QPR 1:1 Coventry
Today was an unusual match for me, because despite the excitement at seeing some of our new signings in action, my Uncle sadly passed away at sudden notice yesterday. Football would usually be the last thing on your mind at a time like this, but equally it can be a great distraction too.
We played with a different shape today and with much more width and I was pleased to see we still dominated proceedings in terms of possession and general control of the football. Having said that, I thought Coventry looked quite sharp and I liked the look of their team and many of their players, who were quite nimble and dynamic overall.
The problem we have and continue to make however, is our decision making on the ball and it stems from the back or central midfield players. Paolo Sousa said we lacked a little bit of intelligence at times, and he’s right. It’s not something that’s occurred since he’s taken charge though, it’s been happening for a number of seasons and I don’t understand the logic behind it.
It’s the ’switch pass’ that we do. Fitz Hall loves doing it, Damien Stewart loves doing it and Martin Rowlands loves doing it too. But it’s the wrong pass, almost all the time, or done in the wrong context. We continuously hammered balls to Wayne Routledge to try and free him, but the timing was often incredibly silly. The balls are high and fast, meaning Routledge has to get it under control with his head or another part of his body by which time the Coventry defender, Jay Tabb in this instance, has the time to close him down. It’s asking an awful lot of anybody to do anything productive when you’re hitting the ball to him like that, so I felt a little bit sorry for Wayne as a result.
More so, when Coventry were down to 10 men, there was loads of times when Hogan Ephraim could have been released down the flank with a quick triangular set of passes, but the players never spotted this opportunity and in the midst of those scenarios, instead often opted to smash the ball quickly out to the other wing to Routledge. I counted only one instance of a good ball to Wayne, which was in the first half by Damien Delaney where he fed it into his path which allowed Routledge to utilise his pace correctly. That’s what we should be looking for, just giving him the ball in an area where all he has to do is concentrate on his acceleration and delivery. We surely don’t want him to have to deal with trying to head the ball or get it under control before getting on his bike. He’s too short in height for a start, so it’s pointless!
Anyway, despite that, we did create numerous goal scoring chances and they all fell to the right players, which is a positive. I thought Heidar Helguson was excellent in the first-half and his movement was very good as was his ability to win the ball and draw his man in to either turn him or win free-kicks. Shame about his finishing, but on another day he’d have buried one or two of those. At least he got into the right places, so it’s not a concern, even if the idiot behind me continuously screamed that he should never wear the shirt again. Clown.
Elsewhere there were decent performances from Mikele Leigertwood in the midfield and Kaspars Gorkss at the back who has really come into his own. Matthew Connolly gave us something different on the right and his passing inside, to Helguson, was very good from a tactical perspective for us and a good combination to help build up play or keep possession, so I was pleased with that.
We still need to improve our decisions when on the ball at the back though because sometimes it looks like the players are not thinking enough about where they are placing the ball when they’re passing to one another. I hope the coaching staff work on making them understand when to play the ball to feet, when to play it into space and at which points the defenders should naturally move forward or back to create new angles. It’s all work that can be done on the training pitch and stuff that takes time anyway, but it will help us make better decisions on the ball or at least be patient if we have to. It doesn’t help though when the fans start to heckle or sound frustration when we’re passing sideways or backwards. Show a little patience, sometimes we need to keep the ball and just move it from left to right to work the space and angles and shift the formation of the opposition. This is something you need to do quickly against 10 men, and we didn’t do it quickly enough on this occasion.
Other than that, it was good to see Dexter still getting himself in there and in the right position. He got another important goal here and it was a good point gained in he end because Coventry could have stolen that and they probably didn’t deserve all three points but it was a good performance by them regardless. I thought many of their players had good personalities on the pitch and a lot of them looked tidy. Clinton Morrison is cool as was their energetic goalkeeper, it was nice to see some interaction and it can’t take something like that to gee up our fans and get behind the team.
Overall I was relatively pleased with the performance despite the score. It’s still a work in progress and we’re still a little bit short here and there, but the nucleus is there and maybe with one or two returning from injury or maybe another player or two to add to the ranks, and we’ll be heading in the right direction. We’re lacking just a little bit of guile, but then we are missing some of our most creative talent in the team. The other teams don’t fear us just yet, but if we can make the right use of Routledge’s pace, then we most definitely will.
Farewell Uncle Sombat, Rest In Peace you old soldier.
