Tommy relishing tough game at QPR
Tommy Smith has told htafc.com that the squad will travel to London ‘full of confidence’ for Saturday’s Sky Bet Championship game at QPR.
QPR has a fearsome home record so far this season, conceding just four goals in 12 home games ahead of Saturday’s clash with the Terriers, but the defender explained that the task doesn’t daunt the Town squad.
“QPR is a big club with a great squad and Manager. They are at the top of the table for a reason. However, we’re full of confidence and we’re playing well; we have a good side full of good players. We’re extremely confident going down there.
“Earlier in the season we drew with them at home, but we felt we could have nicked it. In any case, we were certainly good value for the point. We’ve beaten some good teams near the top of the League already this season, so we’re in good spirits going down there.
“At the moment it is important to abide by the old cliché of taking it one game at a time. We are picking up results, but we must keep our feet on the ground. We’ll see where that takes us – you never know.”
Tommy has certainly applied that philosophy to good affect so far this season. After joining Town from Manchester City in the summer of 2012, Smith starred for the Development Squad before breaking into the First Team and now he is in line for a 12th successive start at Loftus Road.
He explained: “I was playing in the Under-21s and doing well. I had a chat with the Manager about the next step in my development and I thought it might be through a spell out on loan, but then the Captain got injured and I stepped in.
“I knew I had a chance of being in and around the team when the Captain got injured and I was obviously delighted when the Manager selected me for the game at Sheffield Wednesday.
“Since then I’ve not looked back; it’s been great. I always had confidence that I was good enough to push onto the First Team, but I had to bide my time and wait. I’ve got here by working extremely hard – it’s not been easy – and I’m not going to ease up now.
“The Manager has said that if you are good enough, it doesn’t matter how old you are and I think that’s very important. It’s a great philosophy and it’s proving to be working well.”
Smith has two new teammates in Nahki Wells and Joe Lolley and he’s impressed with what he’s seen from the January arrivals:
“Their arrivals have given us a boost. The Chairman, the Manager, Ross (Wilson) and Nigel (Clibbens) have worked hard to put together a good squad and you can see straight away that Nahki and Joe are talented lads, there’s no doubt about that.”
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