Tony Mowbray has surprised QPR fans by revealing that he saw Rob Dickie as a potential weak link that Blackburn could exploit.
Mowbray’s side lost 1-0 on Saturday at Loftus Road, where he opted to play with a ‘false nine’.
He put Harvey Elliott through the middle and moved top scorer Adam Armstrong to a left-sided role.
Mowbray later explained that he did so in order to put Armstrong up against right-sided centre-back Dickie.
“You play strengths against perceived weaknesses. Dickie’s a very good footballer but can’t run like Armstrong can run,” Mowbray told West London Sport.
“You put speed against no speed and I think we damaged them. We got into some great areas, we just didn’t take the chances.
“It’s what you do; you wouldn’t put your super-fast striker against their fastest defender. You put him where their slowest defender is. If he (the striker) has to move a little bit to do that, that’s what you do.
“We tried to expose the lack of mobility of both central defenders of QPR.
“We put our speed and power against them. It didn’t work because we didn’t score a goal.
“You could say ‘What’s he doing? Why didn’t he play Armstrong down the middle? He might have scored three.’
“But we might not have created any chances and might have lost 2-0. We picked the formation we did and that was why we did it.
“It’s not rocket science. I’m not creating a new football formation.”
Mowbray’s comments have drawn plenty of comments on social media from Rangers fans, who are largely bemused given that Dickie has been outstanding for their team this season.