QPR 0:2 Cardiff City
After all the excitement at the beginning of the season, it’s all suddenly looking a little bit grim as we succumbed to our first league defeat of the season.
I thought we started fairly well, certainly quicker than Cardiff had and we held most of the play for the opening 10-15 minutes without really threatening.
Daniel Nardiello had a terrific effort on goal from a volley after Stefan Moore had headed a ball in his direction. It’s a shame that the ball was at an awkward height, but Nardiello showed great technique to control what was a nothing chance and turn it into a half-chance that he was unlucky not to score with. That short glimpse of action makes me feel that we’ve got a good player on our hands here.
The first thing I noticed however was how wide we were across the pitch regardless of being in possession or not. The full backs were near the throw-in lines on both flanks and the midfield were quite spread out too.
This caused us some problems, because after just a few minutes Michael Mancienne cleared with a header, but it fell into an empty space and the midfield were not close enough to pick up the loose ball and we lost easy possession to Cardiff in a dangerous area of the pitch.
Damien Stewart also won his fair share of headers, but he struggles to get distance on his clearances (as does Mancienne) and either they went out of play or dropped into the hole in front of them. The midfield struggled to deal with these and often weren’t fast enough or they were too far away from the action to react.
It’s something that has affected us in both the Fulham and Leyton Orient matches that I’ve been to see and the midfield really need to be aware that when the defence drop backwards with the intention of running forwards to head the ball away, someone has to drop in tandem with them and be in the hole. It’s something we really need to work on.
Still, I was pleased to see our attacking corners looked a lot more ambitious this time around and in comparison to when we played Orient. For our first corner, which came after a few minutes, practically every player was around the penalty box or inside apart from Mancienne. Even he was way into the Cardiff half, so perhaps we should have been a bit more careful and moved him slightly further back!
Disappointingly however, our corner routine was exactly the same for the rest of the game. Zesh Rehman went onto the back-post and the majority of the corners taken by Martin Rowland were whipped towards him and either went too far, or Rehman was crowded out by two or three defending players.
It was also good to see Zesh Rehman put in a cross after a couple of minutes that was near the Cardiff byline. I struggled to understand why our full backs barely got forward against Orient, so this was an early step in the right direction and showed we had the intent to take the game to Cardiff.
On the case of Martin Rowlands, I thought he had a decent game but his best work was his defensive duties. He tracked back and got in some good interceptions and tackles, but he suffocated Adam Bolder by doing that and ended up doing most of the things that Bolder could have easily done himself and that would have allowed Rowlands to get further up the pitch.
We also went for the same routine with every defensive corner. Hogan Ephraim stayed up front with two defenders marking him and the rest of the team were buried inside the penalty box. We cleared our lines well though and generally Dexter Blackstock did well clearing from the near post as did Mancienne from around the 6 yard box.
When we did clear our lines however, we never had anybody in an area to effectively counter attack unless Lee Camp caught the ball and played a direct route one ball to Ephraim. That’s not my idea of intelligent counter attacking play although that’s not to say we shouldn’t use this option at all. Had we had someone picking up the loose ball and able to feed Ephraim to feet, or put a ball over the top, his pace would have been put to much more effective use.
What was obvious to me throughout the game was the lack of dead ball situations we had from our own half. We didn’t have many defensive free kicks (from offsides or fouls) or even many goal kicks and this actually caused us a bit of a problem.
I was impressed with how well we’d improved at winning the first or second ball from these during the Fulham game, and it looked like something we’d worked hard on. These situations have so far been the catalyst for many of our best attacking moves, but with them in little supply it forced us to have to be more creative in open-play and that’s where we struggled to find the right type of ball or lacked the quality and ideas to carve out chances.
I thought Hogan Ephraim improved as the game went on. He showed enough to convince me that he can be a creative asset. He put in plenty of crosses that were okay or good enough, and he did this consistently all afternoon. There’s a big difference with that and not entirely knowing where the ball is going to end up from someone else crossing, as can happen with Stefan Moore, Zesh Rehman and a few others.
