QPR (H) Preview
Brady Frost, Feature Writer
Twitter: @brady0894
Source for image above: HTAFC
Looking to bounce back after that woeful showing in Wales, The Terriers take on a QPR side that’s also inconsistent. Clive from QPR fansite, LoftforWords tells us more about what to expect from The Rs.
Look, Cardiff beat Huddersfield 3-0 in midweek and it was very frustrating. It was one of those evenings where you question why you even bother to go through the trouble of logging into iFollow if that’s what you get to witness as a result. The less said about it, the better.
The good news is that with a game every three or four days at the moment, it gives Town the opportunity to turn a negative result into a positive one. On paper, the upcoming home match against QPR seems like a good opportunity to get three points. The Terriers are unbeaten in their last five against The Rs, winning three of the last four too.
Like Huddersfield, the West London side have been extremely inconsistent and sit just below Town in the table in 17th, with 17 points, and have only won once on the road this season, to Derby County, which is nothing to shout about given Derby’s start to the season. Their defeats away includes losses to Coventry and Barnsley, who you could argue are weaker than Carlos Corberán’s team. Whatever the stats say, with the way both teams are playing, leaking goals and scoring goals, who knows what the scoreline will be after the full time whistle is blown.
To try and figure out what kind of spectacle we have in store on Saturday, And He Takes That Chance spoke to Clive Whittingham, from QPR fan website LoftforWords to find out more.
Bright Osayi-Samuel has impressed for QPR this season. Photo source: QPR
What have you made of your season so far?
Quite frustrating. We’re actually playing very well, for big chunks of games. Good at Bournemouth and Derby, excellent for halves against Bristol City, Watford, Cardiff and Rotherham, a good start at Barnsley before a silly sending off killed us. There’s great promise in a young team and when we get the ball down and play we’re really good to watch and figure very high in all the trend xG tables that people get excited about these days – first half against Bristol the other night we were really quite special for much of it. The problem there, and in general, is we tend to need ten chances to score, while at the other end we concede far too frequently and easily. Consequently, only four wins so far, and two defeats this week to Brentford and Bristol City in games we dominated for long periods and looked the better team in.
What are your general expectations for the rest of the season now that we’re well underway?
I thought we’d be sixteenth at the start of the season, and I still think that. Going forward with the ball, until it gets to the finish, we’re far better than that. At the back, only Coventry have conceded more than us. As I tweeted after the midweek defeat, we concede goals so easily, you can almost score against us by accident while scoring a goal ourselves feels like trying to give birth to a bowling ball. When it’s that way round, you’re not moving too far up the league.
What is worth saying is that we’ve been involved in an ongoing process to get our wage bill down from its £80m p/a high under Harry Redknapp to a more manageable sub-£20m a year which is where it is now. Doing that while standing still in the division is progress of sorts. We’ve sold our best player in each of the last three summers (Smithies, Freeman, Eze) and Bright Osayi-Samuel will likely follow that next summer. We’ve lost a huge amount of decent Championship players out of our team in a short period of time – Smithies, Onuoha, Jack Robinson, Bidwell, Luongo, Freeman, Manning, Wszolek, Wells, Hugill, Eze. For all the frustrations, competing in the middle of this league while losing all that experience and talent and replacing it with kids and projects is a reasonable achievement.
Clive from LoftforWords goes into detail about Mark Warburton and QPR’s current situation. Photo source: QPR
Mark Warburton was under pressure earlier in the season, has the side changed enough to help quieten the calls for him to go?
Apparently not, judging by the boards and social media channels this week. I’d say a few things about this.
The first is, and I’m sure we’re not unique in this, in the social media age every manager is three defeats away from people thinking he should get the sack, and in the Championship you play three times a week so it doesn’t take much or long for it to start up. Again, I’m sure we’re not unique, but if we’ve got an English manager in charge people tend to start pining for a foreign manager and if we’ve got a foreigner people wonder whether an Englishman who “knows the Championship” wouldn’t be better. If we’ve got a pragmatist playing long-ball football we say we’re bored of watching the team and “wouldn’t mind us losing if the football was good”, now the football is good but we’re not winning people are casting glances towards people like Tony Pulis and Nigel Pearson. If we’ve got an experienced manager we want a young one, if we’ve got a Premier League manager we want an up and comer from the lower leagues, and vice versa, so on and on, ad infinitum.
The second is that Warburton is fulfilling the remit he was given when appointed. He was asked to cut the wage bill, sell what could be sold, replace them with projects from the academy or occasional very cheap buys and projects, develop players for sale, play an attractive style of football, and keep us competitive in the Championship. He’s done it all. And, as I outlined in the previous answer, he’s done it while losing very good players. Any team in this league would suffer for losing Nahki Wells, Jordan Hugill and Ebere Eze from its starting eleven. Those three scored 45 goals between them last season, not to mention the assists. They’ve been replaced by Ilias Chair who’s a youth team graduate, Macauley Bonne from a relegated Charlton team, and Lyndon Dykes from the SPL. And we’re still in the same league position.
The third is that if we were to change now mid-season we would be replacing him with somebody who wants to come and manage this squad, on this budget, with very little to spend. It’s not an attractive job. I’m just grateful Steve Cotterill has found work before it happens, but it would be somebody of that ilk. Eddie Howe is not going to shag you mate. If we were to go down a pragmatic route, do away with all the tippy tappy football in favour of a stronger backbone, then you’re basically setting us up for another huge turnover of players in January and next summer, because this squad isn’t built for that. If you try and go for another manager in Warburton’s style, what would they really change?
All of that said, there are justified frustrations with him. Just like last season, we lead the league in goals conceded from headers, goals conceded from crosses, goals conceded from corners, goals conceded from set pieces and goals conceded from penalties. That’s not a coincidence. We see the same goals scored against us from the same failings time and time and time again. Brentford’s winner against us last week a prime example – rank bad defensive set up. That’s the coaches and manager’s job, and it has been a persistent problem for us for 18 months now. I’m very pro-Warburton, don’t want him sacked, completely empathise with the position he’s in at QPR and the restrictions he works under, but when every opposition corner feels like a fucking penalty, and he gets a face on whenever you ask him about it, that can wear thin.
Chris Willock returns to Huddersfield having permanently signing for QPR since his loan spell with Town ended. Photo source: QPR
Which player from your current squad do you think will be one to watch this season?
Ilias Chair is finding form. Big boots to fill going into the Ebere Eze role but that’s what we have to do – buy low, develop, sell big, replace. Chris Willock, on loan with you last season, also starting to look very good for us. Bright Osayi-Samuel is the biggest threat.
The team brought in a couple of players over the transfer window, have you been impressed with the business, and have any of your new signings made a difference so far or you think will do well?
I quite like all the signings we’ve made, but they all have the same thing in common – they’re projects. Between them Lyndon Dykes, Macauley Bonne, Rob Dickie, Chris Willock, Charlie Kelman and George Thomas have about a season and a half of Championship football between them. Albert Adomah is the outlier, a proven and experienced player we’ve been able to get because he’s old and wanted to finish his career at the club he supports. We’re trying to develop all of these players to sell on later, and as they all bed in and find their feet the hope is the team gets better and better and starts fulfilling its potential. They’ve all done some very good and very bad things so far, which you have to expect in those circumstances.
What are you expecting from the game against Huddersfield?
I think you’re the only Championship team I haven’t seen yet. Based purely on the managerial change and the noises made in the summer I’m expecting to come up against a team and club not dissimilar to ourselves – trying to take a trendy, progressive, modern approach to fix years of mismanagement.
Christopher Schindler is likely to start the game with Stearman still out. Photo source: HTAFC
Is there anything Huddersfield need to be on the lookout for in this game?
If you let the Willock, Chair, Bright Osayi-Samuel trio behind the lone striker have time and space to play, you’ll be in trouble. If you leave your full-back one on one with BOS, he’ll likely get torched. If you give us a penalty I’d advise against the keeper even trying to get in the way of it judging by Dykes’ method so far.
What are QPR’s weaknesses, is there anything Huddersfield can take advantage of?
The defence is made of custard. Any cross, free-kick from wide, or corner poses mortal danger to us. Yoann Barbet likes to give away penalties because he enjoys the drama of it all. We’ve exhumed a retired SPL player to play left-back.
What are your expectations for Huddersfield Town this season?
I thought you were in trouble, to be quite honest. The club and team have obviously been mismanaged for several years now, and looked in terminal decline. The best player left in the summer. To go balls deep on the Cowley project, with the style of play they were known for, only to then pivot in entirely the opposite direction and go with an untried replacement with completely opposite philosophies, belief and style, looked like a recipe for disaster to me. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well you’ve done.
What’s your score prediction for the game?
What I’m hoping is you’re going to try and do what we do, but we’ll be slightly better at it than you and win some nonsense game of multiple penalties and defensive mistakes 3-2. What I fear is that when it’s cold and wet and northern, QPR don’t usually fancy that very much.
How do you think Huddersfield will get on against QPR? Let us know in the comments!
Our Predictions:
Brady: 2-1 win for Town.
Kosi: 1-1.
Matt: 2-0 win for Town.
Neil: 2-2.
Pozza: 2-2.
Si: 1-1.
Scoring system: A correct score wins three points, a correct result wins a point.
