Lincoln City at QPR: Fine Margins, Familiar Problems and Growing Concerns

Lincoln City came away from Loftus Road judged as much on what had come before as on what happened in West London.

The game was set against a backdrop of a dour performance at Watford, and reaction has been tempered by that, with shouts of ‘better, but not much’ recurring across social media. While that is an outcome of one win in eight, I do think we were better at Loftus Road than the reaction suggests, and that had this come after a win at Watford, we’d have been far more content.

I’ve been looking forward to this particular away day since we secured promotion, and I came away feeling that it was a disappointing end to a difficult period. There is no sugarcoating the run we’re on, but also a desperate clamour to condemn this performance without actually analysing it properly is doing it a disservice in my opinion. Controversial opinion: 90% of what we did at Loftus Road was better than Bolton and Preston away.

Indeed, in isolation, losing 2-1 at Queens Park Rangers isn’t a terrible result. They have some excellent individual players, a deep squad and far more technical ability than perhaps I’d appreciated from watching them as a neutral. However, football doesn’t exist in isolation. When you’ve won one in eight, taken four points from a possible 24 and been 15 minutes away from a valuable draw, the result becomes rather more frustrating.

I’ve spoken before about the difference between worry and concern. I worry about everything, which doesn’t necessarily mean I’m concerned about everything. However, as we enter the international break, a couple of things have moved from my worry column into the concern column. I don’t think that’s unreasonable, and there are certain aspects of our performances that are beginning to trouble me, however much I think we were good in patches at QPR.

Tactically, we’d seemingly prepared for QPR playing 4-4-2, matching them with our own 4-4-2, only for the hosts to come out in a 4-2-3-1, giving them the advantage in midfield. That sucks Draper further back, killing our out ball and getting us pinned in. That’s football, and I don’t have an issue with the coaching staff trying something that doesn’t immediately work. You make decisions based on what you expect an opponent to do, and sometimes they surprise you.

The problem was what happened next. We spent ten minutes or so realising what Rangers were doing and another ten trying to find a solution, and during that period we were absolutely awful. We looked amateurish, pressed ridiculously deep and seemingly incapable of retaining possession. We’d get the ball somewhere near halfway and then wait for it to come straight back again. Again, that’s not entirely on the coaches, but they reacted and changed it. Think Posh at home last season; a similar thing happened.

The first 20 minutes reminded me of watching Bowers & Pitsea at Sincil Bank in the FA Cup, desperately trying to cling on against superior opposition. We were so deep, so passive and so ineffective that it felt as though our only ambition was to survive another attack. Chris Cohen spoke afterwards about not wanting to be that sort of team, and I completely agree with him.

Conor McGrandles had already been booked after about 20 seconds and could have been sent off, meaning he’ll miss a game after the international break, and things didn’t improve. Rangers were quicker to everything, looked technically superior and seemed capable of getting into dangerous areas whenever they fancied it.

The opening goal was dreadful. It looked as though both central defenders had been attracted towards the ball, leaving Richard Kone completely unmarked. You cannot give Championship strikers that sort of space in your penalty area, particularly somebody with Kone’s goalscoring ability. Elerewe has him, comes across goal for the block, and Bradley is stepping back, so I don’t know who is to blame, but it’s awful. Kone is (almost) always going to score from there. The goal was avoidable, and at that point I feared a rather uncomfortable afternoon.

That’s the first of my genuine concerns. We were brilliant at defending our penalty area last season, keeping opponents away from dangerous positions and making ourselves incredibly difficult to break down. We were excellent at restricting clear chances, forcing opponents into difficult shots and protecting our goalkeeper. Recently, those qualities haven’t been evident often enough. We’re allowing players space in areas where we simply didn’t allow it before, and we’re conceding chances that feel entirely unlike us. I understand we’re playing better opposition, but some of the opportunities we’re presenting aren’t necessarily the result of outstanding attacking play.

We did address the tactical problem, and our equaliser was excellent. Freddie Draper deserves enormous credit for it, as does Konak, who helped win possession back, which was pleasing after some of the criticism he received following Watford. His interception led to Draper producing a superb piece of centre-forward play. He held off his opponent, recognised the run of Jefferies and played him through.

I’ve seen criticism of Draper on social media, but he was my man of the match. I thought his work for that goal was outstanding, and he offered us something throughout the afternoon. There’s more to centre-forward play than scoring goals, particularly when you’re playing in a team that isn’t dominating possession.

Then there’s Jefferies. I questioned his technical ability a few games ago, wondering whether he possessed quite enough quality for the Championship. I’m still not certain he’s got the absolute top-end technique of some players in this division, yet, but that finish was beautiful. I was chatting to Chris, who’s a goalkeeper, on the way home, and he explained why it was so difficult to save. Once the goalkeeper commits, Jefferies does precisely what you don’t want a striker to do, lifting the ball over his leg and away from his hand. It was wonderfully composed, and I’m increasingly convinced Jefferies is one of the players successfully making the step up.

The goal transformed the atmosphere. Loftus Road was magnificent, by the way, everything I hoped it would be. The home crowd were excellent, the stands felt close to the action, and the noise was superb. Our supporters had been vocal before kick-off, quietened understandably during that dreadful opening, and suddenly came alive again. More importantly, the Rangers players looked nervous after our goal. We were getting closer to them, forcing errors and finding ways into dangerous positions, and for a period I genuinely believed we might win.

Hackett had that wonderful opportunity at the back post, with two efforts blocked, before Sonny Bradley also saw an attempt charged down. Some will say Hackett should have scored, and perhaps he should, but my initial impression was that the defending was excellent and, on second watch, it’s such a good block. Had we scored, I think Rangers might have struggled psychologically. Players such as Kwame Poku, Paul Smyth, Ilias Chair and Karamoko Dembélé thrive on confidence. They want to dip a shoulder, beat an opponent and try something unpredictable, but when the crowd becomes nervous, those risks can suddenly seem less attractive.

At 2-1 down, perhaps they start taking safer options and worrying about mistakes. Instead, we couldn’t find the second goal, but we’d completely transformed the contest and were now competing toe to toe with a genuinely good Championship team.

I remember Michael Skubala talking about everything between both goals being good, meaning the football between the two penalty areas. For me, everything between both goals here was pretty good as well, except I’m talking about our equaliser and their winner.