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Monk And Fans Blindsided As Birmingham Go Missing At Just The Wrong Time

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Where do you start with that performance? The major concern for Garry Monk is that nobody saw that display coming.

After the game, the manager admitted himself that he was blindsided by the nature of the poor performance. He attributed the loss to the players playing with “fear,” and to some extent, I see where he is coming from.

In contrast to our opponents, who had nothing to play for, we had a lot riding on the game. While they passed the ball around with purpose, we looked fearful of making mistakes.

Usually, when you play under that sort of pressure, you can lose composure and concentration. The way we gave some of our goals away clearly showed that lack calmness which is so vital in preventing errors.

Yet, that really only tells half the story. Tactically, it could be argued Monk didn’t get things right. The positive 4-4-2 approach has worked well for us since the boss arrived back in early March, but at Loftus Road, we struggled to keep hold of the ball.

Ian Holloway’s men had two-thirds of possession, and when you give the opposition that much of the game, they are going to create chances.

Even though we went 1-0 up, we had already been put under a lot of pressure, and the warning signs were there that we could be in for a long afternoon unless we made changes.

I have been a strong advocate of Monk keeping with the two up top in order to play on the front foot, but against QPR, the lack of numbers in midfield was causing us major issues. We were unable to stop the momentum that our opponents had built up.

The manager made two like for like changes in the second half when a system change was clearly needed. You could say that adding another midfielder would have been a negative move at 1-1, but it could have allowed us to take greater care of the ball.

With more possession, momentum in the game could have shifted, and the final 20 minutes could have been very different. It looks much clearer in hindsight though. We’ll just have to move on and put in a better shift against Fulham.

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