QPR boss Warburton prepared to be more direct

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QPR boss Mark Warburton says he is happy for his side to be more direct if it means grinding out results.

Rangers battled hard for a point in a 1-1 draw at Millwall on Tuesday to end a run of three straight defeats and were noticeably more direct against a physical Lions side whose gameplan was to try and disrupt the visitors’ usual passing game.


“Teams are sometimes going to press on to us and try and stop us playing,” Warburton said.

“We have to mix it up. We can’t be a team that is predictable and lets teams come on and stop us playing by pressing high with good energy.

“If teams are going to do that then we’ll sometimes have to go aerially and get runners in behind.”

Since Warburton’s arrival in May 2019, Rangers have produced some of the most eye-catching attacking football seen by at QPR team for many years.

But the flip side of that has been one of the Championship’s more porous defensive units.

At The Den, led by Rob Dickie in particular, Rangers stood up well to the physical approach of the home side, who in the final 25 minutes threw on strikers Matt Smith, Jon Dadi Bodvarsson and Tom Bradshaw in an effort to find an equaliser.

Although it did come via a Bodvarsson shot that deflected off Osman Kakay from a Jed Wallace cross, the late avalanche of aerial attacks was comfortably dealt with.

But Warburton insisted his team, shorn of many of the players who impressed last season, is still a work in progress.

“We had to stand up and the majority of the time we did at Millwall,” he said.

“It’s a young team building. We are one the teams with the smallest budgets against players earning multiples of their salaries and the young boys deserve a lot of credit.

“Millwall are always hard to beat and although you always want three points, we can say it was a good point and we look forward to Reading on Saturday with fans back in our ground.”