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Post by harr on Aug 6, 2018 19:31:23 GMT
Has anyone else noticed that - bar Villa and Hull who play tomorrow - EVERY Championship side scored in their first game...except us. It’s official Salts every team in the Championship scored a goal or more this weekend apart from QPR  I picked a line of 6 games out the 12 fixtures. Btts , trust me to select the R’s..... |
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Post by Marc on Aug 6, 2018 20:01:18 GMT
I'm sure Rotherham are delighted
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Post by bowranger on Aug 7, 2018 9:49:52 GMT
I had to go to a wedding that I was assured was "a week before the football started". Bloody Premier League fans, why can't they gear their marriage vows around QPR..?
But from looking at the reports and forums etc., one thought is that McClaren could be prioritising shape/structure over adapting the formation for our current players. He must know that, without adding other dimensions to his game, Smith cannot head up a 4-2-3-1 effectively (and if he didn't know already, he certainly knows now). But if he's hoping to bring in a striker with a strong back-to-goal game that his preferred system needs, he may well see it as better for the players to be well drilled and know their roles at the expense of comfort rather than changing the shape to accommodate who we've currently got.
Be very interested to see how it pans out if we don't bring in another striker before the window closes and if we have to adapt the shape accordingly.
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Post by nomar on Aug 7, 2018 9:58:00 GMT
Has anyone else noticed that - bar Villa and Hull who play tomorrow - EVERY Championship side scored in their first game...except us. QPR took thousands of punters coupons down this weekend , people that did both teams to score bets. They took my line of six Championship games down but some people were set to win thousands if we scored. Never bet on QPR to score away The only QPR bet you should ever make is for us to get bombed out of the cup in the 3rd round. Safest bet in all of professional sports, that one. |
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Post by harr on Aug 7, 2018 20:45:46 GMT
Sheff U got a bit of a stuffing tonight, let’s hope we don’t get the fallout from that.
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Post by bowranger on Aug 8, 2018 9:54:23 GMT
I had to go to a wedding that I was assured was "a week before the football started". Bloody Premier League fans, why can't they gear their marriage vows around QPR..? But from looking at the reports and forums etc., one thought is that McClaren could be prioritising shape/structure over adapting the formation for our current players. He must know that, without adding other dimensions to his game, Smith cannot head up a 4-2-3-1 effectively (and if he didn't know already, he certainly knows now). But if he's hoping to bring in a striker with a strong back-to-goal game that his preferred system needs, he may well see it as better for the players to be well drilled and know their roles at the expense of comfort rather than changing the shape to accommodate who we've currently got. Be very interested to see how it pans out if we don't bring in another striker before the window closes and if we have to adapt the shape accordingly. My guess would be that McClaren's first aim is to stop leaking goals and build results from a solid defence. Also I would think that, like Ollie before him, he has not yet worked out how to get the right balance up front. We have good midfield players but are they really controlling games? The other question is are they creating enough chances which our forwards are missing or are the forwards getting the blame when really it may be a case that they are not getting the right service.
Pre season friendlies are ok but I think it will take at least half a dozen league games before McClaren gets a better idea of the various strengths and weaknesses. The only issue is we need to pick up a few points during those games and not get cut off at the bottom and suffer the resulting lack of confidence at an early stage of the season.
I think that makes a lot of sense - if you're implementing new patterns of play and shape, you work from the back first. I think the goal was soft and if I was to be harsh, I'd have liked to have seen Ingram absolutely ploughing through people to get under the crossbar in that scrum of players considering how the keeper ostensibly going for the ball is almost always going to get the benefit of the doubt from a ref in that situation. But beyond that, the back four was pretty solid. Leistner was commanding and vocal. Kakay looked assured for his age. Lynch's distribution is poor but as long as he isn't being turned, he's good at the basics. Bidwell, again, pretty stable. There's an argument Smith isn't getting the right service more than a lack of creativity from behind him, but again I think that's a combination of adherence to the shape/formation and our current line up and that's in two core ways. Firstly, 4-3-2-1 means your striker has to have a good back-to-goal game and Smith doesn't have that. That's not to knock him, it's not why we bought him at the time and he's serving a different role here. He can only get the good service if he's teeing the creative players up - receive the ball, control it, hold it up and feed it. If he can't do that, Eze/Freeman/Luongo/etc. can't in turn supply him. Secondly, I think this actually goes back to the issues with the back four and how we recycle the ball. Preston pushed a high line and Lynch is far, far more likely to punt the ball up to Smith (leading to the first issue) than he is to play it out from the back. Ditto Ingram. That's the loss of Onouha, Hall and Robinson who are all far better at distribution. I think the loss of Furlong actually plays into this quite heavily. During pre-season, Furlong was almost always the out-ball from the back because of his strength in the air - both Lynch and Ingram lofting the ball to the right wing before the half way line, safe in the knowledge that Furlong was likely to win the ball, control it and slot it inside to the midfielders. So you can't put a long ball to the right, you can't punt a ball from the back to the midfield cos they're all relatively small and you can't rely on our current back four to play it on the ground from defence to midfield against a high line because Lynch hasn't got it in him unless you dump Scowen right back in front of the back four (like Hall used to do when we converted him to a DM). No Furlong simply leaves Smith as the target from the back...which takes us back to problem one. My conclusion to the ramble would be that this will persist until Furlong is back, a new CB who can play it on the floor is brought in to compliment Leistner's brawn or a striker who can play the 'one' role with three behind him is brought in or a combination of all three. If the latter two don't happen, then we'd likely need to change the patterns up a bit or Smith or Sylla need to be drilled into a new role within an inch of their lives. And of course, all of this is with the very large caveat that it's one game, a new system and a new manager - so it's pretty fresh and I wouldn't make any firm judgements for a while. |
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