Huddersfield Town 1 QPR 0

Last updated : 10 February 2002 By

Tactically naive?
"You can't come here and expect to win a game without attacking them" said Ian Holloway after the game. Well, if you don't play your strongest team and continue to play Griffiths and Bignot down the wings, what else can you expect?

Surely Langley is ready to start now? "He's been out for a year and Richard Langley is still six months away from being Richard Langley and I could do with a fully fit Richard Langley" said Holloway. Good to see him getting a chance to prove his worth then! How would Holloway know what Langley is capable of anyway? He's never worked with him before when fit — us fans would be in the best position to judge Langley, and if he wasn't up to scratch we'd be the first to let him know.

Holloway certainly comes out with some strange excuses when we lose, but it would be nice for him to own up now and then and say his tactics were wrong — which they were. Our strength is through the middle, so we should base the team round that. I'm getting fed up of watching us being outplayed away from home for 45 minutes before Holloway changes things around.

Playing 4-4-2 when we don't possess an orthodox winger is ridiculous. Griffiths was so atrocious he lasted barely an hour, whilst Bignot was, and not for the first time, moved to left-back when Murphy was taken off at half-time. This only underlines what little importance is placed on Bignot down the right, so why continue to pick him there?

He's obviously one of Holloway's favourites, trying to accommodate him in the side when he shouldn't be anywhere near it. In fairness to Bignot though, he does try to play football, hardly ever resorting to the aimless 30-40 yard lofted pass through the middle that Palmer and Shittu specialise in, and now it seems, Murphy.

We're missing a link between and defence and midfield, and between midfield and attack — it was all too apparent Huddersfield. Reverting to 3-5-2 with Rose as sweeper and either Doudou or Connolly behind the front two is the obvious answer. We last used the formation against Chesterfield, where at times we played some of our best football of the season.

We were a world away from that against Huddersfield. We simply didn't perform in the first half, and whilst the second half was much better, it still wasn't anywhere near to what I really believe we are capable of showing.

We've still got an excellent chance of promotion this season, I just hope our tactics don't ruin everything.

Leon Knight was the outstanding player on the day — he seems to have improved considerably since he was at QPR last season, but surely it would have made more sense to have put Forbes on him? Shittu handled him quite well though, but another ref could easily have punished him for the numerous collisions they had — nothing malicious, just size difference, so full marks to the ref for using common sense. Pity Ian Holloway couldn't do the same.

QPR: 4-4-2 – Digby 7 – Forbes 8, Palmer 7, Shittu 6, Murphy 5 (46mins Doudou 7) – Bignot 6, Peacock 6, Rose 5, Griffiths 5 (66mins Connolly 6) – Gallen 6, Thomson 6 (90mins Pacquette). SNU: Evans, Langley.