Rarely before has an international break been so welcome, and QPR now have eight matches left to resurrect their bid for the play-offs starting with the visit of league leading neighbours Fulham on Saturday.

QPR (17-8-13 WLLWLL 8th) v Fulham (23-8-6 WWWWDL 1st)

Mercantile Credit Trophy >>> Saturday April 2, 2022 >>> Kick Off 15.00 (!!) >>> Weather — Sunny, breezy, cold >>> Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium, Loftus Road, London, W12

There are traits among us football fans which I think we believe apply only to our club alone, when really they’re common across the entire world game.

The majority of football fans will always believe their team has, at least, been badly done to by the referees over the course of a season or, more likely, that it’s been done deliberately as part of some grand conspiracy. We convince ourselves Rob Styles, Trevor Kettle, Andy Hall, Keith Stroud and others hate QPR specifically, when in fact Rob Styles, Trevor Kettle, Andy Hall and Keith Stroud are just dreadful referees. Watch the Quest highlights on a Saturday and there they are fucking the other teams over just as much — Swansea hate Stroud almost as much as we do. There are occasional eyebrow-raising anomalies — Andy Hall’s card record with us was so lop-sided it was ridiculous, and Stroud’s record with his hometown club Bournemouth is one the PGMOL would be sensible to avoid furthering by continuing to let him referee their games — but overall this is all bollocks. For every wrongly disallowed Charlie Austin winner v Sunderland or Albert Adomah goal against Hull, there is also an offside Austin goal against West Brom or a disallowed Gary Madine goal at Blackpool. You can go on runs — the sequence of refereeing decisions we embarked upon in the second half of Steve McClaren’s season in charge here had to be seen to be believed at times — but there’s nothing to see here really, and every set of fans in the country thinks they’re a victim. Even Man Utd.

Every football fan in the country thinks their ground is somehow more special than all the others. Obviously if you’re Nottingham Forest getting to walk across the Trent to watch your football at The City Ground every other week, and then you go to Coventry and walk through a Tesco the size of the Exxon Valdez to get to the Ricoh Arena then you have a point. Take your opera glasses to West Ham in the hope of catching some of the action on the ‘near’ side of the pitch, then go to Hillsborough or Bramall Lane and wonder where this country went so wrong. But, generally, Loftus Road feels special to us because of the memories we associate with it, and Crystal Palace feel exactly the same about Selhurst, Newcastle about St James’, Grimsby about Blundell Park, Matlock about Causeway Lane and so on. Everybody thinks they have the best atmosphere, the best support, the loudest fans, the best away following, a more attractive wife... It’s dickswinging. Nothing more. And who’s to say the 150 going to every Burton or Accrington away game are any better or worse than the 3,000 who turn up from Leeds with their one song on a loop? Often it’s those “magnificent supports” that suddenly drop by 20,000 in the lean times and parts of the ground get closed, while the same people turn up at Rochdale come rain or shine (mostly rain).

It feels to us like there’s a set of events that is a very specific ‘typical bloody QPR’ thing. I’d be amazed if any club could put together an evidence folder quite as extreme as our Swindon Town thing (which has now been joined by our Peterborough United thing), our John Jensen thing, our Lloyd Doyley thing… We beat Chelsea, Brian Clough’s Forest, the storied Liverpool team of the 1980s, to reach a cup final which we then lose to Oxford United. There’s now a very strong chance that 2021/22 will be remembered as the season we would have made the play-offs had we at some point managed to secure a victory or two from four matches with Peterborough and Barnsley, who the rest of the division thrashed out of sight. But then you sit down with an Arsenal fan, or read Fever Pitch, and they’ll tell you about losing a cup final to Swindon, getting knocked out of cups at Wrexham and Walsall, signing John Jensen as a goalscoring midfielder, waiting a hundred games for him to get one, and then losing the game 3-1 anyway — and that’s one of the biggest clubs in the world.

QPR do seem to have perfected the art of the meltdown better than others. They have an uncanny, and we would think unrivalled, ability to just layer shit on top of shit on top of shit. They get into a spiral where, literally, every day it’s something new. Can you imagine being Paul Morrissey? It must be like being head of public relations for BP (sans-salary). The WhatsApp alert chime must frighten the poor bastard to death, sending him scurrying into the corner to rock back and forth. “What have they done now? Just give me the gist of it.” No wonder he’s gone grey. Ian Taylor had a full head of hair when he started in that job, and left to oversee media for testosterone-enthusiasts Team Sky by way of a relaxing change of pace.

Start the clock at half time at Nottingham Forest. At that point QPR have beaten play-off rivals Luton 2-1 to move back up to fourth in the Championship, are 1-0 up at fellow promotion hopefuls Forest and it should really be 2-0. From that point they: lose the game 3-1; finish with ten men and an outfield player in goal because for the fourth time this season the goalkeeper is injured; lose their Player of the Year-elect to a hamstring injury; lose a gimme against the division’s whipping boys for the third time this season having also led 1-0; confirm publicly that both Chris Willock and David Marshall are done for the season having earlier all but admitted the same about Seny Dieng; botch what should have been fantastic news about the re-introduction of standing to Loftus Road by placing it on what you’d logically think is the wrong side of the Lower Loft, moving a whole load of people out of one of the more populated blocks of the Upper Loft, and turning the Blue And White Bar and it’s notoriously brilliant service into a £40-a-season private members club; have their big-name, big-money striker set sail on social media calling out negativity from fans after six goals in 32 appearances this season. And that’s in a week. It gets to the point where you wonder what on earth’s coming next. Jimmy Dunne: Lost At Sea.

But, again, I’m not sure we’re that unique. Bloody Staines Town whacked out an official statement with some chest hair this week, accusing their owners and landlords of violating the Modern Day Slavery Act of 2015 along with "environmental crimes, price fixing, deforestation, forced evictions, human rights abuses, child labour, slavery, gender discrimination and murder.” It’s quite the episode of Taggart, and with my sub-editor’s hat on I can’t help but think ‘murder’ should be a little higher up there.

What matters now, with eight mostly-difficult games left, two points off the play-offs with a game in hand on the similarly out-of-form team currently sixth, is not what’s gone before but what we do next. Another common trait we share with others is the aggressive, pessimistic, transfer-obsessed online fans savaging their own club — mostly angry teenage boys hiding behind @ManLikeFabinho accounts thinking of the most ridiculous thing they can Tweet for attention, but not all. FourFourTwo’s annual list of the best players in the EFL released this week features Chris Willock at seven, Rob Dickie at ten and Ilias Chair at 11 which, even allowing for the timing of the vote, does show what the rest of the league thinks about us while we’re all falling out with each other. I’m more guilty than most but I did say at the start of the season the problem with raised expectations of a possible play-off push, is then a play-off push becomes the bare minimum requirement and falling short of it is seen as some sort of monumental disaster when actually this season has been better than last, which was better than the one before, which was better than the one before. We are progressing and moving in the right direction and we’re doing it on a lower budget than many (not all, Luton) of the teams up there with us.

As he so often does Dave McIntyre has said it far better than I ever could about how I’d like to see these final game approached — I’d swap a couple of his names around, but agree with the general premise. Common trait no.438 in this article is every club’s players get better for not playing — Ryan Manning made a career out of this at QPR, getting incrementally better for every week he wasn’t picked, and having spent the first half of the season being deemed largely not good enough for the centre of our midfield Dom Ball’s name is now starting to crop up, as Luke Amos and George Thomas did before him. I do think it’s true, though, that by fiddling with the team, particularly the back three, constantly trying to find minutes for the two loaned players while others come in, play well, and then aren’t seen again, we’ve entangled ourselves. Ball and Thomas both came on and contributed to a rare recent win against Blackpool and have been rewarded with one 32-minute outing between them since while Sanderson, who put us in the shit in that game, waltzed straight back into the team after his ban, at the expense of Yoann Barbet of all people, and has cost us goals in the last two games. The shifting of the Peterborough game to Sunday lunchtime, forgoing one of our pitifully rare Saturday 15.00 kick offs, and then losing it anyway smacks of being a bit too clever for our own good. Warbs’ pre-match Warbleton this week focused very much on us being the same (very good) team that has played so well for so long through 2021 to get us into this position in the first place. In recent weeks he and we seem to have forgotten ourselves a bit, and gone away from what did get us here. I think a lot of us would like to see this international break used to restore the team’s factory settings.

Austin was basically correct in what he said. We’re still well in contention, and behaving like we’re not, when in previous years we’ve been miles off but pretending there was still a chance. His contribution this season has not been anywhere near where it should be and the criticism of him generally and the team recently is not without merit. I don’t think anybody can be blamed for having the hump with that utter shambles against Peterborough, but we also collectively sat in complete silence through a tightly-contested and fiercely entertaining second half with promotion rivals Middlesbrough recently, in which the team dug in well for a point with next to no-backing from the stands whatsoever. We then showed what a difference we can make, how loud we can be, backing the boys to bring home the bacon with ten men against Blackpool. Tomorrow’s going to be difficult, no doubt, but we’re a couple of results and places away from what we universally thought in August would be a great season. It’s a rare Saturday 15.00 kick off, and it’s a complete sell out. That could either be an advantage or a disadvantage and that bit, at least, is up to us.

Links >>> Yo, and indeed, yo — Interview >>> 1983 promotion — History >>> Ward returns — Referee >>> View from the Pu — March >>> Paul Hall — Patreon >>> Barnsley/Blackburn - Awaydays >>> Luton/Nottingham - Awaydays >>> Fulham official website >>> West London Sport Fulham — Local Press >>> Fulham Focus - Fan Blog >>> Friends of Fulham — Message Board >>> Fulham Web — Blog and Forum >>> Fulhamish — Podcast

It’s the annual Tiger Feet walk this weekend to raise money for the club’s incredible Tiger Cubs football team for children with Down’s Syndrome. Andy Sinton and a clutch of the club’s junior players will be joining supporters in walking from Craven Cottage to Loftus Road pre-match and you can chip in by donating at the Go Fund Me page.

Below the fold

Team News: Seny Dieng, David Marshall, Joe Walsh and Jordan Archer are all injured and basically collectively done for the season, and with Lee Camp signing a short term deal at Wrexham this week QPR’s ultimate AZ-5 button has been removed too so it’s Kieren Westwood or nothing from here. Chris Willock had surgery on a torn hamstring tendon last week and is also out for the remaining games, though almost certain to still claim the club’s Player of the Year awards in May. There was much mumbling and grumbling about Lyndon Dykes’ recovering from a five-week absence just in time to head straight off on international duty with Scotland, but potentially all’s well that end’s well on that one as 25-minutes of international football during the week is probably a better feeler for him than an U23 or B Team game would have been so he is, in theory, available for some action tomorrow. If he’s not permission granted to start flipping cars and looting shops. Yoann Barbet made 97 consecutive league starts prior to being left out of Forest and Peterborough, but surely returns here given the manner of the six goals conceded across those two games. Jimmy Dunne finally got an overdue Ireland call up as an injury replacement last week, but then didn’t make the matchday squad for their game.

Fulham are at full strength. Bastards.

Elsewhere: Despite players on international duty sometimes not making it back to their clubs until late Thursday or early Friday (a particular problem for QPR with three Africa-based internationals in our squad), Sky continue to insist that a Championship game (rather than, say, one of the League One or Two games they have the almost completely unused rights to) should be played on the first Friday back. It’s Hull City and Sporting Huddersfield shouldering that burden tonight.

Ten games tomorrow including our own and given that the Hull match is then followed by Blackpool v Florist in the lunchtime slot it is rather the happy miracle that our West London derby didn’t get shifted as it usually is. If you maintain faith in our play-off push then there are four games to keep your eye on amongst the afternoon starts: Boro you would think unlikely to repeat our charitable giving at home to Peterborough; Sheffield Red Stripe a strong fancy with Stoke already on the Mykonos Highway; Blackburn looking highly vulnerable at Coventry having failed to score in nine of their last 11 games (stupid Marshall). Then there’s Lutown and Wawll rolling out the barrel for a lovely reminisce about the good old days when you could go to a game as an away fan and burn somebody’s ground down before the woke mob got involved and cancelled such jolly japes.

With Wayne Rooney’s Derby County (at home to Preston Knob End) just about done and dusted the game of the day is probably at the other end of the table where Barnsley and Reading, the two teams left to compete over the final relegation spot along with Posh, meet at Oakwell.

Entering ‘Bristol City’ into the voucher code box for a free three points this week is Bournemouth, and things wrap up on Sunday with Birmingham and West Brom at St Andrew’s — Steve Bruce confirming this week that £8m January investment Daryl Dike is done for the season after two appearances totalling 84 minutes. #SignAFuckingStriker

Referee: Gavin Ward in the middle for this one, last seen here sending Dion Sanderson off (justifiably) against Blackpool and not a man of whom we have particularly happy memories. Mind you, given one of Fulham’s six defeats this season was at Coventry and was sparked by a second half Matt Godden penalty awarded after a dive for which Godden later served a retrospective ban I should imagine this appointment added a bitter taste to the aged brie on the other side of the Hammersmith Broadway too. Details.

Form

QPR: Rangers have turned an unbeaten January of five wins and two draws, and a winter sequence of nine wins and three draws from 14 fixtures, into two wins and seven defeats from 11 games. Since demolishing Reading 4-0 in W12 they have won only one of five home games against Boro (7th), Hull (20th), Blackpool (13th), Cardiff (17th) and Peterborough (23rd). They have lost the last two here against Cardiff and Peterborough, conceding five in the process, and are without a clean sheet in 11 games. The 4-1 defeat at Craven Cottage in the first meeting extended their winless run against Fulham to seven since Idriss Sylla scored by the Thames in 2016. Fulham have won four and drawn one of five meetings here since Adel Taarabt’s double won a Premier League encounter 2-1 in 2012, almost a decade ago. Those are our only two wins in 18 meetings since the fixture was rekindled in 1999/00. Luke Amos’ goal against Peterborough was only the sixth scored by a QPR central midfielder this year (if we’re crediting the first at Reading to Dom Ball), and he has four of those himself — only Andre Gray has a better goals-per-minute ratio than Luke in the squad this term.

Fulham: Fulham (23-8-6) have been completely out of hand this season. They have scored 90 goals in 37 games including two separate 7-0, and two separate 6-2 victories. It’s a full 31 goals clear of the next top scorers in the division (Bournemouth, 59) and puts them 14 points clear of third in the automatic promotion places. They have scored four or more goals in a game on ten occasions. The remarkable week where they beat Reading 7-0 and Bristol City and Birmingham 6-2 was only eight shy of Barnsley’s goal total for the entire season. There is a goal difference of 102 between Fulham and second bottom Peterborough. The second tier record for goals in a season is held by the 1926/27 Middlesbrough side which scored 122 across 42 games and the overall EFL record is 134 by Fourth Division Peterborough in 1960/61. The last Championship team to breach 100 goals was Kevin Keegan’s 2001/02 Man City, though Steve Coppell’s Reading got 99 and 106 points in 2005/06 which is the record points total they’re looking to beat as well. Hat tip. Obviously much of that is credited to Aleksander Mitrovic who is on 35 league goals for the season, 12 clear of nearest challenger Dominic Solanke and closing in on Guy Whittingham’s second tier record of 42 in 46 games and 47 overall for Portsmouth in 1992/93. Even if you take those Mitrovic goals away only Bournemouth (59) and Luton (56) have scored more than their 55 — which is one more than our running total of 54. Harry Wilson (ten) and Neeskens Kebano (nine) both have more league goals than QPR’s top Championship scorers this season (Ilias Chair, Andre Gray and Lyndon Dykes all with eight). Marco Silva’s men had lost two and drawn one of four prior to drubbing QPR 4-1 in the first meeting at Craven Cottage — a result which sparked a sequence of seven straight wins and 11 games unbeaten. They arrive here having stumbled to one points from two away games at Barnsley and West Brom, but have won six and drawn one of the last nine. Nobody has won more (11) or lost fewer (three) than them away from home this season — the losses coming at Blackpool, Coventry and last time out at The Hawthorns.

Prediction: We’re indebted to The Art of Football for once again agreeing to sponsor our Prediction League and provide prizes. You can get involved by lodging your prediction here or sample the merch from our sponsor’s QPR collection here. Last year’s champion Mick_S was the only person in the world who called the Luton score right and this week says…

“Lovely to hear about Fulham’s pace and how Mitroviic is thriving on it. Scoring penalties as well. Great. I’m normally positive about Rangers, but not this time. If we nick a draw, I’d be delighted. If we win, it’s all round mine and you won’t even have to take your shoes off. Party time.”

Mick’s Prediction: QPR 1-3 Fulham. Scorer — Jimmy Dunne

LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 Fulham. Scorer — Les Ferdinand (well it’s about as likely as the prediction)

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Myke added 21:46 - Apr 1 Despite having a reduced squad through injury, I still have absolutely no clue what team Warburton will put out tomorrow and that is a bad thing imo. We are the the exact antithesis of a settled side. Honestly, apart from Westwood (through sheer lack of choice) and presumably Field, I have no clue who he will pick. Sanderson could be selected instead of any of the three CB's. It could be Adomah or Moses at rwb. It could be Wallace or McCallum (or Moses) at lwb. Alongside Field, It could be any one (or two) from Steph, Jeff, Amos, Dozzell in cm.It could be Chair or Amos behind a striker (if we play a striker) that striker could be Grey/Austin or the previously injured, but now okay Dykes. Or maybe he will play 2 up front. I just don't know and not sure he does either.

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PinnerPaul added 11:58 - Apr 2 Your best preview yet
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