For those of you who did not see the match, don't let the Stats fool you. The shots total is completely deceiving. We only really had 3 shots that went to target properly, and only one of them was a proper save by Begovic, a great shot by Granero. Other than that, they were all over the place, none of the other shots really threatened their goal in any way whatsoever. Through balls....... really, we are a poorly coached team. In fact, the whole team with great amounts of possession today - we really do not know how to attack the opponents' penalty area properly. With Hoilett, Cissé and Taraabt with plenty of possession and space, we seem to somehow not know how to make diagonal runs into the area space, for a good through ball to be played for them to latch onto. We keep wanting to put the ball to feet, and by then we're surrounded and can't get past them. Oh Adel....... no confidence today. Forgot how to just have a good bending shot at goal. Our set-pieces were abysmal. We had 3 great opportunities just outside their area and couldn't make sense of any of them. Cissé..... waited all day for good balls and they just never came. But - he does need to make better runs in towards the PK spot and 6-yard box, rather than just waiting on the fringe of area and hoping for an opening! First half Cissé was too much on the right, should've swapped with Adel who was too much in the middle and didn't know how to direct the through ball and kept losing possession down their throat. We almost looked 4-3-3, and it was working, but it limited our wide overlaps. It was almost a Brazil style possession football for us, but I don't think we are coached well enough to make that work. Oh that last 3rd....... so so so poor. One poor defensive mistake and we let one in. César had practically nothing to do all match, except for a couple of nice stops in the last 20. That was about it. First half he did bugger all as we had all the possession. In the last 20, we should've taken off Diakite for Mackie as well, at least! Faurlin was not quite up to speed, but made a couple of beautiful cross-field passes.
The only other thing I would add is that Stoke harrassed us for the first 20 minutes, chased us around when we had possession, they chased us and picked at us as if they were Barcelona, never letting down their guard, they chased and chased and we still kept decent possession. But we also could not figure out how to really crack that last 3rd as the 4-3-3 look we gave them limited our width. But it's poor coaching, for our players to not make darting runs into space, we really play like babies who can't let go of possession, too afraid to pass into space for runs to be made. Somebody please coach these players and tell them that WE DON"T NEED TO PASS TO FEET ALL THE TIME!!!!!!
We can't seem to break anyone down much but I think the main problem is lack of patience. There were many times when QPR could have passed backwards and reworked their approach, frustrating Stoke. Instead, they put sloppy passes through, desperately trying to create something without waiting for the right moment. We actually have the passing ability in our team and should use that to piss teams off, drawing them out to make mistakes. This would either open up defences or allow players to move up the field and get in the box. I wonder if MH sees this?
Yeah we hurry it up a bit too much, need a bit more build up, wait for support. But at the same time, we can still make better runs into space.
