Queens Park Rangers have wasted no time to bolster their squad after their embarrassing 1-7 defeat at Coventry on Saturday. There were three new arrivals on Monday.
They have signed midfielder Isaac Hayden on a free transfer following his release by Newcastle, defender Rhys Norrington-Davies on a season-long loan from Sheffield United and they have brought back ("£5m rated") former loanee Koki Saito on a permanent deal from Belgian side Lommel. The windfall from their sell-on clause in Eberechi Eze's sale to Palace would seem to have been put to good use.
There can be no getting away from how poor their performance was last weekend as evidenced by comments in the message board,” Loft for Words”. For example:
"The performance that Rangers put in at whatever Frank Lampard’s Coventry City are calling their ground these days on Saturday was nothing short of a despicable, disgusting, disgrace. Shipping seven goals while barely laying a glove on the Sky Blues, who didn’t seem to ever really need to get out of third gear, was a brutal watch many of the QPR fans who did turn up couldn’t stick beyond half time."
The defeat followed a home draw (1-1) with Preston on the opening day and a narrow loss (1-2) at Watford. In addition they surrendered a 2-0 lead to lose 2-3 at Plymouth in the Carabao Cup. New manager Julien Stephan has described his side as "under construction" but many travelling fans last week saw it more as under demolition.
Stephan was appointed in the summer following the departure of Marti Cifuentes to Leicester. Most of his managerial career has been spent at Rennes where he gained fame in 2019 by winning the Coupe de France in a final against Paris St Germain. He took over at Strasbourg in 2021 before returning to Rennes in November 2023 but was sacked a year later.
"I can promise one thing: it will be a completely different game next week against Charlton. We will react for sure next week," he told BBC London. "We did a lot of mistakes today. It's unacceptable. We will think about the next week and how we can react. This is a big challenge. This is the first time in my career I have to deal with a score like this, but in football you learn a lot."
When it comes to tactical match ups, we are starting to see that Nathan Jones is one of a few managers in the Championship not to employ a 4231/433 formation for the majority of the match. Although it should be noted that, in possession, Charlton do attack in a form of 4231. The back three has fallen out of fashion but, given the pace on the wings QPR look to use, it seems a no brainer to have mobile outside centre backs. QPR will look to dominate the ball and Charlton will look to make sure that possession stays no further forward than the half way line. Currently, QPR are creating 0.7 big chances per game (according to Sofascore) so they shouldn’t prove much of an attacking threat. Expect to see a similar pattern of play to the game against Leicester. This game will be all about small moments.
Nathan Jones should be able to field a strong squad, having rested his entire starting eleven at Cambridge on Tuesday. Like Charlton, QPR have invested in two of last season's top League One goal threats - Richard Kone and Kwame Poku, and Kone broke his duck with a late consolation goal at Coventry. Lloyd Jones will be tasked with keeping the man from the Ivory Coast quiet as he did in the three Wycombe fixtures in the Spring.
Charlton fans have very happy memories of our last visit to Loftus Road in 2019, when a late equaliser meant that Naby Sarr's name echoed around the London Underground for hours after the game. Who will it be this time?
Photo by Rhea Spencer-Newell