QPR return to Loftus Road on Tuesday night to face a Portsmouth side that was impressive against us earlier in the season but has since been weakened in a variety of odd ways.

QPR (1st) v Portsmouth (18th)

Npower Championship >>> Tuesday, February 1 >>> Kick off 8pm >>> Loftus Road, London

I’ve been treating this little promotion push of ours a bit like an erection problem so far this season. It was mediocre TV sitcom Coupling that came up with the truism: “do not speak of the melty man or he will come and you will not” and it’s a similar philosophy I’m sticking with as we get to the business end of the season. Just try not to think about it and maybe it will all turn out ok in the end.

Sticking with the analogy for a moment longer (oh go on let’s) QPR are currently the equivalent of a stud in mid stride. Everything is going very well, the lady is enjoying herself, we even look pretty good in the bedroom mirror. We just need to keep it going for a suitably studly amount of time, another 18 games would be nice, and all will be fine.

I can honestly say I haven’t thought once about the Premiership during this season – about the ticket prices and the kick off times and just how bloody awesome it would be to see QPR back there even if it’s for only one season. It’s the LFW equivalent of the melty man if I do. One mention from me of trips to the Emirates and we’ll be the footballing equivalent of the guy begging his partner to wait and see if he can get it back again as she puts her coat on and heads for the door. We’ve only just recovered from my 2008 assertion post Villa Park cup win that we were in fact “the real deal” – a comment that was swiftly followed by the sacking of five managers in quick succession in a variety of disastrous circumstances that, just 18 months after Damion Stewart headed past Brad Guzan, had us staring League One in the face with a squad on Premiership wages.

We all have our own coping mechanisms. Deep down I’m sure there’s a feeling in all of us that there’s a fair chance, this being QPR we’re talking about, disaster lurks just around the corner. Maybe it’s already happened. Maybe Adel Taarabt’s extraordinary mid game strike action at Hull City on Saturday is the start of an implosion. Without Taarabt we’re not half the team, keep him without punishment and morale could be destroyed. Or maybe there’s something still to come.

As said my method is just not to think about it. I get little goosebumps now when I think that another week is about to go by and we’re still going to be in the promotion places at the end of it whatever happens. It’s just one win in nine away games now, during which time we’ve scored just three goals, and overall it’s just three wins from our last ten. And yet that six point gap remains. We’re doing just enough, promotion by increments as it was described in the comments after the Hull match report, and the number of games left to play is getting smaller and smaller while all those chasing us still have games to play against each other. Look at the fixtures next weekend when we play Reading and smile – even if we lose at the Madejski on the Friday, the Saturday looks like a positive orgy of dropped points for the chasers.

A coping strategy employed by one or two of the LFW message boarders is to not fear failure, but to openly embrace it and seek it out. What if Kenny gets injured? And Cerny? What if they crash into each other in the car park? Then what? Eh? And Ishmael Miller, he’s ill you know. Oh yeh he’s at death’s door. And Helguson is injured. And Hulse. What are we going to do? Seriously? I bet there’s no recall option in that Leon Clarke loan either. God I knew it, damn you Rangers. Damn you.

When this is your frame of mind it’s easy to be spooked by teams in form below us. The less panicky fans can go on about just how unlikely it is that two teams will suddenly get two points a game until the end of the season to overtake us until they are blue in the face but as soon as somebody down there starts stringing results together the message board alarm sounds and the life boats are immediately manned. People have panicked about Derby, Coventry, Leicester and now Forest. Billy Davies’ men have indeed come good, but as they still have to play Cardiff, Swansea, Reading, Leeds, Burnley, Norwich and Leicester maybe it might actually turn out to be quite good news if they keep going.

Consistency wins league, form wins play offs. The foolhardiness of mistaking a midtable team in form for a title contender is demonstrated well by our visitors this Tuesday Portsmouth who were said to have “the best starting 11 in the division” by Neil Warnock and others when we visited them in November and were being tipped for a big run of form in the second half of the season that currently shows no sign of materialising. Quite he opposite in fact.

Five minutes on Portsmouth

The Story So Far: Probably not since Millwall led the league midway through the 1995/96 season only to end the campaign relegated has a team been tipped for such a wide range of outcomes in a single season. In the summer, when Portsmouth started the campaign with a tiny squad of just 14 players who had any first team experience, I had them down as one of my predicted bottom three.

They failed to win any of their first seven league games – a run that included defeats against Preston (1-0), Palace (4-1) and Sheffield United (1-0) which, as it has transpired with the performances of those three clubs so far this season, couldn’t really have been three worse results. Throw in a defeat against Scunthorpe and they would have achieved a full set. Crucially though they, like Palace, were not docked ten points by the league for starting the season in administration. Under the guidance of former chair Brian Mawhinney the league routinely punished the likes of Leeds, Luton, Bournemouth and Southampton season after season if they had failed to rid themselves of the administrators by the start of it. No sooner has Mawhinney got his foot out of the door than clubs start getting away with it again.

The same could be said of transfer embargoes. Even once out of administration and boasting a paper thin squad teams like Bournemouth have still found themselves unable to sign players until the league is wholly satisfied with the order of the books. Not only were Portsmouth not docked ten points for starting the season in administration, they were allowed to continue adding players to their roster. Liam Lawrence and Dave Kitson arrived from Stoke, excellent Championship players on wages rumoured to be in the region of £20,000 a week each taken on by a club in administration and trying to weasel out of paying its St John’s Ambulance bill.

By the time we got there in November Neil Warnock said Pompey had the “best starting 11 in the league” and while it was always likely that one or two injuries would decimate them many were tipping Portsmouth and Leicester to be the big movers up the table in the second half of the campaign. Having failed to win any of their first seven they then went on a seven match unbeaten run including wins against Leicester (6-1), Bristol City (3-1), Watford (3-2), Millwall (1-0), Hull and Nottingham Forest (both 2-1). Looking at it retrospectively with the performance of some of those clubs this season in mind again, those results look outstanding.

But all is not well at Fratton Park. Still. The rules about points deductions and transfer embargoes for clubs in administration were brought in to prevent clubs doing what Leicester City did at the start of the last decade when despite being in administration they continued to spend money they didn’t have on players they couldn’t afford and won promotion to the Premiership at the expense of clubs trying to compete on a budget and then promptly agreed a scandalous 10p in the pound deal with their creditors to escape from the debts they had built up paying just a fraction of what they owed.

Portsmouth did something similar earlier this season when high profile administrator Andrew Andronikou forced the hand of creditors by publicly stating that liquidation was a strong possibility and that weekend’s game at Hull could be their last unless they agreed a CVA of just 20p in the pound. Andronikou, whose job as administrator is to act on behalf of the creditors and sell the business as a going concern remember, made Balram Chainrai the preferred bidder for the club. Chainrai is one of the many, many shady foreign owners who have recently passed through the boardroom at Fratton Park and having secured preferred bidding status and then the ownership of the club after the CVA was forced through he immediately stated that to keep it going Portsmouth would, once again, have to start borrowing money. And so the path to debts of £119m begins again.

The sheer amount of money Portsmouth were said to owe by the time they came out of the Premiership was staggering, but also puzzling. This was a club that had been in the Premiership for a number of years where clubs are said to receive £50m and up from television deals, a club that sold £92.4m worth of players over three years prior to relegation, and one that escaped from the debt paying just 20p in the pound in any case. It’s difficult to really understand how they have come to be in such dire straights, how they haven’t been punished more for it, and how the league can ratify a takeover by a man who immediately says he is going to borrow money secured against the club and start the process of screwing them all over again.

At Christmas manager Steve Cotterill was told he could no longer select midfielders Michael Brown or Richard Hughes for his team. Both players had clauses in their contracts stating that a further first team appearance would trigger a new deal on terms even more stupidly lucrative than the ones they are already on. Neither has played since December 28 and Brown in particular had been a key man in Cotterill’s side. When we played at Fratton Park in November wide man John Utaka gave Kyle Walker a going over the likes of which he didn’t experience before or since during his time at QPR – this week Utaka, another man said to be on the thick end of £30k a week, was released for nothing to Montpellier.

So they should, should, have enough to stay up despite a run of no wins from, yeh you guessed it, seven matches coming into this game which leaves them languishing in nineteenth compared to thirteenth when we last met. But beyond that, who on earth knows?

Manager: Steve Cotterill learnt his football in the Wimbeldon Crazy Gang, and cut his managerial teeth in the depths of non-league football with Cheltenham. Little wonder then that his teams play agricultural football while he blusters his way through the season, ranting on into television cameras about this perceived injustice or that.

He’s one of those managers that gets results, but that you probably wouldn’t want at your club if you could help it. He would say the style of football employed by his Cheltenham team was down to the level they were at and the players he had at his disposal and to be fair to him the Burnley team he built and the Portsmouth side he currently presides over are far, far better footballing sides than the Coventry nonsense 11 we’ve been treated to twice in the last couple of weeks. With players like Lawrence and Nugent in your team it would be foolish not to involve them with the ball at their feet so while Portsmouth are undoubtedly an energetic and physical side, they’re certainly not a long bacll outfit.

The other tag Cotterill has, I’m sure he would say unfairly, been saddled with in his career is that of job hopper.

After starting with Sligo Rovers it was at Cheltenham Town where he really made his name – winning promotion from the Southern League, the Conference and the Third Division as well. Throw in the FA Trophy in 1998 and it’s clear that Cotterill did a fine job, lifting the club into the Football League for the first time in its history and making the fifth round of the FA Cup in 2002.

I remember seeing that Cheltenham side playing at Scunthorpe United one afternoon in the Third Division (now League Two). It was an uncompromising set up, unashamedly long ball and gratuitously violent befitting of a manager who spent time with Wimbledon as a player. But it had some quality in there as well – Grant McCann has gone on to play for Northern Ireland and impress with Scunthorpe, Barnsley and now Peterborough, Martin Devaney played for the thick end of ten years with Barnsley and was once a transfer target for QPR, Michael Duff still plays in this league now for Burnley and was outstanding at Loftus Road last week.

The work Cotterill did to build this side didn’t escape the attentions of Stoke City who made him their manager in 2002. That seemed to be a good appointment for Cotterill – as we’ve seen since Stoke was a club with potential at that stage, and he had some money to spend for the first time in his career and quickly snapped up Mansfield hotshot Chris Greenacre as his first signing. Yet within 13 matches he decided to resign and throw it all away to go and work as an assistant manager to Howard Wilkinson at Sunderland. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but even at the time I remember thinking he was completely mad. Sunderland had been on the wane for several seasons and were clearly the worst side in the Premiership that season – he would have been stupid to go there as number one, but to go as an assistant to a manager as dour and useless as Howard bloody Wilkinson was ludicrous.

Presumably Cotterill expected to take over from Wilkinson within a short time frame, in the same way Mickey Adams did from Dave Bassett at Leicester after initially going as an assistant, but Wilkinson was so awful (and again you didn’t need to by Mystic Meg to see that the set up was doomed to failure from the very beginning) that Sunderland sacked the pair of them after 20 matches and Cotterill was suddenly without a job and with a reputation as a manager who wasn’t afraid to shaft his employers if he thought there was some personal gain in it for him.

Luckily for him one of the teams his Cheltenham side had upset in the FA Cup, Burnley, had a vacancy and he returned to management at Turf Moor in 2004. Over the next four years Cotterill’s Burnley side settled into a pattern of starting and finishing seasons well but having dreadful runs of form in the middle restricting progress. This was because his squad was structured much like his Portsmouth one is now – with everybody fit the starting 11 was always very impressive and competitive, but whenever one or two players got injured or suspended the whole thing started to fall apart and it wasn’t until they started to come back towards the end of the season that things picked up again.

In 2007 the mid-season slump was too dramatic and after a run of one win from ten games he was fired and replaced by Owen Coyle. The rest is history in that part of the world.

Cotterill then became one of those Alan Pardew, Paul Hart type figures who would regularly appear on the front row of director’s boxes around the country, ostensibly to “keep his eye in” but always coincidently at a ground where a manager was under pressure. He became a regular in the South Africa Road stand at Loftus Road as Flavio Briatore worked through a succession of managers and his agent always ensured that his name was never too far away from a press story about this vacancy or that.

Last season he was able to boost his reputation by joining the circus at Notts County midway through the campaign. Despite the widespread farce over ownership and management of the team County spent almost as much as the rest of the league put together on their team last year and consequently Cotterill was able to add another promotion to his CV without really trying too hard and that was enough to catch the eye of Portsmouth in the summer.

As a player Cotterill was dogged by bad knee injuries at a time when such things routinely ended careers. He was voted Bournemouth’s Player of the Year three times, and played in Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang in the top flight but twice ruptured his cruciate knee ligament and retired from playing professionally in 1995 aged 31.

Three to watch: Moderating a football message board for five years means I’ve seen some things online that my grandfather may have once described as “a bit rum”. I’ve never really been able to look at Kieran Dyer the same way since watching his questionable holiday video during which he stops mid romp to whisper sweetly in the lucky girl’s ear: “What’s wrong with you now bitch?” Or indeed Middlesbrough’s Matthew Bates who presumably thought his self shot photographs would be for his girlfriend’s eyes only. Or, for that matter, Portsmouth’s Liam Lawrence who was filmed with several of his Sunderland team mates of the time taking it in turns with a girl who, as it turned out, probably wasn’t really old enough to be engaging in such activities while Chris Brown (now Preston) gave a running commentary in the style of Jonathan Pearce.

Lawrence, who played against QPR for Mansfield as a youngster eight years ago, is actually a very good player (football player) and I’m surprised he’s down at this level to be honest. He’s energetic and creative in the midfield and has an eye for a goal as well. Recently, despite being born in Retford near Nottingham, Lawrence has been capped by the Republic of Ireland and in keeping with recent Irish tradition has not looked out of place on the international scene despite being nothing more than a steady top flight league player. Against QPR at Fratton Park he scored a twice taken penalty but the conceded one himself in controversial circumstances – the resulting protests earned him a red card, and a comparison to a crazed Miss Arizona in the LFW match report, all peroxide blonde hair and shirt worn like a sash around his shoulder.

With Michael Brown and Richard Hughes unable to play, and John Utaka who tore into us at Fratton Park moved on, options for the rest of this column are thin on the ground. David Nugent’s magnificent solo run and subsequent assist for Dave Kitson to score in an impressive Christmas win at Norwich hinted that he may yet get back to his best. Picked up on the cheap from Bury initially he scored 38 goals in just over 100 appearances for Preston and even won an England cap against Andorra, although the goal that went down as his in that match was literally stolen from Jermain Defoe with Nugent toe prodding it in after sprinting to catch up with the already goal bound ball.

Nugent was a player to be feared, who fired Preston at least ten places higher up the league than they would ever have got without him as we have seen since he left. But he failed at Portsmouth initially after a £6m move and only his willingness to sit earning big money while playing reserve team football kept him there as various Championship clubs made enquiries that interested Portsmouth, but Nugent. Ipswich seemed to be linked with him once a week at one stage.

As one of the last men standing he has played more games this season – 29 appearances and eight goals so far – but he only ever hits his best form in fits and starts. If QPR can stop Nugent and Lawrence making an impact on Tuesday they will have gone a long way towards winning the game.

Another former Preston man is Ritchie de Laet - one of the loanees recalled from Deepdale after Alex Ferguson’s son Darren was sacked as manager there. Having struggled to impress in his five games there he now gets a second chance to shine at this level with Pompey.

Links >>> Official Website >>> Message Board

History

Recent Meetings: The first meeting between these two this season, as so often happens when the authorities leave the silly little boy in charge of anything, turned into the Gavin Ward Tuesday Night Festival of Pure Incompetence to leave both managers and sets of players fuming with the outcome by the end of the evening. Ward began by awarding Portsmouth a penalty and sending off Matt Connolly, which was fair enough, but then ordered a retake of the penalty when Paddy Kenny saved it for reasons known only to himself. Liam Lawrence scored at the second attempt and seemed very pleased with himself but after having two penalty appeals of their own waved away by the inexperienced and incompetent official QPR were then awarded a spot kick in injury time when Lawrence blocked a cross with, apparently, his chest but was penalised for hand ball all the same. Lawrence was sent off for his protests, that included ripping his shirt off to show the referee the ball mark, and Tommy Smith converted the penalty against his former employers.

Portsmouth: Ashdown 7, Halford 6 (Ward 26, 6), Mokoena 6, Sonko 7, Dickinson 6, Lawrence 7, Mullins 6, Brown 6, Utaka 8 (Ciftci 86, -), Kitson 6, Kanu 5 (Hreidarsson 90, -)

Subs Not Used: Flahavan, Hughes, Rocha

Sent Off: Lawrence (two bookings)

Booked: Lawrence (foul), Ashdown (time wasting), Lawrence (dissent)Goals: Lawrence 71 (penalty won Kitson)

QPR: Kenny 7, Walker 6, Connolly 6, Gorkss 7, Hill 6, Derry 6 (Clarke 80, -),Faurlin 6, Taarabt 6 (Borrowdale 72, 6), Mackie 7, Smith 7, Hulse 6 (Agyemang 72, 5)

Subs Not Used: Cerny, Rowlands, Ephraim, Andrade

Sent Off: Connolly (professional foul)

Booked: Derry (dissent)

Goals: Smith 90 (penalty won Smith)

Gerry Francis was in charge of Rangers, and Steve Claridge Portsmouth, when the sides last met at Loftus Road in November 2000. With most of the country under several feet of water after weeks of torrential rain this was one of the few games that day which beat the weather and QPR were very glad it did after ten minutes when Paul Peschisolido, making his debut on loan from Fulham, opened the scoring. Sadly it wasn’t QPR’s season and two more points were dropped when Lee Bradbury, one of those players that always seemed to be rubbish against everybody except QPR, equalised in the second half.

QPR: Harper, Breacker, Warren, Carlisle, Broomes, Rose, Langley, Peacock, Connolly, Peschisolido, Crouch

Subs not used: Miklosko, Ready, Koejoe, Morrow

Goals: Peschisolido 10

Bookings: Breacker , Broomes , Crouch , Rose

Portsmouth: Hoult, Moore, Waterman, Hiley, Hughes, Thogersen, Awford, Panopoulos, Bradbury, Claridge, Miglioranzi

Subs not used: Flahavan, Nightingale, Whitbread, McNab, Pettefer,

Goals: Bradbury 50

Bookings: Bradbury , Claridge , Hoult , Panopoulos

Head to Head >>> QPR wins 13 >>> Draws 11 >>> Portsmouth wins 10

Previous Results

2010/11 Portsmouth 1 QPR 1 (Smith pen)

2000/01 Portsmouth 1 QPR 1 (Thomson)

2000/01 QPR 1 Portsmouth 1 (Peschisolido)

1999/00 Portsmouth 1 QPR 3 (Langley, Gallen, Myers og)

1999/00 QPR 0 Portsmouth 0

1998/99 QPR 1 Portsmouth 1 (Peacock)

1998/99 Portsmouth 3 QPR 0

1997/98 Portsmouth 3 QPR 1 (Sheron)

1997/98 QPR 1 Portsmouth 0 (Spencer)

1996/97 QPR 2 Portsmouth 1 (Murray, Spencer)

1996/97 Portsmouth 1 QPR 2 (Gallen 2)

1987/88 Portsmouth 0 QPR 1 (Coney)

1987/88 QPR 2 Portsmouth 1 (Byrne, Fenwick)

1981/82 Portsmouth 2 QPR 2* (Flanagan, Mickelwhite)

1981/82 QPR 5 Portsmouth 0* (Gregory 2, Mickelwhite 2, Ellis og)

* - League Cup, round two

Links >>> Portsmouth 1 QPR 1 Match Report

This Tuesday

Team News: QPR lost Tommy Smith and Alejandro Faurlin to worrying looking leg injuries at Hull on Saturday so both must be rated as doubtful for this game – Petter Vaagan Moen stands by. Heidar Helguson also remains a doubt having missed the Hull trip with a groin injury. Rob Hulse or Ishmael Miller will start instead of Helguson, Miller should be first choice but after 80 minutes at the KC Stadium how much football there is left in his legs for Tuesday remains to be seen.

Akos Buzsaky is back in full training, physio Nigel Cox told the club’s official website: “He has had a couple of setbacks unfortunately along the way but he returned to training with the rest of the first team today, although there will be certain aspects he will not be able to take part in just yet. His involvement will be increased over the coming days. The likely scenario is that he will need a couple of weeks' worth of training before he can be considered for selection.”

Peter Ramage, Lee Cook, Jamie Mackie and Patrick Agyemang are long term absentees.

Portsmouth spent four days in Gran Canaria prior to this game and were linked with an audacious loan move for Shaun Wright Phillips on deadline day – who says they’ve got no money? Danny Webber is still a month away from a return after nine months out with ruptured knee ligaments, but Aaron Mokoena is back from his two match ban for accumulating ten bookings and Dave Kitson is fit again.

Elsewhere: It’s a full programme of Championship action this Tuesday night and topping that bill is a Yorkshire derby between Hull City and Leeds United at the KC Stadium. Get your cash on a draw would be my tip there. Cardiff host Reading in another eye catching encounter while Swansea go to Bristol City looking to put their FA Cup disaster behind them. Norwich host Millwall while Nottingham Forest will be confident of continuing their recent surge through the league when they travel to Coventry who haven’t won in eight league games now. Middlesbrough v Scunthorpe is a six pointer at the other end while fellow strugglers Sheff Utd, Preston and Palace all have tough assignments at Sheff Utd, Barnsley and Watford respectively.

Referee: It’s the Championship’s most lenient official in charge of this game on Tuesday night. Grant Hegley has shown just 22 yellow cards in 20 matches this season and enjoyed seven games where he hasn’t shown a card at all. Both these teams suffered 1-0 defeats the last time he was in charge of them – Portsmouth at Sheffield United earlier this season, QPR at home to Scunthorpe a year ago. Click here for more details on his recent history with QPR and stats on his card counts. There’s also some amusing news about who s refereeing Cardiff v Reading this weekend.

Form

Portsmouth: Seven really has been the key number for Portsmouth this season. It took them seven matches to register their first league win of the season, then they went seven games unbeaten prior to playing us in November, and they come into this match without a win in seven once more – eight if you include a cup defeat to Brighton. They have four wins on the road this season, but have drawn one and lost three of their last four. Over Christmas they won impressively, and rather ominously, at Swansea, Norwich and drew with Leeds having been 3-1 down. Their other road wins came in consecutive games against Millwall and Hull in October. They haven’t won at Loftus Road since 1961 – there have been 12 meetings on this ground since then with the last three finishing in draws and eight of the previous nine being won by QPR. Rangers have twice beaten Portsmouth 5-0 at home but in 1924 Portsmouth hit seven without reply in the Fratton Park game.

Prediction: I’m going to predict a win. I apologise if the gypsy curse strikes me again but we have a much stronger team than Portsmouth on paper and having lost John Utaka as well now on top of everything else I just don’t see Portsmouth being able to live with us if we play anything like we can do. Famous last words.

Draw half time, QPR full time, 10/3 or 3/1 generally

Photo: Action Images

18StoneOfHoop added 07:30 - Feb 1 'Liam Lawrence is actually a very good player(football player).' LOL As well as a good read,handy too - the wired weird footie-following Indian fella in Askew Road chip shop asked me who the Pompey manager was..couldn't remember for the life of me...Now I can bore him to death with chapter & verse.
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qpr_ox added 07:57 - Feb 1 What were you thinking?! Predicting a win! Might as well not show-up...
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stainrodnee added 08:48 - Feb 1 Didn't Lee Cook play at Blackburn? Why is he still a long term absentee?
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Tonto added 09:09 - Feb 1 Coupling just "mediocre"? Ok the 4th series was, but the other 3 were great!
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billericaydicky added 10:39 - Feb 1 An excellent read as always Clive - made me chuckle. My coping mechanism is one of trying to distance myself from all that is going on at LR and just accept the fact that whatever happens Football is not what it used to be and is just a money making machine for certain players, agents and owners. Therefore QPR are just a relatively small club and will struggle to compete even if we do go up. But deep down I'm cacking myself and have never been so nervous at games as I've been this season. And now you've tipped us to win that surely means and away win! Damn you. Oh and for the record I have had absolutely no problems with the 'melty man' especially when I used to watch Coupling with the gorgeous Sarah Alexander and Gina Bellman! Ooo err Mrs.

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benbu added 12:08 - Feb 1 im confident of 3 points tonight, its a game we need to win and hopefully our ability will shine through. Pompey are on the slide and have just released their best player of the away fixture (Utaka) and are not looking too good currently. This is a home fixture we have to take the 3 points to keep a reasonable healthy gap at the top or to build it even more. I didnt attend the Hull fixture but it sounded pretty drab. The away record does need improving but we have had some tough fixtures in January with Norwich, Burnley and Hull. The away games coming ahead look better for the Rs and im sure we will get some good points up at Preston, Boro and Scunthorpe. Reading is winnable too if we attack and go for it. With the division being so tight, away points are coming very handy if we keep our excellent form going at home. The Taarabt issue was disapointing to see but the guy is top class and im sure NW dealt with the situation well as he has done with AT all season. He got frustrated and shouldnt have shown it like he did, but lets get on with it now. prediction 2-0 QPR - come on u Rs!!!

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headhoops added 13:52 - Feb 1 Thanks Clive, 3 -1 Rangers. Tarabt, Smith and......Derry! Who will get promptly sent off by the most lenient referee for waving his shirt around his head and running straight into the crowd. Portsmouth will also have a man sent off, a wild lash from Faurlin will smack that blooddy bell into Mr Portsmouth's mush and finally and not least Bernie will come on at half time and sing a few lines of 'walking in a Mackie wonderland'. Not at all worried about our form, the run in etc. Can think of 23 teams who would swop places immediately - 24 if you include Wolves!

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Monahoop added 13:58 - Feb 1 An interesting read Clive as always, but I've never thought of our slightly stuttering hopeful promotion push as anything like a male sexual problem! Surreal that, but it made me chuckle. It's imperative we win tonight. Hopefully the lads will be in the correct frame of mind. Be focused and don't try too hard or not at all. Hopefuly AT will have seen the errors of his silly ways after Saturday and produce a performance that will put a smile back on everyones faces [well those connected with QPR anyway]. Prediction, a 3-0 win for R's.

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DesertBoot added 15:11 - Feb 1 i'm a bit worried tonight because there will be great expectation tonight of a comfortable win. Let's hope it is such providing we are more open in our play.
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