The opening day of the 2018/19 Championship campaign didn’t quite go Queens Park Rangers way as we went down 1-0 to Preston North End at Deepdale on Saturday.
A goal five minutes after the halftime restart was enough to consign us to defeat on the day and it’s fair to say there were few positives that fans could take from the match. The usual caveat, and we’ll hear it a lot this year, is it’s a young group in the main and whilst potential can bring excitement, it also often means a lack of consistency and basic errors as players develop in the glare of supporters.
With little happening on a transfer front, the individual performance of summer arrival Toni Leistner could at least raise a smile post game though, and he’s adjusting to the division and settling in himself so there’s room for improvement.
Whoscored had him down as our best performing player on the day – the more cynical will say that’s not much of an achievement given our performance – but a rating of 7.46 tells a less passionate story.
Three tackles, room for improvement on his pass accuracy and as he settles more, especially from set pieces, we could see improvement in his goal threat in time as well. But he did his job at the back and that’s what we brought him in for.
