Brentford v QPR 11JAN20 3 - 1 FT

Only Warburton will ever know why he picks the teams he does, in fact I believe he not only confuses the fans but he now confuses himself. 

There we are up against 3 of the best attacking players in the league and he sets up with a defence of Kane, Hall, Cameron and Manning. Two of them (Cameron and Manning) are playing out of position and neither is a natural defender and neither are players who will go in where it hurts. The other two are no more than adequate defenders who at best should be on the bench rather than the first team but needs must and both are more natural defenders than either Manning or Cameron.  Even Warburtons most ardent fans must have questioned his Plan A  when they saw him leave the more natural and comfortable defenders Masterson and Wallace  on the bench.  

Benrahma, Watkins and Mbeumo must have been thinking it was Christmas. I do admit that there were 2 other factors that didn't help in yesterday's game, the referee and the blustery wind but neither were the reason for some poor defending. Our defending at set pieces is abysmal.

The other highly confusing tactic was the decision to choose Wells and Chair who are probably two of the shortest strikers in any league and then play high balls to them which the 6'4" Jansson and the 6'4" Pinnock had no trouble defending. The ball was sailing over the heads of our midfield and Wells didnt have a chance against 2 giants. What made this even more annoying was seeing Warburton do nothing and standing with his arms crossed. I have no idea why he wasn't getting us to play the ball to feet or even making a change to bring on Hugill who would have at least 
been able to compete with their centre backs.  

Warburton has a fixation with only playing one style of football and is blinkered into believing that he is Klopp or Guardiola and that our players can play like the Man City and Liverpool players. Warburton is stubborn and persists in wanting to play a possesion game with players who are not good enough to play that style. Getting  the goalkeeper who struggles to kick the ball straight  to then try and play the ball out with any form of accuracy to another QPR player is just asking for trouble. Not sure how many times Warburton needs to see us get this wrong before it sinks in.

We have some of the best midfielders in the Championship and should be getting the ball to their feet and letting them do the creating. Warburton has one plan which is to play with as many attacking players as he can get away with and its plainly  a dangerous style because you will score a few but you will concede loads more.

Playing tippy tappy out from the defence is great on the odd occassion it works but shouldn't we be getting the players to play to their strengths. A decent manager will change his style to suit the players he has available not the other way round. It's no different to when England managers used to try and fit Gerrard and Lampard into the same team. Both were very good players and  occasionally it worked but more often than not it didn't because one of them had to play in a different style to the one they were best suited.

Yesterday's team selection proved that- Warburton is a one trick pony who seems to make up his mind days before a game and sticks to that style despite either the conditions or how our opponents are playing.

Warburton must take responsibility because we are too easy to play against and the sooner he realises that you cannot play football in your own half with players who arent capable of that style then the better it will be for all.  If he doesn't change either his style or several of the players then what happened yesterday will be the norm. 

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I can only agree with one of your statements which is that they showed more balls.

In what way do you think that playing 2 midfielders in defence  and not having a defender who can defend was showing Brentford  too much respect?

It hurts me to say this but not only do Brentford have some very good individuals they also have a very good team which is proven by their League position.

Not sure they were any taller than us,  just for the record not one of their goalscorers is over 6 foot and their two central defenders were on a par with Hall and Cameron.

Now I do agree with everything you say.

I have been getting all sorts of abuse from my Brentford mates and I know there will be even more to come my way as this week goes by. However, one of the things they all agree with is that Warburton did a good job to get them out of League 1 but that once in the Championship he found it difficult to balance his attacking philosophy with a need to defend.  

Interesting debate.
My view is that we can’t really judge Warburton yet. He has had one transfer window and no budget. Bearing in mind how rubbish we were last year and the fact that we sold anyone who had a value, this season is going pretty well.
Next season he will hopefully have had the chance to strengthen our defence. Let’s see how he gets on with that.
Frankly, Brentford is a tough benchmark. They have better players and have been properly managed for many years. We’re finally starting to do things properly and it takes time.

Ghost, I don't disagree with anything you say and I want to believe that if we give Warburton some time to get the players he thinks we need then our fortunes will improve. 

I even think that once Eze is sold (probably in the summer) the club will give him some funds to spend on buying a couple of decent players.

My fear and it has grown after his decision on Saturday to play two midfielders as defenders is will he waste that money.  We need defenders who can defend and its a bonus if they are comfortable with the ball at their feet  but Warburton seems to prefer defenders who can play out from the back and it's a bonus if they can defend.

However, he did manage to sign James Tarkowski for Brentford and he hasn't turned out too bad so giving him some cash might be worth the risk.

The analysis is brilliant and reinforces what we have been saying about how poor we are defensively and how easy we get exploited.  Hopefully, Warburton will take a look and learn something about what he did wrong. In particular he should pay attention to the analysis of Brentfords 2nd.

" For the second Brentford goal, an error in the form of a weak kick by the unreliable keeper Joe Lumley gave Nørgaard the chance to put Mbeumo in. With left-back Ryan Manning caught upfield, there was a no pressure on Nørgaard to make a difficult lofted pass harder and Cameron produced a clearance that was entirely ineffectual"

The fact that Brentford have a set piece coach who clearly identified that area as one of our major weaknesses was significant and they took advantage.

Brentford are clearly a very forward thinking team and their use of algorithms for recruiting players is obviously working. Let's not forget that they got rid of Warburton because he didn't want to move forward with these new ideas and wasn't able to change.