End of Term Report 15/16 — Defenders

Part two of the annual LFW run down of each player’s individual performance during the previous season examines the defence.

4 - Grant Hall A

Here’s a lesson in hype and managing expectation. Hall was a very quiet addition to the squad last summer, arriving from Spurs after impressing in the later friendlies. He wasn’t even expected to start games, and tales of difficult loan spells at this level with Birmingham and Blackpool in previous seasons meant little was expected of him. With nothing to lose, no reputation to uphold, and no pressure that might have come with a big "look at this Premier League centre back we’ve just signed” fanfare, Hall was able to settle in at his new club, win his place in the team, and surprise everybody with first above average performances, and then some very good ones as his confidence grew.

By the end of the season he’d won the Player of the Year award, and again I’m not sure that would have been possible had he been hyped up - as several other players have been over the years as the club searched for a crowd-pleasing name in difficult times — because he did suffer a noticeable drop off in form towards the end of the season when he started taking unnecessary risks, allowing the ball to bounce in poor areas and overcomplicating the task.

The simplicity of Hall’s game was the highlight of the previous six or seven months. His positioning and reading of the game is excellent, often putting him in the right position to make a timely intercept, tackle or block. He’s not short of confident or mouth, belying his age and lack of experience — Robert Green was certainly given short shrift when he attempted to blame Hall for his Hull catastrophe. He’s not bad in the air — and posed a bigger threat from attacking corners than his one goal suggests, but his physicality could do with some work.

I’d like to have seen him play with Clint Hill more, as their games complement each other’s well, and that lack of a hang ‘em flog ‘em centre half will become an acute problem very quickly next season if Hill isn’t adequately replaced. I sense we’re looking for a partner for Hall, rather than Hall himself to step up and be that himself. His progress next season, given that lull towards the end of this, will be interesting and although he’s my Player of the Year as well, I’m deliberately not going to expect too much of him next year as that seemed to work very well in the season just gone.

In Numbers:

40 starts, 2 substitute appearances
1 goal (Reading H), 1 assist (MK Dons H)
45 conceded, 15 clean sheets
5 yellows (handball, foul, foul, foul, foul), 0 reds
6 MOTM Awards (Birmingham A, Brentford A, Boro A, Burnley H, Forest A, Wolves H)
LFW Ratings: 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 6, 4, 7, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 6, 8, 7, 6, 7, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, -, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 7, 6, 6 = 6.29
Interactive Rating: 6.37

5 - Nedum Onuoha C

I remain a fan, but I was disappointed with his 2015/16.

He remains permanently stuck between the right back and centre back position, but unlike previous seasons where he impressed in his fleeting outings in the centre only to play most of his games on the right, this year he couldn’t achieve any consistency in either spot despite getting plenty of game time in both.

His problems at right back are well known — he’s not the best passer of a ball, and I can’t ever recall him overlapping a winger to deliver a cross. That leaves him either hitting the ball long, which is no good to anybody except Seb Polter, or marauding forward on one of those out-of-control runs through the middle of the pitch which occasionally yield something positive in the same way funny things occasionally happen during the chaos caused by a dog getting onto the school playground. The full backs are so important in the modern game in almost any formation you play, and QPR struggled in that position on both sides of the field all season.

That said I thought his best performances of the season, and those of the team, came in those late spring games where he played right back, James Perch went to the left, and Grant Hall and Clint Hill played together in the centre — Birmingham, Ipswich, Brentford, Derby all swiftly beaten in fine style.

That could be more to do with the centre backs than Onuoha. QPR looked a better team with Clint Hill in there right up until the final game of the season, highlighting the need for an old fashioned centre back to stand there and do the mucky stuff next to Grant Hall. There’s no reason Onuoha can’t be that person — he’s as quick as any other defender in the league and he’s physically almost perfect. He’s like Danny Shittu with Premier League pedigree and he should be dominating centre forwards at this level. QPR need him to find that within himself for next season, because he certainly didn’t show it enough this.

I’ve heard it said that giving him the captaincy may have caused problems — too much extra baggage to focus on and all that. I don’t agree firstly because I think people in the British game place far more importance on the captaincy than anywhere else in Europe and the effects of it both positive and negative are overstated, and secondly because I think he’s a really bright lad who speaks well and represents the club brilliantly, leading a new and young group by example in a way his gobby predecessor never did. That said, it does seem to have made him think he can chase after the referee and scream in his face, resulting in an unprecedented four yellow cards for dissent last season. Probably best pack that in.

In Numbers:
49 starts, 0 substitute appearances (ever present in league)
3 goals (Yeovil A, Blackburn H, Reading A), 3 assists (Birmingham A, MK Dons H, Huddersfield H)
56 conceded, 16 clean sheets
9 yellows (foul, dissent, dissent, foul, dissent, foul, foul, dissent, foul), 0 reds
2 MOTM Awards (Huddersfield A, Reading A)
LFW Ratings: 6, 6, 7, 6, 6, 8, 6, 5, 6, 2, 5, 5, 6, 6, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 6, 6, 4, 5, 5, 7, 5, 6, 7, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 6, 6 = 5.85
Interactive Rating: 5.81

6 - Clint Hill A

Somewhere in between Dave Bassett/John Beck and Brendan Rogers/Roberto Martinez lies a huge expanse of grey area in which the art of defending has become lost. The rise of Spain and Barcelona, the influences of foreign coaches on the English game and the snobbery around anything looking anything remotely like a long ball game has taken us from a nation that had so many centre backs to choose from that Steve Bruce and Jamie Carragher couldn’t get a look in for England, to the national team we’ve hung our hopes on this summer that doesn’t have a single centre back who can actually defend properly. We live in a world where Everton want £45m for John Stones, even though he’s not particularly good defensively, because he can play out from the back.

In this world of pseudo intellectual bollocks about tremendous characters and wonderful human beings and playing out from the back, there is still a time and a place for defenders to just defend and it doesn’t make them pub football cloggers for doing it, nor fans dinosaurs for wanting to see it. Leicester City have just won the Premier League against all the odds with two of the biggest, ugliest, nastiest, most old fashioned centre backs playing in the Premier League today. They left several more fancied, more expensively assembled teams trailing in their wake, most of whom — Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City, Man Utd — have a chronic problem at centre half. Specifically, none of their centre backs can defend properly.

At some point, particularly in the Championship, you want your centre back to stand there and head the bloody thing. You need somebody in your penalty area in your colours who can win headers, execute tackles, put in blocks, hurt people and, yes, even occasionally put a big boot right through the ball and launch the fucking thing right down to the other end of the field and clear the lines altogether when times are particularly tricky. Clint Hill was by far and away the best at all of this at QPR for the last five years, right down to the final game of his stay at Loftus Road against Bristol City when I thought he was the best Rangers player on the pitch.

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink may well want to play with more tempo, have more pace in the side, play with a higher line, play out from the back and all of this — more power to him, the team is sadly lacking pace, tempo and speed throughout. But, as Chris Ramsey found out last summer when he brought Gabrielle Angella in to carry the ball out from defence, first and foremost your central defenders have to stand there, stick their chin out, and defend across a 46 game season in a physical league. I have strong, strong doubts that QPR will be able to find anybody that can do that as well as Clint Hill at a price we can afford to buy this summer — Hill was already here, settled and happy.

Hill has since signed for Glasgow Rangers where, frankly, he should be able to play in his dinner jacket against some of the drek that passes for attacks in the SPL. QPR conceded one goal a game across his 15 appearances last season, a better ratio than every other one of the regular defenders. I think we’ve underestimated how difficult he will be to replace.

In Numbers:
15 starts, 0 sub appearances
1 goal (Cardiff H), 1 assist (Cardiff H)
15 conceded, 6 clean sheets
2 yellows (foul, unsporting conduct), 0 reds
2 MOTM Awards (Derby H, Bristol City H)
LFW Ratings: 6, 6, 7, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 8, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 7 = 6.4
Interactive Rating: 6.57

15 - Paul Konchesky D

I think I recall trying to put a brave face on this signing last summer — Yun Suk Young, Armand Traore and Jack Robinson were all injured medium to long term and to start a Championship season with the supporters’ expectations and animosity towards the manager at the level they were with youngster Cole Kpekawa as first choice would have been a risk. Nevertheless, this was a panicky signing that was never likely to succeed.

Our Leicester correspondent Ian Gallagher (last seen circling the moon on a push bike with a big grin on his face and a half drunk magnum of champagne in his hand) had consistently named Konchesky the weakest link in their side in his LFW interviews over the previous two seasons which didn’t exactly suggest the veteran full back was capable of any kind of Indian summer.

He wasn’t helped first by Chris Ramsey’s team shape which was designed to get Rangers scoring goals (which it did) but left the full backs hopelessly exposed. Nor did either Matt Phillips or Junior Hoilett, who played the majority of the season as the winger in front of him, offer any sort of defensive assistance whatsoever.

But Konchesky was very poor all the same, not only with the ball — which he and we never kept for very long once it was at his feet — but also defensively where he allowed crosses to come in too easily from his side, and was often caught napping at the back post when they came in from the other as Paul Robinson’s pathetically easy opener for Birmingham at St Andrew’s highlighted best. Zero assists in an entire season from the left full back — not even one by accident. I know we’ve been spoilt in recent years with the likes of Padula and Wilson but modern day full backs should be aiming for half a dozen assists a season in my opinion. Not a single cross from left back resulted in a goal all season.

Like Robert Green, it became puzzling why he was selected for so long, especially given that he obviously won’t be here next season. Robinson struggled to recover from his horror injury, and Armand Traore has been taken up into the woods at night and released, but Kpekawa showed at the very end of the season that he was worthy of greater game time and I don’t think anybody will ever understand why we used Yun Suk-Young so seldom even allowing for the South Korean’s own defensive frailties.

The nadir came in the 2-0 loss at MK Dons where Konchesky turned in the worst performance of this, or any other, season culminating in him allowing a simple pass to run under his foot and out for a throw in in front of the dug outs. It would be a brave man to watch that performance back and believe he can go around again next season. As long as it’s not in our colours I’m not that fussed. If it is, I think I’ll be switching to spirits for the pre-match next year.

In Numbers:
33 starts, 1 sub appearance
0 goals, 0 assists
42 conceded, 11 clean sheets
4 yellows (foul, foul, foul, foul), 0 reds
1 MOTM Award (Bristol City A)
LFW Ratings: 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 5, 5, 5, 2, 6, 4, 6, 6, 5, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 7, 7, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 6, 4, 4, 2, 4 = 5.29
Interactive Ratings: 5.46

24 - James Perch C

This one puzzled me almost as much as the failure of Gabrielle Angella to make an impression. Versatile player, bags of experience, Premier League pedigree, Player of the Year at his previous club Wigan… and yet for a good portion of the season James Perch not only looked like he’d never played the game at this level before, but also didn’t really seem to be enjoying trying.

I’ll offer the same mitigation I did Konchesky — playing in Chris Ramsey’s set up didn’t look much fun for the full backs, and playing behind Matt Phillips in the mood he got himself into after August must have been an intensely annoying experience. There was a midweek match in January at Blackburn where Phillips didn’t even try and disguise the fact that he was only going to saunter back and make a token attempt to help Perch out when Blackburn countered down the side — in fact you couldn’t even describe it as a token effort.

But Perch was shockingly bad in the first half of the season. That same Robinson goal at Birmingham I mentioned in Konchesky’s write up came from a free kick conceded by Perch after he’d been caught so flat footed and static that the wild lunge he belatedly executed on his winger seemed more out of surprise that he’d suddenly realised a game was going on around him at all. The 4-0 loss at Fulham was about as bad as you’ll ever see from two full backs — to think we were once the club of Wilson and Bardsley. A completely needless red card at Derby, in injury time of a game already lost for a wild lunge on a player tight to the touchline in a non-threatening area of the field, looked like the action of a man who fancied the weekend off.

Salvation came in an odd place. Injuries necessitated Perch’s move to left back after Christmas, and he turned out to be bloody excellent there. Fitter, sharper, happier, he suddenly started posing an attacking threat, producing excellent assists for Tjaronn Chery against Derby among others. QPR improved with him, highlighting the influence full backs can have on teams, and by the end of the season I’d built up some hope that we’d signed a good ‘un after all and look forward to seeing him back again next year. Possibly at left back again, possibly in the Karl Henry role in midfield which he has played to good effect before.

Maybe two relegations at Wigan had knocked him more than we allowed for. Nine months into his stay at QPR, he was starting to look something a bit more like it by the end of the season.

In Numbers:
35 starts, 1 sub appearance
0 goals, 3 assists (Rotherham H, Birmingham H, Derby H)
40 conceded, 11 clean sheets
8 yellows (foul, foul, foul, foul, foul, foul, foul, foul), 1 red (Derby A, 2 yellows)
0 MOTM Awards
LFW Ratings: 5, 6, 5, 6, 6, 5, 5, 6, 6, 2, 4, 6, 4, 5, 6, 5, 6, 6, 5, 6, 6, 6, 5, 6, 5, 5, 6, 7, 5, 7, 7, 6, 7, 5, 6, 6, 6 = 5.567
Interactive Rating: 5.58

26 - Gabrielle Angella C

Potentially a generous mark, one higher than it maybe should be, but in the same way as Grant Hall perhaps benefited from there being zero expectations of him doing well, maybe Angella suffered from coming here as the promotion winning answer to all our centre half problems.

I’d seen a lot of Angella at Watford, liked him and was surprised they didn’t take him to the Premier League with them. Our resident correspondent from Vicarage Road was too, and said fans there were annoyed he’d been shipped out last summer. Les Ferdinand said in a recent interview with LFW that perhaps Angella was surprised, and depressed, too and that accounted for his failure to perform consistently in Hoops. Ferdinand also pointed out that after playing brilliantly for the first quarter of an hour of his debut he then suffered a horrible head injury and was never quite the same player again — perhaps another salient point, as the long term effects of head injuries and concussion belatedly start to enter our sport’s psyche.

Angella came on strong in the second half of the season at Watford in 2014/15, and some decent performances during that impressive run of results through the spring suggested he may do the same in the blue and white hoops, but he fell in a hole again on a night when the defence completely imploded against Middlesbrough in Shepherd’s Bush and was out of the side altogether by the end of the year when it became clear his contract wasn’t going to be renewed. Just three clean sheets were kept in his 18 appearances this season, by far the worst ratio of any of the other regular defenders.

I’m gutted to be honest. Good on the ball, strong in the air, all elbows and angles and sharp points, a strong mix of Italian cynicism, pragmatism and pride in defending, dress sense like a eccentric antique dealer… I thought we’d signed a real gem here, and the sort of centre back QPR fans love to watch. Why it didn’t work out we’ll never be sure, but it feels like an opportunity missed and highlights the difficult we’ll have replacing Clint Hill this summer because Angella was as sure a thing as you’re ever likely to find at this level.

In Numbers:
17 starts, 1 sub appearance
1 goal (Derby H), 0 assists
27 conceded, 3 clean sheets
3 yellows (foul, foul, unsporting conduct), 0 reds
0 MOTM Awards
LFW Ratings: 7, 6, 7, 2, 5, 6, 7, 7, 6, 6, 7, 7, 5, 7, 6, 6, 5, 5 = 5.94
Interactive Rating: 5.79

Others
Darnell Furlong impressed in two separate loan spells for two of the better teams in League Two, including eventual champions Northampton. Fans of both clubs took the time to come onto our message board and talk about how well Furlong had done and there’s no reason he can’t be pushing for greater first team selection at QPR next season, especially given our struggles at right back this term.

We remain interested in your sightings of Armand Traore - usual contact points for those please.

The Twitter @loftforwords

Pictures — Action Images

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