QPR seriously struggled to deal with Brentford pair Ollie Watkins & Said Benrahma

This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

QPR missed out on the chance to jump into 2nd place in the Championship table on Monday evening, as they suffered a 3-1 defeat to west London rivals Brentford at the Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium.

Mark Warburton’s men conceded their 24th, 25th and 26th goals of the league campaign after succumbing to the brilliance of Ollie Watkins and Said Benrahma – only Barnsley, sat at the bottom of the Championship, have conceded more goals than the R’s with 27 concessions.

Before the match, we outlined how QPR must focus their defensive efforts on the aforementioned duo of Watkins and Benrahma, and it’s safe to say that the R’s simply couldn’t cope with the pair.

How did they perform?

In a word, fantastically.

From the first whistle, the pair set the intensity of the game with attacking directness and inventiveness.

Both forwards had four shots each – more than any other player on the pitch managed – with Watkins getting all of his attempts on target whilst Benrahma had three of his four do the same.

23-year-old Watkins scored twice, firstly opening the scoring with a diving header before putting the icing on the cake with a tap in, whereas Benrahma netted a penalty in between Watkins’ two strikes.

Additionally, the pair of them had 85 touches of the ball on an evening where everything Brentford did going forward went through them.

Simply couldn’t cope

It seemed as if Warburton did actually try to nullify Benrahma’s threat but putting Eberechi Eze on the right flank for only the second time this season, with the QPR boss seemingly wanting some physicality out there to help 37-year-old Angel Rangel deal with the Algerian.

Despite that tactical move, Benrahma still had a fun evening, as did Watkins with two goals to his name. Benrahma showed good feet in the first half to help contribute to the opening goal, while one moment in which he nut-megged Toni Leistner summed up just how much QPR were struggling to deal with him.

In total, Benrahma was fouled three times and also made a key pass to go with his four shots, whereas Watkins also made a key pass to go with his two goals – the pair were inexplicably allowed to run riot by QPR, and Warburton’s side paid the price.