Jordan Foster on the underrating, overrating, misuse and otherwise of QPR’s Chilean attacker Ediardo Vargas.
I like Eduardo Vargas as a player. I like his tenacity, his work-rate and he clearly has ability. It's easy to say he should be playing up front when you look at his record for Chile — 18 goals in 39 games - especially when the pantomime villain Bobby Zamora is playing in front of him. But the record at club level reads almost the opposite…
At Grêmio in Brazil he played 37 times and got nine goals and one assist. At Napoli in Serie A, he managed three goals and one assist in 28 appearances. At Valencia there were five goals and one assist in 25 appearances. With QPR this year he has played 19 times, scored twice (a second against Liverpool harshly taken away from him) and assisted two others.
Harry Redknapp and now Chris Ramsey have both decided not to give him a go up front for a sustained period and I think that's largely due to the other payers in the squad.
From the opinion of people I have spoken to who I trust in football, for all Charlie Austin's positives his game isn't the 'lone striker' role.
The stats from earlier this year back it up too. His game is all about getting in the penalty area and finishing things off. He plays off instinct - although I think his game outside the box is improving. To get Austin the space and time he needs, he's been partnered with Zamora. I believe Zamora has been overlooked for his role in certain games recently. For instance in the win away at Sunderland, Zamora occupies both centre halves and makes the run to the front post opening up space for Leroy Fer to come in behind for the first goal. For the goal against Spurs, he pins the defender before laying the ball to Sandro.
So, in my opinion - before anyone tells me what a load of rubbish it is, I think you would need to play Zamora up with Vargas if you wanted to play the Chilean as a forward in the current formation.
A position I think he could thrive in would be on the right side of a three in a 4-2-3-1 running and catching out sleeping centre backs. He could thrive there with his work rate and engine, his talent on the ball should speak for itself but playing him as a winger and expecting him to get down the touchline and whip a ball in is a little pie in the sky. Especially in a 4-4-2 where you start a lot deeper when in possession teams will likely have men back against you to defend. He takes one too many touches as it is, having him further up the field lets him hurt teams quicker.
However, while I’ve seen 4-2-3-1 being mooted as the obvious answer to problems I really don't think it is. Playing this formation and it being so fluid with the pivots in midfield and the two wide players or inside forwards - your full-backs have to be proficient in defending. Whilst Mauricio Isla and Yun Suk-Young are extremely popular and have a plethora of assets that they bring to the team, I think you'd be exposing them in the 4-2-3-1 and it would basically mean them going alone against a winger one on one on most occasions with no real protection. I think it would be fair to say both are better going forward than they are defending. The last time I remember playing 4-2-3-1 over a sustained period was the promotion year under Warnock and although Walker came in, Orr and Hill were both very comfortable defenders.
You'd also have to look at the midfielders at the minute and again whilst I am a big fan of Joey Barton and Sandro, do they have the attributes technically and physically to play in the two holding roles? It's a lot of ground to cover and you need legs in there.
And finally, when looking at Vargas’ impressive record for Chile, it’s worth remembering that international football, especially in South America, is a million miles away in styles to the Premier League.
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