QPR 1:2 Leyton Orient
Our terrible record in Cup competitions continued this evening after a disastrous exit at the hands of lower league opposition, yet again!
I’m disappointed and confused by tonight’s performance. We never looked ambitious or like we wanted to win the game. There were a few changes from the match against Bristol City at the weekend, but I was optimistic that the guys coming in would really want to stake a claim for a regular first team spot for against Cardiff City on Saturday.
On paper we still had a reasonably strong team out there against Leyton Orient, and, they had four central defenders out injured and even played Paul Terry at right back, who’s a central midfielder.
The reason why I felt we lacked any ambition was the way the full-back’s rarely got forward. In the pre-season friendly against Fulham, Zesh Rehman and Chris Barker got high into the opposition’s half, but it took Rehman until the hour mark before he was seen in a position where he could cross into the penalty box. Marcus Bignot on the other hand (who was playing as Barker is suspended), barely got forward at all from left-back.
Similarly, we had four or five attacking corners before we went behind, and on each occasion, there were two players back on the halfway line and a further two players nearby. That’s five guys including the goalkeeper who were no-where near the oppositions goal. I was surprised by that. Why would we not want to put pressure on lower league opposition?
The only time we threw caution to the wind was a corner in the dying minutes of the match when Lee Camp went forward and Michael Mancienne stayed on the halfway by himself. There was no urgency in this regard prior to that, which amazed me.
We didn’t help ourselves in the early part of the game either. Camp’s kicking from goal-kicks wasn’t at his usual high standard, and he put at least three or more too wide, which either went out for a throw or made it very difficult for the person he was aiming for to control the ball and nod it down to a fellow team-mate.
Danny Cullip was also surprisingly out muscled by Wayne Gray in an early shoulder barge, and from that point, I suspected he wasn’t his usual self and perhaps the game had come too early for him (and it had!).
I was also worried by the lack of protection the midfield were giving the defence whenever a long ball was played forward by Orient. The defence were dropping deep enough, but Cullip and Mancienne were not getting distance on their headers and they were falling to onrushing Orient players, with Adam Boyd forcing a good one-handed save from Camp on 16 minutes after Cullip headed right into his path just outside the box.
This happened time and time again, and it annoyed me that nobody was taking responsibility. If the midfielders are not getting in the right position, then the defenders also have to change the way they clear the ball. There’s nothing wrong with just putting it out of play and re-grouping and re-organising.
Orient had a fair amount of the ball in the first-half and really should have taken the lead a lot earlier than they did. Boyd had a terrific little dink go agonisingly wide after a clever one-two and they also should have scored when Rehman slipped just outside the box which led to a pull-back to John Melligan who should have scored from about 10 yards out but he blasted over. The alarm bells were there for our team.
We played a lot of football on the counter in the first-half, and Stefan Bailey popped up a couple of times on the left of midfield when this happened. I kept wondering why this was, but couldn’t work it out. Bailey generally had a very poor game. He kept losing his footing on the pitch and his poor first-touch often cost us the chance to retain possession or mount attacks, because he either lost the ball or the chance to break away faded.
Our biggest threat was Nick Ward. He had a couple of half-chances from long range and kept his football pretty simple. I was pleased with that because he still needs to build on his confidence, and the best way to do that when you’re playing out of position (he was on the right again), is to keep possession and do all the basics.
