QPR 2:2 Coventry City
What have we learned from this performance? A few things. We still have this problem that’s blighted us for a number of seasons now, and that’s our inability to defend crosses or high balls into the box from wide positions.
It’s a bit of a shame when the opposition don’t really string together any decent build up play and are allowed to just fire a ball in from seemingly nowhere and grab a goal.
Coventry could have had two or three in that first half too, but thanks to a great, great save from Radek Cerny before the first goal, we could have easily come out of this match without anything to show for it.
That would have been absurd though because we were by far the better team, particularly in the second half. I did like Leon Best’s goal mind, it was a cracking header and had Cerny beat the moment he connected with it.
It’s been a while since we dominated like we did in the second period, because it was one-way traffic for the majority of it and we created numerous chances throughout the match that should have yielded more than the two we scored.
I just felt we were a bit sloppy with our passing at times. It was nearly there, but may of the intricate through balls we tried to play were under hit or over hit. The movement however was really good and when we did get it right, we really opened Coventry up and created some great moments for ourselves.
The moment we got that final pass right, we scored a goal. Alejandro Faurlin loves to play the type of ball he did for the ball he put in for Jay Simpson to latch onto and finish well. I thought Faurlin was excellent from start to finish, even if he did play one or two wild blind passes. He’s growing from game to game and I think he’s just a goal short now of elevating himself to another level. I can’t wait for him to score.
We were also treated to a moment of sublime class by Adel Taarabt when he hit the crossbar with that deft chip after sending a couple of players the wrong way with a dummy. That was magical and would have brought the house down had it gone it. I was surprised when he was taken off actually as he was having an impact, especially when he went into central positions and we really needed someone like him when they went down to 10 men.
At 2-1 though, I said to Sam and Leonie that we would need a third, because I always felt Coventry would get another big chance. And we handed to them on a plate in disappointing fashion. Akos Buzsaky gave away a cheap free-kick and we were punished for it.
We have a habit of conceding silly free kicks in dangerous areas and then switching off completely as we’ve seen here and in previous games, such as against Derby at Pride Park earlier this season. This is something we need to work on and address if we have any hopes of challenging at the top end of the table, because it’s definitely points dropped today.
The other area that disappointed me a little in this match was the way we passed the ball from the back. We just lack that little bit of quality needed in certain situations to pick the right pass or find a team-mate with the required accuracy. We tried a lot of switch balls, but Coventry had 11 men behind the play a lot of the time, so it gave the receiver little chance to get the ball under pressure and any time to look up before someone was pouncing.
We also gave it away once or twice under no pressure at the back, simply due to a lack of accuracy with our passes. It’s hard to know what to do with this because it’s not something you can easily teach or improve on with some of our players and as defenders, their job is to defend first. In the main, we did that well apart from the goals we gifted, so the only option in the future is to look for reinforcements to bring in that can do these jobs. Not easy to find that type of player though and if we did, it’ll be expensive.
We also lack a little bit of maturity and experience in the side for those key moments where we’re switching off. The goals we’re conceding are a concern, but also, when they went down to 10, we rushed and forced our play a little bit and lost our shape when all it needed was a few cool heads and a bit of composure.
We could try to address that by bring strengthening the squad during January or we could try and let the existing bunch grow and learn together, so it’ll be interesting to see what we do.
Overall, I really enjoyed the match. I was much more happy with our second half showing than the first by way of cutting out the amount of silly chances we were gifting them, and although we had a costly lapse that saw them equalise I was pretty pleased with many aspects of our play. If we can be a bit more ruthless and show no mercy to the team’s we’re up against, we can start finishing these teams off and taking the points we ought to be.
