Sheffield United 3:0 QPR
I said Tuesday’s performance against Swindon would live long in the memory and today’s performance against Sheffield United will too. Except, for the wrong reasons because it was a bloody nightmare from the moment I boarded the train at Kings Cross!
Like the idiot that I am, I somehow managed to buy the wrong ticket from the machine and instead of selecting the £58 saver return, without noticing I chose the £57.80 single saver which was conveniently positioned next to it on the menu. By the time I realised, I had already boarded, so despite my best attempts at begging for leniency with station staff at either end the whole journey ended up costing me the small fortune of £115.60.
The match then rained on more misery. The line-up was exciting but we weren’t at the races from the off. Within two minutes Greg Halford launched a throw into our box which we didn’t defend and Billy Sharp emerged free on the far side to direct his header easily into the net and we were a goal down before anybody had broken sweat.
Not long later Mikele Leigertwood lost possession in midfield and a simple through ball saw Sharp in on goal again and he dispatched easily for 2-0 with only 12 minutes on the clock. Leigertwood was a bit unfortunate with losing the ball, but it just summed up our display.
It was like the players had led in their boots too. The amount of times they under hit passes or did not put enough weight on the ball was bizarre. Lee Cook, Mikele Leigertwood and Daniel Parejo were the main culprits, but it happened to one or two others too.
The lack of marking on Sharp was in fact quite criminal. The amount of times he just ran through unmarked, with little effort, was a worrying sight and he should have punished us on more occasions as he could have really had four or five goals to his name by the end.
Nobody in the defence or on the pitch showed any sort of leadership or willingness to take responsibility. Instead, they simply allowed Billy Sharp and Darius Henderson to work on our full-backs or in the space in-between them and their respective centre-half and for most of the game we just didn’t deal with it. We didn’t look like we knew how to either and nobody picked up anybody in the end, resulting in the Blades forwards having the freedom to do what they liked.
There are certain do’s and don’ts in matches of this kind, or any kind really. The most important one of those was to get on the ball and settle down, but it was probably at least 15-20 minutes before we finally strung some passes together and kept the ball for a small period.
After going 1-0 down, it was obvious we needed to do that really quickly, but the players just didn’t seem to click on and kept wasting possession, either hacking it down the pitch or trying too difficult a pass when we hadn’t had that luxury of a few touches and settling our shape down.
Despite conceding another really soft goal early in the second half, we did actually improve and have some possession of the ball. But it came far too late and when we did have possession, we tried to literally walk our way through a resilient Blades defence.
Parejo was the main culprit, playing really intricate and delicate one-two’s in and around the penalty area but it was always too crowded. He must have tried this four or five times, and it looked like something might nearly be on every time but it always fizzled out at the same point.
When that happens, the players need to realise or change their tact. We did eventually hit the post from a Ledesma strike, but it was more in vein than us taking the play to Sheffield United and putting pressure on them.
It was very hard to find any positives from the first-half in what was a bitterly disappointing display and although Parejo nut-megged four players at various points with some sublime skill, it wasn’t the time or place for it.
The positives we can take away were few. But the players improved and kept going. Lee Cook looked better in the second half after a poor first 45. He came inside and got on the ball well and I liked that because it gave us a different dynamism on the ball.
Samuel Di Carmine held up the ball fairly well when he came on, although he didn’t do much else and doesn’t look like he has a great deal of pace. I felt a bit sorry for both Dexter Blackstock and Angelo Balanta in the first-half, because they had very little service although the pair of them could have helped us defend better from the front too.
It was an excellent learning experience for Balanta, so although he came across as anonymous for some he will have picked up a lot from the 45 minutes he had. Emmanuel Ledesma also got on the ball a bit more in the second period after not seeing much of it in the first. Still, despite that, his deliveries from corners were generally excellent.
It’s clear there’s a lot of work to be done and we need to eliminate the feeling that the players are still learning one another’s names. It was clear that the lack of playing time together and understanding of each person’s responsibilities played a big part in why we lost this game.
