Match Day Thread QPR vs Charlton

I was there and cant say Cameron had a good game. His legs have definitely gone and too many of his headers/clearances are up in the air. He was a liability. Very surprised at Amos today he was skinned by their lanky center back wonder if he is carrying a knock. Are finishing and defending is abysmal and we rode our luck a few times. Thought the atmosphere was really flat today. Would be happy with mid table and a play off oush next year with a better defence

 

It's strange, as some of my Rangers supporting pals liked Ball, they really rate Wallace (who hasn't had the greatest start with us), and even some of my Celtic mates think Kelly is briliant

 

Yesterday was one of those games where conceding a goal in the sixth minute of the four added on (sic) made a draw feel like a defeat.

There seem to be two directly opposing views of Cameron’s overall performance; I am in the camp which says he had a good game for 99% of the match but I remain haunted by what he did in the other 1%. People naturally focus on that limp, ridiculous header but why was Sarr left unattended to do his damnedest? For the umpteenth time, Leistner was drawn towards the ball like iron filings to a magnet and Manning followed him to fill in the resulting gap, leaving Sarr all alone to spoil our Saturday night, if not our weekend. It’s not as if the better-placed Leistner made the defensive header or, as far as we know, called for it. And there lies another issue: communication. Similarly, if Leistner is going to go walkabout, as he does, Manning needs to be more assertive and to tell him to get the f**k back. Communication.

I have other haunting memories of this game. I see BOS, for example, going for a third goal rather than forming an intimate relationship with the corner flag. I see Scowen, sent on late in the game to shore up the defence, jogging back belatedly to do that job, having lost the ball in the final third. Ditto Amos, of which more in a moment.

Warburton may bemoan the lack of clinical finishing but that is a side issue compared to his own failings on the day. We started in the 4-1-3-2 shape which worked so well against Preston. I said at the time that 4-1-3-2 wouldn’t work against all the sides in the division, all of the time and, unfortunately, Charlton had obviously seen the video of that game. Their response was to overload their left-hand channel where Kane received scant defensive support from Amos, who looked slow and unfit at times and generally left too much of a gap between himself and Kane. Credit also to Charlton for maintaining their press throughout the game, although they were helped by our stubborn refusal to be a little more flexible about playing out from the back.

All Charlton’s chances in the first half – and there were plenty of them - seemed to come down their left-hand side. My son and I thought that Warburton would do something at half time to shore up that side by either changing shape or personnel (Amos). Wrong. It continued into the second half and seemed to help to concede control of the game to Charlton. You could see an equaliser coming. Warburton’s substitutions were absolutely right but about 10-15 minutes too late. Bringing on BOS gave the Charlton left-sided players something to think about other than murdering Kane. Bringing on Scowen and Chair should have bolstered our defence which wasn’t being helped much by Amos and by the tiring (and relatively ineffective) Pugh.

The trouble with 4-1-3-2 is that, in Warburton’s mind at least, it doesn’t seem to accommodate BOS. He presumably picks Amos on the right-hand side of the midfield three in preference to BOS for his supposed defensive qualities. Yet, when BOS came on (and we moved to 4-4-1-1), we grabbed back control of the game. Moreover, in recent weeks, I have been impressed by BOS’s contribution to defence. I think 4-2-3-1 should be our standard approach, with Hugill (who made himself a real handful yesterday) as the lone striker and Wells (my God, those misses) as the impact sub.

But all this discussion of shape and personnel is rendered moot when your defensive midfielder is going to make a laughably inept back header to put through the opposing, unmarked centre back clean through on goal. So, there’s a few things to work on: positional discipline, communication, timely substitutions and changes of shape, fitness, game management, clinical finishing and, for f**k’s sake, having BOS in the starting line-up.

Other than that, things are going really well!

 

Great post.

 

Thanks for that mate.
I said before the game that the formation was unlikely to work.
I called it as 4-4-2, but was corrected and told it was 4-1-3-1.
The thing is, they're all variations of 4-4-2 and it sounds like what we started with yesterday was a 4-4-2 diamond variation.
The problem is that they're all 4-4- ****ing 2!!
Unless you have top, top class players, space is inevitably conceded, creating pressure onto the back four and our back four is pretty ****ing awful.
In my opinion we should always start with a formation that gives cover in the midfield whilst putting Eze where the opposition least want him.
If he was at the point of the diamond yesterday, at least we got that right.
Warburton's biggest failure, like many coaches, is that he can't seem to resist tinkering. It's very frustrating.

 

Whichever formation it should include BOS, has the pace to really shake up defenders. Too many of our players show real potential allied to a totally frustrating lack of consistency, and the tinkering probably does more to produce this than anything else...

 

I'm not sure I agree with those saying that we would have won if we had been better with our 'game management' (i.e. time wasting). We would have won if Wells had taken the golden chance he was given in the first half and we would have won if Eze or BOS had finished any of the numerous opportunities that they made for themselves in the last 20 minutes. Our attacking play was exhilarating at times and I'd rather see us kill off a game by scoring a goal than by seeing out time at the corner flag.

 

Absolutely.

 

We kept the ball well but it was a bit naive of Eze and Bright late on to not take the ball into the corner. I remember traipsing to West Brom to see a certain Mr Faurlin do something similar a decade ago when a dogshit team probably managed by Harford was miraculously 2-1 up and go on to throw it away. This one felt worse.

Still you can’t blame young players for being a bit naive. You can blame your high wage non-scoring forwards for not scoring (apparently no goals in 13 now of Hugill and Wells combined though Hugill was very good yesterday I thought). Was it Wells who ****ed the clearance for their first too?

You can blame your experienced 6’3” defenders for not making a routine headed clearance in the 95th minute.

 

Finishing now seems to be the priority for Eze to improve.
From the stats he had a lot of attempts.

 

He did have a lot of attempts, but his finishing was pretty awful yesterday.

 

Would you really rather see Eze head for the corner flag instead of going for goal when he has an opportunity? I wouldn't.

 

If he backs himself then he has the talent no doubt but you’ve got to be smart enough to judge the situation. Smashing it into the crowd isn’t a disaster. A powderpuff shot straight to the goalkeeper can be.

 

Of course not normally, but with only 5 minutes added time to go, 2-1 up, it was utter stupidity to attempt speculative shots from outside of the area and give the ball away. Both BOS and Eze did this 3 times altogether I think, when each time they could have eaten the clock by playing keep ball by the corner flag, and the whistle would have blown with 3 points for us. They are not so young they don't know how to do that. But just in case anyone thinks I'm having a go at our young players BOS was amazing when he came on, made the goal with fantastic strength and skill, and while Eze isnt at his best at the moment he's done enough for my son to want both of them at ManU. But surely Warburton will be having words with them about that today. Cost us points just as much as Wells 2 misses and Cameron/ Leischer/ Halls/Lumley ineptness for their goals.

 

Yep.

 

And there's me thinking football should be entertaining.

 

In the instance you described they should have played out time.

 

Well I didn't describe an instance in any detail, but I will. Eze had the ball in a central position just outside the area, made himself a yard of space and had a shot on goal. If he scored, the game was over, but as it turned out it was a pony effort that rolled along the floor into the goalie's arms. If you're saying that in that instance he should have headed for the corner flag, that's your opinion - it's not a fact - and it's not an opinion I share.

 

And if he scored with that shot and we had won 3-1 then we speak about how great he is, take the shot lad, take the shot