Dan Lambert’s first LFW deep dive of the 23/24 season looks into why, even after a summer to work on it and the addition of experienced goalkeeper, central defenders and a defensive midfielder, the team is continuing to ship bucket loads of amateur hour goals.
We’ve reached the second international break of the season, and QPR sit in the relegation zone, with three defeats from the last three games. Tough opponents in Coventry, Leeds and Blackburn? Yes, but were we poor in all three? Yes, we were.
There’s probably far too much to dissect with this QPR side right now, particularly what on earth we are doing going forwards, creating chances etc. But I think after recent games it’s better to focus on this team out of possession… our press, our defending and why we are conceding so many cheap goals so consistently.
After all, out of possession, pressing, defending, is stereotypically an "Ainsworth’s speciality”. The suffocating high press, creating opportunities from high turnovers and when then when you are dragged into deeper areas you expect his team to defend their box well, have a tight shape as a unit and fight for one another.
I think this is a common misconception with an Ainsworth team, however. Sure you’ll see bodies on the line, blocking shots, very visual defending, but when it comes to the data for defending and chances conceded his teams often concede some of the highest chances (xG against) in the leagues.
For the 22/23 season (albeit he joined us in March that season), Wycombe were sixth highest for xG against in League One with 58 xG. That’s a common theme with us now. In games like Birmingham away the visual defending is there with the brave, last ditch blocks by Steve Cook, Sam Field and others, but the defensive data for this season is as bleak as it was on the eye vs Blackburn. We’re the fourth worst for xG against in the league conceding 14.3 in open play and third worst for xG against for set pieces with 4.3.
That’s where I’d like to delve deeper today - looking at what’s causing it, what we’re doing/not doing and are there any common themes with the way teams are exploiting us continually.
I’ll start with the Blackburn game- looking at our pressing, because from the four goals conceded they began from some form of deep settled possession with the CBs.
How we set up to press: Our two strikers would press/go man to man on their 2 CBs. Chair (10) man marks their pivot, our 2 ‘number 8s’ (7 and 8) man mark their CMs and Colback (6) would screen the defence and cover any of Dolan’s movements dropping deep.
Here’s where the pressing triggers would occur. As both Blackburn’s FBs were spare players, they’d often receive the ball. When that happens, as shown, the ball-near-CM in this case Dozzell (7) would press the FB in possession and as he’s doing that Colback would jump onto Blackburn’s CM (7) that Dozzell previously marked. The others (CFs, Chair, CMs etc) would still lock onto their man, but Dolan (9) would be free to operate between the lines with more space.
The issues was quickly clear. As we’d trigger our press in certain scenarios, with their full backs getting on the ball, it would mean we’d be leaving spaces between our midfield and defensive lines as the majority of our side would lock on man to man (in 1v1 duels), opening up more space elsewhere. As you’ll see later on in the piece, Ainsworth’s man to man principle becomes an issue in our press, conceding higher quality chances by giving up areas of space in dangerous positions closer to our goal.
An example of the trigger: Duke McKenna should be jumping out to press Pickering (LB) but instead runs back in a straight line. Colback, who is having to shift across to Duke Mckenna’s man also has to jump out to the LB to press.
Colback can’t jump out correctly, and Blackburn capitalise on a 2v1 to find Rankin-Costello between the lines.
They reach the final third, again exploit the space between the lines with Dolan’s movements. Rankin Costello looks to exploit the backspace Dolan has vacated but it comes to nothing.
That move, as well as others, highlights how easy it was for Blackburn to exploit the spaces between the lines due to the fact we’re man orientated, and also how important following the triggers are. If Duke McKenna does his role there, and doesn’t leave Colback exposed 2v1, there’d be more chance Blackburn weren’t in our final third so quickly.
Alresdy 1-0 down, another example of Colback getting overloaded: Duke McKenna triggers the press onto Pickering, gets bypassed and their pivot is in possession. Chair loses his man and Colback has to jump to press. That allows Szmodics and Dolan to make movements between the lines with loads of space.
Dolan receives between the lines. Szmodics attacks the space behind Clarke Salter whilst Sigurdsson attacks the FB area vacated by Larkeche.
Szmodics then receives between the lines, and plays a ball out to Markanday isolated 1v1 with Paal.
Szmodics continues the run and the pass finds him in return.
Szmodics plays a ball across goal. Sigurdsson makes a run across Larkeche. Two nil.
As that sequence showed, there are a load of things wrong with the press/defending. Firstly, the triggers aren’t aggressive enough for the midfielders in the FB areas, then we have players losing their markers in a man to man system, and as a result of that as a knock on effect, we get overloaded in the middle and they are able to attack spaces behind our midfield and in front of our backline, leaving our defenders 1v1 against good attackers/wingers.
Another big issue with playing a man to man out of possession system, is the reliance on tracking your runner/man…
Blackburn try and build. Szmodics (who was Duke McKenna’s man) is a good few yards ahead of his marker in the process of starting an attack.
Blackburn work it into the final third, Sigurdsson has the ball 1v1 against Larkeche and Szmodics makes a run from deep, still unmarked behind the defensive line.
The ball is played through to Szmodics who is through on goal and misses narrowly.
Another example where we got cut open far too easily. Failure to track runners the full length of the pitch, and they get a very good chance in our own box from about three passes.
Then there comes the fourth goal, arguably the worst and most comical of them all, described by Clive at the time as "not a goal a professional football team should be conceding” and, again, coming from Blackburn’s build-up.
Pickering (LB) inverts in build-up and Duke McKenna reacts by engaging towards him. That in turn leaves Rankin-Costello free to receive unless Colback reacts quickly enough.
Interesting thing with this move is Pickering, who comes inside on this occasion, never received the ball so was there a need for Duke McKenna to jump from the shape to react, opening up spaces in the middle of the pitch.
Once Rankin-Costello gets on the ball, he breaks our last line trying to find Dolan out on the left wing.
Larkeche actually intercepts the pass, but then inexplicably decides to play a first time pass across our backline for Szmodics to pounce on and create a promising opportunity which he scores from beating Begovic 1v1.
Obviously the glaring thing in that goal is Larkeche’s individual error in gifting Blackburn another opportunity with their attack, but there were again issues with the press, particularly in high areas with Steven Duke-McKenna, which became a big theme in this game and allowed Blackburn to carve us open easily by breaking our shape with two passes before getting on the last line 1v1 with Begovic.
So, Blackburn was a real eye opener. The press was poor, poorly executed and we defended incredibly badly as well. As for Leeds, it provided a different test, a more passive one but still the same problems occurred.
It’s worth noting for Leeds the shape was different- we set up in a 5-4-1 mid-block and rather than go exclusively man to man, we adopted a more zonal approach within our man to man structure
Rodon beats Armstrong via a ball carry. The midfield four behind are quite disjointed and again it’s one ball that breaks the first and second line of our press to hit the space between the lines.
Pass has found space between the lines. Kakay steps out, Byram steps up onto the last line and suddenly with one pass Leeds are 4v4 on the last line of our defence. An excellent, high quality attacking four as well, not the sorts you’d ideally want to be in that situation against.
Another example of Leeds easily beating QPR’s midfield four. The four highlighted are in close proximity and all it takes is the one obvious option into Summerville and again they can attack our last line through the space between midfield and defence.
Summerville drives at our backline with space ahead. I guess at least this time it’s only 4v5 on our last line.
The between the lines pass became a constant theme in this game, and that’s how easy it became to break our shape. The game plan was clear: we were to sit off, prevent Leeds from hurting us and we’d hit them on the break with channel balls to Armstrong. But when you are as open as this in the first/second line of the press you give yourselves a ridiculous uphill battle to compete against a side like them.
Ampadu with time and space to assess his options. Midfield four are pretty compact but Chair’s distances are slightly too big giving Ampadu a diagonal pass to Ayling between the lines to drive into space.
You’d have thought we’d have maybe adapted our shape, or tweaked our game plan slightly, as Leeds continued to constantly hurt us dangerous areas, but we didn’t really and issues persisted. Leeds accumulated more than 2xG for the evening.
Rutter receives the ball from deep away from our CBs between the lines.
From that moment Leeds are able to fashion a chance outside the box, causing Smyth problems in a 2v1 down the left wing to get into the box.
I don’t think I, or anyone, expected anything from that game against Leeds but hoped we could cause some issues in the game or make life difficult for Leeds. But the amount of times Leeds got in between our shape at ease, or the amount of final third entries they had, just summed up the issues out of possession that are persisting, and are causing us to give up numerous high quality chances.
Our final look is at the 3-1 defeat to Coventry three games ago, and you probably won’t be surprised to see some similar patterns occur, both in the press and defending.
For context, this was our pressing structure against Coventry…
We pretty much went man to man in most areas bar a few. Chair (10) was the first ‘hybrid role’. Between the RCB and pivot (6). If (6) received usually Field (6) would jump leaving Allen (7) as an overload in the midfield 3v2. Then it would be 3v3 on the backline with Cook (4) expected to track Allen’s movements and step onto him (which would be a risk).
This was an extremely risky approach, against a team that beat QPR twice last season and a manager who has seven wins and a draw from eight matches against Gareth Ainsworth sides, but usually those were the triggers. Similar to both Blackburn and Leeds we were isolated on the last line in 1v1 scenarios again, and they were able to break our press quite easily and find space between the lines- which led to goals.
As touched on, Chair is in the hybrid role between Eccles and Binks. Everywhere else is man to man as expected.
Eccles is able to receive the ball freely with the overload on Chair, and turn into space due to the openness of our man to man approach.
Eccles finds the pass to Allen who drifts off his marker Dozzell, and can drive into the space ahead and attack the last line.
As for the goals, as well as being open in our shape/press, basic errors like tracking runners really cost us in both the goals shown.
In the build-up to the goal, Binks steps up in possession, Simms is in the channel ahead of him, and Allen is making an off ball run, which Chair is tracking (albeit a few yards behind).
Allen is found with his run. Paal is caught on the wrong side of Latibeaudiere and the ball can be played down the side to give Coventry an opportunity in the final third.
It’s worth noting, while we’re talking not tracking runners and getting into poor defensive positions, at this point Eccles is marked in close proximity by Dozzell.
Prior to the ball going in the back of the net, Eccles is now completely unmarked, and there are three QPR players highlighted in close proximity in an aim to prevent the cross in the first place. They don’t, it falls to Eccles and he scores from a free shot on goal.
Painful, painful goal to concede. As for the final goal…
Field is engaging with Eccles in possession. Paal has a runner off him, Clarke-Salter has been pinned wider (gap between him and Cook). Dozzell is being caught between his man, and Allen, whose runs exploiting the space between the CBs.
Allen has the ball on the edge of the box, with space to hit for Simms at the back post.
The ball meets Simms run. Simms scores.
Defensively, tracking runners were the main areas of concern in these instances, but it’s also worth mentioning that, as shown throughout this piece, breaking our press so easily to get into the final third led to these scenarios.
It’s too easy to say Ainsworth should move to a zonal system. Managers have principles and should stick to them and this is one of Ainsworth’s. I think there’s a discussion on whether the players can maintain this man-to-man press, but we have recruited to bring in greater athleticism over the summer, particularly with Larkeche and Smyth. I think some of the players would suit a more zonal approach, as shown at the end of last season to one extreme, but I also do think the players aren’t carrying the instructions out well enough in a lot of the examples shown above.
I see elements of what Ainsworth is trying in his out of possession work. He’s adapted three times in those three games but it’s not worked and he’s rightly judged on that. Certain elements I would have tweaked - for example against Coventry I’d have left McFadzean as the spare player, dropped Dykes onto the pivot (to prevent the midfield overload), Chair and Willock on the wide CBs and made McFadzean force passes to create more likely turnovers, rather than allow our press to have the durability of a tissue.
There’s certainly work to do, that’s obvious. It’s got to improve. The players, coaches and analysts will be using video and training to work on these things across the break, but I hope Ainsworth is more alert to these issues. Our last three opponents have hurt us in areas that have led to high quality chances consistently. Focusing on distances in our shape, and protecting spaces between our lines, would go a long way to improving the defensive rot we have on our hands.
Links >>> More like this at Dan’s SubStack >>> What have we learned so far? >>> QPR’s attacking set pieces >>> Struggling to break down defences >>> Positive changes v Sheff Utd >>> Ainsworth’s structural headache >>> Suceeding without possession
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Pictures — QPRPlusPass
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