Having watched the game, I can't say I'm thoroughly surprised at the result. I don't know what more Shota can do; the players he has signed have been written off injured and the few that are left are being propped up by a mix of League One standard players, a handful of last season's players and other new signings who are still adapting to the league. You can see he's trying to get players rested and minutes into other ones, but given how threadbare the squad is, the ones coming in simply aren't good enough. It's not a cause for concern really at this stage of the season and we've seen more than enough to suggest we can compete at the right end of the division. When we got promoted under Bruce the second time, we had a season where we got thumped by Derby, drew with MK Dons and lost to Rotherham. The first time round we got done over by Leicester, then lost back to back home games against Peterborough and Blackpool. If you go back far enough on this forum, I'll wager some of the comments after those games will be similar to those tonight. This team, with all its additions and injuries, will take time to get going. I know it's easy to get carried away in the early days of the season and that brings heavier disappointment when we lose, but some of the overreaction on here is as if we're fighting against going down. The first half tonight was a catalogue of errors, but brought by a mixture of a lack of quality and some individual errors. I've seen people saying Jones isn't capable in this division, which given his start to the season is utterly laughable. The squad that went out tonight hasn't played a game as an XI. So the players stepping in have different traits, different movements and different expectations about getting the ball. If all of that gets confused, you end up with that first half. Nobody knew what the hell they were doing and a QPR side that's played together for an entire season and a bit will punish that. With a full strength side, you're looking at: Ingram, Fleming, Greaves, Figs, Jones, Christie, Tufan, Seri, Sinik, Allayhar, Oscar. With a bench of Baxter, Macca, Coyle, Woods, Tetteh, Pelkas and Slater (with Longman, M'Hand, Traore, Doc and whoever else we sign also trying to get in there). That's the side you criticise when things go wrong, not this amalgamation of players we're calling a team at the moment. The likes of Cannon, Smith and Williams will probably go, the last of the McCann embargo transfers. Covil will probably head out on loan along with a few other young players. We have to endure while we get the squad fit, we just have to. If you get frustrated at a team plagued with injuries, how are you going to cope when our fully fit side loses?! We've done incredibly well to get to where we are, but as Burnsey said tonight, the injuries have just caught up with us. We can't do anything about that. A fully fit side playing badly we can sort out. A mostly injured team being plugged with players who've barely played/played in the conference last season we can't.
Not sure about Burnley, we did make it more difficult for them and although we conceded a lot of the ball, didn’t concede many chances and created more dangerous opportunities ourselves. But other than Burnley and Bristol we have been fortunate not to concede 4 or 5 in ever other game.
I was expecting a loss. Due to all our injured players we basically have the same bottom half team as last year im sure if we can get out injured players back we will be a very strong side
I had been wondering awhile if he’s on some sort of compassionate leave. Who knows what might have happened in his life. He could also genuinely be injured. Has he been at the training ground or any of the games at all?
To be clear my frustration is with the manner of performances across the season in terms of how open we've been. It's not sustainable and we're seeing the dam bursting against WBA and again tonight. As you say when players are back fit we'll look a much better side, but the longer players like Seri remain sidelined mysteriously, the longer we have to make do and come up with other tactics to avoid heavy defeats. We can't just burn games on the philosophy of "Oh well, we'll be ok once these players are back". You cite Ally and Traore who won't be back for months, Seri's now missed four or five games, Tufan was meant to be back for Sheff U but now it's Cardiff and who knows if that's going to be the case. At some point we have to just cope with what we have. And I don't just mean in terms of results because obviously we won against Cov, but it's alarming how many chances we're conceding game after game. We can't always rely on a hattrick of tap ins from Oscar to win us games.
The only win West Brom got so far was against us. We definitely need different more clever tactics away from home.
Outside the first 15 when they rattled us into individual errors we drew the game. Should have had another ourselves also so beyond the disappointment of defeat, I don't see it as the crisis you seem to. Not yet anyway.
I think by then QPR had set up shop. They were 3-0 up and comfortable and the only reason we got on the scoresheet was a very blatantly offside goal. Where on Earth have I called it a crisis?
100%. We don’t have a pressing structure and if we do we aren’t executing it. We cannot pin other teams in their half when they have the ball. QPR did it to us excellently for 45 minutes and punished us 3 times. Unforced errors in our eyes but their players forced it because of how they’re coached to press. Our press is so easily bypassed and that is not down to injuries that’s down to how we are coached.
It definitely was, he's about half a body behind the QPR defender. It was the linesman who was originally fourth official so not surprised he stuffed up and we take it.
We should've had one before then anyway. We don't create much, but I always feel we look like scoring. I know that's a weird contradiction but I feel it's true
Fair enough, we have now conceded the most goals in the league. However, it's hard to maintain any form of consistency if we're losing a player a game to injury. We can't do anything about injury, it happens to every club (though not this severe it must be said), so we have to go with what we have. And if you're left with the likes of Cannon, Williams and an only just returned Longman, they'll battle manfully but in this league they'll almost always come up short. The tactics have to change defensively during this injury crisis, no question and if it were up to me, I'd be playing 4-4-2 to choke out the midfield. But Shota clearly wants three at the back so we can have a five depending on where the play is.
