Creative players

[beaglebum]

Listening to Warburtons press conference got me thinking about QPR over the last few years and the biggest thing we have lacked is an out and out goal scorer, ie a 20 goal a season player. And i wonder if thats because we always set our team selection around our most creative player? It worked with adel but then again he banged in the goals but has it worked since?

A few years ago it was Freeman who undoubtedly was the best player we had. But you couldn't play him and Eze together and so when Luke left, Eze took over and shone. When Eze left Chair was able to step up and last season did really well and Willock didn't get a look in. This season Willock has taken his chance and chair's form has dipped but possibly Willock played his best when Chair was in Africa and Chair has played his best since Willock has been out.

So, despite we need a freeman/Eze/chair/willock in the team, is that in some ways stifling us as it means we can't play 2 up front and if the opposition mark them out of the game, its game over - look how many times chair has been subbed for example. The supply to our lone strikers has been poor all season so despite every one of us choosing to pick both Willock and Chair as starters if we got to pick the starting line up, i wonder if 2 up front should be the way to go? Especially as if one of our strikers had got into double figures we'd most likely still be in the top 6 now. Just a thought.

[Monkey]

Weren’t our results better earlier in the season with both Chair and Willock in the team?

[Rbee]

Need a tough hard tackling midfield player as well

[Montag]

You can have more than one creative player but only if they are prepared to put their foot in or you have grafters who will cover the ground. In the past we had, Bowles, Francis, Thomas and Masson in the side. Or even Bowles and Currie. Then we had Currie, Flanagan, Gregory and Strainrod. It can be done.

[beaglebum]

According to the BBC, we don't have any one in the top 24 goal scorers although Willock is 5th with 11 assists. For a team that was challenging automatic promotion 3 months ago to not have anyone in double figures is a shock, especially when we were scoring every game during the 1st third of the season.

Like has been said, 2 creative players work if they graft for the team (I'm not saying chair and willock don't btw) and a great "bad" example of this was with adel who although single handedly won games for us was frustrating to play with (if you remember the arguments on the pitch with Derry etc). But i wonder if our formation to cater for both IL and CW ultimately cost us? Our fine end last season had austin and dykes playing up front together and i imagine most strikers do better when partnered in attack rather than as a lone man up front?

[pindarus]

Wilkins, who was one of our most creative midfielders ever was almost static in his later days. He used to say "Barker and Holloway were my legs".
Creatives don't have to come dripping with sweat. Vision and positional sense are more important.

[beaglebum]

Wilkins, who was one of our most creative midfielders ever was almost static in his later days. He used to say "Barker and Holloway were my legs".
Creatives don't have to come dripping with sweat. Vision and positional sense are more important.

I ageee but we also played 2 upfront in those days from Ferdinand, Allen, Penrice and Wegerle

[UxbridgeR]

Listening to Warburtons press conference got me thinking about QPR over the last few years and the biggest thing we have lacked is an out and out goal scorer, ie a 20 goal a season player. And i wonder if thats because we always set our team selection around our most creative player? It worked with adel but then again he banged in the goals but has it worked since?

A few years ago it was Freeman who undoubtedly was the best player we had. But you couldn't play him and Eze together and so when Luke left, Eze took over and shone. When Eze left Chair was able to step up and last season did really well and Willock didn't get a look in. This season Willock has taken his chance and chair's form has dipped but possibly Willock played his best when Chair was in Africa and Chair has played his best since Willock has been out.

So, despite we need a freeman/Eze/chair/willock in the team, is that in some ways stifling us as it means we can't play 2 up front and if the opposition mark them out of the game, its game over - look how many times chair has been subbed for example. The supply to our lone strikers has been poor all season so despite every one of us choosing to pick both Willock and Chair as starters if we got to pick the starting line up, i wonder if 2 up front should be the way to go? Especially as if one of our strikers had got into double figures we'd most likely still be in the top 6 now. Just a thought.

I think the over-reliance on a single creative outlet is a good point, and I would agree that Willock's form did seem to go up a level when Chair was away at AFCON. The holy grail of a 20 goal a season striker is always likely to be out of reach for clubs on a limited budget, unless your scouting is particularly ahead of the curve, or you get lucky. If you look at the top scorers in the Championship this year, Mitrovic and Solanke both cost around £20M or more, while Weimann and Brereton Diaz have had exceptional seasons that are completely out of whack with anything they've done in the past. You could say the same about Joel Piroe too.

As for two up front, it has to be an option, and maybe one that we should have employed more when our form started to dip (and particularly after Willock got injured) but it's no magic bullet either.