With a game practically every 2.5 days then injuries will become more common than not, no matter the standard. Johanson was poor against WBA, we didnt have the ball in possession to play through him due to WBA tactics. We bypassed him because he was never a real option, not due to lazyness or anything, more due to a press of space by Albion. Tonight will be a totally different game, midweek games, for some reason tend to be. Every game in this tough division is totally different, with managers implementing their tactics and styles in various ways. Bowyer is doing a decent job with Brum and this will be no easy game. Im thoroughly enjoying this season so far. Even the losses have had so many positives to fall back and learn from. Hopefully its another entertaining game tonight.
But Wallace had missed alot of the early part of last season, Amos got another injury, Field another injury before the season started, Austin not fully fit, Johansen not fully fit, Dykes getting niggles all the time, McCallum injured twice already this season, De Wijs eternally injured, Odebajo in and out the side. It's too many and the same offenders over and over. We've either brought in too many injury prone players or were not handling them right !
Im not sure of the injury status at other clubs as i dont follow them, but to me, playing so many games in so few days, some playing internationals in between will always result in injuries. Little niggles can turn into being more serious without the necessary rest. This division is crackers and doesnt enable rest. Very rarely can meaningful training sessions be held during such a schedule.
As Clive repeatedly says in some of his reports on LFW, and when he's on the podcast, we have bought in some players who we wouldn't have been able to afford had they carried a 100% fitness record. He regularly points out that with what we paid for de Wijs (for instance) if you get 30 games a season out of him, that's a result. The club feel that they can manage the squad with the medical team that we have, it's just unfortunate that all the injuries seem to have occured at the same time.
Extract from Clive's preview for tonight's game on LFW's........... One thing that is different to the second half of last season, however, is the health of the squad. QPR were miraculously injury free last year. An already unworkable Championship calendar was slimmed down from nine months to seven. Zero allowances were made around cup competitions which were crammed into - in the League Cup’s case in particular – a farcical schedule. Nobody ever stopped and had a grown up conversation about whether we really needed a League Cup, an EFL Trophy, even an FA Cup last season. Sponsorships had been sold, television deals had been signed, the planes had to land somewhere however bad the weather got, and the pilots and air traffic controllers just had to shake that and make it work. The playing squads were asked to squeeze through, in the height of a global pandemic, by simply playing more midweek games, travelling more, training less, having less recovery time, exposing themselves to illness in buses and trains more often. Throughout that QPR lost Luke Amos to a knee blow out and Little Tom Carroll to puberty as their only long term absentees. Lyndon Dykes’ one week isolation through contact tracing was their only Covid-incident in the whole locked down season. It was remarkable. Remarkable. The invisible team behind it – led by head of medical Imtiaz Ahmad and built up over recent years after Tony Fernandes publicly stated his aim to improve our sports science and medical treatment as an obvious easy win for a club on a budget - deserve enormous credit. It was never likely to continue. They’re good, but they’re not miracle workers. Despite last season’s injury free run, QPR are especially vulnerable because one of the ways they’ve sought to gain an advantage in the transfer market against clubs with bigger budgets is to sign players with chequered medical histories. Sam Field, George Thomas, Lee Wallace, Moses Odubajo and others have all come here with known defects, and in several cases not small defects either – stuff that has kept them out for many months at a time. Jordy De Wijs was signed this summer despite only being fit enough to play eight games in a half season loan at Loftus Road in 2020/21. They know what they’re getting into, they trust in the medical department, and as we so often say there has to be something wrong with you somewhere to be playing at a budgeted club like QPR. If Sam Field wasn’t injured so often he’d have been playing against us for West Brom on Friday night. Players playing like Jordy De Wijs did in those eight games last season, who are fit and able to do that over 46 matches a season, season after season, do not move from Hull to QPR for a nominal fee at 26 years of age. Rangers were smart, the medical treatment was obviously top notch, but they were in some degree lucky to be as healthy as they were through the second half of last season. Lee Wallace was the star man, but it was the first time in four years he’d been able to string a regular sequence of matches together, and now he’s injured again. Two of the stand outs from an intriguing opening two months of the Championship have been Stoke, who few fancied, and Blackburn, who many were tipping for a relegation struggle, throttling into the top six. Stoke and Blackburn were the two teams worst hit by injury in 2020/21, missing a dozen players or more for much of their campaigns, now simply enjoying life with bodies available. QPR have gone the other way - with Field injured before we even began they have yet to field their strongest team, and go in tonight potentially without him, Wallace, McCallum, De Wijs, Johansen… Here's a link to the preview........https://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/news/55886/beneath-the-surface--preview
I think he's a lovely player on the ball, but his advancing age isn't suited to our wide open formation. He and Ball are always outnumbered in there and chase shadows all game. He really needs to be in a midfield 3, but that would probably mean playing 4-3-3 and I'm not sure we will.
4-4-2 would still only have 2 central midfield players and we play 3-4-2-1 not 3-5-2. In fact if we switched to 3-5-2, we would have 3 in central midfield, but we'd probably lose one of Willock or Chair from the starting line-up.
Johanson is that calm, ball playing influencer who dictates games. Youre right Col. To get that week in week out, he predominantly needs to be in a 3. With the other 2 doing the majority of the leg work. Having said that, certain games will suit our formation and style, whilst others wont. The return of Field and even Amos will be very welcomed.
I understand bringing in good quality players who have had injury problems has been an integral part of our recruitment the last 2 seasons. Reason the Budget, we couldn't afford them if they had stayed fit, and we have good medical science people. It worked pretty well in the last condensed season.
I was just looking at it and thinking the same. Guess Willock and Chair will go out wide when required, but seems we're set up to play through the middle.
What do you think about the idea of Willock and Chair actively taking turns to drop back and be that third person, to then carry the ball through or just ease the pressure?