Queens Park Rangers - 4-4-2 Diamond formation 2012

Due to the interest being shown, in particular by Shafique, I have decided to show the latest setup for the formation I will be using for this season.

The formation is known as the 4-4-2 diamond. This really came about because I noticed that my central midfielders I had at the club, seemed to be split into two main groups, natural defensive midfielders, and natural attacking midfielders. It made sense therefore use that tactic in the previous season, especially with the siging of Jimenez.

Our success with this formation, which seemed to give us plenty of attacking options from the wings and through the middle, had been remarkable, which shaped my signings for the new season. One of the things that we'd been lacking was a striker who could take charge of crosses into a crowded area.

My two new strikers are Gilardino and Cardozo, both have superb heading skills. It made sense therefore that they play as a poacher, in particular Cardozo, who has the ability to create a lot of problems for the opposition defence. The other striker position, will largely be set as Advanced Forward, which Fatih Yucel, Scocco and Balanta can all play, as well as Gilardino. This gives me lots of options for which strikers I use as a pairing for any particular match.

The attacking midfielder is set up with the Attacking Midfielder role, with attack duty. In fact Jimenez could play the trequartista role, so I might experiment with this at some point.

My left and right midfielders are now set as wingers, with the attacking duty. They can quite easily be pushed forward to be attacking midfielders if I feel we need to push the opposition even harder, with little danger of conceding.

The defensive midfielder is set with that role, but with support duty, which suits Sunny particularly well. Rafa is more suited to being defensive, and if he's giving the ball away too often, I will change the role so that things are tightened up more.

The backline has not changed, with the fullbacks still set as Full Back, with automatic role, so they can head forward to provide overlap when trying to get crosses into the box. The centre backs are both set as Central Defenders with Defend duty.

The keeper, is still set as a Goalkeeper, as neither of my keepers are properly suited to play as sweeper keepers.

This setup seems to suit the attacking strategy very well against weaker teams, dropping back to standard against the other teams. It should be rare that I will feel the need to go counter attacking, although with the pace we have, this should still work very well.

During a match if I ever feel the need to go defensive to protect a lead, I will usually sacrifice a striker and bring on a 2nd DMC, usually with a defensive duty. This proved to be useful a few times last season, and still gives us good attacking options.

It's well worth spending time to check out all the different options available for each position, to try and make sure you have a player set for the correct role and duty. You could quite easily end up with a very good player appearing to be very mediocre if you don't set them up correctly. It's also important to think about this when you make substitutions during a match as well. In general you seem to be rewarded for tactical consistency, or at least only making changes that will not cause the team confusion, because they get used to being able to find a player in a particular position when looking for passing options.

Queens Park Rangers - Pre season 2012

Season Expectations

The minimum expectation of the board this season is that we finish in a league position to qualify for a EURO Cup place. I have however decided to be a bit more adventurous this season, telling the board we can challenge for the title. This gives me a massive £61 million to play with on the transfer market, as well as upping my wage budget to £550k per week. The maximum wage I can offer to a single key player is now £65,000. This should open up some options in the transfer market that were unavailable to us before. We should also now be a slightly more attractive club to join due to our recent successes.

This year the board expects us qualify from the group stages of the Champions Cup, which I feel we should be able to do with no problem, after our display last season.

We will be contestng the European Super Cup, which the board have expectations of us winning. If we achieve that, we will be off to World Club Championship, which we would stand a reasonable chance of winning.

The board are expecting us to reach the semi final stages of both the League and FA Cup competitions.

The board do not regard the Community Shield as important, so there is no pressure for us to win it, other than for pride.

I will be keeping our current 4-4-2 diamond formation which served us so well in the previous season, and you'll see below seems to suit my new signings very well too.

Transfer movements in

During the June I set about having possible targets scouted with my top scouts working very hard to tell me if certain players were realistic targets.

Defensively we have a slight weakness in the full back positions, in particular on the right side. I decided that if I could find a player considerably better than my current right backs, I would sign them. I attempted to first attract Alvaro Arbeloa, but was sadly turned down by him in favour of heading to AC Milan. With him lost, I tried to sign Garry Bocaly, but this time lost out to Zenit St. Peterburg. I looked at many other right backs, but could not find any that I felt would improve us, without spending insane amounts of money, with wages we couldn't afford to pay, so gave up this line of enquiry. Hopefully next year we I can sort this out properly.

My sights were next set on getting a left and right winger, and seeing if I could secure the signature of one or two more quality strikers. Even the before the season ended I'd had an eye on Oscar Cardozo, so set about the process of negotiating a deal. In the last few days before the transfer window opened, I managed to gain the signature of my first target as a winger, in the form of Alexis Sanchez, from Udinese. He looks to be a very exciting purchase, and leaves the Udinese fans very disappointed that he was sold.

I was pleased to have captured someone of this standard, who can also play as a striker, and is an accomplished left winger too, which is a bonus. While checking to see if there were any interesting players to be found on the transfer list, my eyes nearly popped out when I spotted Alberto Gilardino for sale. After having him scouted and confirmed my belief that he is top quality still, I put a bid in. I also had several scouts out checking every part of Europe, when one popped up with the name of Balazs Dzsudzsak as looking like a good target to play on the left wing, so I set about negotiating with his club.

With Alexis Sanchez already at the club, I pleased to find out that not only had our offer for Alberto Gilardino being accepted, but he'd accepted our contract offer. With this deal just being sealed I finally finished my negotiations for Oscar Cardozo and Balazs Dzsudzsak, and offered them contracts. Two days later they accepted these contracts, and arrived ready to start playing in the friendlies. The fans at all these clubs were upset about losing these players, which is usually a good sign, and hopefully they will soon become favourites with our fans.

I was delighted with this progress on the transfer market, and felt things were going superbly well. Those that have been following the blog with know that my best keeper Lung jr, has been trying to leave the club, so I was busy getting my scouts to check out different keepers, drawing lots of blanks, either wanting way too much, or were not even as good as our 2nd keeper Jason Steele. You'll also know that I decided to sell one of my central defenders, who'd not performed well, and was unhappy, so I felt I needed to find a replacement, either another star defender, or one that would be on a par with Puygrenier and Nasuti.

After such a good start to my transfer dealings, things suddenly became very hard work. It was almost getting depressing with no further progress by the start of August, when a couple of scouts came back telling me about an AC Milan central defender who was being sold, and would if he joined the club, be our second best player in that position. At £2.7M I knew I had to seal the deal, especially as other clubs were nosing around, trying to get him on a loan deal. Another scout, checking Central America came back to me recommending Guillermo Ochoa to me, a name I knew I'd heard before. There followed several days of negotiation before the deal was sealed, and then a tense wait to see if we'd be given a work permit. Eventually this went through completing my signings. The fans of Ochoa's old club were also distraught that he'd been sold, and looks like he should be a star for us.

I felt we already have a decent number of young players coming through, with some decent players arriving this year in our under 18 team, so felt I didn't need to bring in any new additions at this stage. In fact I've completely exhausted our transfer budget, through using some of the money to increase our wage budget, which I have slightly exceeded, but nothing for the board to be alarmed about.

Transfer movements out

Before the transfer window opened I set about trying to sell the players I'd already decided that needed to leave. I was pleased to be able to sell Andwele Slory and Martin Stranzl in the June, neither of whom performed well for us last season, and were not happy about lack of first team football. They just weren't good enough when they did play, so it was best they went, along with several players on free transfers, I'd tried to sell the previous year, but just couldn't shift. When an offer to loan Matteo Alberti, who I'd like to sell, came in, I decided it was worth accepting this. Damion Stewart wanted to stay, hoping I was would give him a new contract, but there's no room for sentiment with a player who is only just good enough to make a Championship side, so I released him.

I set about trying to sell Faurlin, Lung jr and Buzsaky, who for various reasons were no longer needed. I started by offering these players up for sale, with Faurlin eventually leaving to go to Nice. However Lung jr and Buzsaky were just not shifiting. It didn't seem to matter what value I tried to offer Lung jr at, noone was interested in buying him. With Buzsaky however, there was interest, but every contract he was offered he would turn down. With the deal for Ochoa almost sealed, I wanted to reduce the wage bill, by seeing both these players leave. Eventually I decided that if I kept these players, but wasn't playing them, they would start to cause trouble in the dressing room, so decided it was time to make some harsh decisions. The first was to bring about the mutual termination of the contract with Lung jr, which he accepted without hesitation. I knew that if I tried to go for mutual termination with Buzsaky, this would cause a lot of trouble, potentially upsetting players at the club. I decided with a heavy heart to release him on a free transfer. The fans are unhappy to see both of these players leave, but for the long term future of the team it was necessary. It's only a game, but it's amazing how bad I actually feel about this. The fans felt that it was the right decision to let the rest of the players go however. Hopefully our performances on the pitch will soon have the fans forgetting about this.

Pre-Season Friendlies

I decided to play 6 friendlies this season, with 3 overseas teams, and 3 teams from the Championship, two of which were clubs relegated from the Premiership last season. One of these clubs is Charlton, who are now a feeder club for us, which sees us play a friendly match each year. We won all 6 of these matches, struggling a bit in the first match, but really finding our feet after this. I really didn't expect us to demolish Velez 12-0. The players just seemed to want to keep scoring, with Fatih Yucel grabbing a hat-trick, but the real star of the day was Grenier, who scored twice and provided 4 assists. This is the first time I've ever seen a team of mine in the game score more than 7 goals, producing 11 clear cut chances. The two new strikers looked very good, always causing the opposition defence problems. The two new wingers also looked good, with them both providing a couple of assists, with Sanchez also grabbing a couple of goals.

This is our best set of friendlies so far, because even in the Wigan match where we had some players looking complacent at times, we always looked capable of scoring more if we'd really want to.

Summary

Although I'm disappointed about what happened with both Lung jr and Buzsaky, overall I'm delighted with our dealings in the transfer window. We now look a lot more dangerous going forward, with 3 strikers with excellent heading ability. Cardozo in particular should be able to cause problems being 6' 4", and Gilardino is with similar skills at 6 foot should pose a threat. Fatih Yucel has excellent heading skills, but his height was always an issue in a crowded box.

The morale of the team is very high, with all our strikers having been able to get on the scoresheet during the friendlies. We now have a much better depth to squad up front, which at times last season became a bit of an issue during the busy periods of the season, especially when we had a few injuries.

Checking through the team, it seems that most of our defensive players are pleased that Gilardino has joined the club. Most of the attacking players are pleased that Ochoa has joined the club. I'm hoping that this is a good sign that there won't be any problems with the sqaud harmony.

August sees us play 5 matches, starting with our appearance in the Community Shield against Arsenal. We then have three league fixtures, followed by the European Super Cup against AC Milan, which means it will be a fairly busy start to the season.

Analysis of QPR 2011/2012 Season

Competition Analysis

We exceeded the expectations of the board in all the competitions that we entered. The objective in the league was to achieve at least a EURO Cup entry from our league position, which we exceeded in style by lifting the Premiership title for the first time in the history of the club.

The expectation in the Champions Cup was very low, in fact it was to compete in the playoff which we were already in. We had an astonishing run, with a few slices of luck along the way, and managed to lift the Champions Cup beating Ajax in the final, way beyond what we could have ever dreamed at the start of the season.

In the FA Cup the expectation was to reach the 6th Round. We managed to go one stage further, getting to the semi-final, before our disappointing exit to Everton. The expectation in the League Cup was to reach at least the Quarter Final, which we again exceeded by reaching the final, losing to Arsenal in controversial circumstances.

There were no expectations put upon us, as far as the Community Shield goes. The board were happy that we were playing in it. We managed to overcome Man City and lift the trophy.

Team Statistics

Our top five goalscorers for the season were:

• 25 - Ignacio Scocco - Striker
• 23 - Fatih Yucel - Striker
• 15 - Angelo Balanta - Striker
• 12 - Hogan Ephraim - Midfielder
• 7 - Luis Jimenez & Akos Buzsaky - Midfielders

Nine other players managed to get onto the scoresheet during the season, in a fantastic all round performance. I was pleased with how the strikers performed and the level of goals being scored from the midfield. The most important goal of the season, was again scored by Clement Grenier, who grabbed the dramatic winner in the Champions Cup, in a similar fashion to his late winner in the FA Cup final the previous season.

The top five for providing assists this season were:

• 12 - Fatih Yucel
• 11 - Luis Jimenez
• 10 - Ignacio Scocco
• 10 - Clement Grenier - Midfielder
• 9 - Angelo Balanta & Hogan Ephraim
  

There were 13 other players who managed to provide at least one assist during the season.

Our top five rated players for the season were:

• 7.22 - Simon Kjær - Defender
• 7.21- Silvui Lung jr - Goalkeeper
• 7.21 - Sebastien Puygrenier - Defender
• 7.20 - Ignacio Scocco
• 7.18 - Laure - Defender

Six other player managed to achieve a rating of 7.00 or higher.

This indicates how well our defence performed this season, with Simon Kjær being the most consistent player. Our striker force this year wasn't quite as consistent as in the previous season, largely due to Fatih Yucel being distracted for the first few months, when he was upset, believing he needed to leave the club to further his career.

The fans player of the year was Ignacio Scocco, who also turned out to be rated as the best signing of the season in the Premiership.

Signings

I've already indicated that Ignacio Scocco was the signing of the season, for his goalscoring and assists, and one of the most consistent players in the team. It took a few games for him to gel with the squad, but soon started to turn in some excellent performances, providing many crucial goals during our league campaign. I look forward to him being available for the Champions Cup matches next season.

Simon Kjær was a very impressive signing, but due to the amount paid, does not rate as being as good a signing as Scocco. He is however a star central defender, and was the rock at the heart of our defence. His consistency was outstanding, rarely having a poor match during the season. As with Scocco he took a few matches to blend with squad, but once comfortable, he made it hard work for the opposition strikers to find a way past him.

Luis Jimenez was the bargain of the season, arriving on a free transfer, and putting in some good performances. He is not one of the most consistent players, becoming complacent sometimes against lesser opposition, which is his only real fault.

Sunny turned out to also be a superb bargain, playing in rotation with Rafa. Sunny managed to get on the scoresheet 3 times, and provided more assists but he also had more of a discipline issue, being sent off a couple of times.

Tomas Klimek, Carlos and Bretislav Pospisil have developed during the year, but still remain a season or two away from being able to break into the first team squad with any regularity. They are still showing some good promise, with Carlos being touted as the next Thiago Motta. He spent most of the season struggling to settle in London, but right at the end revealed that he is now happy, which should help him develop a lot quicker now.

Loan Players

Gianmarco Zigoni was another striker loaned to us by our parent club, AC Milan, arriving at a perfect time when I most required an extra striker, saving me the trouble of trying to buy another during the January transfer window. He proved quite a hit with the fans, putting in some good performances at times, but lacked consistency. His return of 6 goals and 5 assists was however very useful.

Paul Dixon was loaned from Bolton in the January transfer window due to an injury situation during a very busy period, when we only had one left back who was fit. He gave some very decent performances for us, providing an assist on his debut, being fairly consistent in the matches he played.

Awards


The English Players' Young Player of the Year award was given to Fatih Yucel, with Angelo Balanta coming second. Both players had an excellent year. If Fatih Yucel had not been distracted earlier in the season, he could have had another truly outstanding year. I have been named the manager of the year. Simon Kjær was our only player included in the Players' Team of the Year.

Fatih Yucel won the European Champions Cup Best Player Award, with Silviu Lung jr claiming second spot. Five of our players were named in the European Champions Cup Dream Team, with Hogan Ephraim, Luis Jimenez and Sunny named along with the best two players in the tournament.

The Future

Our defence has been very solid this season, with only Arsenal conceding less goals than us in the league. The biggest weakness is the full backs. They are however fairly good, so unless I can find much better players that I can afford to pay, their is little to be gained in this area. I will however be selling Martin Stranzl, as he became unhappy during the season, not seeing much action in the first team, largely because he didn't perform very well. I will be looking for a replacement, either a second star defender or a player to act as backup.

The biggest improvements will probably come from strengthening the wings. I will sell Slory, who was very disappointing this season, and look to bring in a couple of quality players to play on the left and right wings.

I am also tempted to increase the strike force, because this last season proved to be very tough on our strikers. That would also allow us to have much better cover on the wings, as Scocco can play very well as a right winger, and Balanta as a left winger if required.

I will also be looking to sell Alejandro Faurlin, as he was the worst performer of the season, ending up with a rating of 6.60 from the 11 matches he played, providing a single assist. His attributes suggest he should be able to perform well as an attacking midfielder, but he was very disappointing.

I'm in a bit of a dilemma with Akos Buzsaky, because he's starting to fall short of the quality required at this level. If I can sign some players that can provide at least the same quality of long shots and free kicks, then I can think about letting him go while I can still get a reasonable price for him. I like him as a player, and I know the fans would hate to see him leave, so it's a difficult thing to contemplate.

I also have the issue of Silvui Lung jr, who wants to leave. I'm hoping that I can get a good enough offer because it would be a crime to sell him for less than I bought him, especially as he's improved a lot. From the insulting offers I received in the January transfer window, it seems that he's wanted, but noone wants to pay much for him. If he causes problems I will have to let him go though.

May 2012 - The Seasons End

This is the final month of the 2012 season, which sees us play only two fixtures. We have the final league game of the season away to Manchester United at Old Trafford. Our other match is now the most important match of the season, with us travelling to the Allianz-Arena in Munchen, to take on Ajax in the Champions Cup Final.

Angelo Balanta has recovered from his broken arm slightly earlier than expected, but not soon enough for the first match. Due to a lack of match fitness he will probably make the bench for the Champions Cup final. Martin Stranzl stubbed a toe in training, making him unavailable for the league match. At best he would have been a bench warmer in these matches anyhow.

Manchester United (A) Premier League

We travel to Old Trafford, finding ourselves as underdogs for this match. I'm hoping that we can find some inspiration for this final match, to put an end to a run of poor league results, and show some real pride.

The match started with United pushing us back, forcing us to defend, and we were finding it difficult to put passes together. In the 12th minute Lung jr had to make a good save to keep United out, from a shot that shouldn't have been allowed as it was at least a yard offside. After this scare, we seemed to settle, and start passing a bit better, but still not convincing. In the 19th minute however we finally managed to put together a great series of passes, with Scocco playing Fatih Yucel into the area, allowing him to get around the keeper and put the ball in the net. United were angry, feeling it was offside, but as the pass was made he was being played onside by 4 players, one at least 2 yards ahead of him. Within seconds of the restart Scocco managed to intercept a pass, and just as he was getting clear of Ferdinand to try and get a run on goal, he was fouled, resulting in a yellow card, which looked somewhat like frustration boiling over. We were looking much more assured on the ball after going ahead. In the 25th minute from a corner, Lung jr had to make another solid save to deny United again. In the 32nd minute United equalised, but in slightly odd circumstances. Just before, United had put the ball out, to allow a player to be treated. Instead of throwing the ball straight for a goal kick as should happen, we'd tried to go on the attack, which broke down, with a lucky bounce going straight to Rooney on the left wing, allowing him to counter attack, and he centred the ball into the area, making for an easy goal. It's a bit disappointing, because if this bug wasn't there, we'd not have conceded in this fashion. In the 39th minute Rooney thought he'd scored, and was upset when he was given offside, which he clearly was by at least 2 yards. It was a bit worrying how often United were able to work opportunities, and some of our clearances were very poor. The half finished with the scores level at 1-1.

I was fairly pleased with how we'd played, because the pace that United possess is very dangerous. I told the players that they can win this before sending them back out. The match was fairly even at the restart with opportunities hard to come by. In the 56th minute Lung jr had to make a good save from a long shot. In the 77th minute Lung jr had to make another save from yet another shot, where offside should have been given. In the 84th minute Grenier was dubiously given as committing a foul in the United box, which was annoying, as the ball he'd won, dropped to Buzsaky, which he hammered home. In the 86th minute a piece of magic happened, with Buzsaky lobbing the ball over the defence for Grenier to run onto in the right side of the area. The keeper rushed out for it, but Grenier got to it quicker and headed it over into the centre of the area, where Fatih Yucel was waiting to gratefully head it home to give us the lead. The United players were livid, believing that there was an offside, leading to Darren Fletcher receiving a yellow card. We managed to control the ball for most of the remaining time, although right at the end United gave us a scare, but we managed to hold on to secure a rare 2-1 victory at Old Trafford.

I was pleased with the way the players had performed in this match. It seems they were determined to gain revenge for the defeat that was inflicted upon at Loftus Road back in the December. Both our goals had been superb, but the buildup play in the 2nd was superb. This was a good battling performance, and one that the players can be proud of.  Apparently Mancini, the United manager was angry about the first goal, believing it was offside, which it most definitely wasn't, so he should get a nice warning from the FA. This concludes the league season, leaving us just the single match left to play.

Result: 2-1

Ajax (N) Champions Cup Final

We travel to Munchen and the Allianz-Arena to take on Ajax, a match for which we are marginal favourites. I feel confident that the players will be up for this, as they'll be wanting to do this for the fans. I find it bizarre that in the middle of May the temperature for this match in Germany can be as low as 5 degrees Celcuis with drizzle.

The match started as a real midfield battle with both sides restricted to long shots early on. We were looking the more dangerous team. In the 20th minute we finally created a good chance with Grenier getting his head to a cross, only to see the keeper save it. We continued to push forward, creating a few more shots. In the 33rd minute Fatih Yucel got free of the defence only to make a rather limp shot giving the keeper an easy save. In the 35th minute our pressure finally paid off with Zigoni heading home a header from a corner taken by Grenier. In the 42nd minute Sunny hit a thunderous shot from outside the area, unfortunately too near the keeper. The half ended with us leading 1-0.

I was pleased with what I'd seen, with us restricting Ajax quite well, and fully deserved to have a lead. I sent the players back out telling them to bring the trophy home for the fans. We started the half by pushing forward looking to extend our lead. In the 53rd minute Ajax created their first really good chance, which Lung jr saved to keep us ahead, and a great save in the 55th after a mistake by Sunny allowed Ajax to get through. In the 57th minute Fatih Yucel put a header from a corner just over the bar. In the 63rd minute Ephraim provided a superb cross into the area, where Zigoni was waiting 2 yards from the line, only to make a complete mess with the ball bouncing clear off him. In the 74th minute Ajax grabbed an equaliser with an amazing long shot, somehow beating Lung jr; very disappointing. It looked like Ajax were now looking more confident and closing us down much better, so I made a couple of substitutions. In the 83rd minute Balanta struck a superb curling shot from just outside the area, which the keeper managed to somehow dive full length and hook away from the goal. Just as I was wondering how he could do that, I realised the ball was dropping to Grenier in the area, and he made no mistake in putting the ball into the net, to give us the lead again. Ajax then started to try and push, with us defending. We helped ourselves by taking up quite a bit of that time by getting forward with the ball. During that time Ajax created one chance with the shot being blocked by a defender to deny the opportunity. The match came to a finish with us running out 2-1 victors.

I was absolutely delighted by this win, which had been hard work, but I felt we'd done enough to deserve it. As this was the last match of the season and we'd achieved the almost unbelievable in lifting the Champions Cup, I told the players it was a fantastic result and to enjoy the victory. Grenier ran out as the man of the match, not only grabbing the winner for the 2nd year in a row in a cup final, but provided the assist for the first goal. The celebrations were amazing with fireworks and streamers going off everywhere. I was so proud of the players as we paraded around the ground showing off the trophy. Once our media commitments were finally done, we went back to our hotel for a big party, to celebrate this fantastic victory, as well as the long overdue celebration from lifting the Premiership title.

Result: 2-1

Monthly Roundup

A fantastic month in which we won both our fixtures, showing some of our best performances. The players really seemed to want revenge over Manchester United, and sealed the victory with a delightful move. The Champions Cup match had been close, in which we put together a good performance.

The league table shows that Arsenal managed to finish 2nd with Liverpool 3rd, who at one point looked unlikely to finish in the top four. Bolton and Newcastle are now confirmed as being relegated with Wigan.

There were some great performances in the two matches, with Fatih Yucel and Grenier being the most consistent. I have chosen Grenier for providing 2 assists, and grabbing the winner in the Champions Cup Final. The odd thing is, Grenier is not rated particularly highly, but is intelligent with some very good attributes for the position he plays, which seems to allow him perform very well.

This victory now means I have entered the top ten of English managers ranked at number 9. This brings the season to a close. The next post will give an analysis of how the players and signings performed during the season. I have already been scouting for new players to strengthen the squad, and will be upping the search before the players return from holiday.