Re: Match Report: QPR (a)
Thanks Ryan (as ever)
Just to pick up on one single aspect out of many. You're entirely correct about our defenders not clearing the box and not coming out and pressing players in possession - but you've only highlighted it on the goals we concede.
However, it's consistent - even when we don't concede. The defence drops back rather than push forward.
I have no idea on the stats, but we never seem to catch our opponents offside or, more importantly, move out of the box and force them to adjust so that they're not going to be offside.
The consistency leaves me believing that it's by design/instruction as opposed to individual mistakes.
A team playing transitionally would be swarming out, trying to overwhelm the ball carrier, trying to gain possession and get ourselves straight onto the front foot -- but we are possession obsessive - hence the high possession %'s but a complete lack of decent chances created.
We've dropped the possession obsession at home and tend to drive forward more - with outstanding results. But, despite Davies insisting (in his interviews) that we play the same style away from hone - we simply don't.
A paranoia about making mistakes away from home leads, somewhat ironically, to us making mistakes.
Inevitably a spiral develops, where players (and the manager ?) are worried about losing away from home (again) and worry more about not making mistakes than going out with an absolute determination to win at all costs (probably, again, by design/instruction/strategy)
It's hard to spot but not difficult to fix
The next away game we should have the mindset that "sod it, we are losing all these away games by being careful so why not just go for it ?" .... set the team up higher, especially the defense, and concentrate on regaining possession as opposed to merely stopping the opponents doing anything with their possession. Don't be afraid of conceding possession far up the pitch, instead set our midfield up more to regain that possession.
This, obviously, is just one part of our problems with away performances.... but i'm sure our fans would rather watch us having a damned good attempt to score away from home rather than just trying to contain the opposition and (inevitably) seemingly waiting for it to go wrong.
PS - if opposing full backs are going to press right up against our wingers (and do it successfully as QPR did) then those wingers should change position or drop back or position themselves infield to drag the opponents defence out of shape .... we don't do that, we play to instruction and carry on making the same mistakes. We used to concentrate too much on our full backs overlapping and never underlapping, now we concentrate too much on them underlapping and not using space that wingers can create out wide for them by moving more central
Just to pick up on one single aspect out of many. You're entirely correct about our defenders not clearing the box and not coming out and pressing players in possession - but you've only highlighted it on the goals we concede.
However, it's consistent - even when we don't concede. The defence drops back rather than push forward.
I have no idea on the stats, but we never seem to catch our opponents offside or, more importantly, move out of the box and force them to adjust so that they're not going to be offside.
The consistency leaves me believing that it's by design/instruction as opposed to individual mistakes.
A team playing transitionally would be swarming out, trying to overwhelm the ball carrier, trying to gain possession and get ourselves straight onto the front foot -- but we are possession obsessive - hence the high possession %'s but a complete lack of decent chances created.
We've dropped the possession obsession at home and tend to drive forward more - with outstanding results. But, despite Davies insisting (in his interviews) that we play the same style away from hone - we simply don't.
A paranoia about making mistakes away from home leads, somewhat ironically, to us making mistakes.
Inevitably a spiral develops, where players (and the manager ?) are worried about losing away from home (again) and worry more about not making mistakes than going out with an absolute determination to win at all costs (probably, again, by design/instruction/strategy)
It's hard to spot but not difficult to fix
The next away game we should have the mindset that "sod it, we are losing all these away games by being careful so why not just go for it ?" .... set the team up higher, especially the defense, and concentrate on regaining possession as opposed to merely stopping the opponents doing anything with their possession. Don't be afraid of conceding possession far up the pitch, instead set our midfield up more to regain that possession.
This, obviously, is just one part of our problems with away performances.... but i'm sure our fans would rather watch us having a damned good attempt to score away from home rather than just trying to contain the opposition and (inevitably) seemingly waiting for it to go wrong.
PS - if opposing full backs are going to press right up against our wingers (and do it successfully as QPR did) then those wingers should change position or drop back or position themselves infield to drag the opponents defence out of shape .... we don't do that, we play to instruction and carry on making the same mistakes. We used to concentrate too much on our full backs overlapping and never underlapping, now we concentrate too much on them underlapping and not using space that wingers can create out wide for them by moving more central