In the preview I hoped that the confidence and stability that showed in the Swansea game would carry on at Loftus Road and it did.

Right from the very start Saints had a purpose about them that we havent had much of till last week, they seemed to have a pattern to their play and they looked confident that they could and would be better than QPR, of course things arent suddenly all sweetness and light and there are still many problems in the side that need addressing, but we now have a side that is capable mentally of picking up a few points and keeping us in touch with the safety zone and a fortnight ago Im not sure that we could have said that.

Whether Nigel Adkins has had a clear the air talk with Nicola Cortese or not is open to speculation, but clearly something has changed and it looks like the manager with nothing to lose has taken his destiny back in his own hands and is making the decisions, if that is the case then perhaps his players are now responding to a manager who now has control.

The defensive lapses were still evident and the QPR goal was full testimony to that, but full credit to Saints after conceding a soft goal at a bad time to give the home side a chance to stoke up the fire, they didnt crumble and although perhaps it didnt seem like it at the time, they kept full control and passed their way out of trouble.

We should be wary that we wont always be playing teams as bad as Rangers, but we now have a foundation to keep building on and the chance to rack up a few points with two home games coming up.

But back to this game, Saints followed my hopes in the pre match preview to the letter, its hard to pick a man of the match, if only for the fact that there were so many who contributed to this win, Jason Puncheon continued his rehabillitation with a great goal and some good work, Rickie Lambert lead the line with his usual aplomb and took his goal well, but for me Jack Cork was perhaps the pick of the bunch, he has made a difference in the centre of midfield and he adds something that we were lacking before, thats not to be little Steve Davis who came on at exactly the right time in exactly the right change to replace the tiring Ramirez and make sure that we didnt get overun, I like Davis as a player, but since he has been back Cork has just added something.

My big surprise in looking at the player ratings on the site though is how some still down mark players they dont like, all 14 players involved were at least 7's and in terms of the way we won a tough game and the manner we won it 8's with several worth 9, to give certain players 4 & 5's as some have done is petty, no matter how much we may personally dislike players, they are all part of the squad and deserve our backing not petty sniping, by all means berate a player when he makes a mistake, but not when he contributes and plays well. 

Our fans were superb and as I said earlier in the week our "3,000 Raucous Supporters" did exactly what was needed, inspired the team and kept them going and helped them get the home crowd on the back of their own team.

We now have something to really build on, Newcastle are a side that we can beat and Norwich is going to be crucial, six points from those two games and we could head into December out of the bottom three.        

Photo: Action Images

legod7 added 10:30 - Nov 18 That's rich coming from you about player's markings. You had an obvious dislike towards Dan Harding and belittled him every game no matter how he played
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TreeHugger added 10:38 - Nov 18 What a performance!! As you say, we can’t get carried away, especially as it was against the team at the bottom of the league. However, given the circumstances, the players and manager showed they can handle the pressure and have the mental strength to climb up the table. Cork has made a real difference and broke up so much of their play. Him and Morgan worked really well together. Overall, the team as a whole defended very well (apart from one lapse). when you look at the goals we scored, they all came from putting In that extra bit of effort. Lambert for the first, Clyne getting up to win the ball for the second, and the pressure for the corner which led to the third. Punch had a blinder, wish he would play with that urgency and conviction every week! Lallana and shaw seemed to link up well. GR looked good in patches, he will definitely win us the odd game with a touch of class. I hope him and Lambert can click as they just seem to be looking for different passes at the moment. He will improve with time though. A mention has to go to the fans. I think if we had not been so supportive to the players and manager over the last few weeks, they wouldn’t have played with so much freedom. QPR have a good set of players but they are not together from what I could see…..a lot of arm flapping if not getting the perfect pass, etc. Newcastle won’t be an easy game but we can go into it with some confidence. If we can play with the same tempo and urgency we can get a really good run going.

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DJI added 10:48 - Nov 18 I agree Nick, the defensive errors are still there but yesterday, they didn't hurt us as they have done in previous matches, and as we know, it only takes a second or two and we've conceded. Overall, I enjoyed our performance and we seemed to grow in confidence as the game wore on. I think the fans had a lot to do with that as they were noisy all game. I do agree about Corky; he's brought something extra to our midfield and it has showed in both the games so far. I did think Puncheon had a good game too but in the first half, he could've made some better runs into the space on the right and given Clyne better options and stretched QPR more. For some reason he wanted to stay close to him which led to some congestion and a counter-attack being missed. My only real criticism would be that we didn't seem to want to counter-attack much and on the one occasion we did, Ramirez ran out of puff by the time he reached the penalty area and Ferdinand nicked it off him easily. Overall though, I enjoyed the day; Loftus Rd is a proper old school ground and can be very intimidating but we made it into a home game quite easily.

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ExiledSupporter added 10:48 - Nov 18 Legod7's above remarks are unwarranted and extremely petty; perhaps typical of a minority of supporters who express their frustration with events by singling out players that more often than not they have taken quite irrational personal dislikes to and pour scorn on - sometimes because of their appearance, previous clubs or, dare I say, colour. Nick is not chargeable with any of these faults and while he may have different views they are always reasonably and intelligently expressed unlike those of his detractors who adopt an unacceptable vein of criticism which says more about their small minded perspective.

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mattlegod added 10:51 - Nov 18 Nick - I put out a challenge a couple of weeks ago that our defence had not improved since Kelvyn had been replaced; once which you disagreed with. In light of the defensive errors that gazza is making, including the one that lead to QPR's goal yesterday - is it time for KD to return between the sticks?
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izlingtonhoop added 11:04 - Nov 18 No, really, don't get carried away! You truly won't be playing a team as bad as that again. And as an opposing fan yesterday I'd say your team looked very ordinary. Best bunch of fans I've seen in the School End for a long, long time! Great work!
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ElSanto added 11:49 - Nov 18 I hope Gaston gets back to being a team players again. Yesterday he tried to do far too much on his own. He is still recovering from that injury.
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SaintNick added 12:17 - Nov 18 mattlegod I havent had the benefit yet of seeing the goal on television so can only comment from what I say from the other end of the ground, I felt that the scorer was ummarked with a free header, Gazzaniga had a choice of staying on his line where the guy would have picked his spot, or trying to get out and put him off which he did but couldnt get there. Apart from the goal though Gazzaniga did well, and overall is far better than Kelvin who was making errors in both judgement and handling the ball, im not sure whether gazzaniga is really ready to be thrown into this situation but he is the best of what we have, Kelvin is not up to standards and wouldnt help the situation, a premier quality & experienced keeper is needed

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schatfield added 12:45 - Nov 18 Gazzinga was not good yesterday. He is stood in no mans land for their goal - it wasnt our defense that led to that, it was pure goalkeeping error. He was also stood in completly the wrong areas for a couple of corners and was a big concern. Aside from that the defense looked solid. He will come good given time, but for the moment Davies has to go back in goal.
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slynch added 13:28 - Nov 18 I couldn't see what Gazza could have done to prevent the goal. A lack of inches in the box caused their goal. Fonte can't do it on his own and the rest are no good in the air, Hooi is required or more such goals will be conceded. However, the back line seemed more organised than before, Shaw looked goodish and Cork filled in that awful gap between Lallana and the LB. Let's hope it was an improvement and not a lack of a test that we saw. Newcastle will show which it was. And I reckon Cortese will be there and if Saints win Adkins' job will certainly be safe!

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StSaint added 13:41 - Nov 18 Gazzaniga wasn't great yesterday, though its pretty understandable after he was held accountable for Swansea's equaliser last week. This result should give him back some confidence. I think he's our stand out No. 1 and think Kelvin has had his day at SFC on the playing front.
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legod7 added 13:46 - Nov 18 "That's rich coming from you about player's markings. You had an obvious dislike towards Dan Harding and belittled him every game no matter how he played " Exiled, Above is my comment in full. No way am I being negative or petty about any Saints player. Obviously YOU did not read Nick's report fully or my answer.I am a season ticket holder and am always behind the side. All I am stating is facts. It was in answer to Nick's comment about some people giving low marks to Saints players. All the time Dan Harding played for Saints Nick took a dislike to him and berated every performance no matter how good or bad he played.Even if he gave m-o-m performance Nick would find something wrong.And then to have a go about some posters giving Saints players low marks is incredible. It was Nick who took an instant dislike to a certain player NOT me. Now go back and read your own absolutely stupid comment about being petty and get your facts right before sounding off on here.

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SingaporeSaint added 13:58 - Nov 18 Very strong performance against an ordinary team. Main positive for me are that at last NA has got the shape right and we have no glaring weaknesses in the team. Shaw is a massive plus for us - he snuffed out QPRs threat on that side completely, so different to Fox, he also keeps it well and looks so mature for a young player. He gives confidence to the back 4 and they are starting to look like a unit. Cork and Schniederlin bossed the midfield, Punch had a great game and Adkins got it absolutely right in taking off Ramires for Davis, as we bossed it thereafter. Gazza was shaky and needs to get better but he did stand up well when Taraabt went through at 0-0 - these were flying past KD every week on his near post. The goal was as much Lallana;s fault as Gazzas as he let Hoillet go. Ramires needs to do a lot more and needs a lot of fitness work and if he can deliver to his price tag and we pick this side ongoing then we have a very decent chance of surviving. All in all - a dominant performance and on the Asia TV feed our fans sounded brilliant..

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bstokesaint added 15:24 - Nov 18 Great result yesterday and good to see us playing with a good shape and a first 11 that work for each other. MoM performances for me from Clyne and Cork. Punch clearly relishing his chance in the Premiership too. Even Alan Hansen was full of praise for us on MOTD. On the downside we need to stop burying our heads in the sand regarding the keeper. Gazzaniga is well out of his depth and will start costing us valuable points. I'd rather have the experienced Kelvin back in goal, or gamble on Boruc. Okay, he's not made the best start but he's played Champions League football and internationally. I've spoken to fans of clubs he's been at and they couldn't talk highly enough of him. He's clearly been left out in the cold for a while, but if he get some confidence back who knows..

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1teeminants added 16:26 - Nov 18 Nick i see you are still vey reluctant to mention a certain Luke Shaw who has made a huge difference to the shape of the team. told ya..... LOL winky winky
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SaintNick added 17:52 - Nov 18 Le god 7, my point was about marking players low for the sake of it, whenever i berated harding I always justified why i had done so and where possible gave facts and figures including the fact that in two seasons Harding had about 4 assits in total whilst Fox had something like 15 last year, but when i gave my own markings i alwyas gave him what I considered a fair mark. Funnily enough 1 teems comments also tie in with this, Shaw is playing well and has taken his chance well, however the problems that exposed Fox are still there and thats a worry, thats no slur on Fox, I actually didnt mention shaw too much yesterday thats true, but then again I didnt mention fox either as I thought if i did it would detractfrom the performance of both, the change by adkins came at exactly the right time an experienced head coming on and completing the job. And this gets back to my point, Fox was on 15 minutes, in that time he played well and did nothing wrong, in fact he did plenty right and made sure that they couldnt open us up down the left, yet he was still marked 4& 5 by many who voted which is just plain pettiness. As I said I support all our players on the pitch and on here i try to look at different angles other than on the official site where every player played great even in big defeats

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Whatsforpud added 23:36 - Nov 18 For me, Gazza didn't inspire confidence. At least twice he was caught in nomansland for crosses, getting away with one of them. If you venture out, you have to be confident that you are going to reach it. If in doubt, stay back. Davis stays back too much for a lot of people, presumably because he is not 100% sure of geting it. Otherwise, everyone else turned up and played some good stuff. Can't think that Newcastle is going be be as easy.

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bstokesaint added 12:15 - Nov 19 Whatsforpud my friend is a Newcastle season ticket holder. He doesn't support them, but just happens to live there at this moment in time. Therefore he is not biased in any way. He says they have totally gone off the boil recently and were really poor in their last game. They may not be as easy as QPR, but maybe it's the right time to playing them.
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