Saturday’s round of EFL Championship clashes offered up an interesting affair at Loftus Road as the, prior to kick-off, fifteenth-placed Queens Park Rangers hosted second-placed Leeds United. With the odds looking stacked in Marco Bielsa’s side’s favour, Mark Warburton’s QPR side ran out 1-0 winners.
The three points for the home side moved them up a single place in the Championship table, from 15th to 14th. Meanwhile, despite defeat, Leeds remained second in the table with Fulham trailing by four points.
This tactical analysis will dissect the clash between the two and highlight key areas of the two sides’ tactics while using analysis to show how they impacted the games outcome, a 1-0 win for the hosts.
Lineups
In the home dugout, Warburton opted for the same starting formation that he had done for the five games previous to the visit of Leeds – that being a 4-2-3-1. The last time the side differed from the set up was for a 4-1-3-2 in the 1-0 away defeat to Reading. In terms of personnel, three changes were made by QPR. Joe Lumley, Ryan Manning and Dominic Ball made way for Liam Kelly, LJ Wallace and Conor Masterson.
Leeds also opted for a familiar-looking set-up, with a 4-1-4-1 Bielsa’s formation of choice, as it had been in the three previous games. The starting formation has only been differed from on three occasions in the last ten games, all three being for a 3-3-3-1. To his starting lineup, the Argentine made only one change. Barry Douglas was switched with Pablo Hernandez.
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