Queens Park Rangers vs. Tottenham Hotspur: Instant reaction

Oh boy. That was awful. Harry Redknapp sent out his team in an extremely defensive 4-6-0, with Adel Taarabt as a false nine that dropped extremely deep. Queens Park Rangers looked very dangerous on a couple of corners, but spent the vast majority of the game with 11 players behind the ball, trying to stifle Tottenham Hotspur. Their strategy worked very well, and the match ended 0-0.

Julio Cesar made a couple of excellent saves early in the first half, on Emmanuel Adebayor and Jermain Defoe. Those two shots, in the opening 20 minutes of the game, were the best two chances of the game. Cesar made a couple of other decent saves in the second half, while Kyle Walker went close with a free kick, but Tottenham never really looked like scoring after Adebayor's early saved effort.

This game also featured what appeared to be a bad knee injury for Sandro. He went down with a non-contact injury after an attempted shot, and had to be helped off the pitch by a physio and Adebayor. There's no word on his injury yet, but it didn't look good.

Thoughts:

- Emmanuel Adebayor was indecisive in front of goal again, but he was good otherwise. Anything that looked like a decent move came through him dropping deep and combining with his teammates. He did very well to keep the ball moving even if he was beyond useless in the 18.

- Scott Parker was probably the wrong sub for Sandro. This game needed someone who would try a creative pass or two and didn't need someone to hold a position in midfield. QPR didn't build a single attack through their midfield. He was pointless in this kind of game.

- Michael Dawson, Jan Vertonghen and Hugo Lloris were excellent.

- In this kind of game, Gareth Bale needs to take over. He's the most talented player on the pitch in games where Spurs are playing anyone but United, Chelsea or City. He needs to start acting like it. When the other team is putting 11 behind the ball, it's up to Bale to attempt to make something out of nothing, and he didn't do it.