QPR 2:1 Barnsley
I had a tingle down my spine as I watched Rangers players of the past scoring spectacular goals on the new big screen. It’s certainly a welcome addition to the pre-match ritual and it gave me a good feeling ahead of the game. The stadium certainly looks a lot fresher and professional which made me feel rather proud. It’s a step in the right direction and I hope the Club do not rest on their laurels and continue to offer improvements for all fans.
I will be experimenting a lot with my blog this season and today’s game is the first stab at that. I am going to try and steer away from the match reporting style that crept into my writing last season and concentrate more on specifics.
This season I am going to try and offer some tactical analysis on the stuff I see happening on the pitch and how I think we could improve on certain aspects of our play. It’s all subjective of course, so this doesn’t mean that I’m right in any way, but it’s always nice to explore possibilities in detail - the first one of those will arrive at the end of this entry.
Anyway - let’s get onto talking about the match. I thought Barnsley played wonderfully well in the first 20 minutes and their performance was a real pleasure to watch. They were fast, slick and crisp on the counter attack and should have made us pay on more than one occasion.
Iain Hume’s opening goal from a delightful through ball by Brian Howard was nothing more than they deserved. Hume’s strike was an excellent finish too and it had me clapping in admiration. The Tykes looked really sharp and were fast out of the blocks. I couldn’t but help wonder if our tough pre-season and having just 5 friendlies had anything to do with it?
Kaspars Gorkss was poor in the opening 20 minutes and didn’t look the player I saw against Chievo. It seemed like a case of nerves though and I’m not worried about it. He got better as the match went on and I think the way Barnsley played in that period would have caused most teams problems.
Gavin Mahon and Mikele Leigertwood were being overrun in the midfield and their positioning at times was giving the defence problems. It looked like we were a bit rickety at the back, but if you’re allowing midfielders the time on the ball to pass through a defence that’s square on, then the attacking team are always in with a chance of causing some bother.
Defensively I wasn’t pleased with the amount of crosses we were allowing Barnsley to deliver from wide areas. This is something that has plagued our side for a long time, but we’re not getting close enough to the wide men or allowing them to cross from dangerous areas or into dangerous zones.
The real concern I have however and is something I spotted in pre-season, is how little we’ve worked on our attacking and creative play. It does not look like we have a plan when we go forward with the ball and that’s a worry.
What looks like is happening is we’re getting the creative players on the ball and simply leaving it up to them to decide what the next best step is. We certainly have players who are capable of inspiring the team in that way, but it’s a little bit too much down to chance and form for my liking.
It’s still early days of course and it will take a few matches for the players to warm up and gel. I’m not overly worried but it’s important the players continue to improve as a team and work hard on the training pitch on specific patterns and passages of play. It’s these details that will be the difference in our success and failure.
I was very pleased with Emmanuel Ledesma’s performance. He didn’t start too well because he was somewhat anonymous in the first 15-20 minutes. We didn’t seem to pass him the ball at all and he didn’t tuck in enough or track back at certain points which caused problems for us. Barnsley certainly made some clever overlaps or used the man on that side well in some of their counter attacks.
What was impressive for me however is how Ledesma got better as the game wore on. I’ve seen him play on the left, right and in the middle and I can’t tell which is his best position for a variety of reasons. That’s the mark of a good player and he’s got an excellent delivery with that left foot. It takes a good player to stop Lee Cook taking the majority of the set-pieces too.
We still have problems with the spine of the side though. Gavin Mahon and Mikele Leigertwood don’t really seem to work that well in the middle. It’s not that they’re playing poorly it’s just not balanced correctly and their positioning at times is a bit suspect as they drift into the same mindset.
Patrick Agyemang and Dexter Blackstock are also not really clicking up top either, but they weren’t helped by our style of play today and the way the midfield were operating. I think the lack of attacking plan is also contributing to the lack of cohesion up front. Pat looked off the pace a bit and seemed to be feeling sorry for himself at times.
I was pleased with the small amount I saw from Matteo Alberti. He only had three or four opportunities to really get on the ball but his decision making seemed sound. He broke well into the box on the wing after linking with Daniel Parejo and he intelligently burst into the box with the ball when most players would have crossed there and then.
Overall it’s very pleasing that we do not have to wait until October before registering our first win and it’s important to take points even when you’re not on top of your game or firing on all cylinders. I can only see things getting better for us as we gel and have others return from injury and that’s a very encouraging thought.
Tactical Analysis
Consider this passage of play that I saw happen often throughout the match:
Cerny would throw the ball to Delaney and at this point Delaney would often play the ball into a zonal area for Blackstock to chase as indicated by the yellow line. The challenge was often 60-40 in favour of a Barnsley defender but even when we did win this ball, we often lost it straight after due to the shape.
There are many ways you could improve this problem, including not playing this type of ball, but let’s look at how we could improve the probability of this breaking down.
The main problem was a lack of movement from the midfield. Mahon and Leigertwood were far too static and Legs could have come closer to Delaney to offer him the short pass. They rarely did this and because they didn’t come short, it meant they didn’t drag any Barnsley midfield players away from the area the ball was being delivered into which would have helped with our retention of the ball.
If Leigertwood did come short, it would have allowed Mahon to make a late forward run depending on how the play materialised by using Patrick Agyemang as a decoy.
Patrick didn’t really move much either but he could have done more by running roughly into the space vacated by Blackstock. By doing that he would have dragged his marker with him and thus, allowing Mahon a direct run in on goal. Ledesma could also be free and make a run forward too.
Cook could make any number of runs to wide, just inside or offering a short option to Delaney too. The whole point however is these runs would force Barnsley to shift their entire defence across and therefore creating space centrally or to the right and should allow for some excellent short passing or crossing opportunities to the support men coming in.
Today we didn’t really do that and maybe one or two offered support in dribs and drabs. Mahon and Leigertwood were the most guilty though because they neither went short or made forward supporting runs, so they were stuck in that in-between bit which made them ineffective and also caused problems for when we lost the ball because of where they were standing. With a bit of work though we can sort that out, definitely.
