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Six touches in the box, six goals – the epitome of clinical?Image source, ShutterstockImage caption, QPR had lost their previous three games at Loftus Road before SaturdayByMichael BeardmoreBBC Sport Senior JournalistPublished23 minutes ago4 Comments
Six touches in the opposition area, six goals scored – have Queens Park Rangers ‘completed’ clinical finishing?
“Boys were ruthless today,” Rangers midfielder Harvey Vale posted on social media, external platform X after Saturday’s 6-1 thumping of Portsmouth.
And, boy, he was not wrong.
Just how often does a team score as many goals as they have had touches in the box? Nigh on never.
“It was a clinical game,” Rangers manager Julien Stephan, in a somewhat understated manner, told BBC Radio London.
The stats made stunning reading – the R’s registered just nine shots (to Pompey’s 20) but eight of those were on target and six found the net.
No wonder the Pompey players looked rocked at the final whistle – they had 28 more touches in the area than QPR but it counted for nothing.
Of QPR’s six touches in the visitors’ area, three were goals – Paul Smyth’s cool one-on-one finish to make it 3-0, Rayan Kolli crashing a superb strike across the goalkeeper and Richard Kone’s late penalty.
Their other three strikes were from outside the box, and the same three scorers – Smyth whipping the opener into the top corner from 20 yards, Kolli finding the bottom corner from even further out and Kone drilling home the sixth from near the D.
“It was not our best offensive collective performance – we have had better games collectively,” R’s boss Stephan reported.
Not their best offensive performance? Watford, QPR’s next visitors on Friday, 3 April after the international break, best watch out.
Stephan: ‘Not even our best offensive performance’
Saturday’s spectacular sharp-shooting marked the second successive game that QPR had their scoring boots on.
They only had three shots on target at Leicester City a week earlier – but scored them all in a 3-1 win at King Power Stadium.
Prior to that, though, Rangers had lost four consecutive games without netting – a run that had raised fears, since proven premature, of being dragged into relegation trouble.
“It was really important for us to be able to break the bad run we had before – four defeats in a row without a goal,” Frenchman Stephan added.
“Sometimes football is very strange – we didn’t score during four games and then the last two games we score three against Leicester and six today, with the same players and the same instructions.
“It is difficult to explain everything in football – when you have a game like this, you just have to enjoy it.”
Some QPR fans on social media claimed the footballing gods were merely repaying them after being on the other end of a similar scenario earlier this season.
Rangers were thumped 7-1 by Coventry in August – when the Sky Blues scored with seven of their eight shots on target.
According to our friends at Opta, yes.
Admittedly they only began collecting data on touches in the opposition box in 2019-20.
But no other side scoring three or more goals in a game since those records began can match QPR’s clinical ratio on Saturday.
The graphic above – Premier League and Championship games only – shows that some other sides have come close.
Southampton had just seven touches in the box in a 4-3 win, featuring two trademark James Ward-Prowse free-kicks, at Aston Villa in November 2020.
Saints had been on the other end two months earlier – when Son Heung-min inspired Tottenham to a 5-2 win at St Mary’s Stadium despite having only eight touches in the area.
Further down the leagues, MK Dons touched the ball only nine times in the box in a 5-3 opening-day League Two win at Wrexham in August 2023.
Coincidentally, on the same afternoon Barnsley only had 12 touches in the box when thrashing Port Vale 7-0 in League One.
But Stephan’s QPR stand above them all – and it would be a surprise if their record is broken any time soon.
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