I think there are three things we could try (they may have been suggested elsewhere, but as you'll see from the rant at the bottom, I won't have been able to see them, so apologies if this has already been said). Option 1: I notice QPR played the same formation Nick Barmby likes to play, when they won promotion last season. They played it differently though - they had Helguson as the big man who is good in the air and can hold the ball up and lay it off to the three attackers sat just behind him, which were: Taraabt, Smith & (either of) Mackie or Routledge. Our main problem being, Fryatt is NOT a Helguson, he should be playing as one of the three - he's a Smith or a Mackie. King, Koren, Brady & Stewart can all fill the other 2 roles as part of the three, but who is our best candidate for a Helguson? Maybe try McLean as the man in the middle? Only other options are Garcia and Adebola - neither look likely options though. King is tall, but I don't think he's strong enough and would be wasted there. Option 2: We scored a lot more goals when Barmby first took charge - his philosophy then was 'express yourself' - he let the players off their leads that Pearson had put on them and allowed them to roam freely - we don't look to have any players 'expressing themselves' at the moment. They we eager to try different things before, now they've gone back to being overly cautious. Option 3: pass the ball quicker - 1 touch if possible. We take far too long to pick a pass and/or have a shot on goal. This part could obviously be part of option 2, as we seemed to do a lot of 1 touch passing and through balls in the early days under Barmby. On another note; I thought I'd write this before I get cut off from my internet and only have my phone to rely on until my MAC code comes through, as I've told my Internet Provider to p*ss off (having to press refresh 50 times to get a website to 'half' load isn't what you can call 'providing' the internet anyway!). Seriously, never go with Orange broadband - spent the last 3 weeks trying to get them to fix it and they've done nothing - they make KC look amazing.
I doubt even with the new signings QPR would have let their top scorer go for the second time in three January transfer windows when they knew there was about to be a documentary coming out making the board look like dicks for selling them the last time.
As most people have said, Henderson would've been ideal. Big Jan would've been good at holding up/laying off at this level too. I mean, it's a big difference on level of play, but Bilbao last night showed off the effect with Llorente and others playing off his lay-offs.
1 just isn't going to happen with the current players. I'd also like Henderson but NB doesn't/can't get someone of that style. 2 is rubbish. The players haven't been held back. Koren, Stewart and McLean are free to express themselves and have plenty of the ball in the oppositions half. It's a problem with their form and their decision making, not any philosophy. 3 I sometimes agree with. There are games were we could really move the ball quicker in the midfield. In a lot of games under Pearson we had this flaw. It's not been prevalent too often recently though. Against Brighton, we moved the ball beautifully. Against teams like Donny and Leeds who had no intention of leaving space behind them, it's not as easy.
Number 2 I think the OP was right on. Just having 4 players who are allowed to attack and everyone else stays behind the ball is the exact kind of tactic NP was accused of implementing, but after about a month it seems to have become NB's favourite way of playing. Unless we had Barca's front 4 you can't expect them to score against a back 4 and midfield. It's the equivalent of playing 5-a-side but one of your lads playing for the opposition leaving you 6 against 4. You'd never win. I agree with you about number 3 but I don't think it should be quite so hard to get around teams like Donny and Leeds who want to sit back. This has been a massive problem for over a year now and still any team that fancies a point can have one.
Three things we should try to do:- 1) Try to score one goal. 2) Try to score two goals. 3) Try to score three goals.
I agree with the third point, our tempo far to often is to slow. The point when a team is at its most vunerable is the transition from defence to attack, however at times our style allows the opposition time to complete that transition and get set, if we was quicker at getting the ball forward, i.e run with it more, more incise passing we would be able to take advantage of this, which we did against Bristol City.
Theo; I wasn't sayin the players are being held back, I was simply saying that when Barmby first came in, he told player to 'express themselves' maybe he just needs to remind them to do that, as they don't seem as confident in their own ability to try things out at the moment. When we do dare to try something different, we've tended to do it well, so I'm not sure why they seem a bit more timid in their approach to trying things now.
