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Out of the darkness cometh light - Report
Saturday, 16th Apr 2022 17:38 by Clive Whittingham

Not many letters written home about a 2-2 draw at Huddersfield Town, but given QPR's complete and utter collapse of recent weeks their recovery from an atrocious start to a Good Friday trip north at least added some sugar to this week's gruel serving.

This was supposed to be a biggie. (That’s what she said). An away end packed with frayed nerves and fingernails whittled down to the quick. A crucial clash away to the team in third, Queens Park Rangers desperate to catch and not be caught themselves, a determined chaser rather than an intimidated chasee. The culmination of years of painstaking hard graft, a place in the play-offs, a prize of promotion, a transformative Premier League television payment. It’s nice to still have dreams at 38.

QPR are only five points shy of still achieving that — four failed attempts to beat Barnsley and Peterborough in league games stinging more and more each day closer we move to the climax of the season. But with five straight defeats, and seven losses from eight games, it’s difficult to confidently predict them accumulating five points ever again. Rangers moved past the 50-point mark in the last weekend of January, somewhere in the region of seven wins short of the totals that usually guarantee a place in the end of season knock-out. It’s only now, over the Easter weekend, three months and 15 games later, that they’ve finally ticked over into the 60s. Games we thought would decide the destiny of the team, will now determine the fate of the manager. A referendum on the future of Mark Warburton’s employment is very much live.

When the team, as they did at Sheffield United, concede straight away, from a set piece routine they’d been told about and practised against, that feels very much like them casting their vote for change. Jonathan Hogg’s nearpost run and flicked header went unchecked, which wouldn’t have been a problem had it been allowed to drift wide of the far stick and not larruped into the top corner by Yoann Barbet. A catalogue of amateurish errors that started with Andre Dozzell wasting the R’s first corner of the day, then Jimmy Dunne inexplicably turning down the opportunity to boot the ball down the field and instead letting it run behind for a Huddersfield set piece, and included Sam McCallum’s inadequate marking job before Barbet’s back post nadir. It is, once again, a long way to travel and a lot of money to spend to watch professional footballers fuck about like this. At that stage it felt like being anything the home side fancied. Soon Dunne — who looks far less comfortable playing as one of a two in a four than he ever did as the head-it-kick-it man in a three — was having an open row with Kieren Westwood requiring Barbet to step in as peacemarker. Ooooh dear.

At the point of Coventry away in January, no team in the Championship had a better defensive record from set pieces than QPR. They’d conceded just four all season off deadballs, and two of those had been penalties. That Hogg and Oli Norwood, Ryan Yates, Rheda Khadra, Marcus Forss, Jordan Shipley and who knows who else still to come have all been able to score in the manner they have from set plays since then is yet another microcosm of the macro collapse in Rangers’ season. The staggering scale of the drop off is what’s troubling the people of Shepherd’s Bush the most. How do you go from the third top scorers in the league to five shots on target in five matches? The division’s best set piece defenders to conceders of slop like this? That swashbuckling Mark Warburton team to one that passes forwards fewer times than Hull FC? It’s this stuff that makes it feel like there’s more to say, and know, and discover, than simply ‘we had a lot of injuries to key players’. Patreon interviews a decade from now will be fascinating.

What we look for now as we debate whether to stick or twist, is whether the players are still with their manager, and whether the fans are still with either of them. Finally, here, after a pathetic start, some positive signs on both counts. Sure, Sorba Thomas’ curling shot from 20 yards had Westwood beaten all ends up on the half hour had it stayed barwide, but similarly Sam Field really should have scored with a diving header from an outswinging free kick on the corner of the box. When QPR did equalise, before half time, it looked like the QPR of old — positive, front-foot, pass and move, with contributions from multiple players and everybody in motion off the ball to create space and offer options. Westwood, Barbet, Dozzell, Chair, Dykes, Thomas, Chair, McCallum, Thomas’ bum, Luke Amos into the roof of the net. Eight different players, ten separate contributions, one and two touch, positive, attractive, incisive. Curried monkfish special. Nectar. Fucking nectar. A three-month slog through a desert hotter than the fucking sun with only a Piers Morgan podcast for company and then, finally, out of nowhere, this beautiful, tall, icy cold, bottle of beer. Not a Carlsberg or any old gassy shit like that, something with a bit of bloody chest hair to it. See the condensation run down the side of the glass. Admire Luke’s knee-slide to the corner. It’s still there. They do remember. You can see it behind their eyes. Pass the ball in a forward direction, the keys to the kingdom can still be yours.

Warburton has made mistakes. He will tell you this, his supporters will happily admit to this, his critics will absolutely hammer him with them. I wonder whether a couple were really highlighted here. We have been too reliant for too long on too many senior players who have all hit a wall at the same time. We have also potentially stuck with the favoured back three formation past its sell by date, when it was clear in games weeks ago (Blackburn away immediately springs to mind) that teams were wise to us and had stopped us playing. Now, lots of that is with the benefit of hindsight, of course. Very easy to play the Monday morning quarter back sitting out here in the sun in my garden being wise after the event. The switch to the back four has helped some — Sam McCallum and Moses Odubajo both played very well here after a ropey start — but not others — Dunne and Barbet nervous, tetchy, accident prone throughout. We’re back to conceding two goals a game with it. But, we are going forwards more. We’re not overwhelmed in midfield as often as we were. There is more support for the striker.

Those elder statesman — Wallace, Adomah, Johansen, Hendrick, Austin — were all absent here and without them the team looked far more energetic, pacy, mobile, keen and threatening. Andre Dozzell may not be everybody’s cup of tea — he hasn’t got a defensive bone in his body, people run around behind him without him even acknowledging their existence, you could light a fire under that lad’s arse and he’d sit there obliviously scrolling through his Insta, he's very prone to playing a pass and then admiring it rather than moving beyond it to lend weight to an attack — but he can pass, he always looks to pass forwards, he moves QPR through the thirds better than anybody else we’ve got in that position, he’s young, we’re supposed to be developing him, we tried for ages to get him, and he's ours. Not to labour the point or be too hard but I look at that move for the first goal and I can just see Hendrick in the same position unthinkingly laying the ball straight back towards our goal into the centre backs, whereas Dozzell turns it around the corner providing good early ball to Ilias Chair in space and away we go.

George Thomas, likewise, quite a limited player, possibly not Championship standard, but woefully underused in recent months when you look at his contributions here and against Fulham — he’s quick, which we need in a slow team, he’s keen, he’s fit, he presses high, and hassles, and takes up intelligent positions and runs. His final contribution to the goal is inadvertent, but treat yourself to another watch back and just keep your eye on him throughout. Compare it to some of the stuff we've seen from others playing his position in recent weeks.

And Luke Amos, who now has five of our seven goals from central midfield this year, and continues to show the value of one of our midfielders actually pushing up to support and get beyond the strikers. Four QPR players in the opposition penalty box for that goal. Yes please.

None of them are the answer, but they might be part of an answer. I don’t begrudge paying my money and giving up my time and dragging my tattered, hungover liver to the other end of the country to watch young, energetic players that we own giving it their best like this. It’s what we’re meant to be doing, and what we’ve gone away from too much of late, in my completely unqualified opinion. It’s up there for goal of the season this one for me. Absolutely bloody lovely. One you've seen from the training ground videos.

Could Sam McCallum have got out to Ollie Turton quicker to block his cross for the second Huddersfield goal? Perhaps. He would shortly redeem himself with a spectacular goalline clearance from a twice-flicked corner as Jimmy Dunne’s personal struggles continued. Another problem of the switch to the four is our full backs are way narrower than previously, and that space does now exist. There was no stopping Harry Toffolo’s Devon White-style bullet header into the roof of the net once it had come in. Wallop. Eat that and tell me you’re still hungry.

QPR, as it turns out, were exactly that. Another good sign. Very easy to feel sorry for ourselves here, abdicate responsibility, give up, phone it in, against a team with everything to play for. Rangers did the opposite. On this evidence, these players are with their manager. Moses Odubajo, one of the few who has maintained reasonable form over recent weeks (bar Barnsley away), put a cross in from the right that will have the Huddersfield backline waking up in a pool of sweat for weeks, and when the second ball dropped Ilias Chair was on hand to execute a technically brilliant improvised finish past Lee Nicholls and in for two two. To our left, the gangly, teenage, scrotum, bastard offspring of Cosmo Smallpiece, who’d spent the whole afternoon projecting “peado” chants at a sparce away end from behind a pair of bottle-bottom glasses I thought the NHS stopped handing out in the 1970s, was put very firmly back in his place. You can fuck off mate, and I’d take your hard drive with you before somebody in some position of authority starts showing an interest.

Huddersfield had already tried some surgery on the run at half time, removing the ineffective Danny Ward for his physical polar opposite Duane Holmes. But he didn’t do much to turn any tides in midfield, and without Ward the attack lacked any presence whatsoever. Sorba Thomas, for all his obvious pacy threat and livewire nature, completed two successful passes in the entire game. Clunky to begin with, the Terriers actually fell away dramatically through the final half hour to the point where QPR — Press hall? How are you? How were you. It’s a stop. — were the better team. Ilias Chair, far more comfortable and effective coming in from the left of the new system with the youthful energy and legs of Amos, Thomas, Dozzell and Field in support, took over the match by himself and was a clear and obvious star man. He deserved to win the game, and had George Thomas converted at the back post after Chair had won the ball back and conned his way along the byline, or a better shot resulted from a beautiful click and collect that made orphans of Tom Lees’ children, or most of all Luke Amos’ late header been on target when Chair picked him out an absolute treat five minutes from time, he’d have done exactly that. Wasn’t happy with his equaliser either, picking the ball up and getting it back for a restart, zero celebration. He’s had a tough time, his win percentage has been non-existent, questions have been asked, his contribution has been slated, the frustration has boiled so much it spilled over into tears after Sheff Utd. Wonderful to see him back playing like this, and all while on a Ramadan fast and travelling separately to the team (no we weren’t brave enough to talk to him on the train, yes he really is that small in real life). Handsome boy. Brilliant footballer.

Lyndon Dykes, just out of reach, was denied by Lee Nicholls, brave going in for the loose ball. That, too, could have been a winner. QPR really deserved one. I’ll bitch and moan, I’ll whip them when I think they deserved to be whipped. But as Big Ron once said, I’m not whipping them for that. Tiny signs of life at Preston a week ago blossomed into something resembling a full on recovery here. The introduction of the older players from the bench late on didn’t help much — Charlie Austin booked immediately in a late flurry of cards that included a yellow for the sixth game in a row and a thirteenth time in 25 outings this year for Sam Field — but Town’s threat had dissipated entirely. Some absolute wrong ‘un chucking a golf ball at Kieren Westwood about as much danger as they posed him throughout the final half hour and stoppage time. Ultimately it was QPR more disappointed with the result in the end, and if you’d offered me a point at the start you’d now be carrying my child. The fans still travelling (hello, Reading thousands, how was your Bank Holiday Friday?) sang the manager’s name at the end. They’re still with him, and on this evidence so are his players.

If he sticks with this team selection, this style, these players, and they perform like this over the remaining games then, while it’s not what we wanted and hoped for and dreamed of for so long, it’s something. Something more than we had a week ago, at least.

Links >>> Photo Gallery >>> Ratings and Reports >>> Message Board Match Thread

Huddersfield: Nicholls 6; Turton 7 (Avila 89, -), Lees 6, Colwill 7, Toffolo 7; Hogg 7, Russell 6; Sinani 5 (Anjorin 75, 5), O’Brien 6, Thomas 6; Ward 5 (Holmes 46, 5)

Subs not used: Rhodes, Koroma, Blackman, Sarr

Goals: Barbet og 6 (assisted Hogg), Toffolo 53 (assisted Turton)

Bookings: O’Brien 64 (foul), Holmes 66 (foul), Thomas 90+1 (foul)

QPR: Westwood 6; Odubajo 7, Dunne 5, Barbet 5, McCallum 7; Field 7, Amos 7 (Adomah 85, -), Dozzell 6, Chair 8; Thomas 7 (Gray 83, -), Dykes 6 (Austin 83, -)

Subs not used: Johansen, Ball, Sanderson, Mahoney

Goals: Amos 43 (assisted McCallum), Chair 57 (assisted Odubajo)

Bookings: Austin 90+2 (foul), Field 90+5 (foul)

QPR Star Man — Ilias Chair 8 After a difficult few weeks for the team and him personally, it was so good to see this second half performance right back up there at the standards we know he can achieve, with a goal added in for good measure.

Referee — Leigh Doughty (Blackpool) 8 Very good.

Attendance 19,636 (600 QPR approx.) Please see previous narky remark about loyalty points.

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Geoff78 added 18:13 - Apr 16
Definite signs of light at the end of a grim tunnel. The energy and forward passing as Clive says a joy after some recent dross.

I hadn't noticed the argy bargy between Westwood and Dunne, but I don't mind that. I think it's a good sign, shows they care. Goalies are best placed to give 'constructive feedback' to defenders. In fact Seny should do more of it when he's back.

Thanks for a great report.
0

Ferdy added 19:20 - Apr 16
I'm pleased to see you also felt that Dozzells forward passing made a difference. He has started getting lots of stick on twitter and from the West London sport guys. I think there is a decent player in there somewhere he has a better eye for a pass than anyone in the team. He just needs to be helped with the defensive side a bit. Definitely worth seeing how he develops next season.
2

Paddyhoops added 20:09 - Apr 16
I've worked 17 days in a row now, I'm knackered but that report has cheered me right up.
A positive performance and great to hear the brilliant support chanting Warburton's name at the end.
Looking forward to Monday now.
Please can we keep Warburton, add some serious pace for next season and We will prosper!!

2

Wren67 added 20:52 - Apr 16
Thank you Clive for putting the game into some perspective for me because sitting behind the goal with 2 security characters immediately in front of me and depth of field creating a challenging barrier to following the game accurately, I wasnt always aware of what was happening.
But I complain when I don't mean to because this being the first live game i have attended since Bournemouth away, I demanded nothing from the team, expected nothing, I was just happy to be there. Even conceeding the awful Barbet's own goal didnt disturb my peace of mind. We are slow starters after all.
Agree with Chair's MOTM. He was superb throughout. I saw him pick up the ball from the net after his goal and sprint to the centre circle and knew what that meant. He wanted to Win. Back to his old self. I felt disappointed when Amos missed the header at the end and I know hope was seeping back.



1

Myke added 21:59 - Apr 16
Thanks Clive. Rather more downbeat report than I anticipated. A slow start, granted, but overall a dominant performance, once we add some tempo and urgency to our play. In fact we were better than SU, but never upped the tempo enough to trouble them. Better than Preston too, but undone by two sucker punches. Here, from early on and throughout the second half we wanted this more than day did.
The rehashing of the negativity around Hendrick was both unnecessary and unwarranted imo. I don't have stats, but I strongly suspect you will find that few if any of our midfielders played, or attempted to play, the ball forward more often than Hendrick since this poor run began in February.
I also don't understand this obsession with OWNING a player, which you placed emphasis on. It is completely irrelevant on two counts. Firstly, it is irrelevant because all players are mercenaries and any romantic notion that the players perform better for a club they are contracted to than loanees is nonsensical. There are occasional exceptions of course - Chair seems to genuinely love our club - but they merely prove the rule that most players give their best because they are professionals, getting paid for providing a service and not because of the 'badge'.

Secondly, it is irrelevant because it is only becomes an 'issue' when it doesn't work out or is perceived not to work out. Last January, we loaned in 4 players (2 of them 30+), but because they helped to transform our season, not a whisper about the fact that we didn't own any of them. If Hendrick had scored a winning goal or if Sanderson had made a goal line clearance like McCallum (oh my gosh a loan player - send him back, send him back) neither would be the subject of such negative comment. Therefore if OWNING a player is only relevant, purely based on how he performs or is perceived to perform (McCallum my MotM yesterday), then actually it is not relevant at all and consequently not worthy of the weighty inference that you placed on it.
Finally, in a previous post in response to one of your reports, I outlined how we have often signed older players (Hugill/Wells for eg) to provide a short term-solution to our longer term strategy of developing young players to sell on for a profit, so don't need to rehash it here. Suffice to say, the arrival of the likes of Gray and Hendrick on loan is nothing new and doesn't have to mean we have strayed too far from our original plan. Again it comes down to success or failure of these older players to determine if Warburton has 'lost sight' of his remit or not.. Nobody was suggesting we had when Wells/Hugill/Austin were banging in the goals over the past 3 seasons, or with Steph transforming our mid-field last season. But now with Gray a qualified success at best and Hendrick an unqualified failure, as well as Austin and Steph's stars seriously on the wain, suddenly the perception that we have strayed to far from our original plan of buying young, developing and selling for a profit becomes a 'thing'.
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Northernr added 22:22 - Apr 16
It is not an "obsession" with owning players at all. It is a simple matter of fact and maths.

So much of what's going on at QPR at the moment can be summed up with one word - accounts. Look at the accounts. Look at the accounts. This is why people who think Bielsa is coming here, Farke is desperate for this job, loads of better managers than Warbs absolutely falling over themselves to come here, are wrong. It's why it's so difficult for us to get up this league. It's why we've been pushing pis up hill for the last eight years. We had money, we had an opportunity, we overspent, we wasted it, now we're fcked.

The accounts show it clearly. We lose money to the point of breaching FFP every week, every month, every season. The current owners, who "lack ambition" and "need to back the manager", fund the club to the tune of £1.8m a month. If we continue to lose that amount every month over three seasons we breach FFP again. We're already paying a fine for the previous breach. A further breach would be a transfer embargo, an enforced business plan, a points deduction, what assets we have now would have to be forcibly offloaded in a fire sale. The only reason that hasn't happened is we sold Smithies, Freeman, Luongo, and most of all Eze.

So the "obsession" with owning players is simply this. We have to sell players. Players plural. Dunne, Willock, Chair, Dieng, Dickie... this club, at this stadium, with the rules of this league, losing this amount of money, has to sell players regularly for good money, north of £8m. You can't sell a player you've got on loan.

Loan players can help short term problems. If we can't afford strikers (which we can't) then you can loan somebody like Hugill or Wells who you could never possibly afford. McCallum, decent idea, with Wallace aging, and Nico obviously not good enough. But the general point remains - every position in the team, every minute of action, given to a loan player is dead time and dead money. You're committing money we don't have to a wage and a loan fee on a player we cannot hope to own, and all the while he's taking a place up from a player we do own and therefore could feasibly sell.

Hendrick has been crap. Absolute crap. Even if he he'd been brilliant, he's a player we don't own, who has absolutely zero value to us in the market. He's taking up a place ahead of players we do own, and therefore might be able to sell if they perform. Hendrick might perform, he might not (so far not), but either way he's going home at the end of the season and we're making zero money off that.

We have to, have to, have players we are developing, that we can sell, for money, to reinvest. Like we did with Freeman whose sale allowed us to do bits in Warburton's first summer, and Eze whose sale allowed us to put this team together. Players you own kicking their heels while players you've got on loan play is only a good idea if the loan players get you promoted to the Prem, at which point the game changes completely. But Jeff Hendrick aint getting you promoted, as he's so very clearly and obviously shown.

It's not an obsession. It's the accounts. It's just simple maths.
9

Myke added 22:40 - Apr 16
How then do you square that with the arrival of 4 loanees last January? Not a word about them taking up vital spaces in the squad that could be used by players we own, not a word about accounts, not a word about 'maths' Nor the season before when Well/Hugill were banging in goals. I am not naive Clive, I am very aware of the perils of our financial position, but I stand over the point that it is only when loan players don't perform it becomes an issue. You say Hendrick has been 'absolute crap' (which we both know is not true), but that even if he had been brilliant he was taking up a space that could be used to develop a player of our own. Last season we had FOUR loanees, not a dickey bird about how they were retarding the development of younger players we owned - why? Because they were successful
-1

Northernr added 23:11 - Apr 16
Last January we’d won 4 games in the whole first half of the season. We were going to get relegated. We needed to do something urgently. You’re saying “not a word, not a dickey” and it’s categorically not true. Go back and read, or listen to the podcast week before Watford away when Adomah scored, I said “if you’ve got to loan Charlie Austin and Stefan Johansen in the last week of January that’s not a club for whom the plan has worked”.
0

Myke added 23:44 - Apr 16
Fair enough, 'not a word' is an exaggeration, there was some commentary on it. But you get my overall point that the clamour over players not being 'our's gets louder if they are not manifestly improving the team. I fully get your concern that we need to develop and sell in order to survive and stay withing FFP or whatever it is called nowadays, unless we reach the 'holy grail' of the Prem. However, the players most likely to do that (Willock/Chair/Dieng/Dickie/Dykes) were all completely unaffected by the addition of Hendrick to the squad. The players most affected by his arrival (Amos and Dozzell) in terms of future development/resale value are at least another full season away from achieving that and you would hope would be learning from Hendrick every day in training , which is where most of their improvement/ development will take place, rather than 90 minutes on the pitch
-1

simmo added 00:38 - Apr 17
At the end of every report or preview I know I'm going to see Mykes name, digging Clive out on little details and challenging things. Generally it's bullshit and nearly always wrong, but mostly, it's just fckin boring mate.
6

Myke added 09:55 - Apr 17
You said the same thing after a previous report Simmo Repeating yourself is really boring
0

francisbowles added 10:32 - Apr 17
That's a fantastic report, Clive. The contrast between the two systems and their relative merits and defects, strengths and weaknesses and how they affect individual players, as well as he team, brilliantly analysed.

Myke, I have absolutely no problem with your comments. I find them interesting and agree with you about Hendrick, up to a point. You also bring them up in a manner that is respectful to the team, as well as eveyone on here and not trying to prove you are everyone's intellectual superior.

Clive is, of course correct with the financial situation and how the lack of long term benefit of loan players usually outweighs any short term gain. Last season's loans, however, were successful, transformed the team and were all done with a view to signing permanently.
1

ngbqpr added 11:12 - Apr 17
It's often been said that if you lose the hardcore away following, you're finished as a manager. Warms the cockles of my heart that the opposite is true here, and hoping common sense prevails.

First goal is pure Warbs ball, and from Dozzell's rightly lauded and decisive touch onwards, is constructed by players we can expect to be here next season. Hope!
0

dannyblue added 12:34 - Apr 17
Watching the goals just now, just wanted to add the thought that Moses could have done better for their second, had he not let their two runners get inside him. Had he positioned better I tihnk he could have increased his chances of winning that header / stopping them get a good header. Thanks for the report. Essential reading as always.
0

stainrodnee added 13:42 - Apr 17
Good report as always Clive and great to hear such support for MW, I hope the board take notice.

To your list of underused but committed players (Dozzell and Thomas), I’d add Dom Ball whose work rate and desire are second to none. I’d like to see him get some game time in the remaining games.
2

Andybrat added 16:35 - Apr 17
We have to stick not twist. Love the comments about the accounts, whilst true this is the year my team bought the ground of the team I used to play for ( British Airways) with the help of us fans so a positive accounting entry ( fixed asset). Warbs should also continue to be a fixed asset next season. I look at the team that played and the basically the future was on the pitch. Love Amos and Field. We need a left back but bar that add Willock and Dieng, maybe Sinclair Armstrong ( is he that good?), hearing good things about Masterson and maybe just maybe. Saying that I was born an optimist.Also agree about Thomas, when he is on the pitch he is a pain for the oppo, Dom Ball is an oopo pain for other reasons which I love. See u in the C&S tomorrow boys. Clive u have had a great season btw.
0

Loft1979 added 17:29 - Apr 17
Superb. Not a thing here I can add and you summed everything up I was felt. Be it all the way across the pond. Be interesting to see how Les and Lee et Al. Move forward.
1. Kids vs Geezers: you nailed on the my thoughts that MW might be getting more from youngsters than the oldies he usually relies on. I thought Dieng Chair and even Eze spent a little too long on Loan. Clearly cautious with youngsters. Another thing that comes to mind is that other similar teams in the championship brought in high end youngsters from the Prem who are doing well, in contrast to us..
2. MW: We have NOT really talked about Mark taking the opportunity to walk away himself and taking the debate out of QPR’s hands… as I watch Needum and Sean Derry at Wembley. All managers are destined to move on eventually.
3. Despite the public comments I think the back room is thinking prudently about the longer term not short term flirtations
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Loft1979 added 17:46 - Apr 17
Two more points if I may:
I loved your comment about the train ride. But this comment is about Lyndon. In Jan he scored twice vs Reading and we were sailing.. talk was he was off to Burnley or Newcastle and we were looking at a replacement (Lawrence / Patterson). How much did that impact our team ? Split the dressing room?
Point 2: speaking to your Dozzel comment that he is a better offensive player than defensive. Wasn’t he used in a defensive position more often than not in his early appearances? Where would he fit if Willock was in the side? Interesting player
0

TacticalR added 14:38 - Apr 18
Thanks for your report.

Before we scored we were much too passive (perhaps due to the weight of recent results), but then we managed to find something from somewhere for the first goal.

I disagree about Dozzell not being defensive. I think he is petrified of losing the ball, and that means he is often out of the game, mainly by making himself unavailable for a pass. That means that either he has been told by management to play defensively (covering opposition players instead of getting on the ball) or he is hiding. He felt like the embodiment of our passivity, at least before we managed to get a goal.

Agree about George Thomas. He is not a Championship player.

Chair looks back to himself. Maybe Ramadan helped. I also thought McCallum had a very good game.

Given recent circumstances, plus the fact that this was something of a B team, that point feels like 10 points.
0

simmo added 19:39 - Apr 18
I've held my tongue plenty of times and I'm 1000% less repetitive than you and your opinions from afar. Not as easy to review things when you're not at the game though
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