Could be a long week. Better to exit him now and play these next two games under no pressure than have the toxicity that is coming otherwise.

Kev Buckley:

QPR 3 WBA 1: Thoughts from the "highlights"

Only got to see a 10-minutes "highlights" package for this one, but the tiny amount of first-half "action" suggests we didn't really carry any momentum from the last game into this one, even if Mason did carry his end-of-game personnel changes into the start of it.

Clearly a bit too early in the piece for the Mepham-Bielik centre-back partnership, as they allowed an unchallenged header in-between them for the first goal, although we'd never really cleared the danger from the previous cross.

The second was an even worse case of "dicking around at the back with it" than that goal-kick routine from the last game - Mowatt seemingly trying to pass a camel-through eye-of-the-needle pass to his keeper, between two opposition players who were GOAL-SIDE of him, and when the camel (sorry: ball) hit one of them, the other could hardly miss.

Having said that, when Mepham and Wildsmith's lack of understanding under a long punt (echoes of the last game's opener?) gifted QPR a chance to go three up, a striker who could hardly miss, managed to do so.

There was, at least, a bit of "total football" as we tried to get back into it, with the QPR keeper having to make a quick double save from both of our full-backs, who were up inside the QPR box.

Heggebo once again showed that, no matter where he receives the ball inside the box, he does know exactly where the goal is, directing a long, looping header across into the far side netting, after Styles delivered.

Not clear why Campbell stopped fouling his man out on the touchline and let him run free into the box for their third and, whilst Wildsmith will get exposed to a lot of criticism for palming the cross into the path of the striker who then tapped it in, if he doesn't try to save what no other Albion defender was going to block anyway, the striker would have had an even simpler tap-in anyway: he was that exposed.