It’s all supply and demand sadly. Even players of Shodipo’s calibre (or perceived calibre 4+ years ago) are in short supply and command that sort of dough. He’s lucky he came through our system as he wouldn’t have made it this far if he’d started lower.
Wow…. From first to now sixth in a matter of weeks! l guess the only positive we can take out of this is that we are officially having our slump early on in the season. When other teams slide into theirs, we’ll fly by them and regain our standing. Just hope my liver & heart can take this punishing. Footnote- How strange is it that after MB decided to stay, we slumped. Normal rationale would be that we’d continued to lead from the front.
Tim made a lot happen, started many of our better attacking moves, and his runs and passes were diagonal or forward in direction. Speeds our attacks up by running or passing forward through midfield, rather than slowing them down, holding the ball which is mostly Chair trying to do it all himself.
Chair was the catalyst. He was trying and trying to be fair to him and others were happy to get the ball to him. It didn’t pay off though and it didn’t succeed - that’s not due to effort tonight though. He frustrates me at times, but he was trying and trying to set an example too (in my opinion). He questioned the ref when others didn’t. He pushed forward trying to find gaps in the 6, 7 or 8 defensive players rather than whinging. Tonight I’d rather give him credit when I’d happily criticise him in other games for going too far. We lost it early to silly goals and it wasn’t our night after that. But ffs get back on the winning trail Rrrss. We are much better than this!!
We really needed to do something different tonight, if bashing the ball into the box with 6 to 8 big lumps hoofing it away wasn’t working, try something else. We didn’t. It was attack versus defence all night and we didn’t have anything to offer in attack. Can’t blame Huddersfield’s tactics to waste time as horrible as it was, they had nothing more to offer but won the game, so “well played them”. Yes the ref and linesmen were awful but the problem tonight and Saturday was us, we lacked something and never looked like scoring. I hope Beale has the know how to find that extra ingredient now that we have been found out.
I hope Armstrong wasn't fit, because we were crying out for a brute with a bit of pace 2nd half. I don't think I've ever seen us cross the ball as poorly as tonight, it really was atrocious from everyone.
Plus Coventry are really picking up and beginning to play well. Will be very tough to get anything on Saturday.
All true and Dykes works very hard. Unfortunately, our best chance fell to him. Certainly not blaming him and no one else. Our fullbacks have gone off the boil too, probably due to opposition coaches sussing us out.
Coventry paying well is a good thing for us. if they'd lost the last 10 in a row, we'd be specials to lose but if they're going alright, we should a good chance. Its the Costanza effect .............. you know what l mean!
Slept on it now and it doesn’t feel any better. Huddersfield were a team begging to be thrashed, instead we let them do the basic bodies behind the ball, stretch out every injury, free kick, throw in and goal kick to eternity routine because we gave them two soft goals (and almost another one before we scored). Then we had very little attacking guile against a wall of flesh. I lost count of the number of corners we had but can’t remember a single decent chance created from them. https://www.skysports.com/watch/vid.../qpr-1-2-huddersfield-championship-highlights
It’s been our Achilles heel for some time if we’re honest … our feed into the box from either wing and our finishing has been poor. I know it’s deemed poor show to have a go at Dykes … BUT … do we need a striker who gets into scoring positions and puts them away or a striker who runs around working hard in defence and up front but doesn’t score enough? Just asking for a friend. It was interesting looking at the ‘player ratings’ on WSL. Only two starting players, Timpal and Field made it to a seven (Taylor-Richards did but for a 15mins appearance). That’s pis$ poor. Seven should be a par rating if you’re going to get in the promotion-seeking pack, you need two or three getting 8’s. Regardless of what goes on at the training ground and team preparations for the game, there are 11 players who need to stand back up and for this team.
It's massively disappointing of course but 1 point from the last 4 games and still only 5 points off the top spot. Just shows what an almighty bunfight this league is, everyone (bar refs favourites Burnley) is going to lose plenty of games, Blackburn being second despite losing 8 of their 20 games is wild. Boy we could do with a win at the weekend though.
To be fair, I've just realised from the brief highlights that it was his ball to Shodipo that should have resulted in a goal. I still believe he'd be more effective if he played with a bit more urgency, though.
I thought Richards performance was promising. He produced 3 saves/kick off the goal line in about 20 minutes, which was more threat on their goal than we got from anyone else all night. Not sure if he is fit enough to start at Coventry, but if he is, maybe it is time to leave Chair out. I think he may benefit from a re-set to get back to his early season play/form. He works so hard, but he takes and holds the ball way too much for all too little effect at the moment. For much of the 2nd half he just slowed our attacks down trying to do everything, and we got nowhere against their parked bus. His usually excellent crisp short passing play left him with the pressure of needing goals, and his shooting was laughably poor last night for the opposition. Don't think he's scored for 12 or 13 games.
Fine margins I guess, on another day one or two of those Richards efforts hits the back of the net. If Richards was to start I'd be leaving Willock out, taking Chair's work rate out of the team would be a mistake I think. I do agree the pressure of our goals drying up is affecting him though but he's not alone in the wayward shooting dept at the moment.
Willock should play if he's fit enough shirley. He doesn't look 100% yet from a stream anyway. But he still provided the ball in for the goal and hopefully with improved fitness the shots that he was scoring before his injury break will start going in again.
