QPR will aim to correct their recent away slump and hunt their first double of the season - possibly pushing Ryan Mason closer to the West Brom exit door if they achieve it - when they face a Baggies side on a run of four losses in five games this evening.

West Brom (8-4-11 WLLWLL 16th) v QPR (10-5-8 LWWLWD 9th)

Mercantile Credit Trophy >>> Monday December 29, 2025 >>> Kick Off 19.45 >>> Weather – Dry but cold >>> The Hawthorns, West Bromwich

Into the really attritional bit of Christmas now. Turkey sandwiches have become turkey curries. Remaining leftovers are being eyed with ever deepening suspicion. Time has ceased to exist, booze has started to taste funny, and the downstairs toilet is begging for mercy.

There is absolutely, categorically no need for another full round of Championship football tonight (a Monday, apparently) and yet here we are. One of the games kicks off at 20.15 for goodness sake. With the dreaded New Year’s Day hangover special still to come against Norwich, I think we could all well do without an evening in West Bromwich.

Games are often won and lost in this period based not on the ability of the teams involved but who copes better with the schedule. There can be an element of randomness to the results – the title winning Neil Warnock side lost just six games all season long in 2010/11 and three of them were December 10 (Watford H), December 18 (Leeds A) and January 1 (Norwich A).

Sometimes that randomness results in blow our scorelines and Christmas holiday thrillers. There was some Boxing Day nonsense at Wrexham where the hosts came from 3-1 down to beat Sheff Utd 5-3 in a game that was 2-3 by half time. But I do feel like more often, particularly in the games at the back end of the month, it’s much more tired sides just slogging away and producing slop. If you watched Palace v Spurs yesterday you’ll know exactly what I mean – that was Palace’s eighth game this month. In the Championship on Boxing Day only one other game (Sheff Wed 2-2 Hull) had more than three goals scored, seven of them had two goals or fewer and three of them finished 0-0.

The team selection will be interesting this evening. Swapping the two wingers over for Paul Smyth and, hopefully, Kwame Poku would feel like a pretty obvious move. Sam Field to get an outing at left back after Rhys Norrington-Davies’ ball achieving (in every sense of the word) Boxing Day? And what of the strikers, where Rumarn Burrell’s ceaseless work rate may just be starting to take a toll (no goals in four games now since the first meeting with West Brom) and Richard Kone also looked a little weary last time out. Of course, the problem there is Kone’s natural cover is Michi Frey who looks miles and miles off it in his cameos, and the best person to spell Burrell was standing behind us in the away end at Fratton Park.

There’s probably some debate to be had about how Rangers are lining up away from home in general, fixture congestion or no.

By our standards the away form for a good chunk of 2025 has been pretty good. The 1-0 loss in this fixture last year to a team playing with ten men for the whole second half was the low point of six-game losing streak (another one) on the road, but QPR won the last three away games of 2024/25 and then won three and drew one of the first six this. That run of six wins, one draw and just two defeats was the Championship’s best away record over that period, but starting with a meek 1-0 at Derby the R’s have just a solitary win at Blackburn from six aways and were lucky not to lose again at struggling Portsmouth.

In a couple of those games – Norwich and Middlesbrough – we were effectively blown out of the game by half time. Just too wide open through midfield, too easy to walk through, too much space and too easy to score against. Again, a better team than Pompey would probably have done that to us again on Boxing Day given how we played for that first 45 minutes. Start like that tonight and it’ll get messy, despite West Brom’s recent troubles and pressure mounting on rookie boss Ryan Mason.

Stéphan seems absolutely determined not to sacrifice one of his forward players for that extra Isaac Hayden body in midfield. He doesn’t want to take the “pragmatic” approach to away games, stodging the midfield up and keeping things tight, he wants to attack it with two wingers and two forwards as we do at home. Perhaps he sees the recent results as a necessary pain to go through on the way to becoming more confident in this shape on the road, or maybe he’ll come to decide we don’t have the players (particularly in central midfield) to carry this off and relent with an extra body in there.

West Brom is a difficult place to go. QPR haven't won here since returning to the Championship in 2015, and haven't scored on their last two visits. Only five away sides have won at The Hawthorns in the last 30 games but Bristol City were one of those on Boxing Day and the fans here are growing increasingly restless with Ryan Mason.

As we get to the end of December the team news is more fascinating than the game itself. There’ll certainly be plenty of intrigue around who Julian Stéphan selects tonight.

Links >>> Bircham and Gallen in charge – History >>> A tricky start for Mason – Oppo Profile >>> Smith 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: As well as the selection dilemmas detailed above we wait to see which, if any, of Ilias Chair, Jake Clarke-Salter and Rayan Kolli return from their injuries to lend their weight to tonight’s effort. All three would have been very useful on Boxing Day given how that game panned out. Amadou Mbengue has now gone a remarkable three games without a yellow card, so remains two away from a ban with now eight games to go until the next amnesty.

Elsewhere: Coventry’s Boxing Day victory has moved them eight points clear of Middlesbrough in second and 13 away from Ipswich in third who they play tonight. That game kicks off at 18.00 randomly, and then Birmingham’s home game with Southampton kicks off at 20.15 of course. Just kick them off at three in the morning and be done with it.

While that battle of first v third and pre-season promotion favourites is taking place, there’s also a meeting of second v fourth and two of the season’s surprise packages as Middlesbrough host Hull. Boro were 4-0 up by half time in the first meeting at the start of the month.

Preston and Bristol City make up the top six and both have difficult away games at Wrexham and Millwall respectively. Watford have quietly climbed into eighth and won away for just the second time in 17 games at he weekend ahead of another trip to Norwich tonight. The Canaries have won three out of three at home since Philippe Clement moved in as manager there.

Watford’s weekend win came at ailing Leicester who are now down to 14th in the table. If the EFL ever get around to imposing the rumoured nine-point deduction on the Foxes they’d drop to third bottom. Just to add to the sense there’s something brewing there, the club has followed up the delay of December’s payroll by withdrawing the stewards’ meal vouchers for tonight’s match with Derby.

At the other end of the table there are three crunch six pointers between six sides involved in the relegation scrap. Pompey’s slumped into the bottom three on Boxing Day following our draw at Fratton Park and now face a Charlton side sitting 17th with one win in eight games. Oxford climbed out of the relegation zone with a surprise late victory against Southampton following Gary Rowett’s sacking, and now host Swansea who are one place and four points above them. Sheff Wed, still with only one win all season and a trip to Loftus Road looming, will try and win at Hillsborough for the first time when they host Blackburn.

With that little lot playing each other there’s a chance for Sheff Utd to escape further than 19th when they travel to Stoke. The Blades will become the first Championship side ever not to draw an away game in a calendar year unless that one finishes level.

Referee: Not that there’s a shortage of quality match officials or anything, but after this one Lewis Smith will have refereed three of QPR’s last six away games. Details.

Form

- This is the first return fixture of the 2025/26 season and is a re-run of the games played on December 6 when QPR beat West Brom 3-1 at Loftus Road. The Baggies have lost four of their last five games starting with that one, and it forms part of a sequence of eight straight away defeats for Ryan Mason’s side.

- West Brom were beaten 2-1 here by Bristol City on Boxing Day adding weight to calls for Ryan Mason to be removed. The Baggies have dropped to 16th with an 8-4-11 record having only lost 12 times in the whole of last season.

- 28 points is West Brom’s lowest tally at this stage since relegation from the Premier League in 2021.

- Despite that, West Brom are still pretty useful at The Hawthorns. They’ve only lost two of 11 games here in the league and going back into last season only five teams have won here in the last 30 games. Prior to Boxing Day they were unbeaten here in seven. Only Coventry (seven) and Stoke (eight) have a better home defensive record than West Brom (ten).

- QPR have lost only two of the last nine games, winning six, to climb to ninth in the Championship one point shy of the play-offs.

- QPR lost this fixture 1-0 last season despite West Brom playing the whole second half with ten men. It was part of a sequence of six straight away defeats for Marti Cifuentes’ side. Over the next nine away games QPR won six and drew one but are now back on a poor run on the road of one win in six.

- Since returning to the Championship in 2015 QPR have failed to win in six visits to The Hawthorns (L4 D2). Rangers have lost the last two games here without scoring. The last victory here was a 4-1 Premier League win in 2014/15.

- Aune Heggebo scored a fabulous headed goal in the first meeting between these sides and is top scorer here with nine (eight in the league). He has seven in his last nine appearances.

- Rumarn Burrell scored twice in that fixture to move onto nine goals for the season. At that stage he’d scored eight times in 11 games, but hasn’t scored since in four outings.

- Since the start of last season, Jimmy Dunne has scored more Championship goals than any other defender (eight). Dunne has three goals in eight games since moving back to centre half. @JTSupple

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. JB007007 made a strong start and held off the competition to win our first prizegiving for being top at Christmas. QPR_Hibs won last season’s Prediction League at a canter and is lending his thoughts to this year’s previews…

“It’s that time of year when nobody knows what day it is, what time the shops shut, and when EXACTLY are the binmen coming to take away my rubbish? If it’s a Bank Holiday does that mean I can park free anywhere I want, or not? All we know for sure is that the Championship fixture list means that 22 of the 24 teams have to play four games in just ten days.

“The first of our festive games saw a typical QPR ‘performance of two halves’ away at Portsmouth. Unable to string two passes together for long periods of the first half, the possession stats were something around 80/20 in Pompey’s favour at the break. Giving away a goal on the stroke of half-time is also a fairly QPR thing to do. Julien doesn’t strike me as the type of manager to dish out the ‘hairdryer’ treatment whilst handing out the oranges (isotonic sports drinks?), but we were considerably improved in the second half. Dembélé, who was particularly poor in the first 45 minutes, caused all sorts of panic among the Portsmouth defence in the second period and was unlucky to be substituted after 70 minutes. In the end I felt we could have nicked the three points.

“Monday’s set of fixtures seem to be a reverse of the matches played as recently as December 6, which seems quite bizarre. That means that we have another away trip – this time to The Hawthorns to play West Bromwich Albion. Looking at the player ratings from their Boxing Day defeat at home to Bristol City, I can see that they must have played very poorly indeed – every WBA player scoring less than the worst City player. Ryan Mason chose instead to moan about the referee, Bristol City’s first goal being offside and the decision not to send off a City player for a reckless challenge.

“The consensus on the LFW forum was that Koki Saito was poor/had an off day against Portsmouth and that Paul Smyth should replace him in the starting lineup. I thought Steve Cook was a bit off the pace too and I would like to see Liam Morrison be given a chance at CB. Julien doesn’t seem to rate him though. Aside from that it may be a question of managing everyone’s minutes – perhaps resting a few players with an eye on the home games against Norwich and Sheffield Wednesday. I’ve got an inkling that West Brom will be fired up for this one and I wonder which QPR side will turn up. If we can match their desire then we can beat them.”

QPR_Hibs Prediction: West Brom 1-2 QPR. Scorer – Nicolas Madsen

LFW’s Prediction: West Brom 1-1 QPR. Scorer – Richard Kone

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