QPR v Stoke 4DEC21 0 - 2 FT 5th/35pts

I've been a big advocate of Dozzell but I hold my hands up yesterday he wasn't great at all. He gave it away twice early on and it seemed to impact his confidence.

Kakay just isn't good enough. He didn't do anything particularly wrong yesterday, but he just has zero attacking threat. If I was Stoke I would have been happy every time the ball went out to Kakay because you know he can't beat his man and can't cross with any conviction. Kakay is fine if you are in the lower echelons of the division maybe, but for a team chasing a top 6 finish he's just not up to standard anymore.

Johansen was poor yesterday. Man of the Match? He was chasing shadows and giving it away for almost the entire 90 minutes. We had to rewind at one point to highlight his 'tracking back'; he was just wandering back towards the 18 yard box when Stoke were piling into the box. As other have said above he's just become inconsistent this season. One match he's all action and snapping into tackles and dictating play. The next he looks like his legs have gone.

I also thought Thomas did as much as we could hope when he came on - he did more in 10 minutes than most did in 90. He's just become an easy target. He showed energy, hot himself into dangerous positions and, although he missed chances, at least he was a constant threat to Stoke.