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This Week - Is a 1-0 defeat ever a good result?
This Week - Is a 1-0 defeat ever a good result?
Thursday, 13th Nov 2008 14:43

QPR's performance at Man Utd on Tuesday has been described as everything from courageous and brave to tepid and lacking ambition. So which is it, and can a 1-0 defeat ever be something to be proud of?

Well?
The obvious answer is no of course. No points for a defeat, except in silly non-sports like Rugby Union, and I certainly don’t expect QPR to be popping out of the hat in the League Cup quarter final draw in sympathy for our brave performance at Man Utd on Tuesday night. No, you lose 1-0 and the most crucial word is ‘lose’. That’s all that will be in the paper the following day, you did not score and they did, thank you good night.

However if football was simply a case of looking at the result in the paper the following day what would be the point in going? For me the 1-0 defeat on Tuesday night, while obviously not being ideal or a good result, was not that bad – certainly not as bad as it could have been. I expected us to lose by two goals at least so was pleasantly surprised that with five minutes to go we were still well in the game only a goal down and pushing forwards for an equaliser.

Let’s be honest here how many of you would have gone for it if I’d said before the match that with ten minutes to go we would be the team attacking and we would only be a single goal behind? You’d have been crazy not to take it. In the end Dexter Blackstock missed two good chances, Di Carmine had a goal disallowed and Emmanuel Ledesma slipped one past the post with the last kick of the match that could, and probably should, have easily gone into the bottom corner.

I came away on Tuesday night disappointed, because we lost, but also very proud of a lot of our players for their efforts and very positive about the performance. We defended admirably, restricting United to mostly long range shots, and only conceded when the home team was awarded a penalty. We had two or three chances at the other end and could easily have gone to extra time. Unlucky, not meant to be.

So it was with some considerable irritation that I read the reaction from the national media the day after and the thoughts of some QPR fans on message boards to the defeat. The most common complaint seems to be that we lacked ambition and when we did eventually show some in the final ten minutes we went close to scoring on two or three occasions. People have said that had we turned up and had a go at them then we could have created chances like that throughout the match.

I say that’s nonsense. Yes QPR were very defensive on Tuesday night, and yes when we did put an extra striker on and go for it the United defence showed weaknesses and we could easily have scored. However while we were pushing forward in that last ten minutes Radek Cerny had to make four outstanding saves during United counter attacks – and as they were winning by that point United didn’t even need to pour forward in great numbers yet they still forced four super saves from Cerny inside ten minutes. Can you imagine what the score would have been if Cerny had been forced into four outstanding saves every ten minutes for the entire match? Thirty six great chances for United players? It would have been a massacre.

I’ve read on message boards this week QPR fans saying they would rather us of had a go and lost 6-0 than play defensively and lose 1-0. Do me a favour, traipsing out of Old Trafford after losing 6-0, all the Cockney Reds chanting ‘glory, glory Man Utd’? No thanks very much, I’ll take our 1-0 defeat that could so easily have been 1-1 right at the death ahead of that any day of the week if it’s all the same to you.

One of the reasons cited for the reaction to this defeat is that we were “only” playing Man Utd’s reserve team. I could talk about the number of first team appearances, international caps and combined transfer fees of Neville, Evans, Kuszczak, Carrick, Nani, Anderson, Park and Tevez but I would only bore myself and you – needless to say this was no team of kids and novices. Who was the best player in the Championship last season? Fraiser Campbell for my money. That’s the quality United have in reserve. If any of those players in the United team the other night dropped down to the Championship they would be the best player in the league by a country mile. Just because you might never of heard of them doesn’t make them poor players that QPR should be able to just turn up and ride roughshod over. Let’s not forget that the last time QPR went away from home, played with two up front and tried to attack for a win we were annihilated by Sheffield United. Even Man Utd’s reserve team, and I still contest this was a long way from being a reserve team, is a whole different kettle of fish to Sheffield United.

For me Gareth Ainsworth had it exactly right on Tuesday. Our strength currently lies in the centre of our defence with Cerny, Hall and Stewart. With Rowlands and Mahon available to sit in front it made sense to set up the way we did and try to absorb the pressure before making a play for the game late in the day or even during extra time. Burnley are being held up today as an example of what could have been achieved – you think Burnley flooded forward at Stamford Bridge last night? Or might they have done exactly what we did and banked on winning a shoot out?

Like I said in the match report you need luck to win cup ties like this. We had a goal disallowed and missed a sitter at the end – you have to take those chances to win. Had we done so then Ledesma would be a demi-God the message boards would be alive with praise for Ainsworth and the players and most of the 6500 travelling fans would probably still be inside Old Trafford partying. The only difference is three feet – Ledesma’s shot was three feet too far to the left. If it had gone in the bottom corner the team would have been praised from all sides for the result, even if it was achieved with an identical performance.

So no, 1-0 is not a good result, but at Old Trafford against the champions of Europe it’s not a particularly bad one either and the performance that got it and nearly brought so much more was one to be proud of and not sulked over.

Is Ainsworth the man to lead us permanently?
Have you ever known a search for a new manager that involved so little searching? It’s three weeks tomorrow since Iain Dowie was sacked and that’s a pretty long time to be without a gaffer mid season anyway, even if a new man was appointed right now. Normally by now if a new man has not been appointed there have at least been interviews, rumours and the like – this time there has been nothing.

That could be that the club are keeping their cards close to their chest and will suddenly make a shock appointment, or it could be that we are going to stick with Ainsworth for a prolonged period of time. My suspicions have been for some time that it will be the latter – if that is the case, let’s have a look what we are getting in Gareth Ainsworth the manager.

Well it is hard to fault him for anything he has done so far. The performance at Reading was excellent, as was the result, especially when you consider the Royals’ home form before and since that game. Against Birmingham Wild Thing showed tremendous nerve and skill when selecting substitutions and tactics after the sending off. Every change he made improved the team and his decision to sacrifice a midfielder rather than a striker when we were down by a man was a brave one that ultimately won us the game.

The poorest performance under him came at Ipswich and I though his substitutions there conflicted with the obvious ethos of the team in the second half. When given the chance to load the penalty area for a long throw at nil nil we put two players in there, and left Stewart, Connolly and Delaney back on the halfway line, yet when the time came for a change he sent on Ledesma – were we playing for a point or going for a win? It was unclear and ultimately we were undone by two set pieces which is very unlike us, but we didn’t really deserve anything from that game. Again against Cardiff we looked a very confused team indeed for most of the match and would almost certainly have lost had they kept all their players on the pitch – we nearly blew the lucky lead we got in the last minute anyway, despite them only having nine on the pitch. Then came Old Trafford and, well, I’ve already discussed in detail how I think he got it absolutely right on Tuesday night and was unlucky to lose.

The main strengths of the team currently lie at the heart of the defence and the fitness of the players – things that we can reasonably assume were the doing of Iain Dowie and John Harbin. Ainsworth’s main strengths lie in his ability to motivate a team that are all his mates and his greater willingness to attack than Dowie, although even he seems to recognise that a team with a defence as good as ours and an attack as embarrassingly poor as ours is better off playing on the counter.

At the moment it is hard to argue with anything he has done. The team and squad has many, many limitations and Ainsworth is being forced to work within those and yet we will move into the top six with a win against Burnley at home this Saturday. Ainsworth is also forced to work at the bottom of a bizarre hierarchy that sees board members regularly visiting the dressing room and advising on team selection. The set up at QPR at the moment is not conducive to success on the football field and Gareth is doing a terrific job under the circumstances.

I do worry about a number of things though. Firstly we are only five games into his reign, if you can call it that, and all teams have a bit of a bounce when a new manager is put in place. That could be said to be especially true of us because, like I say, Gareth is a friend of the players and a really likeable character. I’d be disappointed if the players did not want to go out and play for him to be honest and in backs to the wall efforts like we endured against Man Utd and Birmingham that is important. That won’t last forever, players soon slip back to how they were playing before, some will get upset at being left out or played out of position, some will disagree with his tactics and sooner or later Gaz will have to be a manager to them rather than a mate. He’s shown promising signs of being tactically adept and talented – it remains to be seen whether he can carry that on consistently with such little experience once the ‘new manager bounce’ is over.

Secondly he does not seem to know if he wants the job himself or not. When asked by Sky Sports he said “I’m not saying yes and I’m not saying no” and he insists that the players keep referring to him as Gaz, not gaffer or boss. Like I say if he’s going to be in the post for any length of time he is going to have to be a manager to those players sooner or later because at some point some tea cups will need to be rattled or an unpopular decision taken. If he really doesn’t want the job he should not just go along with this arrangement ad infinitum.

Thirdly if he does, as I suspect, carry on until the end of the season will he then revert back to his coaching role or be sacked altogether if things do not go well. I think we’ve all seen enough to know we have a potentially talented coach on our hands, and he is certainly not a personality I want to see our club lose. Is it worth losing a potentially great future manager of this club to the sack now? I don’t think so.

I can’t shake the feeling that it might be too soon for Gareth, and it could be damaging to him and us in the long run. However when I look down the odds of potential candidates and see David O’Leary at the top it is clear we could do much, much, much worse than giving him a chance to show us what he can do.

The problem at QPR remains, regardless of who the manager is, interference from above – the situation here will handicap whoever is in charge and will put most big and established names off taking the job. The only people apart from Gareth interested at the moment are people that can’t get a job anywhere else and I’ll take Gareth Ainsworth over some no-hoper like O’Leary any day of the week. Ordinarily I’d be suggesting bringing an older man in to work with Gareth and provide experience and advice but I think there are already too many cooks crowded round the QPR pot at the moment and pretty soon there are going to be more people picking the side than season ticket holders so that might be a none starter as well.

At the moment I would still prefer an English speaking De Canio if one exists – Novellino or Guidolin for instance. However sometimes a managerial appointment that would not normally make sense just works at a club and perhaps Gareth Ainsworth could be that man at QPR. With no appointment on the immediate horizon, or so it seems, we may well be about to find out.

Get well soon Buz
Well as bad news goes, it’s hard to think of a worse text message to pick up on a Thursday morning. Akos Buzsaky is out for the season. As I said last week there isn’t a player in the division I would rather have than him and our lacklustre attacking displays during the past six months can be put down, almost entirely, to him being injured and then played out of position.

Well now we have to do without him, and it looks increasingly likely Rowan Vine as well, until next season. If you could pick two QPR players to be out for the season those two would be right at the bottom of the list. In the short term this may result in a change of formation and system – the arguments for playing 4-5-1 are considerably weaker now Buzsaky cannot be one of the five and Daniel Parejo looks like a lost little boy at the moment, incapable of locating his own arse with both hands never mind stepping into Buzsaky’s boots.

In the long term all we can do is wish Akos all the very best with his recovery and look forward to seeing him back in a QPR shirt as soon as possible. It’s disappointing and gutting for supporters who love QPR to win and love to watch Buzsaky play but for the player himself this must be a savage blow.

From everybody at LFW, get well soon Akos we will miss you. 

Photo: Action Images



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