It’s the titanic struggle between the teams currently 12th and 13th in the Championship as QPR host West Brom at a wet and windswept Loftus Road this Saturday.

QPR (7-4-7 LLDWWL 13th) v West Brom (7-4-7 DLWLDW 12th)

Sky’s Super Saturday Brunch Spectacular >>> Saturday December 6, 2025 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather – Wet and windy >>> Loftus Road, London, W12

A dystopian nightmare from which it is impossible to wake up. A thick two hours of your life you’ll never get back. Ludicrously conceived ideas playing out in real time, each more ridiculous than the last. A soundtrack to kill yourself too. A profoundly depressing experience that makes you fear for the future of the sport, the world and the humanity that remains within it. And a big idiot bumbling around at the front.

That’s enough about our trip to Norwich for now though, a result even less surprising than Donald Trump being presented with the First Annual FIFA Ceremonial Rimjob for achieving a global peace you may have missed while you were too pre-occupied looking for QPR’s midfield.

Having mentioned The Dear Leader I’m probably tempting fate by bringing up Brexit as well, but following QPR at the moment (particularly online) can feel like you’re trapped in that 52:48 division that seems to surround every debatable point on every issue every day of our lives. In or out, for or against, black or white. No nuance. Trying to have a civil discussion, about anything really, is increasingly difficult.

In our little universe it tends to divide around a love or hate for Christian Nourry and everything that happens is framed in that context. If you’re in the former category then a 3-1 away defeat to a team with one point from eight games at home is a trifling matter to be largely laughed off as “typical QPR”, pin it on the manager if you must but generally focus on the fact that we took six points from a three-game week while being royally screwed by the fixture list. If you’re in the latter then it’s an existential crisis that speaks not only to the mentality and attitude of the team but our identity as a club, forever condemning us to 16th in the Championship and Easter Monday at Preston Knob End.

I know some people will laugh at this, but I think we’ve done a good job of achieving balance on LFW this season. We could have focused on Julian Stéphan's lack of Championship experience, lack of English football experience and acrimonious departures from French clubs when we signed him. Instead we focused on the positives of attracting a former cup winning manager with Champions League pedigree here, and put three French journalists who spoke highly of him on our podcast. We could have focused on Amadou Mbengue’s obvious card fettish when we signed him, a lack of Championship experience in almost all of the summer intake, Richard Kone’s dry spell at Wycombe immediately preceding his arrival. Instead we praised the focus on pace, and power, and EFL durability, showing valuable lessons from last summer. We did podcasts from Perpignan, and praised the club for listening over the behind-closed-doors fiasco of the previous summer where you ended up with ‘The Girona Eight’ prowling a rural Spanish golf course in high heat looking for a football match.

We’ve kicked the club twice. Once when they played a team of children and threw a League Cup tie at a piss poor League One outfit only for the “rested” first teamers to then lose 7-1 at Coventry City, and last week over Paul Furlong. I hate to break it to you, but you’re not going to get a positive LFW write up having lost 7-1 and/or fired Paul Furlong. I think the longevity of this site is testament to us not always getting it right, but always trying our best to be fair. Praise when it’s due, but criticism too because we do still hold aspirations for QPR and we do want the club to be better on and off the pitch.

Grey area, middle ground, does exist, and Norwich last week was a really good example of that.

The team selection was wrong (and there’s no hindsight involved there, we said it was wrong in the pub an hour before the game) and the performance was abject. Some pretty senior pros and big voices in this team had dreadful games. Prospects we’re hoping to fatten for market were largely dreadful – I certainly wouldn’t be clipping much of that for Jonathan Varane’s YouTube reel. Only, really, Rumarn Burrell, Paul Smyth and to a certain, limited, extent Ilias Chair could get back on that bus in any way satisfied with what they’d chucked out there.

Throw in our constant propensity to lose to not only teams in Norwich’s position, but also in that third-game of a three-game week and I think questions and criticisms of our mentality, and mental fortitude, are entirely legitimate. We know no other team in the Championship over the last ten years drops off as much as us when game-three of a three-game week is away from home. I can’t measure it, but I’d be amazed if any club talks about three-game weeks as much as we do. When you’ve got Liam Morrison, Harvey Vale, Rayan Kolli, Isaac Hayden at various points not even making the bench this season while fit there should be sufficient strength in depth to cope with the idea of three football games for your professional football team in a week. Stéphan's post match “good week, six points” statements were manifested in the performance. It looked like everybody thought we’d done our job for that week and anything from Norwich was a bonus, Harry Redknapp-style. You don’t win promotions and push into play-off pictures tossing off games against the second bottom side in the league because you’ve already won twice this week and it’s a bit of a long trek on the motorway.

However… Stéphan is right that six points from three games is a good return. If we can achieve that consistently over a season two points a game is easily play-off form. Stéphan, like his predecessor, has also talked eloquently about not getting too high with the highs and low with the lows – had we lost at Blackburn in front of 400 sad cases and then won at Norwich in front of 1,600 the mood music would have a very different tune right now. We’d be in the same league position, with the same points, but the optimism and attitude ahead of this weekend would be very different.

The Frenchman is absolutely right about the logistical challenges last week posed. Why QPR are getting hammered this year with six double aways, why we’re suddenly playing Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays, I’m not sure, but it puts us at a significant disadvantage. We put our Awaydays podcast on the Patreon this week and a lot of the comments have been along the lines of “you all sound very sanguine given the result”. The truth is we were absolutely knackered. Two days off work, slog up to Blackburn, all the way back, shit shower shave, back up to Norwich. Exhausting. And we hadn’t played. Norwich getting a double home and playing Tuesday was a bit of a liberty.

Stéphan has come out this week in a few of his press appearances and explained some of the thinking and decision making. Rhys Norrington-Davies being managed after a bad run of injuries is new insight and information. On the face of it, resting him for Ipswich when he’s got to be rested the following week against Sheff Utd makes no sense. Nor leaving him out last Saturday. Now, while you may not agree, there’s some context. This is a drum we’ve been banging for a few years now. Balls to competitive advantage, honestly balls to it. The rest of the Championship doesn’t give a shiny shite if Rhys Norrington-Davies is fit or not. Keep the supporters informed. Take them on the journey with you. We’ve only got each other at the end of the day. Give us information by the tonne load, so we’re not standing there at Carrow Road in the lashing rain thinking “why’s he done that, fucking idiot”. I mean, we may still think/say that, but at least there’s an answer there.

We’re ten points better off now than we were this time last year. Of course this time last year we set off on a streak so hot it burned bright enough to take us to the cusp of the play-off picture come the new year. If we’re still ten points better off by the first week of February then we’ll be in serious contention and, as Ale Faurlin would say, cooking with gas.

I want our mentality to be better, and stronger. I want us to push ourselves for the top six, because if bloody Preston are in there then why not? I don’t want us to phone in a performance like that at Norwich I want us to go again and make it nine points from nine. Southampton, Ipswich and perhaps Sheff Utd are starting to show how quickly runs like that can impact your league position in a division where everybody beats everybody else. I didn’t like us last week. I didn’t like us at all.

But I do also think if we finish about where we are now then that’s reasonable progression. If it comes with a significant player sale that allows us to trade in some more Rumarn Burrell-types next summer, and at least a vague attempt at an FA Cup run to cover that Plymouth abomination, I’d count that as a successful season.

We’ll get more idea of which it’s to be from another tough three-game week, against contrasting sides in very different patches of form. I wouldn’t be backing us for much at Middlesbrough next Saturday, but I’d like to think us capable of coming out and giving it a decent swing tomorrow afternoon against a side that’s lost more away games than any other in the Championship and is currently 5/5 on the road.

Links >>> Mason’s learning curve – Oppo Profile >>> Wembley bound – History >>> Ward in charge – Referee >>> Official Website >>> Independent West Brom forum — Message Board >>> Boing — Blog >>> Express and Star — Local Paper >>> Birmingham Mail — Local Paper

Below the fold

Team News: Sam Field pulled up with a groin injury on the stroke of half time after a first half chasing at Norwich and will miss this week’s fixtures. That should mean a recall for Rhys Norrington-Davies, who many of us felt should have started last week anyway but Julien Stéphan says the Sheff Utd loanee’s history of injuries mean his game time is being managed carefully. Esquerdinha has been away from the club for family reasons according to West London Sport but is back in the fold. Further forward Rayan Kolli is out with another muscle problem until the end of the month. Kwame Poku and Jake Clarke-Salter were both unused subs at Carrow Road on their respective roads back from injury. Ziyad Larkeche is out for the season but fellow long term absentee Joe Walsh was back as far as the bench last week. Paul Nardi is expected to continue between the sticks with Ben Hamer still sidelined by the whack in the mush Steve Cook gave him at Blackburn. Harvey Vale is a week away.

West Brom took Toby Collyer on a season long loan from Man Utd in the summer but he’s now back at Old Trafford having treatment on a serious calf complaint. Nat Phillips serves a one match ban for collecting five yellow cards. The Baggies were two goals down before rallying to win 3-2 against Swansea last weekend, helped in part by a quadruple half time substitution. Mason must decide which of Krystian Bielik, George Campbell, Josh Maja and Karlan Grant did enough to deserve a start here. Maja scored a hat trick on the last meeting at Loftus Road, a 3-1 win for the Baggies on the opening day of last season.

Round 19 is the cut-off point for the five yellow card suspension. QPR don’t have a player walking the tightrope on four, but Rangers’ fan and Baggies centre back Chris Mepham is one away from a ban going into this one.

Elsewhere: We’re back in Mercantile Credit Trophy action tonight and it’s a north-off for your viewing pleasure between Hull City and Middlesbrough. Two of the surprise early play-off contenders, there has been some faltering of late with Hull slipping to eighth and Boro winning only one of their last seven away games. Still second in the league mind.

Sitting in The Coach and Horses in Norwich last weekend watching Sheffield Red Stripe pump three first half goals into Leicester I’m amazed Marti Cifuentes even made the end of the game never mind the rest of the week, but the Spaniard remains in situ for a rare league meeting with Midlands neighbours Derby in the pick of the 12.30 games. Leicester have lost five of their last eight Championship games (W2 D1), with only Swansea, Portsmouth and Sheffield Wednesday losing more than the Foxes since the first game in this run on October 21.

Charlton are another side whose promising start is threatening to fall off the side of a cliff. It’s four straight defeats for Nathan Jones now in which they’ve conceded 12 goals. To be fair, Southampton at home followed by trips to Stoke and Coventry isn’t easy for a newly promoted side so let’s see how they get on with a more friendly looking fixture at home to Portsmouth. Each of the last 20 meetings between these two have been in the division above or the one below, and this is the first second tier meeting between the sides since 2000. Pompey haven’t won away from home since the opening day of the season.

The lunch time fixtures are rounded out by the luminous prospect of Watford v Norwich – 16 meetings and counting since there was last a draw between these two.

The afternoon kick offs are headlined by Ipswich v Coventry at Portman Road. I’ve still got these down as my top two, despite Town still residing outside the play-offs after another lackluster showing midweek in their rearranged game at Blackburn. It’s a year since Frank Lampard took over at Cov and since then they have scored more league goals than any other side in England’s top four tiers (92), while only Birmingham (32) have won more games than their 29.

Speaking of, the Blues head to a resurgent Southampton this weekend. Saints have scored 15 goals in their last five league games, one more than they had in their previous 17 combined and are looking to score 2+ goals in six consecutive league games for the first time since August 2011. Sadly for those on the South Coast, they have dropped more points from winning positions than any other side in the Championship this season (15) and lot 3-2 at Millwall last time out despite scoring first.

That result tucks Alex Neil’s side nicely into third ahead of a trip to Bristol City. Nine wins and 31 points from 18 games is Millwall’s best start to a league season since 2008-09 in League One (11 wins, 36 points) and it’s their best in the second tier since 2001-02 (9 wins, 31 points). No side has kept more clean sheets than the Robins though.

The play-off picture this weekend is concluded by Preston, still surprisingly fifth, hosting Wrexham, who are fast approaching the six after one defeat in the last 13. Stoke, in possession, host Sheff Utd, who are a long way back but starting to motor a bit after three wins in a week.

Plenty to occupy minds at the bottom end too, where there’s a real crunch game between Oxford (20th) and Swansea who are now fourth bottom having lost five in a row. Blackburn are also teetering a little bit, but have a great opportunity to post a rare home win with Sheff Wed in town reeling from another six point deduction this week which maroons them on -10.

Referee: Good news everyone, it’s Gavin Ward. Details.

Form

- QPR and West Brom are as midtable as midtable can be. This is a battle between the sides sitting 12th and 13th, with identical 7-4-7 records. The Baggies, who only lost 3-2 at Coventry, have a superior goal difference of -2 to our -6.

- Despite a first defeat in four league games at Norwich a week ago, QPR are ten points better off than this time last season.

- No side in the Championship has lost as many away games as West Brom’s six – the Baggies are 3-0-6 on the road so far. They have lost each of their last five away league games, last losing more consecutively between December and February in the 2021-22 (6).

- Having won four of their first five Championship home games in 2025, QPR have now won just three of their last 14 at Loftus Road (D5 L6). Rangers have lost three of the last four league games at Loftus Road, conceding 2+ goals in all four games.

- Only Southampton (15) have lost more points from winning positions than West Brom (12), though they did recover from a two-goal deficit to beat Swansea 3-2 last weekend.

- Don’t despair/relax if this blows out to 2-0 early doors. West Brom won having trailed by that in their last game against Swansea, and lost having lead by that scoreline at Coventry three games ago. Similarly, not one to leave early – there have been four stoppage time goals in Baggies’ matches this season, and eight goals in the last ten minutes contributing to a points swing of -3.

- West Brom have scored 20 goals in 18 league games this year, the lowest total north of 17th, but half of those have come in just four games (3-2 wins against Wrexham and Swansea, a 3-2 loss at Cov and a 2-1 home win against Preston). The Baggies have scored one goal or fewer in each of the other 14, and have failed to score at all on five occasions already.

- Despite this, West Brom do have a form striker on their hands. Summer signing Aune Heggebo is top scorer with seven in all comps, and five of those have come in the last four outings with braces against Swansea and Coventry.

- This Saturday he goes head to head with QPR’s Rumarn Burrell who has two in his last three, six in his last ten, and seven overall since moving from Burton Albion in the summer. Burrell has scored in each of his last four home games – the last QPR player to score in five successive league games at Loftus Road was Tjaronn Chery during 2015-16.

- If West Brom win here it’ll be their first consecutive league victories since the first two games of the season.

- QPR are winless in their last six league games against West Brom (D2 L4) since a 1-0 home win in January 2022.

- West Brom have won 11 of their 25 away league games against QPR (D4 L10), their highest away win rate of any side they’ve faced 20+ times on the road (44%).

- Last time out against Swansea, West Brom conceded the second earliest Championship goal on record (since 2013-14) – 11 seconds.

- QPR have scored two headers this season – both by Paul Smyth.

- Alex Mowatt has lost only two of his 14 career games against QPR for West Brom, Middlesbrough and Barnsley, winning nine and drawing three for a 30 point haul in which he’s scored once and assisted four times.

Prediction

In our Prediction League for 2025/26 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. QPR_Hibs won last season’s Prediction League at a canter and is lending his thoughts to this year’s previews –it’s JB007007 had his lead at the top of this year’s table cut to three points last weekend...

“December is now upon us, which can only mean one thing – it’s time for ‘Whamaggedon.’ I’m sure most of you are familiar with the rules, but for the uninitiated, it is basically a challenge to get through to Christmas Eve without hearing the original version of ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham. Covers and instrumentals are allowed! At time of writing, I am still in the game, mainly because the radio station that I listen to is unlikely to ever play the song, and I have avoided going into any supermarkets all week, which surely cannot last.

“Last year I got ‘Whammed’ whilst I was visiting some relatives, and they were listening to ‘Smooth’ radio. The year before TK Maxx did for me, playing their terrible Christmas mixtape over the Tannoy. (You mean public address system – Tannoy is a brand name.) And I’m pretty sure that in 2022 the DJ at Loftus Road played the song in the build-up to a Saturday game, inadvertently taking out a few thousand participants in one hit. Disgraceful stuff.

“Last Saturday’s meek surrender to Norwich was a confusing one. Julien rested several players in the previous game and then didn’t play them at Carrow Road. I understand the ‘don’t change a winning team’ thing to a certain extent, but some of those guys looked knackered from the start. Emergency left back Sam Field is now injured so, hopefully RND will be fit enough to play two games in the next four days. Don’t bank on that.

“The limited information coming out of the club has confirmed that, along with Field, Rayan Kolli, Harvey Vale and Ben Hamer are unavailable for selection. You’d expect that Liam Morrison will eventually get some sort of run-out, unless it has been discovered that he has kicked Stéphan's cat or something. Richard Kone may come back into the starting line-up and Rangers could do with him finding some of his early season form again. Rumarn Burrell has been our main goal threat for a little while now and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him net the opener in a close game. Super sub Paul Smyth to grab a late second.”

QPR_Hibs Prediction: QPR 2-1 West Brom. Scorer – Rumarn Burrell

LFW’s Prediction: QPR 2-0 West Brom. Scorer – Rumarn Burrell

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

Burnleyhoop added 21:01 - Dec 5 Had your “leg over” this week Clive? Surprisingly positive review and outlook this week. Long may it continue. For football reasons preferably.
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TacticalR added 22:04 - Dec 5 Thanks for your preview. I am not quite sure what has brought on these reflections about the pro- and anti-Nourry groups? Was it the Furlong decision? In that discussion it was pretty obvious where most of the experienced and trusted posters stood. I don't think you have anything to be defensive about. I think it's dawning on everybody after the early season optimism that we are in exactly the same place we usually are (and behind where we were when we got rid of Warburton). One thing I am sceptical about is people saying in grave tones that Stéphan was brought in to deal with three-game weeks. What does that mean exactly? Does it mean that if we say in grave tones that he was brought in to win the Champions League then we will win the Champions League? Anyway, West Brom seem to be in a very similar situation to us (not scoring many and a shaky defence) so this has the potential to be an even game, with the spoils going to whichever attack can rise to the occasion and deliver.

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