Forum | There's no shape. Nothing by bosh67

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There's no shape. Nothing 17:12 - Jan 31 with 4807 views

Watched today on a stream. An internet stream, not an actual stream.

We lost the game because we didn't turn up until the 40th minute, by which time we should have been 5 or 6 down. No width, no plan, no shape, no ability to hold a ball, no ability to pass a ball, no ability to get the ball to Charlie. Terrible errors costing us. Unlike Henry but Vargas has now given the ball away with disastrous results 3 times. Still not being played in any position where he can be effective and losing confidence.

Second half they really could and should have got something out of the game but again zero service to Charlie. He must be wondering why he's bothering. Ferr had a better game and worked hard but had very little options wide to pick out. We didn't take advantage of the wind second half. Bobby missed a golden chance on 90 minutes to equalise and yet again half hearted tracking back and defending led to yet another injury time goal against.

If you are against a weakened defence in the 2nd half go at them. There was still no shape, no movement, no width and why have we got Zarate if we aren't giving him any game time.

We so desperately need a change of management. It's actually painful to watch how clueless the game plan is. Obviously that is not going to happen and the good ship Harry is fast sinking and so is the player's confidence out there.

A new club record. We have never lost 11 away games in a row. Well, we have now. I don't think whatever happens in the end of this window is going to change anything. The troops look beaten and that, I'm afraid is down to the manager and coaching. I fear only a change would keep us up but that's not happening so we are moving towards the miracle stage.

Still, it was only a bonus game. Sadly for whoever plays us.

	Never knowingly right.
Poll:	How long before new signings become quivering wrecks of the players they were?

There's no shape. Nothing on 11:47 - Feb 2 with 1143 views

daveB

I watched the first 25 minutes or so on a stream and that was enough for me, looked typical away performance, sitting deep looking to not do anything stupid for 20 minutes whilst completely handing the initiative to the opposition. As in most other away games recently the opposition were not very good and took a mistake to actually get ahead but as soon as they got ahead we then wake up and realise we might need to attack. Until that attitude from the start of the game changes we'll continue to be crap away from home.

I didn't see the end of the first half of any of the second so just going off match of the day and goals on sunday but looked like once we started pushing forward we caused problems and were unlucky not to draw. If we ever attack an away game from the first minute rather than we are a goal or two down we might actually get a result , until then we'll keep losing and deservedly so

There's no shape. Nothing on 12:20 - Feb 2 with 1119 views

derbyhoop

That first 20 minutes was dreadful. 2 massively overhit passes from Niko; 3 or 4 scuffed clearances from them. At that point it had all the makings of a 0-0 and last on MOTD.

Then we decided to commit hari Kari.

As to Bosh's claim that Stoke could have had 5 or 6 by HT, the stats say they had 3 attempts on target in the whole game. You don't score many if you miss the target.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one's lifetime." (Mark Twain) Find me on twitter @derbyhoop and now on Bluesky

There's no shape. Nothing on 12:34 - Feb 2 with 1095 views

QPunkR

There's no shape. Nothing on 20:30 - Feb 1 by baz_qpr
This comes back to our lack of mobility and fitness. If we can get Sandra fit and playing, we can bench Joey and have a bit more solidity in the middle of the park. We've not played well IMHO since he has been out and Joey back in central midfield

Yeah but we all know full well the manager would drop Henry instead of his holiness Jesus Barton III, esq

Shit but local

There's no shape. Nothing on 12:43 - Feb 2 with 1086 views

CHUBBS

There's no shape. Nothing on 11:47 - Feb 2 by daveB

I was sitting in the posh bit with a a load of Stoke fans who all agreed we were the worst team they'd seen this season at ht.
Second half,they were hanging on for dear life but you just knew we wouldn't have the minerals,to a man they all looked very relieved to have won the game.
Why do we have to wait for the opposition to score before we decide to try and score a goal?
We are just a reactive team who play a hopeful game bereft of any purpose what so ever.
12 away defeats in a row and you could only use the bad luck excuse in a couple of those games.
My days of standing by Redknap are well and truly over.

There's no shape. Nothing on 12:43 - Feb 2 with 1085 views

whittocksRs

There's no shape. Nothing on 20:21 - Feb 1 by derbyhoop
I'd picked up the bit about not working hard enough as I was watching. The positioning of the Stoke players vs the out of position of ours was an insight. I wonder if they try to get forward too early to compensate for the lack of serious pace?

Arguably a lack of discipline, stemming from poor management, has been our main problem on the pitch all season. Time and time again we've seen teams able to break and bypass huge areas of the second and final thirds of the pitch as our shape goes. Barton, Krancjar, Vargas and Fer are all at fault here, Barton especially.

Henry is often seen legging it back into the box as the ball moves quickly to the wings, where the full back has pushed up and the winger has not covered. It's been worse since YSY got injured, as he's probably the most natural defensive full back we have.

The pressure this invites means Dunne, Ferdinand, Caulker and Onohua have all been guilty of mistakes in the box as attackers charge in.

We get away with it at home, where we're often on the front foot — or at least afforded more of the ball by defensive opponents, but we get murdered away, where wave after wave comes our way. Then we come out in the second half, at least a goal down, and play more expansive stuff. The problem is we're chasing and the breakdown of structure and shape is always likely to happen on the break.

There's no shape. Nothing on 13:13 - Feb 2 with 1064 views

DANRANGER

Did we go with Vargas and Fer wide again and just added Niko ahead of JB and Henry? If so then this has to stop. We get away with it at home (well we used to) but we really need to solidify the wide areas with players willing to work up and down. Based on what we have it means giving Phillips and Hoilett a go again. Perfectly capable but just need to be given some confidence. Play Vargas or Fer as a 10 behind Austin.

Sandro would be a huge upgrade for Barton but following Henry mistake I guess he will be benched if Sandro returns whereas we all know what should happen.

I find it staggering that we haven't at least managed to get a draw and pretty much every away game has gone to a similar pattern. unfortunately players are making mistakes which takes the limelight away from Harry in the eyes of the outside world.

The players are not reacting of each other or playing as a unit both defensively or attacking. These a highly paid individuals both on and of the pitch and it is truly mind blowing they can continue to follow the same pattern away from home. Not exactly playing as if their lives depending on it are they.

There's no shape. Nothing on 13:25 - Feb 2 with 1052 views

Neil_SI

Just for a bit of fun, let's get visual then. :)

This is how I saw it — below is an average position and shape we may have taken up when we had the ball at the back.

In this scenario the ball is played around the back line but over on the left side, so we're progressing the play by using Hill to feed either Henry or Fer so they can work through the middle, or he has a more direct ball up to Austin directly into him or into the left channel.

The positions here are all reasonable. If the play does progress into the midfield, and they work it forward, then Barton, Isla and Vargas all have the right to go and support the attack. That's what they were looking for — perhaps Barton is too far forward at the time this play progress (that's always my feeling with him) and Vargas drifts inside, as strikers do. But that may also be a trigger for Isla to go and provide some width and an attacking outlet.

The problem however is this: what happens if the play breaks down around the back, or in midfield, or if it's played direct to Austin? That's three different areas of the pitch that may or may not have different scenarios of response. You may press aggressively in one area over another, you may hold your position, or you may drop off. It's these areas that we seem to have trouble with when we lose those duals.

The concern I had was there was a disconnect between the defence, midfield and attack. I class the defence in this game as Hill, Onuoha, Dunne and Henry because Isla was always so far forward and keen to support and potential attacking play.

When those phases of play broke down, be it in the defence, midfield or attack, the team seemed to separate into two and then the game was played by these players concerning this area of the pitch, because in general, the rest of the players didn't work hard enough to get back into positions or help them out:

In practice the shape is okay. But what happens when we introduce some of the Stoke players into their equation and the starting defensive positions their attacking players take up in relation to us and our shape:

Ireland's position is key — he operated down a corridor and channel of space, dropping deep between the lines and was able to press, pick up loose balls, or be the maximum distance between our players to give him the most amount of time to make a pass.

The corridor of space he played in looked like this:

He was able to feed all three attacking players with ease from any of the situations, including just picking up the ball from his own defenders if we opted to pump it long and lost it, which we did at times because we were under pressure.

If he didn't make the pass, one of the defensive players in the Stoke side often had a long diagonal option to play Moses in. Barton's positioning was always too advanced, leaving these options on for Ireland or other Stoke players, which along with Isla's always looking to get forward, left huge gaps in behind.

It looks like this:

When we went direct to Austin and lost the ball, they had another outlet of attack, which was a simple ball into Walters. They were able to feed him from a variety of angles, immediately putting him a one v one scenario with the centre back and if he won those aerial duals, he often went wide with his headers and passes, again, isolating us into one v one or two v one's in dangerous areas of the pitch.

The Stoke wide players' starting positions were picture perfect and designed for the players they came up against.

For example, Moses average position was deeper, in order to impact play both ways. His pace meant he could cover and track backwards effectively — but his starting position gave him oceans of space to drive into in an attacking sense. This played on Isla's keenness to always go forward and offer support.

On the other side of the pitch, Arnautovic played higher and wider, often in a position to close down our left sided midfielder if necessary but always on offer to receive a pass if the opportunity arose. His starting position asked questions of Hill, who has a natural lack of pace. Hill likes to stand his ground, so that gives Arnautovic the time and space to get on the ball, and drive at him and take him on down the side, or if Hill dares to come out, it's whether Arnautovic has the pace and skill to beat him and get into the space in behind Hill.

Both of Stoke's wide players caused us problems in different ways. Often they drove to the byline, but because they had space, but they were able to attack in different ways. Moses could go on the inside or the outside (winning a dangerous free kick inside on one of his drives in field) whereas Arnautovic concentrated more on trying to get the ball into the box.

Fortunately both players were sloppy by the byline and often ran the ball out of play for a goal kick. They got into many dangerous areas wide, but were quite wasteful.

But away from this, to describe some of the problems with our shape imploding — there's a couple of ways our defensive players can try and deal with these issues.

One is dropping off, and the other is squeezing up. We tend to drop off a lot because of our lack of pace, but by doing that, if the rest of the midfield do no track back in unison, it creates further gaps and space in the most dangerous areas of the pitch, like this:

If they squeeze up to face the play — they leave themselves in direct one v one scenarios where the attackers can get around them and into the space behind.

The match was played out like this for the majority of the first half, and even when we went direct, so we didn't get caught in the defensive or midfield areas, the team's shape remained largely the same when the Stoke defence had the ball.

That gave them the time and space to pick lots of passes to the same danger men, irrespective of Ireland's involvement or contribution. Take Hill p[laying a direct ball into the channel that Austin wasn't able to get hold off, and suddenly a direct ball was often on to Arnautovic, Ireland, Moses or even Walters. They could put the ball in those areas and know that the majority of those players would be in a one v one scenario with their marker.

How does our shape then implode from these points?

It depends on who tried to help the man isolated. Sometimes it's Henry going and sometimes it's the centre backs. All create lopsided shape and other problems.

If Henry went out to help Hill, it left the shape and danger areas looking like this:

If Onuoha went over to help, it left it looking like this:

If Henry went to try and help on the other side to defend Moses, it looked like this:

And if Dunne went over it looked like this:

It's not about tactics. It's about hard work. The team have to attack and defend together and currently they do not.

There's no shape. Nothing on 13:29 - Feb 2 with 1033 views

ShotKneesHoop

If its that complicated I can see why Rednobb spends all his time in the Coaching Portacabin sipping cocoa.

Why does it feel like R'SWiPe is still on the books? Yer Couldn't Make It Up.Well Done Me!

There's no shape. Nothing on 13:49 - Feb 2 with 1010 views

rsonist

Fantastic posts Neil, thank you for putting in all the effort.

If you ever fancied a bit of limelight then you should consider branching out into the media because in my honest opinion that Michael Cox is money for old rope in comparison to your stuff.

There's no shape. Nothing on 14:09 - Feb 2 with 998 views

CHUBBS

Superb analysis Neil,forget the media mate,Qpr will need a new manager soon and you clearly know more about the game than our current coaching team.
I know some posters like Antti have a weekly rant,maybe you can do one telling us where we've been going wrong.
I know it could get quite depressing but it actually makes me feel better knowing why.
Thanks.

There's no shape. Nothing on 14:55 - Feb 2 with 977 views

QPunkR

No-one hit 'reply' to Neil's post! I think the internet would asplode!

(v interesting read that it is, though!)

Shit but local

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