Stats: QPR 1-0 Aston Villa – Some Fans Can See What Smith Wants, But Can The Players Do It

Following on from the defeat to Norwich City in the midweek Championship game, new head coach Dean Smith was leading the Aston Villa boys into their third battle under his charge tonight as we faced Queens Park Rangers.

Heading to Loftus Road for the match, it was set to be a tight encounter in more ways than one given how their stadium intrudes on the pitch as although our season had been mixed, to put it mildly, QPR appear to be overperforming based on their own expectations over the summer.

Villa certainly started brightly and gave plenty of reasons for hope, but our Achilles heels came to the fore again – a lack of real ideas in the final third and a defence that’s an extremely easy (none gender specific) date.

The lead was QPR’s going into the halftime break (and we had our now obligatory injury with Barney the recipient this time) but we again came out strongly after the restart. That resulted in some good play promising play, but little at goal and we didn’t score.

1-0. Our second defeat in three and plenty are worried.

I think I’m with RevdPete to be fair.

“You can see signs…unfortunately I’m not sure we have the squad needed to do what Dean Smith wants us to do.”

Right, where’s my lager gone…

Queens Park Rangers				Aston Villa
Wszolek (38)
Lumley				Nyland
Rangel				Hutton
Leistner				Tuanzebe
Lynch				Chester
Bidwell				Taylor
Cameron			70	Elmohamady			62
Luongo				Bjarnason			41
Wszolek				McGinn
Eze			91	Kodjia
Freeman				Grealish
Hemed			62	Abraham
Substitutes
Ingram				Whelan			41
Hall				Lansbury
Cousins				Hogan
Scowen			70	Bolasie			62
Smith			91	Hourihane
Osayi-Samuel				Jedinak
Wells			62	Bunn

Game Statistics
16	Goal attempts	18
7	On Target	5
5	Corners	9
23	Fouls	12
3	Yellow Cards	0
0	Red Cards	0
32	%	68