Ellerslie Echo

More Of The Same?

Plymouth (A) – Carabao Cup 1st Round

It would be nice to be able to take the only cup competition the club has ever won more seriously than I do now, but it’s lost all meaning for me. Not just from the boredom of watching City/Liverpool/Chelsea play hot potato with the trophy – it’s effectively become a B-team competition and I just don’t see the need for two domestic cup competitions anymore. 

Of the two, QPR actually seem to go further in recent years in the Carabao than we do in the FA Cup (a competition we are seemingly allergic to) but with our patience wearing thinner and thinner with mid-table championship finishes, us fans’ interest in getting past the early stages has faded drastically as our focus remains on climbing the table. 

There’s a good 1,000 fans that probably disagree with that though, as I learnt from their disappointment with Stephan’s youthful team selection on Tuesday night as they travelled down for Plymouth away. In fairness, that’s really not a fun mid-week journey to make, so there’s some validity in their complaints, but Stephan has a squad of players to choose from, and has the option of picking from the kids, which, with our recent fitness record, can you blame him for doing so?

An average age of 21 made this lineup the youngest in our entire history, and it did look like we’d shrugged off the cup, especially with Dixon-Bonner starting – a player who I honestly thought was out on loan. He actually put in a decent performance in the 45 minutes where we were competing.

Despite the inexperience of the back line, Kolli, Bennie and Burrell all started, all three being (fringe) first team attackers, with Kolli being one of the most talked about players at the club and Burrell being an exciting new signing who lived up to what we expected of him in the first half, chasing down defenders and just generally being a nuisance both off the ball and on it.

Plymouth had most of the ball in this half but the young team showed great fight, and despite being peppered with shots and chances managed to keep them out. I was really impressed with Tylon Smith who looked very comfortable for a young defender, I’d definitely like to see more of him.

Rangers did manage to get forward, in a move which involved all three of the attackers I just mentioned, as Kolli played the ball to Dixon-Bonner to put in a lovely cross to Burrell whose header was saved but rebounded in by Bennie.  

The Rs were 1-0 up to everyone‘s surprise but it looked like reality had hit when Burrell put in a proper striker’s tackle in the box to bring down Tegan Finn and give away a penalty. The most experienced man in the squad, Paul Nardi, managed to save it though, and his first-half performance had us even more confused about his non-selection in the first team.

A great cross from Harvey Vale found Kolli at the back post who headered it nicely in from 3 yards, and the boys went into the break 2-0 up. I don’t think I’d be miles off by saying that I doubt even our strongest team would’ve been 2 goals up at half time based on our Preston performance. 

The second half is where a lot of fans seem to be understandably frustrated. 2-0 up from two nicely-created goals against the run of play, now it’s time to bring some experience on and see the game out. The issue is, what experience do we have in the squad? Our oldest midfielder is Sam Field at 27, Michi Frey, Jimmy Dunne and JCS are all still injured, and we let Morgan Fox and Jack Colback go. 

The only experienced player who was available was Steve Cook, who probably should’ve been in the squad, but wasn’t, and even then, his physical state has been questionable since his injury last season. This game’s outcome probably did more to highlight the lack of experience in the entire squad rather than expose Stephan’s poor tactical decisions on the day.  

Nardi answered our questions about Stephan’s preference for Walsh in the second half, as he failed to command his box at all. The Frenchman was at fault for the second Argyle goal and arguably the first, and then at 2-2, Lorent Talla decided he didn’t fancy marking either of the two men at the back post and Owen Oseni was gifted the winning goal, after the worst joint effort at defending that we’ll probably see all season. All three goals showcased what Nardi’s biggest downfall is – a refusal to leave his goal line. 

There’s probably a lot more that could be said about the young players who did themselves proud on Tuesday night, but the second half capitulation squashed any desire to talk much more about the Plymouth game, as we now bow out of another cup campaign and need not mention it for another 12 months. Here’s a brief player rating before I move onto the Watford game:

• Paul Nardi – 6/10
• Harvey Vale – 6/10
• Tylon Smith – 7/10
• Alex Wilkie – 6.5/10
• Jaiden Putman – 5.5/10
• Emerson Sutton – 5/10
• Daniel Bennie – 7.5/10
• Elijah Dixon Bonner – 7/10
• Jaylan Pearman – 5/10
• Rayan Kolli – 7/10
• Rumarn Burrell – 6.5/10

Subs:

• Cian Dillon – 4/10
• Lorent Talla – 4/10
• Kalen Brunson, Ashley Trujillo & Teddy Tarbotton – N/A, didn’t play enough

Championship Matchday 2 – Watford (A)

As underwhelming as our return to league football was last Saturday, we all came away impressed by a handful of performances. Namely Mbuenge’s MOTM debut, Morgan’s impressive right-back performance and Esquerdinha’s flamboyant first showing in West London.

Julian Stephan obviously saw Esquerdinha’s slightly weaker defensive work up against Thierry Small and didn’t fancy putting him through a roasting at Vicarage Road at the hands of one of their many pacey, physical attacking players, as he dropped him for Steve Cook and pushed Mbuenge into a position I don’t believe he’s played before. 

This did not pay off, as Mbuenge was a positional nightmare, looked uncomfortable on the left side, and didn’t have a very good time of it – he was hooked for the young Brazilian on the hour. Steve Cook, sadly, just isn’t in a good enough condition to play first team Championship football anymore. The partnership of him and Morrison was slow, and so far off it. 

Two right-sided centre halves who both lack pace, is not the ideal set-up when you go away to a team that has droves of fast, attacking players on both sides. This showed after 19 minutes of absolute horror football from the away side when Kayembe was able to play a ball through to Irankunda, who Morrison couldn’t get near, and who sweated it to Kjerrumgaard with very little challenge from the struggling Cook. 1-0 Watford.

My theory that Walsh was picked for his ability with his feet has been absolutely crushed in these first two games, with this game’s instalment of errors being an impressively crap clearance that couldn’t have been hit with any more accuracy towards a Watford player if he’d tried. 

This led to another attack, 4 minutes after the first, where Sissoko pinged a looping ball over to an unmarked Louza who whipped in a cross to reach the number 9 again for his second. Morrison didn’t fancy challenging for the header and Walsh brought out his inner Nardi by staying put on his line. Another stupidly easy goal. 2-0 Watford. This could be bad.

Both of these goals and the majority of Watford’s moves were enabled by a non-existent midfield two of Sam Field and Nicolas Madsen, who Louza, Kayembe and Sissoko made easy work of. Louza was my one to watch going into this game and he proved me right with an almost MOTM performance up until his red card with 5 minutes to go.  

Sissoko showed his experience and quality whilst Kayembe was the best player on the pitch for me for the majority of the game. The 3 absolutely dominated our 2 – it was quite embarrassing to watch. This midfield no-show was the most obvious part of our first half disaster-class and I don’t think anyone would like to see a double pivot of those two again.

Madsen hid the whole game – I’d urge you to go back and watch the full 90 at any point where Madsen was on the pitch and just focus on him for a minute or so. Watch his movement, watch where he finds himself, watch where the ball is and see if he is anywhere to be seen. Then you will realise that the man has absolutely no place in this side.  

Madsen’s passing accuracy was higher than I thought, at 69% – I’m sure I saw him pass directly to a Watford player on at least four occasions. As for Sam Field – he failed to do what we can usually at least rely on him to do – put in some good tackles and help the defence. He was useless at this and even worse on the ball, which is becoming clearer and clearer every week.

You’d expect then, for Varane to be put on at the break for Casper the Ghost (Madsen) but Stephan wanted us to suffer through it for another 16 minutes in the second half. Varane eventually made his return and instantly showed more promise than the Dane has in both games so far in his absence.

We did start the second half with only a 1 goal deficit, after Morgan did what no one else in the team is capable of trying and just twatted one into the top corner from the edge of the box just before the end of the first. A gift from Watford but one that I reckon 95% of our squad would’ve wasted.

Smyth was replaced, after a pretty ineffective first half, by Rayan Kolli who I’m not entirely convinced is best used out on the left rather than as a striker. He took a while to get into the game but once Esquerdinha came on, he was able to bring the Algerian into it and the two linked up pretty well. Kone came on for his debut after Burrell struggled to make an impact, unsurprising as a 5 ft 9 lone striker up against a back 3 of Kyprianou, Biakolo and Abankwah.

The debutant showed glimpses of what we hope is to come but was unable to find the net, however he definitely had a presence in and around the box, which hopefully is a sign that he is exactly what we’ve been missing going forward.

Kone’s effectiveness was tainted when Celar came on to pair up with him – The Slovenian had another non-impact and killed any sniff of goal threat that we may have had – again, running out of chances in a Rangers shirt.

Some decent football was played in this half and we saw glimpses of what this team is capable of doing on their day, but it wasn’t enough, and Watford were able to keep us at bay bar a few threats in their direction. Our two best chances, as usual, fell to the wrong people – with Sam Field being nicely found on the edge of the box only to hit it embarrassingly wide, and Morrison heading wide from 6 yards. Neither of these clips made it into the extended highlights on YouTube, thankfully for them.

Imran Louza saw red late on for a high leg on Varane, and somehow had a lot to say about it, storming off the pitch and smacking Stephan’s offered hand away as he went into the tunnel. This came too late for us to see any advantage though, and the game finished 2-1. A better second half showing was made redundant by an absolute horror show of a first half which deserved a much worse scoreline than the one it finished with.

Overall, I, along with everyone else who watched, the coaching team, and half the playing squad, came away relieved that it was only 2-1. Some of our players seemed semi-disappointed that they didn’t manage to scrape a point, which, after the first half, is quite funny, but they do deserve some level of credit for almost turning it around.

Our poor start to the season and life under Stephan continues, but it’s not time for alarm bells just yet. It’s another transition period, hopefully a shorter one, but it’s not going to happen overnight. That being said, we weren’t the only side in this game with a new manager after an underwhelming 24/25 season, so we can’t go TOO easy on the gaffer for this one – criticism and questions around selection are valid, but perspective is needed, and we can only hope that the second half was a sign of something being built, and that with the returns of Varane, Dunne, Poku plus whoever else we manage to drag through the door before the deadline, we may be able to look forward with excitement rather than dread. 

We can definitely see more tactical planning and adaptiveness than we ever saw under Marti (in no way a dig at the latter) so faith is required in these early stages.

Player Ratings:

Joe Walsh – 6/10

A lot of stick has been given to our new keeper since he became our ‘number 1’ in pre-season, some of it valid, some of it slightly exaggerated. He wasn’t great against Preston and he wasn’t much better in this game either, but he did pull off a handful of impressive saves which suggested to us why Stephan may have put so much faith in him. 

There wasn’t really anything he could’ve done about the first goal but he played a huge part in the second, in more ways than one – giving the ball away and then standing still for the unchallenged header. Overall another pretty poor showing redeemed by some strong saves.

Kieran Morgan – 7.5/10

I expected Morgan to have a tougher time of it in his, probably temporary, right-back role than he did last week, and he definitely did – up against Kayembe, Bola, Irankunde and then Baah in the second half against very tired legs. None being easy tasks for a 19 year-old playing at right-back for the second time in his professional career. He mostly did what was asked of him though, and scored what even the Watford twitter admin admitted was a rocket.

Liam Morrison – 5/10

Probably Morrison’s worst performance in a QPR shirt. I’m a big fan of his but he was well off it in this game – miles off of Irankunde for the first, and failed to challenge for the header for the second. Slow and shaky, he and Cook did not work together. I hope he will go back to being the most solid defender we have, and that this was just a blip, where he struggled to deal with a very fast and powerful attacking side, surrounded by make-shift full-backs and a captain on the verge of retirement, and protected by a midfield pair of donkeys.

Steve Cook – 5/10

A 500th professional appearance to mark a very respectable career, for a very important player in recent QPR history. However his age is clear as day now, and I think we are likely going to regret extending Cookie’s deal. I hope he uses this season to begin his transition into coaching, learning off of Steve Bould and using his experience to benefit the team from the dugout rather than on the pitch, because he just is not the same player anymore. I don’t think we will see a Morrison-Cook partnership again any time soon.

Amadou Mbuenge – 5/10

A frustrating one I’m sure for Mbuenge, being forced to play left-back after being the best player on the pitch in both centre-half and right-back the week before. This clearly isn’t his position, he was caught out of it multiple times and did not have the same influence over the side as he did against Preston. On the ball he wasn’t completely useless like some of his team-mates but defensively he struggled. Definitely not a left-sided player.

Nicolas Madsen – 4/10

I’m tired of writing about this man, even a 4/10 is generous but I don’t want to embarrass the bloke. A total non-performance from Casper, I’m bored of it now.

Sam Field – 4.5/10

Field only gets an extra .5 on his midfield partner because he at least tries to have an impact on the game – getting himself in good positions and actually trying to benefit the team. Unsuccessful of course – shocking on the ball and squandering our best chance of the game, whilst failing to put in a single tackle. I reckon he could maybe work next to Varane if we fail to find a better midfielder, so that’s something, and I still think he’s worth keeping around, probably against my better judgement.

Ilias Chair – 6/10

I have to start this one off by pointing out how frustrating it is to turn to twitter after every game to see that, after running more than anyone in the side, dropping deep, carrying the ball, leading the press, working his socks off, and creating chances, people continue to pinpoint Ilias Chair as an issue. 

Watford was definitely one of Chair’s poorer games – he failed to create any real threat, made a few dodgy decisions, such as trying a Travela shot from the centre of the D instead of playing Kolli in a nice space, and his set-pieces were pretty stinking. 

However, he continued to keep his head up, cover more of the pitch than anyone else in his team, and try his best to keep us in the game. A weak performance by his standards but not one that stood out in comparison to those behind him.

Karamoko Dembele – 5.5/10

Another pretty non-impactful player in this game, had a few nice moves and touches but ultimately was never going to compete against a side as physical as this, especially when offered no support by the midfield. I do worry about the fragility of this man, and am starting to feel he’s only ever going to be able to manage 60 minutes every game. He lasted 80 in this one before cramp took him off but probably only due to the lack of options in his position, as Smyth had already started the game and been hooked. 

Paul Smyth – 5.5/10

A similar performance to Dembele where he failed to impact the game, although did put the cross in which the Watford defender cleared for Morgan to smash home, so that’s something. Smyth was subbed off at half-time for Kolli who definitely had a better time.

Rumarn Burrell – 5.5/10

Again, couldn’t really do much when isolated up front against a back 3 of big centre-halves. Runs about and presses a lot though, and I’m a fan so far, just didn’t see it in this one.

Subs:

• Rayan Kolli – 6/10 – Started poorly when he came on but linked up well with Esquerdinha and was involved in most of our attacks – should’ve been played in by Chair on the left side of the box for a good chance.
• Esquerdinha – 6.5/10 – Linked up well with Kolli on the left-hand side and made us a much more exciting team. Played a big part in almost turning the game around and making us look like a competitive side.
• Jonathan Varane – 6/10 – Instant improvement on Madsen, showed that his injury hasn’t impacted his ability and strength. Can’t help but feel the result would’ve been different had he started.
• Richard Kone – 6/10 – Had a presence in the box which is refreshing to see from a QPR striker. Had some nice touches, and some nearly-chances but ultimately came on when our team was dead and couldn’t turn our fortunes around.
• Zan Celar – 2/10 – Only played 10 minutes so it’s probably unfair to even give him a rating. Didn’t see him do anything on the pitch which is just not what you need from a striker you bring on in need of an equaliser. Squashed any momentum going forward and took Kone out of the game.

Man of the match – Kieran Morgan

Yes, I’m still going to give us a MOTM even when we lose, and on this occasion it’s Kieran Morgan. Another decent outing at right-back, even if he did struggle towards the end, but he’s mainly getting this for the goal. The only real positive to take away from this game, and probably our best player so far this season.

Donkey of the Day – Sam Field

For this one it was a choice between the same two players as the previous game – Joe Walsh and Sam Field. Walsh for giving the ball straight to a Watford player for the second goal and Sam Field for taking one of the worst shots I’ve seen from such a good position. This would’ve made it equal and literally anyone else would have at least got it on target – even Madsen. A pathetic attempt and very deserving of Donkey.

Watford star-player – Edo Kayembe

Imran Louza was my one to watch and he did run the show in midfield, and got a nice assist for the second goal, but saw red in the last 5 minutes and ultimately put his team at risk of throwing away 3 points. Therefore I’ve given this to the other Hornets player who stood out for me, Kayembe. He caused non-stop problems for us, finding Irankunda on multiple occasions and just generally terrorising us in the middle of the park and around our box. A brace from Kjerrumgaard arguably makes him deserving of this but I was more impressed by the midfielder’s performance than the number 9’s.

Up next:

Matchday 3: Coventry City (A)

Score Prediction: Coventry 3-1 QPR

One to watch: Viktor Torp

I’m not quiet about my love for Jack Rudoni and how bitter I am that we never snatched him up after reportedly watching him for a while at Wimbledon. However it would be boring of me to just pick my favourite Cov player as the one to watch, so I’ve gone with one of his midfield partners. 

Sofascore have Torp down as man of the match from their dramatic 5-3 win at Derby this weekend – based on the stats I think this is generous, but on the eye he’s a very good box-to-box midfielder whose work rate is his best attribute.

I worry about our midfield against a 3 of Torp, Rudoni and Grimes, and quite frankly think it’ll be another painful one to watch, where we don’t get anywhere near the ball. Their work rate both defensively and going forward just worries me and we don’t really have the quality or the engine in the middle to compete with it. I think even Varane will struggle, whether he’s sitting on his own, or put next to one of our double-pivot from Watford. 

Each one of the front three that started at Derby got themselves a goal, so that doesn’t fill me with confidence either. Van Ewijk got two assists from right-back, which scares me against whoever our full-backs are on the day, and Bobby Thomas scored a scrappy goal from a set piece, which also worries me, especially based on our defensive efforts this weekend. I think we’re in for a beating here, but Jimmy Dunne’s return will be CRUCIAL, not just for his aerial ability but for his leadership which has been massively lacking so far this season. 

It’s unclear whether the new skipper will start, but if he doesn’t I wonder whether Morgan can continue in his place, as he may be required in the middle next to Varane, if Vale isn’t the choice. That means Adamson makes his first Championship start against one of the most exciting teams in the division. I don’t think I want to watch that one.

The one thing giving me some hope is that they did concede 3, and were losing at the start of the second half, but the fight they showed to get back in the lead and finish with a two-goal surplus is something that we just haven’t shown so far. 

Cov will want it more than us, and they will show more quality than us. Lampard has them playing some nice football. I hope Kone gets a full start but I’m not sure this will be the best game for him to make his mark, and if he doesn’t score – I fear that meltdowns may begin. I think this may just be one we have to sit through and firm the loss. I don’t have a good feeling about it.

Championship Matchday 3 Predictions:

I started the season off well with 3 correct scores and 3 correct results (forgot to do a Millwall/Norwich prediction) This week I got 8 results right, that’s some acca! But not a single score was correct, thanks to Wrexham’s late constellation goal. No one would’ve predicted Preston to beat Leicester either. Here’s my predictions for next weekend:

• Charlton Athletic 0-2 Leicester City
• Hull City 2-1 Blackburn Rovers
• Swansea City 1-1 Watford
• Birmingham City 2-0 Oxford United
• Coventry City 3-1 QPR
• Norwich City 2-1 Middlesbrough 
• Preston North End 0-1 Ipswich Town
• Sheffield United 2-1 Millwall
• Southampton 2-1 Stoke City 
• West Bromwich Albion 3-2 Portsmouth
• Wrexham 3-0 Sheffield Wednesday

Thanks for reading. Tune in next week for a Cov (A) review and Charlton (H) preview.

You R’s