QPR could be six points adrift in the relegation zone tonight if they can't somehow find a way to snap a 13-match winless run with a victory at Cardiff City.

Cardiff (4-4-8 WDWLLD 21st) v QPR (1-8-7 DDDLLD 24th)

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When you look at some of the numbers QPR have posted since the fell off the side of a cliff at the end of January 2022, it is amazing really that they haven’t been relegated already.

This is the third time since Boxing Day 2022 that QPR have gone at least 12 games without a win – the previous three occasions were spread over 20 years between 2002 and 2022. At Loftus Road Rangers have won eight of their last 52 games, 13 of their last 59 to the start of the 22/23 season, and 15 out of 67 going back to January 2022. From October 2022 to October 2023 the team won just six of 49 games (a sequence which included two wins from 19 at one point, four from 28 and five from 42) and lost 31 of those. Because it was split across two seasons, and there had been a flurry of good results just before it, two wins at Burnley and Stoke meant it was somehow enough to maintain Championship status.

Rangers have, once again, started this season abysmally. They’re the only side in the division still stuck on one win from 16 played, and that came way back in August at Luton. They’re on a club record run of nine home games without a win to begin the campaign. They’re the division’s lowest scorers. They’ve conceded more than anybody else at home. They haven’t scored a goal of their own for five matches – two own goals in that time makes opposition players the joint top QPR scorers in W12 this season.

It'd be funny, if we weren’t so emotionally invested in it, and the most ridiculous thing is it really wouldn’t take too much of a turn around for QPR to survive again this year despite it all.

Last year a point-per-game would have comfortably relegated you second bottom, with Birmingham going down on 50 and Plymouth staying up with 51. This year so far that running total is good enough for the relative sanctuary of seventeenth – Coventry sit there with 17 points from 17 games as the table stands this morning.

Our beleaguered club might have picked a really good time to be absolutely abysmal, because there’s a lot of drek around in the division. The results last night paint a very clear picture. Plymouth, with just two points to their name from nine away games, were soundly beaten 6-1 at Norwich – this after a recent 5-0 defeat at Cardiff. The Hull supporters chanted for the head of manager Tim Walter as they lost 2-0 at home to Sheff Wed – a scoreline that didn’t fairly reflect the visitors’ dominance in that game. Oxford, after a bright start to life back at this level, and fast sliding back to where their budget means they will surely finish – beaten 3-0 at Sheff Utd. Preston’s 0-0 at Stoke did little for their prospects.

These results do rather paint some of QPR’s failures so far in bleak context though. One of Plymouth’s two away points, and one of their three away goals, came at Loftus Road in a game they played for an hour with ten men and stoppage time with nine. Hull won 3-1 in Shepherd’s Bush. Defeat tonight at Cardiff and a real gap starts to open up between Rangers and the safety spots – six points and counting ahead of a tough televised trip to Watford on Saturday.

The other fairly miraculous thing about all of this is just how well the QPR supporters are taking it all.

When you think this was once a club where fans invaded the pitch to protest against profitable player sales while sitting eighth in the Premier League, and were filmed for the Four Year Plan documentary trying to smash down the doors on South Africa Road only to win promotion within 12 months, the lack of any sort of dissent from a crowd that continues to sell out Saturday home games as a matter of course is getting to be outright strange.

Manager Marti Cifuentes seemed genuinely moved by the support he received from the crowd during Saturday’s home draw with Stoke. He made a point of lapping the whole pitch at full time offering thanks and referenced in his post-match press conference that he couldn’t recall ever seeing or hearing that for a manager who hadn’t won in 12 games and that this will “stay in my heart for the rest of my life”. When that press conference drew headlines calling his future into question, the main response was that this would be a mistake on the part of the club.

Perhaps the fans are just beaten down by years and years of rubbish. People are still going out of habit, but apathy reigns. It just feels so hopeless, like whatever the club tries always blows up in their face anyway. Almost like there’s no point in getting angry.

Nevertheless, the general consensus at the moment seems to be the team’s current predicament has little to do with its manager. He’s holed below the waterline by injuries to key players down the spine of the team which have rendered it completely toothless in attack, wide open at the back, and embarrassingly powderpuff in midfield. Even when everybody is fit, it’s not a particularly good side because of the sub-standard recruitment. Neither of these are seen to be Cifuentes’ fault.

It’ll be interesting to see if that holds. If results don’t improve, if a gap does open up at the bottom, will the calm, cajoling, supportive atmosphere prevail? And if not, who will get it in the neck? As it stands, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be him.

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Below the fold

Team News: Jack Colback returned to training this week and may have some involvement at Watford on Saturday. Just as well really because Sam Field and Jonathan Varane are now both on four yellow cards, with the five booking amnesty not until after Norwich H in three games time. Kenneth Paal made his comeback from injury off the bench against Stoke at the weekend and will likely start here on the ground where he scored the winning goal last August. Michy Frey and Jake Clarke-Salter are slated for a mid-December return, perhaps at Bristol City. Karamoko Dembele is a long-term absentee.

Anwar El Ghazi and Calum Chambers, two of the less successful purchases among Cardiff’s eclectic summer intake, both missed the weekend draw at Sheff Wed. Last summer’s starry-eyed pursuit of another ageing, expensive player you’ve heard of continues to backfire with Aaron Ramsey once again out long term having not featured since the end of August. Ramsey has started just 11 times for the Bluebirds in a year and a half. Kion Etete has a fear of wide-open spaces so can’t play in midweek fixtures at this ground. Isaak Davies (Ebola) and Ryotaro Tsunoda (arm broken by a swan) are long term absentees.

Elsewhere: After that largely positive set of results from QPR’s point of view last night, the only fixture that really holds any interest for us this evening is Portsmouth’s home game with Millwall. Pompey are currently one place and point above Cifuentes’ team, with a game in hand after their weekend trip to Blackburn was waterlogged off.

The other games see Leeds try to reclaim top spot from Sheff Utd when they face Luton at home. Middlesbrough are running red hot after scoring four, five and six in their last three games, so watch out Blackburn heading to the Riverside. And Derby v Swanselona rounds out the midweek.

Referee: Last time Steve Martin was in South Wales he neglected to notice that Peterborough had scored a goal against Newport in the FA Cup, instead awarding a corner. Feels like something that might happen to us, and we’ve got him for the first time since the 1-1 home draw with Huddersfield last January just to add to the feeling of existential dread. Details.

Form

Cardiff: Having spent the summer wrestling with manager Erol Bulut’s contract, Cardiff then made their worst start to a league season in club history with a draw at bitter rivals Swansea the only respite from six league defeats. A recovery under caretaker Omer Riza has been built at home. An unbeaten run of six games included four straight wins on this ground in which they conceded only one goal against Millwall (1-0), Plymouth (5-0), Portsmouth (2-0) and Norwich (2-1). However, things have gone on the slide a bit since with no wins in three – a 1-0 loss at Luton, 3-1 defeat here to Blackburn and 1-1 draw at Sheff Wed.

Callum Robinson is the leading scorer here with five goals in nine starts and four sub appearances. Chris Willock scored 20 goals in 104 starts and 40 sub appearances between 2020 and 2024 for QPR before switching to Cardiff on a free transfer this summer. QPR never lost any of the 20 games Willock scored in, a record bettered only by Wayne Fereday. He has so far maintained that record for Cardiff, bagging in their 5-0 home victory against Plymouth, but that’s his only goal so far in a sluggish start of nine starts and six sub appearances. I think we’ve all seen this film before.

It doesn’t feel like QPR are able to beat anybody at the moment but Cardiff might not be a bad place for them to go and try to break their losing streak. Gareth Ainsworth followed the 4-0 opening day debacle with Watford up with a surprise 2-1 win here last August – Sinclair Armstrong scored his first for the club then set up a second for Kenneth Paal. That made it four unbeaten on this ground for Rangers, with three of those wins – the other two both 1-0 with goals from Andre Gray in 21/22 and Chris Willock in 20/21. The last time the R’s lost in this part of South Wales was 3-0 in 19/20 under Mark Warburton. Since Cardiff moved stadiums Rangers have won five, drawn three and lost only two of their ten visits. Even in the latter days at Ninian Park, once the fixture was rekindled after a ten year absence in 1999/00, QPR had a decent record of 3-2-2.

QPR: Saturday’s 1-1 with Stoke, in which QPR hit the post twice, represented something of an improvement, particularly on the recent debacle against Middlesbrough. But it isn’t a win, it wasn’t a QPR player scoring the goal, and it wasn’t more than a single goal in a game, which means it merely extends a number of dire runs Rangers are currently on.

It’s now 13 without a win for QPR (12 in the league) and one win from 16 Championship games – the longest winless run in all four divisions. This is the third time since Boxing Day 2022 that QPR have gone at least 12 games without a win – the previous three occasions were spread over 20 years between 2002 and 2022. At home it’s nine without a win in the league, and 11 overall – the first time in the club’s history they’ve started a campaign with such a long wait for a win at Loftus Road. Five points is their lowest ever tally at this stage at home. QPR have won eight of their last 52 games at Loftus Road, 13 of their last 59 to the start of the 22/23 season, and 15 out of 67 going back to January 2022. Only QPR and Morecambe remain in the EFL without a home league win. No team in the division has conceded more than Rangers’ 16 at home. Only one team has conceded the first goal more often than we have.

Goals continue to be in dreadfully short supply. Ben Gibson putting through his own net at the weekend means that Own Goal is now Rangers’ joint top scorer at home with two, along with Michy Frey. A QPR player hasn’t scored a goal for five matches now, with the goals against Boro and Stoke both coming off opponents. Marti Cifuentes’ side haven’t scored more than one goal in a game in 13 attempts. They’ve failed to score at all in five of those. They’ve only scored more than one goal in a game twice all season – both in August at Sheff Utd and Luton. They haven’t scored more than two in a game since the home win against Leeds in April. They haven’t scored at all in their last four away games. The last time they’d done four away games without scoring was 14 years ago, in February 2010. Only Michael Frey (three) and Nicolas Madsen (two) have scored more than one goal. Swansea’s three goal haul in defeat at the weekend means Rangers are now out on their own as the division’s lowest scorers. No team has led matches for as little time as QPR this season.

Prediction: In our Prediction League for 2024/25 we’ll once again be handing out prizes for being top at Christmas and overall winner from The Art of Football - sample the merch from our sponsor’s newly extended QPR collection here. For the first time last year we had joint winners so this season you’ll be hearing from one or both WestonsuperR and SimplyNico in the match previews.

Nico’s Prediction: “QPR move down to Cardiff for what is becoming quite a haul back to safety, without a functioning first choice centre forward and one of our biggest source of goals, OG, not being guaranteed to contribute regularly. That said, the Stoke game showed that the players are clearly still onboard for Marti. Cardiff are not setting the Championship on fire and although it will be a tough match to watch, I think that the search for a win might stop here.”

Weston’s Call “Soke was at least a reasonable performance, which should give us some hope, but I’ve failed to see where the goals are coming from all season and the stat of no QPR player now scoring for five matches (two OG’s) only highlights this. We’re clearly absolutely desperate for a win and I’ve seen a few comments of ‘must win’ matches recently which always makes wonder what happens when we don’t, if it is indeed ‘must win’? I’m expecting a tight match with few chances, probably a Willock late winner because that is how the season is going.”

Nico’s Prediction: Cardiff 0-1 QPR. Scorer – Paul Smyth

WestonSuperR’s Prediction: Cardiff 1-0 QPR. No scorer.

LFW’s Prediction: Cardiff 1-0 QPR. No scorer.

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Pictures - Reuters Connect

062259 added 13:10 - Nov 27 Anxious
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TacticalR added 15:40 - Nov 27 Thanks for your preview. Don't mention the stats. Oddly, we are not actually at the bottom of the form table (Oxford and Hull are below us) as despite everything we have managed to grind four draws out of the last six games. Will OG strike again? At least he knows where the goal is.
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TheCommonHours added 18:54 - Nov 27 "Ryotaro Tsunoda (arm broken by a swan)..." Absolutely top drawer,
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HarveyDixon added 02:34 - Dec 9 Excellent away-end assistance from beginning to end. Although it's hard to believe we missed one of our opportunities, that performance was the best I've seen in a while. https://food-le.com
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