Saints V Brighton The Verdict

Saints huffed and they puffed but they couldnt blow the house down.

Saints put Brighton to the sword at St Mary's but the truth of the matter was they sorely missed the guile of Richard Chaplow and lapsed into one dimensional play that the Seagulls in the main dealt with fairly easily.

The match stats tell the story of a game in which Saints dominated 11 shots on target compared to the visitors 3, 10 shots off against 5, but it was Saints fortunate to get a point in the end thanks to a great Kelvin Davis penalty save.

If Saints had got an early goal and in the first half Brighton barely had a kick, then the game could have been oh so much different, but plenty of possession and chances did not mean plenty of saves from the visitors keeper who in the main had routine stuff to deal with, perhaps the best chance of the game for Saints fell to Rickie Lambert just after half time but he put his free header from six yards over the bar when he should really have scored, that probably summed up Lamberts season and Saints night.

But its not all doom and gloom, yes its two points dropped and we dropped out of the top six, but its another game unbeaten and earlier in the season its one we would have lost, plenty of other results went our way on the night and automatic promotion is stiill only four points away

Another disapointment was perhaps the crowd, yes it was a big one at 26,237 and that is superb in this division, but after taking into account the Brighton fans that meant 23k home supporters, the diapointment being that this was only 2,000 more Saints fans than turned up on Saturday for the Peterborough game, given the great result on Saturday and this was against the league leaders I would have thought more than an extra couple of thousand would have turned up, you cant slag the 20,000 Saints supporters who turn up every week, but if the floating Saints fan wants to see the Club climb back up the leagues and enjoy more great days out such as Wembley along the way, then they really do need to put their hands in their pockets and get along to St Mary's a little more often.

What to read next:

Season Preview Revisited – Top Half
It’s that time of the year again where we look back at the hits and misses from our season preview – this year we either got your team exactly right to the place, or missed by half the division.

A season of three thirds: how Cifuentes and QPR beat the drop – Analysis
Columnist Andrew Scherer returns with an end-of-season deep dive into the facts and figures behind Marti Cifuentes’ rescue job on QPR’s class of 2024.

End of Term 23/24 – Attack
The fourth and final part of our annual review and number crunch of the QPR squad finishes with the club’s amazing non-scoring strikers.

End of Term Report 23/24 – Midfield
The third part of our end of term report focuses on QPR’s midfield – an enormous problem for this team for a number of seasons now, it’s been one of the areas of significant improvement under Marti Cifuentes.

End of Term Report 23/24 – Defenders
Part two of our annual individual player reports for the season focuses on a defence which really came into its own under Marti Cifuentes and contains the two outstanding candidates for the club’s player of the year award.

End of Term Report 23/24 – Goalkeepers
The first of our annual four-part individual assessment of the QPR players’ performances during the previous season always starts with the goalkeepers – and, regrettably, that means we’re puncturing the recent feel-good factor round here by beginning with a negative.

The Coventry Conference – Report
Coventry away, for so long a fixture that loomed almost as large as the spectre of Eoin Jess over Queens Park Rangers, turned into an eighth away win of the campaign and survival party for a manager and support base who both really stepped up when it mattered in 23/24.

Coventry City 1 - 2 Queens Park Rangers - Player Ratings and Reports
If you saw the match, please give us your player ratings and a mini match report.

The season that was - Preview
As QPR, unbelievably, head to Coventry on the final day safe and secure, LFW looks back at a tumultuous two years at the football club, and the lessons it must learn to make the most of the potential it now has to move forwards.

I hear you’re a set piece team now father – Analysis
In his final analysis piece for LFW this season, Dan Lambert looks at how QPR went from being the worst team in the league for offensive set pieces to, eventually, kind of good.