QPR 0:2 Plymouth Argyle
A fourth straight home defeat, bugger.
It’s not all doom and gloom you know. Despite the result and our fourth home defeat in succession, there were plenty of positives and negatives to take away from the game. I’ve been busy as heck in these past weeks with work. We’re putting the final touches now on Football Manager 2008 ahead of it’s release, so the game was a chance to take a short break from the grind and I was really in the mood to see some football.
I thought we started really brightly and we showed we could knock the ball around on the deck. We still lack a plan of action when it comes to dealing with switches of possession and going from defence and attack, but there was a lot of progress out there in terms of learning about what some players are and aren’t capable of and that will stand us in good stead going forward.
The first thing that surprised me was how deep our defence was when Plymouth’s goalkeeper Luke McCormick either took a goal-kick or cleared with the ball in his hands. The starting position of the back four was a good 10 metres inside our own-half, but at times, 15-20 metres and at one point we were even close to our own penalty area.
I presume Danny Cullip’s return to the team led to this choice in depth. I thought they were a little too deep to begin with but it worked quite well. There was a slight danger of Damien Stewart dropping even deeper after the ball had been won, which is something they’ll need to look at on tape. At one point, Barry Hayles ran on into the box and Stewart followed him in, and was playing everybody onside after the initial header had been won. It was fine in that instance, but it only takes a quick through ball in that scenario for havoc to break loose because they’re so deep. They got this right though on the night, so they deserve credit here and we looked more comfortable overall as a result.
What was interesting about the choice of depth was the midfield also took up a deeper starting position and were in better positions as a result to block or pick up the loose balls from weak clearances from either Cullip or Stewart. This had been something that had troubled us a lot this season, where the midfield didn’t drop at the same time as the defence which leaves large gaps and the potential for opposing midfielders to rush on and shoot, dribble and run at the defenders or play through balls. Had our defence started with a higher position and then dropped quickly to deal with the long ball, I wonder if the midfield would have had the problem still of dropping at the same time. I feel it’s linked, so this is a good thing for us right now and will mean we’re a bit more solid hopefully in this department.
Of course, with the referee being in such a petty mood all evening, it meant that we did concede some silly free-kicks in dangerous areas outside the box. Peter Halmosi went awfully close with a great strike and Plymouth threatened again later with another. After those two scares though, the Pilgram’s long range efforts were pretty woeful.
The other really noticeable aspect of our play was how much more often our full-backs got into Plymouth’s half of the pitch. Zesh Rehman was particularly intent on getting forward and made numerous marauding runs which actually made me blink twice and ask Sam, “�Was that Rehman?”. He did really well and got in several excellent crosses, both with his right and left foot. He also tried a couple of decent through balls, but didn’t quite get them right because he rushed himself somewhat when he was dribbling. That’s down to a lack of technique and a little bit of poor angles and decision making rolled into one, but overall, a very positive sight to see. I felt really sorry for him about Plymouth’s opening goal. He was really unfortunate to slip at a crucial moment just when he seemed to be having a good game. After that, he was sadly booed by our own fans just as he was about to deliver a cross into the box. I was very disappointed by that, it’s absolutely no help at all to anybody.
Chris Barker on the other hand tried to get forward but without much success in terms of impact. He did however start the best move of the match He played the ball into Martin Rowlands who carried the ball forward and cut inside before finding Adam Bolder who laid it out to Zesh on the right and he whipped it in for Nardiello to head beautifully across the keeper but off the crossbar. Unlucky, but it proved we could pass the ball about patiently and wait for the right moment to deliver.
I thought Daniel Nardiello played well and I’ve liked what I’ve seen of him in all the matches he’s played for us so far. He’s got technical abilities that some of our other players don’t have. His first touch is particularly good and he did well to hold up the ball, bring it under control or lay first time passes off under pressure. He almost laid in Dexter Blackstock on one occasion after superbly bringing the ball under control from a Lee Camp kick up field. Later he was also unlucky not to score from a Blackstock flick on, where he was able to nip in behind and McCormick actually made a good save from his shot.
I really liked his work when we were defending corners or free-kicks in and around our penalty box. He didn’t stand on the halfway line, instead, he moved closer to the action and picked up a couple of loose balls which he controlled well, held up for the right amount of time, or played it off to the side to a QPR player, which was usually a full-back who was breaking and able to take the ball directly in their stride.
I was thinking about this aspect of play a lot. When he wasn’t standing right up top with the last Plymouth defender, I kept thinking to myself, if we clear the ball here he’s not going to win it, and, he doesn’t seem the fastest either, so it’s not like we could use his pace as a potent weapon even if we did.
This is an area we’ve been particularly wasteful with this season. Usually it’s Hogan Ephraim who has been left lurking, but the ball has literally been smashed beyond his control or reach, regardless of how fast he is and because he’s further up the pitch when that happens, it takes longer for the support to arrive too.
Therefore this just seemed to make perfect sense for us in this situation. Nardiello’s play here was inviting the team up the pitch and helping us keep possession and move up the park.
The good football however petered out after a good half-an-hour or more. The reason that happened in my opinion was the decision to switch Martin Rowlands and Stefan Moore around. I thought Rowlands did excellent on the left in the early stages. He got on the ball and carried it well most of the time. When he cut inside, we had lots of options. The strikers made runs and the midfielders came forward to receive the ball and keep the play moving. As soon as he moved out to the right, he took a knock and them became pretty non-existent thereafter. He did however come close to scoring by hitting the bar with a great free-kick.
I’ve always felt he was best on the left-wing and I hope he stays there. We look a more threatening team with him out wide on the left and he doesn’t always have to be on the ball right up the pitch to be dangerous. It’s fine to give it to him much deeper and let the play evolve from there as he carries or moves inside.
Of course, after we went 1-0 down, the players seemed to lack a little bit of belief and confidence. It didn’t help that we were 2-0 down not too long after that. We still have serious problems defending balls from wide areas and we’ve got to start looking at that seriously and figure out a better way of dealing with such situations. It seems like to me that all the teams we’ve played have sussed this out and are using the wings as the best method of getting at us.
The full-backs are not getting enough protection from the wingers in front of them, and, we need to work out at what point we’re happy to let somebody cross the ball in. There are a lot of ways to go about doing this including cutting the supply off to the wingers, but this involves the strikers working very hard at shaping the ball to be played in a certain direction to make it less likely it will end up down the wings. The other way is to ensure we double up down the sides and ensure that we attempt to block the crosses coming in as too often it’s too easy. Slyvian Ebanks-Blake flashed a great ball across the box that caused panic, and the second goal was another one that came in and everybody else falling asleep as the ball is played back across goal for someone to tap in.
I think if I was in charge, I’d experiment with ensuring the wingers pressed high up against their full-backs and I’d drop one of the strikers in a deeper hole on their defensive midfielder. I’d use the spare striker to close the other full-back and that should mean the centre-halves will have the ball with less options and means they are more likely going to have to launch it long from a central position.
We’re not too bad at all at dealing with those types of balls, whether it’s a defender or a goalkeeper, but right now we’re getting done by too many basics, and as a team low on confidence, we’ve got to work a little harder and be more organised to give ourselves a chance to build the blocks that will be the foundation to turn losses into draws and draws into wins.
