Regular readers will know that I am not the manager’s biggest fan; my response is that I don’t need to like him as long as he does a decent job. However, in a day and age where every comment from players and managers is examined under a microscope, I think Billy Davies has come out with a corker, in an attempt to justify reducing the width of the pitch by a massive five metres:
The narrow pitch will help the situation for us this season. We have to be a better pressing team and we could not press the opposition effectively last season because the pitch was too wide.
It will help us to get forward quicker as well. Last season it took longer because the width of the pitch was so significant. It took time to pass the ball across it and work forwards.
Billy’s predecessor was understandably pilloried for talking gibberish at times, but this move is pretty much unforgiveable, and these are my reasons why:
- Anyone who was at the Watford match will have seen that the lack of width only helped the team in yellow to close down the Reds, not the opposite way around.
- It has been a long time since I have done any football training, but everyone knows that the ball moves quicker than players, so the idea that a wide pitch slows down attacks is frankly ridiculous. Note that a happy consequence of Arsenal’s move to The Emirates Stadium was that they could have a bigger pitch to play their particular brand of perfect football.
- We have pacy wingers who like to run with the ball such as Tys, Ando and G-Man McCleary – narrowing the pitch means that they won’t have as much room to get around their full-back.
- The amount of overhit crosses against West Brom and Watford suggests that the players aren’t especially comfortable with the new dimensions of the playing surface.
Anyway, it seems as though QPR old boys Dex and Campo will play on their old stomping ground tomorrow, and Chambo is likely to make a return – although Lewis and Casual Kelv will be out for six weeks. Bummer.
