Trips to Loftus Road have become a regular occurrence over the festive period. As is often the case, the cup draw put us up against a side who we had recently faced in the league.
This meant another relatively short away trip for the Sussex Baggies, which could thankfully be done by train on this occasion having had to drive into central London on Boxing Day due to a tube strike.
Going into the game, I was not particularly confident. Not only were Steven Reid, Jonas Olsson, Goran Popov and Claudio Yacob still unavailable, Steve Clarke also had doubts over as many as five more players.
As it turned out, the only other players who missed the game through injury were Youssouf Mulumbu and Peter Odemwingie.
Clarke named a strong team with the back four remaining the same as the Fulham game and Boaz Myhill replacing Ben Foster in goal. James Morrison, George Thorne, Chris Brunt and Zoltan Gera made up the four-man midfield, playing just behind the front two of Shane Long and Romelu Lukaku.
First half
The first half was one of very few chances, with the most notable moment of the early stages being the excellent reception Brunt received from the travelling Albion fans, showing that the vocal minority who sarcastically cheered his substitution against Fulham on Tuesday certainly do not represent the views of the majority of Albion fans.
Without playing particularly well, we looked in reasonable control of the game and ensured that Myhill did not have a save to make.
The only efforts from either side were coming from distance, with the lively Morrison sending a strike straight at Julio Cesar in the QPR goal.
Our injury crisis was made worse when Gera limped off after just over 20 minutes to be replaced by Marc-Antoine Fortune, who himself was replaced in the third minute of first-half stoppage time after picking up an injury, with Jerome Thomas replacing him.
The best chance of the half had fallen to Lukaku just four minutes before the break, as he saw his close-range header from an excellent Morrison cross kept out by Cesar.
Second half
Albion started the second half with more purpose and Lukaku nearly gave us the lead inside the first minute of the half, as his powerful 20-yard shot from the left-hand side of the penalty area went just wide of the far post.
Morrison tried an ambitious effort on the half-volley from 25 yards just a few minutes later, but it was straight at Cesar.
Both sides worked hard throughout the second half, but the game seemed quite flat and it was clear that it would take either a bit of luck or genuine quality to break the deadlock.
Fortunately, the luck came our way after 79 minutes. Thorne showed good persistence just inside the QPR area to hold off a couple of challenges, before playing the ball to Long whose close-range shot was deflected past Cesar by substitute Nedum Onuoha.
After this, Albion looked in control and QPR seemed to have accepted that they were heading out of the FA Cup.
A number of the home fans who contributed to a poor attendance of just under 9,000 had already left by the time their side found an equaliser.
Only two minutes of time were added on and we looked fairly comfortable. Surely not even Albion could concede? Unfortunately, we did just that.
A long diagonal ball from the right-back position caught our back four out, allowing Kieron Dyer to latch onto it and finish past Myhill after taking a touch to steady himself.
We still came close to scoring what would undoubtedly have been the winner, as a deflected effort from Thorne found its way to the feet of Morrison six yards out, but he was not quite able to force the ball goal-wards.
On reflection
A draw was probably a fair result in this game – although it was also a result that both sides would have been looking to avoid pre-match.
We perhaps edged it in terms of possession and chances created, but all the saves we forced Cesar into were saves that you would expect a goalkeeper of his calibre to make.
A positive has got to be the performance of Thorne, who seems to have improved immensely during his loan spell at Peterborough United in the Championship. He got caught in possession on a couple of occasions, but used the ball well and was able to claim an assist for our goal.
Thomas also performed fairly well after his return from a loan spell at Leeds United. He still has the frustrating habit of not seeming keen to take the full-back on at times, but his pace and the fact that he is an out-and-out winger means that he provides us with an option we do not otherwise have.
As a whole, this was the sort of game where no player on either side really stood out as playing superbly, but where no player had a nightmare.
I had expected a defeat going into the game (although my expectations changed a little when I saw the team and certainly when we were 1-0 up going into two minutes of injury-time), so the main positive to take from today is that we are in the draw for the fourth round of the FA Cup and that, as he promised, Clarke picked a strong side and took the cup seriously, something which our previous two managers didn’t.
Hopefully we can get a few of the injured players back for Reading next week and try and find a bit of form again.
Boing Boing!
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