While Iâm delighted with our general league position, our lack of creativity and goal scoring prowess has concerned me now for several months. Like many on here, I have waited for us to âclickâ and dominate sides like our squad/team should be doing. Alas, the games pass week by week and still we continue to deceive and fail to play the type of football that we feel this team is capable of. While considering all the possibilities for our lacklustre performances, I canât help but feel that football in general has been in demise now for several years. While this is the subject of another conversation for another day, one of the overriding reasons for my perceived view is the unbelievable amounts of money in the game and the ridiculous amounts of money that players are now paid. Many are now multi millionaires by their early twenties and few have the desire, attitude or determination to sustain careers into their late twenties or early thirties. With the current and future SKY deals, football has never generated so much money, yet ticket prices remain high for fans, the standard of the Premiership has actually regressed (IMO) and very few clubs are scouting players and bringing them through their academies to first team football. Why? The reason I believe is that the top end footballers are taking way way too much money out of the game and leaving many clubs (including our own) spending beyond their means. This financial pressure in a time of lucrative SKY funding is simply incredible and may result in the future meltdown of more and more clubs. The financial fair play rules about to be implemented will not change anything (IMO) as there are too many ways to circumvent these rules. Why mention the above, well I genuinely believe that the ridiculous spending by our club over the last few years has placed our club under the tremendous burden of âhaving to get promotedâ this season. I donât care how wealthy our owners are, the money lost on transfers and wages for a dozen odd mercenaries must have hurt and be still hurting. FFS, we still have the Brazilian goalkeeper on a reported £100,000 grand a week sitting in the stands. I genuinely believe that Harry will have been told the absolute necessity of getting us promoted and that this is reflected in our conservative approach to some if not most games. It was not my intention to start talking about tactics but I feel that football has taken a twist for the worse with the ever increasing amount of teams playing 4-2-3-1. For me, this old Italian generated system is killing football. Too many teams are now going out to play with the instruction âwe have a point, letâs not lose itâ. No team needs two DCMs. Thatâs a goalkeeper, four defenders, and two midfielders dedicated to stopping the opposition from scoring. Listen to Mourinho last night. He set up not to lose. I think that Harry knows the potential financial position that we are in and is also restrained by this. Our results may indicate this. We set up nice and compact, difficult to break down, but with very little creativity. I think we are playing with shackles on, constrained with the financial legacy of trying to buy success over the last two years. IMHO, every football team needs one recognised DCM. The only one we have (IMO) is Henry. Barton, Jenas, Carroll, OâNeill etc are not specialised DCMs. This leaves us vulnerable and restricts our creative players from getting forward. A good DCM can prevent more by correct positional awareness than running 10KM per game. Good central positioning will force the counter attack wide which significantly reduces the threat, as your CBs should be able to deal with the subsequent crosses. Leicester picked us off the other day as we had nobody sitting deep to stop their counter attacks. This does not mean that I rate Henry as a player; it just means that I think we need a recognised DCM in our team. We have become very adept this year at keeping the ball (which is refreshing) but Iâm far from blind and all we have become proficient at is passing laterally. We simply do not get enough players forward to create enough scoring chances. Take a look at how many shots we have had from distance this years, loads, but it rarely troubles the opposition. The disconnect between Austin and our midfield three is criminal with none of them managing to get up and support Austin or get beyond him. Apologies for using Chelsea as an example but IMO they show exactly why a 4-2-3-1 does not work, even with top players. They have Mata, Oscar, Willian and Hazard to choose from in midfield and Ba, Torres and Eto up front yet they still struggle to create and score enough. One man up front does not work. Iâm a big believer in 4-4-2 or at a push 4-4-1-1. Some people will argue that 4-4-2 is archaic but it can still work. Itâs not working at the moment because too many teams are packing the midfield and playing negatively. Packing the midfield too ensure that they get enough possession not to lose the match. I love watching Newcastle, Swansea or Arsenal who still attempt to play football as itâs meant to be played. Everton too, are slowly gaining a reputation under Martinez as a footballing team. But they are the exception, with most teams in the Prem playing dosh. Football is now way too negative for me. It will never affect my love for all things QPR but itâs becoming harder and harder to watch. Just the rumblings of a disgruntled football fan. Happy Christmas to all.
I think Harry realises that resilience wins you vital points in this league. It's a bit pointless being good beating the lower sides at home while losing at the better ones. Last season we were beating sides like Ipswich and Huddersfield by 5 or 6 goals. This season we're grinding out results and, for our wage bills, we're doing remarkably well as are Burnley. Results like yours against Blackpool worry me more than home thrashings of low tabled sides. I wouldn't worry about yourselves. Your a good side but egos may be your downfall whereas talent might be the downfall of Leicester and Burnley.
Good post. Thing is, Chelsea have won numerous trophies, including the PL and CL, whilst playing one striker; and we won promotion playing the very same system which you have suggested is ineffectual. A system is only as good as its component parts and the suitability of those parts to operate in desired manner. And that's our problem: none of our central midfield players are of a type dedicated to making and/or scoring goals, such as Chelsea have in Lampard or Ranger's with Adel (not quite a midfielder, of course). I think we're set up for solidity rather than fluidity, with the wingers expected to create and score goals; unfortunately neither have been overly successful, and I'd even suggest that Hoilett will never improve his disastrous decision making. In short, one man up-front works fine, as long as the team can score goals from other areas.
Fair points mate. I just think that football in general has taken an Italian step backwards with most teams now adapting a 4-2-3-1 formation.
Perhaps a number of PL teams have become a little more 'Europeanised' (?) in their approach to formations, tactics and so on in recent years. But, in my opinion, this has to be set against, for example, the change in full-back play which sees these defenders often pushed on in advanced positions from the very outset of the match (even though Bardsley and Wilson were sort of doing that in the 90s! Bardsley header vs Spurs from a Wilson cross springs to mind - at least I hope that's right). This is probably one of the main reasons why we see two more robust midfielders playing centrally these days, even though one of these players normally gets forward a little.
Sometimes we get frustrated with some of the players that play. I am more frustrated with one who doesn't. Ale Faurlin! The man was on fire before the injury and I think we sadly miss his midfield contribution. It's the same for all teams with injuries but terribly frustrating. A fully fit AJ would be nice too. I feel many of our threads would have a different tone (no criticism intended at all) if those two had stayed fit.
That's a great write-up Nuts and I agree with what you say. A couple of things that I would like to add as I've often thought as to why we are playing as pedestrian as we are. I think Harry has the two central midfielders sitting too deep when we don't have the ball. This is because Dunne and Hill do not possess the pace that they may of once had. This prevents the opposition trying to operate in between the lines. The ball has to go wide, in comes a cross and between them DunHill more often than not clear it. When we try to break there is only one option. Austin, and for our opponents defenders he's too easy to mark as they only have to concentrate on him. As for the 4-4-2, I think you can get away with it in this division. Providing you have the forwards to accomodate it, which we don't. If you look at Leicester, Burnley and Derby they all play it. Burnley have got Ings and Vokes. Leicester have Vardy and Nugent along with Taylor-Fletcher if needed. On Saturday against Doncaster, Derby played with three up front, Martin, Ward and Dawkins. They ran out 3-1 winners and have scored the most goals in this division. It works for all of our nearest rivals with supposedly lesser players. You watch when we play Forest tomorrow night, they usually play 4-1-4-1 and flood bodies into the box when attacking. Come judgement day, this could well make the difference between automatic promotion and being in the play offs. Whereas we, on Saturday didn't even have another striker on the bench, which would have allowed us to change things quite significantly. This left us with no plan B and made us far too predictable.
In short we are controlling games now by keeping the ball For fans that can be boring as with today's formations it means going sideways We were undone by route one Saturday from the keeper ... A good finish but nothing more than that We just need to finish chances and we are fine We are the most solid team We have no flair We have a task Done
Good points Nuts (and the following posts). The tactics point is difficult, I feel that I want to play 442, but cannot understand why we are not getting more players in the box when we have 4 of the 5 midfielders who are supposed to be attacking players. As far as the ridiculous wages of the players, I totally agree, I have been saying the same thing for a number of years. A wage cap is the way forward. Of course, if you play for Manure you should earn more than a Hull player, but there needs to be restraint. If every player in each squad earned a basic wage and then received bonuses for appearances and league position of the team, the players playing regularly for the top teams would acquire a fair wage. 18 year olds on 10K a week is a joke just as much as Suarez being on 200K is.
I agree we need help upfront, but as for money I remember my grandad saying Greaves got too much so don't subscribe to that
Excellent post mate. Whilst I'm not really sure regarding our best formation at the minute, you've highlighted a point that has also been troubling me, and that's the lack of support for Austin from our midfield three. Terrible to watch at times. Just imagine if Austin had gone to Hull as well!
You wouldnt pay saurez 100 grand a week for what he is doing?..I f-ing would and so would most of the footballing planet at the moment. Hes single handedly taking Liverpool to CL footy.!! Not sure about the greaves comment though...each to thier owm. i suspect he'd get run ring around in "todays game" but was excellent "in his day"
Clive Whittingham may have read your post Nuts.......... Am I missing something? – Preview Tuesday, 24th Dec 2013 21:36 by Clive Whittingham QPR travel to Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day where no doubt their own version of this new-fangled, modern, possession-based snooze-a-thon football will continue apace. Merry Christmas my R’s. Perhaps I’ve simply watched too much football. Thanks to the LFW obligations, the ongoing QPR obsession, the work for the Telegraph sports desk and the want of something better to do with my time I’m constantly taking in a hell of a lot of this wretched sport and I am, with concerning frequency, finding it very boring indeed. - See more at: http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/footba...sing-something-–-preview#sthash.0ZyvlWfd.dpuf
Jesus Christ, even on Xmas Eve Whittingham manages a 10,000 word special. I hope he logged off in time to allow Santa down the chimney
Here's an interesting picture for you Nuts, this was back to Boxing Day in 1963 when the players used to have a drink............... please log in to view this image
It can be more attacking than a 442 and it can become a 424 when in possession but I agree we use it in a negative sense, in fact I dont think we really use a 4231 with a true attacking player in the middle of the 3, we use Jenas or Oneill who dont have the creativity for it. We must use Kranjcar or Benayoun there. I would say we use a 451 which of course is a negative formation that grinds out wins against sides we should be comfortably beat loses against better sides. Think back to Warnock when you can remember how attacking a 4231 can be. We could play any formation but it doesnt matter because we have a negative manager in charge.
