QPR 2:1 Bristol City
This was a really good and committed performance from the players and collectively we deserved to win the match as we contained Bristol City really well and also created some good opportunities ourselves.
I liked our shape and how we pressed the play as a unit. Bristol City’s Dele Adebola was a handful to begin with and had an excellent little dual with Kaspars Gorkss in the opening 20 minutes but I thought Gorkss got the better of him and adapted to his threat really well as the game progressed.
In that early period, Jordi Lopez did a great job defensively too. The ball kept hanging up in the air and Adebola’s strength and ability to hold up the play was quite good, but whenever he did win possession Lopez snapped in fast with plenty of well timed tackles.
We did well to control the majority of the play and possession too. The central midfield area was where all our best work came from as we didn’t do as well from the sides today and although Adel Taarabt was guilty of overplaying and doing too many tricks in dangerous areas, when he did drift inside into central positions to pick up the ball, he was always a threat.
One of his runs led to him finding Samuel Di Carmine free in the box, which probably the Italian should have done better with but the pleasing aspect was it’s been some time since I remember us managing to release the striker through on goal in such a fashion.
Hogan Ephraim has also made a great difference to the midfield. His ability and willingness to get both forwards and backwards is very pleasing and needed. It’s added a dynamism to our play that’s been missing for a long time and is giving us the sort of options we need.
Options is an important point too. The midfield are suddenly looking like they want to get onto the ball and Hogan in particular is always willing to receive it. It helps us massively, especially when the defence have a straight pass to feet on. We did much, much better with our distribution from the back as a result and that’s probably the best use of the ball our defenders have made all season. I thought all the defenders had really good games both in an attacking and defensive sense. It was an accomplished performance.
Both goals we scored were excellent. In recent weeks there have been some complaints around me about Jordi Lopez wasting corners and free-kicks, but he’s come up trumps in the past two matches with that delivery for Mikele Leigertwood’s goal against Swansea and you can’t argue with the quality of his goal in this game here, it was superb.
What was really pleasing though was when Bristol City equalised, we didn’t let our heads drop and we continued to play our football and got a goal from open play that we’ve not managed as much as we should this season. It was a good flowing move and a great overlap from Damien Delaney and an equally excellent delivery for Taarabt to finish.
Last Tuesday I was slightly cautious about Taarabt and wondered whether he’d do too many tricks at the wrong times. He showed a little bit of immaturity out there. He does have it in him but he has to learn that sometimes when some of them don’t come off, you’ve just got to start playing more sensibly. But he kept at it and with some players you’ve got to allow them to continue to express themselves and he had the courage to keep on trying despite some groans from the crowd and eventually he got his reward with a good goal.
The only disappointment we can take away is the wide men in the wide positions didn’t have particularly great games, but at the same time, didn’t really have much of the ball. Matteo Alberti didn’t really get involved and Wayne Routledge, who replaced him in the second half didn’t look at the races either. Taarabt’s best work came from the inside positions and his goal from when he moved up front.
We also had a couple of great moments where we broke down the channels or the wide areas of the penalty box and were guilty of lingering onto the ball too long when someone was free for a shot from just a simple square ball. We didn’t seize those moments enough and had we down we may well have put the icing on the cake and got another goal.
But that’s nit-picking. It was a good all round performance that had more quality than we beat Swansea too as well as more effort. If we can continue to play in this manner between now and the end of the season I’ll be very pleased, regardless of where we end up. It was also a confidence booster to get more than one goal.
I was also pleased with Mikele Leigertwood’s performance which was worthy of a Captain’s role. He did well in the middle and even better in defence. He gave away a few free-kicks in there but generally he got his foot in when it was needed. I think he provides us with good balance in the midfield when Hogan’s in there too, they’re complimenting each other well.
