A week that offered QPR a terrific chance to cement play-off credentials before the World Cup break ended in three torturous defeats and just a single goal scored — Dan Lambert’s latest analytics piece examines why Rangers have become so shot-shy.

It proved a painful end to the first half of the Championship season — QPR finishing in QPR style with three defeats from three, including a pair of home losses to the bottom two sides in the league.

There have been a few key themes/issues recently, defensive set plays one of them but I don’t think that’s a structural issue. The more pressing matter for me is breaking down defences, in particular mid to low blocks that suck the space away, compact central areas and force you to come up with solutions to counteract the shape. Short and sweet, we simply haven’t done that well enough.

Using the last three games (West Brom, Huddersfield and Coventry) I’ve highlighted why we haven’t been successful at doing so, and offered a few solutions as a way of improvement.

The most significant of the three games in highlighting this frustration was Huddersfield. Leading 2-1, with an hour to go, they were happy to sit in a low block with 11 men behind the ball. QPR’s 35 shots, a lot of wasted crosses and a lack of cutbacks probably sum up the issues with this game. Especially frustrating because the goal we did score, the one moment of quality we did produce, came when we didn’t cross but instead looked to create a cutback.

Huddersfield in a mid-block structure (4-5-1). Paal receives the ball wide, Willock penetrates the last line with an off-ball run to attack the space beyond the backline.

Paal finds Willock’s run with a through ball down the side of their shape.

Willock carries the ball into the ‘cutback zone’ where he plays the ball across the six yard box for the onrushing Dykes to tap in.

What I mean by the ‘cutback zone’ is the areas either side of the goal towards the by-line. These are chances created closer to the goal, therefore of a higher quality (as per the xG model) and just like shot locations, optimal crossing locations are important too because as much as deep crossing can work as a source for chances, you certainly gamble based on the quality of the delivery from further out as well as connecting with the delivery. This video with former Bristol City and current Hibs boss Lee Johnson explains the concept really well in a lot more detail…

But it goes to show, in contrast to parts of QPR’s recent play I highlight later in the piece, how important it is to create better quality chances and have better off ball movement to break opposition structures out of possession.

Lack of superiority with overloads

I spoke earlier about teams’ low blocks being centrally compact. When breaking them down you have three options: either to go through, around or over. With space limited behind the defensive line, going over seems tougher, and going through is also difficult, so going around was the more accessible route.

Against Huddersfield, we played a double wide system (4-2-3-1- with a winger and FB) and as a minimum we had two attacking players down one side, but it left us at risk of having no superiority, which became a problem when they had enough men to match it and leave us in 1v1 situations.

Adomah and Laird 2v2 in the wide area. Instruction clearly in favour of crossing as Chair, Willock and Paal push onto the last line in the box. Demand on 1v1 quality, get to the by-line and cross towards the numbers despite underloaded in the box.

Another 2v2 in wide areas. As highlighted Chair should lay it off to Adomah who is free, but he opts to go himself which comes to nothing.

Superiority, crossing and penetrating runs

Despite not always having superiority in wide areas, in moments when we did, the decision making was not there to choose the appropriate next move to help create a better avenue to attack the shape across all three of these themes/scenarios.
Firstly, underlaps, a big part of Ethan Laird’s attacking game, but due to poor decision making we don’t make use of some of them.

2v2 situation in the wide area. Laird pulls deep in the half space to offer a +1 option in space.

Adomah receives the ball from Chair which triggers the LB to press. Laird makes the underlap (points where he wants the ball) on the blindside of the LB into the space behind the defensive line but the option is ignored.

Space between the LCB and LB. Dykes penetrates the space off the blindside of the LCB with Chair threading the ball through the tight space beyond the screener.

The ball is threaded through, Dykes continues his run but the LCB beats him to the ball. Right idea though, attacking the available space.

2v2 in the wide area again but this time Laird plays a one two with Adomah and continues his run off his man.

Both Hudds players focus towards the ball. Laird points to the underlapping run he makes off the blindside into the ‘cutback zone’ but Adomah ignores the run and instead crosses unsuccessfully in the box.

These examples highlight that the off-ball movement and running has been there to create some good opportunities but decision making, in particular ignoring the underlapping runs in favour of crossing, seems very suboptimal. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the decline in Laird’s influence recently likely coincides with our attacking patterns. We saw earlier on in the season (Watford a good example) how dangerous his underlapping runs are, in particular his positioning to provide cutbacks. He’s not a full back that thrives with deep crossing.
This next example highlights my pet hate with not only the decision making but our persistence in hitting early crosses from deep areas.

3v2 in the wide area. It’s 1v3 in the box as Dykes is in an offside position.

Iroegbunam ignores the wide overload and opts to cross. Willock is 1v4 in the box with Dykes still offside. Huge gamble counting on Willock to win contact with the delivery against four defenders.

A good 3v2 opportunity in the wide area is ignored to hit a cross into the box when we are numerically underloaded. A real theme with our decision making in the final third is coming to light here.

Cross is overhit, misses Willock and is an easily turnover for Huddersfield. A poor decision to opt for a cross where there were other stronger options.

1v1 isolations

What was evident in the most recent game against Coventry was during the second half we were a bit more fluid and had quite a few 1v1 isolations in wide areas, particularly down the right-hand side. However, once again, we made poor decisions having worked those situations for ourselves.

Willock in a 1v1 isolation against Panzo in a wide area.

Willock beats Panzo 1v1. Only Dykes is in the box 2v1, with Chair arriving with a late run.

Willock crosses and the delivery is aimed for the back post. Dykes makes a darting run towards the front post. Poor intelligence between the two as both the movement and cross go in different directions. Chair is too late to the cross to have an effect.

The last image is telling, as the relationship between the front three seems a bit off at the moment. One makes the front post movement but the delivery is aimed for the deeper area.

Rotations

Rotations are something we have thrived on when we’ve been at our best under Mick Beale. The interplay between the attackers in the final third to represent Beale’s fluid front three that he desires but we haven’t seen many rotations in wide areas lately. But when we have, the idea is there but the execution hasn’t been.

3v3 in the wide area, Laird holds the width, Richards deeper and Chair has come inside to offer support.

Chair makes a run behind Laird as he receives from Richards. Chair’s run will drag Hamer out of position to follow opening some central spaces.

Laird drives with the ball into the central space between Sheaf and Hamer which the rotation manipulated but before gaining anymore territory gets fouled and wins a free-kick.

A promising rotation, something I’d have liked to see more of - the way space was manipulated through Chair’s movement to give Laird space to drive into was encouraging to see.

Third man combinations

Continuing with the theme of poor decision making, it was also evident in the West Brom game where we get ourselves into some promising situations but made the wrong pass/decision that could have got us in behind or through their defensive shape using third man combinations.

What I mean by third man combinations is a move/interplay which involves three players which I’ll look at in a couple of examples here...

A third man combination between Willock, Paal and Iroegbunam could occur to attack the space Iroegbunam is running into between the FB and CB.

Chair spins Townsend (3) and gets into a promising 3v2 situation in a wide area with space to penetrate behind WBA’s backline. Laird pins the two WBA players excellently offering Adomah an overlapping run. A move from Chair -> Laird -> Adomah in two passes would have given Rangers the opportunity to hit the space beyond their backline.

Two really good examples where third man combinations to match the runs of Adomah and Iroegbunam could have broken the opposition’s structure and had the potential to create good chances in front of goal.

In terms of the West Brom game and those third man combinations, I had a quick look in more detail with some video footage in this Twitter thread.

Concluding thoughts

- Crossing generally is an ineffective way of creating chances as we’ve seen from the quantity over quality
- Crossing seems a desired approach from Beale especially after he deemed Adomah’s performance excellent vs Huddersfield for getting to the by-line and crossing
- Lack of cutback chances, need more! (As shown by Dykes goal and Laird’s underlaps)
- More opportunities for rotations and 3rd man combinations (finding the runners)
- Better use of overloads and superiority. Patience with drawing space and attacking with late runs

For all Beale has waxed lyrical about his attack having freedom, fluidity and surprise for opposition attacks, the last month of games haven’t really offered that. My hope was we’d have time during the World Cup break to perfect that and rehearse some patterns too, but once again we’re consumed in speculation about whether the manager is even going to be here by the time we play again.

Links >>> More like this at Dan’s SubStack >>> What have we learned so far? >>> QPR’s attacking set pieces

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Pictures — QPRPlusPass

The Twitter @DanLambert__

Ian Randall Photography

Phildo added 10:04 - Nov 25 lovely stuff Dan thanks for this really interesting
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