QPR played their final pre-season game today against Brighton and, as with the games against Tottenham and Reading, they not only lost, but failed to score. Indeed, I don’t think we even managed a shot on target today, in spite of Zan Celar starting up front. He had one clear chance, but was offside and missed the target, which doesn’t bode well. Let’s hope Ilias Chair recovers from his back injury in time for the season opener against West Brom next Saturday because we really don’t look capable of scoring without him.
Martí Cifuentes made two changes to last week’s starting line-up, replacing Michy Frey with Celar and Alfie Lloyd with Rayan Kolli. Apart from that, he set them up in a 4-2-3-1 formation as follows: Paul Nardi in goal; Jimmy Dunne, Steve Cook, Jake Clarke-Salter and Kenneth Paal in the back line; Jack Colback and Sam Field in defensive midfield; Lucas Andersen, Paul Smith and Kolli as the attacking trio; and Celar the tip of the spear.
Brighton dominated from the off and looked formidable – better than any team we’re likely to face in the Championship. They kept a high press and did their best to frustrate our efforts to play it out from the back, sometimes successfully. If Cifuentes was looking for a way to test our new keeper and the full backs, he certainly got it today. And, for the most part, they did well. By my count, Nardi made three good saves in the first half, ensuring it remained scoreless at the break.
All four defenders looked solid, particularly Steve Cook and Jake Clarke-Salter, who made countless last-minute tackles and blocks to prevent the Seagulls from scoring. The most dramatic moment came in the 36th minute when JCS slid in to make a goal-line clearance after Nardi’s save had only managed to slow the ball down, not knock it off course.
Danny Welbeck managed to score from a penalty in the 52nd minute after a foul by a frustrated Colback. There then followed a cascade of substitutions on both sides, so it would be wrong to read too much into the game. But only losing by one goal to a team that played in the Europa League last season wasn’t too shabby.
As with the previous two games, we looked better at the back than we did up front, lacking a cutting edge in the final third. Disappointingly, that was no less true when Celar was on the pitch, but it’s early days. He doesn’t look fully fit, judging by his sluggish pace, and he’s clearly still learning how to play Martí ball. In the 63rd minute, the boss replaced Kolli with Frey and indicated to Celar that he wanted him to move into Kolli’s position on the left as an attacking midfielder and Frey to replace him up front – and the interesting thing about this exchange was that it took a while for the penny to drop, with Celar not seeming to understand at first what Martí wanted. He got the hook soon afterwards.
Frey played better today than he did against Reading or Tottenham, using his strength to cause the visitors problems. He didn’t get himself into a shooting position, let alone have a shot, but he won some tackles, covered a lot of ground and played with more confidence and aggression than we’ve seen from him before. It’ll be interesting to see whether he’ll cement a place in the starting line-up, now that he’s back to full fitness. He strikes me as a better bet than Lyndon Dykes, who may not be available for some time in any event. My guess is Cifuentes will start most games with Celar up front and use Frey as a power sub in much the same way he used Sinclair Armstrong last season. I’m hoping for at least half-a-dozen goals from Frey this season.
In transfer news, it looks as if QPR have got the Jonathan Varane deal over the line, snagging the Frenchman for £1 million, which should plug the gap in defensive midfield caused by the departure of Isaac Hayden. Watford are rumoured to be interested in Paal, who has one year left on his contract and is refusing to sign a new one, so he may well be off later this month. The club is supposedly eying up Gianluca Frabotta, a defender for Juventus, as a possible replacement, although there’s also a possibility we’ll get the Liverpool left-back Owen Beck on loan, with QPR competing with Celtic for his services. Finally, QPR is also said to be in talks to secure the services of South Korean international midfielder Jeong Ho-yeon, although they may fizzle out if we really have inked a deal for Varane.
In the last 10 minutes or so we got a look at some of players QPR has already brought in over the summer: Hevertton Santos (low energy), Liam Morrison (too early to tell) and Daniel Bennie (slightly nervous on the ball, but promising). As in the previous two games, Kolli looked more confident than he did last season, but was a poor substitute for Chair, and Alfie Lloyd, who came on for Smyth in the 79th minute, looked okay – better at winning the ball and keeping it, than passing or shooting.
So, not a particularly inspiring pre-season, but I guess it’s a compliment to the way Martí likes to play that two premier league teams were prepared to come to Loftus Road for a kick-about. If the club manages to bring in three or four more players and Ilias returns to the starting line-up, I’m still confident we’ll manage a top half finish this season. We’ll know more next Saturday.