A week in which QPR’s latest set of (just about) FFP compliant accounts transformed us all from football fans into financial journalists ends, rather aptly, with the visit of a parachute payment team trying to bounce back to the Premier League with a collection of strikers we can now only dream of.

QPR (11-11-12 LLWLWL 14th) v Sheff Utd (22-6-6 LWWWWL 2nd)

Sky’s Super Saturday Brunch Spectacular >>> Saturday March 1, 2025 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather – It’s gonna be a bright, bright, bright sunshiny day >>> Loftus Road, London, W12

As we enter the final quarter of the 2024/25 season our final league position predictions from the summer preview are, by and large, looking pretty good (not you, Luton).

One of the teams we did get wrong, however, are this Saturday’s opponent Sheffield United, who still look well set to claim the second automatic promotion place ahead of shot-shy Burnley despite Monday’s setback at home to inevitable champions Red Bull Leeds. A meeting between the Blades and the Clarets at Turf Moor on Easter Monday looks potentially season defining for both, but at the moment the Blades score goals and win games (22 victories the same as Leeds, ten of those away from home the most in the league) to a greater degree than Scott Parker’s draw specialists.

We actually spent a good deal of June and July looking for teams to push ahead of the Blades in our predicted table. They had been truly horrific in the Premier League. They won only three times, two of their 19 home games, and amassed a paltry 16 points – a full 16 again away from safety. They conceded 104 goals and finished with a -16 goal difference. Jack Robinson scored two of those himself, into the wrong net. They took one point from their first ten games, lost 8-0 at home to Newcastle, 6-0 to Arsenal, 5-0 to Arsenal, Burnley, Brighton and Villa, 5-1 to Newcastle, 4-1 to Burnley. THEN THE LARGE WOMEN AGAIN.

Quite what blame you could pin on Paul Heckingbottom for any of that after selling his two best players on the eve of the season I really don’t know, but he was sacked anyway. And then, like that bit halfway through season 124 of Cunt Factor where a troubled Simon Cowell walks out of an audition and makes the executive decision to Bring Back Louis Walsh, they reappointed Chris Wilder, who they’d previously sacked the last time they were getting relegated out of the Premier League. What a couple of tempestuous and totally unsuccessful stints at Middlesbrough and Watford did to justify that decision, who can tell, but it went all “oooh I’m dead northern me, I say what I think” for the remaining months of the season in which they triumphantly amassed three draws and 11 defeats from their remaining 14 games.

Much of the summer transfer window had been spent offloading anything that was sellable and breaking up the spine of the team that had brought Wilder such success in his first stint at the club. A long-awaited takeover remained long-awaited. And so, not without good reason, we were pretty determined to place them outside the top six amidst a massive rebuild.

Of course, that reckoned without the myriad advantages parachute payment teams enjoy in this league (not you, Luton) and no sooner had we hit send on the copy than United went out and added Jesurun Rak-Sakyi, Harry Souttar, Alfie Gilchrist, Michael Cooper, Kieffer Moore, Callum O’Hare, Harrison Burrows and so on and so forth. QPR being able to fight back from two down to draw 2-2 at Bramall Lane despite Jack Colback’s braindead red card hinted the hangover in the Steel City may be real after all, but they won the next nine matches on that ground through to Christmas. Until Josh Brownhill scored for Burnley there just before half time in the Boxing Day game that Lyndon Dykes goal, his last in QPR colours, was the last time any opposition player had scored in S2 at all.

Chris Wilder’s a manager I like a lot having followed his early non-league exploits through my local newspaper work. He’s done really well to gel a new squad of players and turn around a losing culture. But his claims a 3-0 January defeat at home to lowly Hull had been coming because his squad was down to the proverbial “bare bones” really was laughable considering they brought Tyrese Campbell, Rhian Brewster, Vini Souza and Rak-Sakyi off the bench in that match. They added £10m Tom Cannon to their attack in January, Rob Holding to their defence after a failed attempt to prise Jimmy Dunne away from our good selves, Ben Brereton-Diaz from Southampton, Hamza Choudhury from Leicester and so on and on and on.

I’m certainly not sitting here demanding any sympathy for Queens Park Rangers. We’re all only too well aware that we had our period of financially doping ourselves to success. Our 2013/14 promotion was sealed in a Wembley play-off final where a £14m wage bill played an £80m+ one – at that time the highest ever in this league. When Charlie Austin injured his shoulder that January, Barry Redchapp pulled the “bare bones” two goalkeepers on the bench bullshit as well, and the board replaced Austin (who was out for a month) with Kevin Doyle, Will Keane, Mobido Maiga, Ravel Morrison and Yossi Benayoun. It was sick, and QPR were levied with a world record sporting fine for their flagrant FFP breach. Twice they’ve been promoted to the Premier League in its richest era, twice they’ve been in receipt of parachute payments, every time they’ve blown it. That’s entirely on us.

I’m merely pointing out that now as one of the ‘have nots’ in an increasingly divided league it is very difficult to keep up with the haves. Burnley (nine conceded all season) and Sheff Utd (nine consecutive home clean sheets kept by excellent keeper Michael Cooper) barely even concede goals. But the gap is most keenly felt in the quality and quantity of the attackers. QPR have tried to negotiate this season with Michi Frey and Zan Celar as senior strikers covered by Rayan Kolli and Alfie Lloyd who are raw kids. This has been further hampered by Frey and Celar frequently being injured/a bit shite. Sheff Utd have Kieffer Moore, Tyrese Campbell, Tom Cannon, Ben Brereton Diaz and Rhian Brewster before they have to get to the likes of Ryan One from what has, in recent years, been a productive academy. Brewster’s had his difficulties, but cost £20m, and the other four would all be comfortably the best striker QPR have had since Austin first time around.

The latest set of accounts released by Rangers this week – brilliantly analysed as always in writing by Simon Dorset and on our latest Patreon Podcast by Niall Rogers - again highlight what Rangers are up against these days.

The club lost in excess of £25m in 2021/22 pushing for promotion under Mark Warburton, but that money was only enough to sign the likes of aging Stefan Johansen and Charlie Austin, and a couple of luxury Andre Gray types. Sheff Utd spent more transfer fee on Cannon alone this January. Rangers then exacerbated this problem by firing Warburton for finishing 11th and appointing Mick Beale instead, not only acquiescing to lots of his Tyler Roberts, Ethan Laird, Taylor Richards-type arsehole signings but also his demand (his words) that Chris Willock, Ilias Chair and/or Seny Dieng would not be sold that summer when they were all at the peak of their value and one of them desperately needed to be. As we’ll come onto QPR have to become much more adept at selling players at the peak of their value – presently only Luke Freeman, Alex Smithies and Ebere Eze tick this box over the last ten years.

It placed us behind a financial eight-ball from which Beale himself admitted the club needed to find £10m to avoid another FFP breach. The accounts out this week show we did that by, the Swiss Ramble estimates, somewhere in the region of £1m. Hacking the loss down from £25m to £13.5m in double quick time without getting relegated is relatively impressive, but QPR were incredibly lucky not to pay for a problem of their own making with a trip into League One having at one stage won six of 48 games. They were fortunate that occurred over a calendar year rather than a footballing one.

It’s choose your fighter for what got us under the line and prevented a breach. A 76% improvement in commercial and sponsorship (i.e. we suddenly clocked onto the Stoke City thing of plastering the owners’ companies all over every piece of real estate, stand and hand dryer we own) contributed significantly. The cut price sales of Dieng and Rob Dickie hauled in £2mish. Given £1m works out at about £20k a week the persuasiveness to get the likes of Jack Colback, Steve Cook, Michi Frey and Lucas Andersen here on relatively low money in year one on the promise of more in year two was also vital. Without any one of those we’d have busted. Well managed? Tight? Fortunate? Depends how forgiving you are I guess.

Whichever side you land, I think we’d all like to avoid a repeat of the last two years. With that in mind there was an interesting figure right at the very end of the accounts.

This summer the 21/22 overspend rolled out of the three-year rolling calculation, an improved Sky deal (money if not kick off times wise) came in, and the £39m permitted loss limit is being increased by a couple of mil for inflation. Gareth Ainsworth’s attempts to condition us to believe we were the lowest payers in the Championship last year, without two thruppenny bits to rub together, does rather pale by our latest wage bill of £23.8m coming in about eighth lowest in the league and higher than the likes of Coventry and Sheff Wed, were clearly expectation management on his part. Still, we were always going to have more FFP headroom this summer, and with Marti Cifuentes in charge that drove a lot of the optimism about the 24/25 campaign.

In post balance sheet events, i.e. I Know What You Did Last Summer, the club lists a net spend of £4.3m with a further net spend of £1.66m potentially owed on top of that. If we’re to conservatively assume we fetched in around £3m for Sinclair Armstrong and Lyndon Dykes, that’s a total outlay of about £9m on players this summer which the accounts list as Daniel Bennie and Rocco Friel, yes, but mainly Nicolas Madsen, Zan Celar, Jonathan Varane and Liam Morrison.

Now, I guess if I’d spent that on Nicolas Madsen I’d be keen to offer some context as well and that clarification from the club is as follows… The £4.3m is a worst-case scenario based on every one of those players hitting every one of their personal targets for goals, international caps, appearances and so on. Not a lot of chance of that in the case of Madsen and Celar as it stands (don’t be mean Clive). The £1.66m is the same worst-case scenario based on the team hitting all of the targets for play-off qualification, promotion to Premier League etc which could trigger other clauses in those deals. Meanwhile the Sinclair and Lyndon calculation is based on neither of them hitting any of their targets which would trigger further payment from Bristol City and Birmingham. Do it as a worst case on both sides, i.e. nobody we’ve bought or sold on either side hits any targets triggering any further payments at all, and it’s a net spend closer to £2.7m. These fees are also amortised over the length of the contracts – which of course we’re not allowed to know any more, so can’t be blamed for panicking a little bit about a figure as chunky as £9m.

Nevertheless, Madsen continues to represent a big problem for us. On the pitch, as shown at Portsmouth, we desperately need that physical, progressive, ball-playing, Sande Berge-type midfielder we presumably thought we’d found when we pushed the boat out to get him. Off the pitch we invested significant money in him hoping he would fetch a Berge-like £20m when he was sold. The other thing these accounts really do highlight is that without reasonably frequent big player sales it’s going to be very difficult to get anywhere in the Championship in its present state. Even Blackpool (£3m, Josh Bowler presumably) cleared more sales than we did in this latest set. Bristol City brought in £20m+ (Alex Scott). An Eze move this summer and sell-on owed to us would certainly make an enormous difference but having so far parred the course of having half the summer intake become steady Championship players for us, we desperately need one of them (or a Kolli-type) to become a big sale.

Until then there are going to be games like tomorrow where it does feel a bit like taking a toothpick to a gun fight. Sheff Utd bring the division’s best away record to Loftus Road – they’ve won ten times, taken 34 points from 17 games, and have lost only one of their last 11. Not impossible, of course, it’s only the Championship. Sold out Loftus Road, few weaknesses and injuries in their defence, get amongst them, wind Jack Robinson up a bit, you never know. But a tough game at the start of a horrible month all the same. West Brom and a midweek trip to Middlesbrough inside four days lie ahead before we’re back for the boss-level one of these matches here in a fortnight against Leeds. QPR have won only one of seven games against the current top six so far (Blackburn H).

Another interesting/terrifying test of how far we’ve progressed, and how far we’ve still got to go.

Links >>> And breathe – Accounts >>> Accounts 23/24 – Patreon Podcast >>> Blades still in driving seat – Oppo Profile >>> Warnock’s QPR at their best – History >>> Kirk in charge – Referee >>> Sheffield United official website >>> Bramall Lane ground guide >>> Blades Ramble — Contributor’s YouTube channel >>> The Sheff Utd Way – Contributor’s Website/Channel >>> S2 4SU — Message Board >>> Sheffield Star — Local Press

Below the fold

Team News: Karamoko Dembele came off the bench in last weekend’s defeat at Fratton Park for his first appearance since the 1-1 draw at home to Coventry on October 22. Koki Saito was withdrawn from the game on Saturday with a bang to the face. Lucas Andersen should follow Dembele back into action imminently but Jake Clarke-Salter and Zan Celar remain long term absentees. Rayan Kolli is still a couple of weeks away.

Sheff Utd had player of the season elect Gus Hamer, new £10m striker Tom Cannon, and veteran target man Kieffer Moore to bring off the bench against Leeds on Monday after respective injury problems. All three could start here. Problems are brewing again at right back where former QPR youth teamer Alfie Gilchrist is injured, January arrival Harry Clarke got a knock on Monday, and midfielder Hamza Choudhury, on loan from Leicester, had to deputise for a while against Leeds. Harry Souttar and Ollie Arblaster are long term absentees.

Elsewhere: Two defeats in a row have dropped Sunderland eight points shy of the automatic promotion places and, it would seem, almost certain to be playing play-off football come May. They do have a great chance to close that gap this weekend not only by going first on the Friday night but also playing against a Sheff Wed side which Danny Rohl has been strongly hinted all week has been decimated by injuries.

Red Bull Leeds now have a seven-point gap back to Burnley in third and look all set to pull away into the distance after their Monday win at Sheffield Red Stripe. They are among the Saturday lunchtime games at home to West Brom. Elsewhere in those early kick offs former Barnsley boss Valerian Ismael gets to work as the new manager of Blackburn at home to Norwich, while play-off hopefuls Frank Lampard’s Coventry head to Oxford.

Just the three other games in the afternoon slot apart from our own owing to commitments in the fifth round of the FA Cup (hasn’t been a fifth round at Loftus Road since McGuigan fought Pedroza etc etc).

All three games have significance at the bottom of the league.

The assumption that Luton will get their act together at some point faces a critical test with a home game against Portsmouth – one of the sides they’re going to need to rope into trouble if the Hatters are to escape the mess they’ve made of their season. Matt Bloomfield’s side could become only the fourth in the Premier League era to suffer back-to-back relegations - Swindon (1994-1995), Wolves (2012-2013) & Sunderland (2017-2018).

Derby, whose new manager bounce has so far stretched to two defeats in which they’ve conceded five times and are yet to score, have a tough afternoon on the road at Middlesbrough.

And then there’s Stoke, against whom Boro snapped their own losing run during the week. Mark Robins was furious with his team after that and, having watched that game, I can understand why. They were abject. If you get relegated this year and Stoke don’t then that’s very much on you at this point. Very interesting to see what they do at home to Watford tomorrow.

Games rearranged for the forthcoming midweek include Cardiff 0-0 Burnley, a big six pointer between Hull and Plymouth, Millwall hosting Bristol City and Preston Knob End v managerless Swanselona.

Referee: New Championship referee Thomas Kirk gets his second QPR appointment here. His last was the 3-1 home defeat to Hull and, in fact, three of his four Championship appointments so far have been in Hull games. It means that after tomorrow he’ll have refereed at this level five times and only one of those won’t have featured at least one of QPR or Hull. Details.

Form

QPR: After a superb run of one loss in 13 games across the winter, the defeats are starting to collect up again rather for QPR as we move into spring. The R’s have lost four of their last six league games – as many as they’d lost in their previous 19. Much of the damage is being done away from home where it’s now three consecutive defeats. In W12 they’ve won their last two and seven of the last eight games with a 2-0 loss to Sheff Wed the anomaly. Cifuentes’ side has scored 2+ goals in all those seven wins and it’s the joint most home wins in Championship since December along with Portsmouth and Leeds.

Clean sheets are also in shorter supply than they were. The 4-0 victory against Derby is the only shutout in seven games and they’ve only kept the opposition at bay twice in the last 15 having kept four in a row immediately before that. Ilias Chair scored twice last time out here against Derby after 21 games without a goal, the longest run of his career. He has two goals and four assists in his last six appearances on this ground. The loss at Portsmouth was the first time Pompey have done the double against Rangers since 1961/62. It made two draws, four defeats and no wins in six outings for the baby vomit away kit – with the 2-2 at Sheff Utd in August easily the best of those results.

QPR came from two goals down to draw the first meeting between the sides this season 2-2 at Bramall Lane in the second week of August. Neither of these two sides have drawn a game in 2025 though – both on a run of ten since their last tie. Lyndon Dykes’ last minute equaliser for ten-man Rangers was his last goal for the club before moving to Birmingham. It was also the last goal Sheff Utd conceded at Bramall Lane for ten games – they won nine in a row there without conceding after we’d left until Burnley triumphed 2-0 on Boxing Day. That was also the first time QPR had scored more than one in a game against the Blades since a pair of 3-0 wins in the 2010/11 promotion season. These sides have met nine times since this was rekindled as a league fixture in 2017/18 and Rangers have won twice – 1-0 at Bramall Lane in October 2022 when Chris Willock scored, and the same score at Loftus Road in October 2017 with Idrissa Sylla’s sizzling long ranger. Rangers scored one goal or fewer across the first eight of those games. QPR have won only one of the last five meetings at Loftus Road. If Sheff Utd win on Saturday it’ll be the first time ever they’ve gone four unbeaten on this ground.

Sheff Utd: After conceding three late goals to Red Bull Leeds on Monday night and slipping five points behind their Yorkshire (Yorkshire, Yorkshire) rivals in the title race, it’s increasingly looking like a battle for the second automatic spot between Sheff Utd and Burnley. That despite the Blades winning 22 games, the joint most in the league with Daniel Farke’s side and foru more than Scott Parker’s shot-shy snooze-a-thon. The Blades have scored 48 times, five more than Burnley, but 23 less than Leeds’ frankly ridiculous total of 71. At the back they’ve conceded 26 which is five more than Leeds and a lot worse than Burnley’s startling total of just nine.

That Monday night loss halted a run of four consecutive wins, although with trips to Derby and Luton and home games against Pompey and out-of-form Middlesbrough among them you’d have expected Chris Wilder’s side to win those games. They’ve also won four consecutive away games prior to this one, at Luton, Derby, Swansea and Watford, since losing 2-1 at Sunderland on New Year’s Day. That loss at the Stadium of Light is the Blades’ only away loss in 11 road trips since being beaten at Middlesbrough and Leeds back-to-back in October. Overall they are 10-4-3 on the road this season, the division’s best away record – nobody else has won ten on their travels and nobody else has as many as their 34 points from 17 games.

Gustavo Hamer is the top league scorer here with seven, including one in the first meeting at Bramall Lane, ahead of Tyrese Campbell with six and Harrison Burrows with Five. Hamer now also has more yellow cards (11) than any other player in the division after his booking against Leeds on Monday night.

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 – Weston talks about the difficulty in predicting QPR at the moment but has quietly moved into second place in this year’s table.

Nico’s Prediction: “After a defeat last time out to Portsmouth, we entertain Sheffield United tomorrow. You only have to look at the strength in depth of their squad to see the difference that parachute money makes. They have an embarrassment of attacking options. We have Michi Frey with Alfie Lloyd at 70 minutes. Sadly, I think that another step will be taken in our descent to our spiritual home of 16th. A relatively straightforward away win.”

Weston’s Call “The Portsmouth match highlighted the difficulties in predicting QPR matches this season another surprisingly poor performance following thoroughly decent one v Derby. Sheff Utd should in theory be a much sterner test, second in the league and quality throughout the squad, much of it funded by parachute payments. Our home form suggests we can get something from this match but I worry we will fall to a narrow defeat.”

Nico’s Prediction: QPR 0-3 Sheff Utd. No scorer.

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

LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-2 Sheff Utd. Scorer – Jimmy Dunne

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

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