West Ham’s Premier League season is turning into such an unmitigated disaster you’d back almost any Championship team to go to the London Stadium and cause a cup upset this weekend, but does QPR’s ridiculous FA Cup record and injury problems make them the exception to that rule?

West Ham (3-5-13 LLLDLL 18th) v QPR (11-5-10 LWDLLW 11th)

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Queens Park Rangers are generally available at 9/2 to win on Sunday and if it was any other Championship club travelling to this West Ham United, in this state, in this stadium, with this level of away support you’d be absolutely lumping on.

This will almost certainly be a league fixture next season. West Ham had crucial fixtures against Wolves just below them and Nottingham Forest just above them in the last week and contrived to lose them both.

They could point to the typical array of VAR nonsenses in the Forest game, taking away what looked like a perfectly legitimate goal to put them 2-0 up and adding a dubious Forest penalty at the other end, but their response to adversity was limp and against a Wolves side that had two points to its name from half a season of football they were 3-0 down before half time.

Now seven points adrift with 17 left to play it’s going to need Europa League qualifying form from here on in to make anything like the historic totals required to survive and they haven’t beaten anybody in ten games dating back to November 8. They’ve only won three games all season and probably need to find ten more between now and May to stand a fighting chance.

This would be a relegation a long time coming, and entirely of their own making.

All the usual ingredients are here. They have not only flip flopped too often between managers, but also between managers of vastly different styles and approaches. This is a club that goes from Avram Grant to Sam Allardyce, Sam Allardyce to Slaven Bilic, Julen Lopetegui to Graham Potter, Graham Potter to Nuno Espirito Santo. Twice, first after Bilic and then later Manuel Pellegrini, they’ve gone from that kind of style to David Moyes. Twice David Moyes did a very reasonable job for them, including winning the Europa Conference League in his second spell. Twice they convinced themselves the football was unbecoming of such an illustrious club and sought out something more exotic in Pellegrini first time and Lopetegui the second. Twice it fell flat on its face. The hubris has been astounding.

The player recruitment has been an expensive disaster. In this age of proprietary data models David Sullivan seems to be operating a system from the 1980s. According to transfermarkt.co.uk the Hammers have spent £589m on players since 2022/23. Gianluca Scamacca, a £30m striker signed from Sassuolo, started 11 Premier League games and scored three goals. James Ward Prowse cost £30m from Southampton, spent the first half of last season on loan at Nottingham Forest, hasn’t played since September 20 this and Santo used his pre-match press conference this week to say he would be better off seeking employment elsewhere. They spent £40m on Max Kilman from Wolves, £10m on Flynn Downes from Swansea, £25m on Crysencio Summerville from Leeds (one goal in 38 appearances over 18 months).

It is a staggering list, and there’s been another £50m of striker brought in this week in the form of Lazio’s Taty Castellanos (I mean who can resist 16 goals in 75 Serie A appearances?) and Pablo Felipe from Gil Vicente who paid just £250k for him in July 2024. Mads Hermansen, bought for £20m from relegated Leicester, is already surplus to requirements.

A monkey throwing darts at the phone book would have made better signings than this lot. Hell, a dart throwing monkey would have been a better signing than some of these.

Lots of clubs have wound up in the Championship this way. It’s how we ended up back here ourselves. Unique to West Ham’s situation, however, is the stadium. It acts as both a symbol of everything wrong with the club and the ownership, and also a millstone around the neck of the team. However bad you think it is, however bad you’ve heard it is, wait until we get there for the first time on Sunday and behold – it’s worse.

It was always going to be. Ill-conceived from the start by politicians who didn’t want to be seen to be handing over a publicly funded asset to a rich football club, a la The City of Manchester Stadium post-Commonwealth games, that is what has happened anyway, as was always inevitable. The late Tessa Jowell was culture and media secretary at the time and repeatedly refused to countenance it becoming the home to a Premier League football team, pedalling the nonsense that it would remain an 80,000 capacity athletics stadium “because we need one”. Listen, as an avid consumer of rugby league, I’m not here to shit on minority sports and be all football over and above everything else, but… no, we don’t. At one stage they were talking about ripping the roof off and shifting out more than half its capacity to leave a 25,000-ish athletics stadium. The confused, convoluted thinking ended up with a white elephant unfit for purpose, and into that void slithered Davids Sullivan and Gold along with Karen Brady who, to this day, continues to enjoy an almost completely free ride, and indeed regular columns, in the tabloid press.

The deal is a stitch up for tax payers, but what good is it for West Ham, really? They’ve left Upton Park, which could easily have been adapted to the club’s needs and was deeply woven into their fabric, and what do they have now? Perhaps the most soulless of all the soulless spaceships that litter and plague our sport. Some seats in this place are a quarter of a mile away from the goal at the far end. Just about fine when it’s going well, quickly empty and toxic when it’s not. Good look filling this place when you’ve got league games with Preston North End and all the Koreans have disappeared to a different tourist attraction – for that is all you are, at this point. As the team blew a 1-0 lead against Nottingham Forest on Tuesday, the electronic advertising hoardings repeatedly advertised tickets for a Take That concert – 26th and 27th of June if you’re interested, “two epic nights”.

Absolutely ripe for an upset then, and here comes a progressive and progressing QPR team with two quick, physical up and coming strikers up top, a collection of pacy and tricky wingers out wide, a quickly improving ball playing central midfielder, and a no-nonsense Irish centre back as captain to inflict it. If you were a West Ham fan, would you even bother going? It feels inevitable right?

That is until you dig into QPR’s FA Cup record. This time last year Rangers were drawn away to Leicester City, and we could have written an almost identical preview piece about them. The result of their own chronic mismanagement was laid bare in a 4-1 loss at Loftus Road just before Christmas. When we went there in the cup they’d won one of 13 and lost five in a row. We were part of a sequence of nine home games in which they lost every match without even scoring a goal. Against Rangers, however, they scored six and won through 6-2 – albeit in farcical weather conditions in a game that should never have been played.

That was the 53rd time Rangers had gone out of the FA Cup at the third round stage – no other club has exited from this trophy in this round more often. That total has been topped up substantially in recent years — the R’s have been eliminated in the third round in 16 of the last 21 seasons. That despite a round four game at Peterborough in 21/22, another against Sheff Wed in 2019/20, and the dizzying heights of a round five loss to Watford in 2018/19. Those victories against Leeds and Portsmouth after a replay under Steve McClaren were QPR’s best FA Cup performance since 1996/97 when Trevor Sinclair’s bicycle kick secured a round five trip to Wimbledon. We haven’t been further than round five since a 1994/95 quarter final at Man Utd, the club’s best performance in this competition since they got to the same stage in 1989/90. Rangers haven't won away in the FA Cup since 2013 - a 1-0 Third Round replay win at West Brom (their only away win in the competition this century). All of this means we have been beyond round four of the FA Cup only four times in the last 31 years.

I genuinely did fancy us to turn that all around this weekend. The club is acutely aware of the anger felt in some sections of the support around the team selection and performance at first Leicester, and then Plymouth in August where a 2-0 lead against a poor League One side was turned into a 3-2 defeat by introducing not even development squad prospects but actual children to the team in the second half. The intention since that Home Park debacle has been to go very strong into whatever the FA Cup threw at us, but then the Christmas period happened and the combination of four games in nine days with two of them played on the disgraceful cabbage patch that Loftus Road has been allowed to turn into proved too much for even our improved squad of 25/26 – four key players had pulled up lame by half time last week.

Julien Stéphan has a terrific cup record in France, where he led Rennes to their first ever French Cup triumph – beating monied PSG in the final despite trailing 2-0 in the first half. He carried them deep into European competitions. It was one of the key attractions of hiring the Frenchman and he has been keen to bang the drum about a strong team selection and rewarding the 9,000 travelling fans. However, there’s been plenty of groundwork laid and expectation management for what’s to come here. A nice story in West London Sport talking up Daniel Bennie’s prospects as a Rumarn Burrell replacement, another touting the return of the popular Ronnie Edwards on a permanent deal, and an injury update that has made plain just how much the situation has deteriorated and how quickly. There’ll be no strongest first 11 in the FA Cup then, I’ll tell the children.

We might have enough regardless. West Ham obviously have other priorities, though whether they’ll want to antagonise an already irate fanbase by sticking the stiffs out and risking a beating here is debateable. Whatever side they put out they’re eminently gettable even for a weakened QPR side. It would be an enormous moment for this group of players, for this manager, and indeed for Christian Nourry if QPR were to go there and win. A sign of real, genuine culture change. A first real memory made together between fans and this group. And West Ham are so poor it could well still happen, even allowing for all of Rangers’ absentees.

I’d be backing it too, if it was any other club but us.

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Below the fold

Team News: So, that team news in full then. Rumarn Burrell became the first QPR player to reach double figures for goals since Andre Gray in 2021/22 with his tenth of the season against Sheff Wed but is now out until March at the earliest with what looked at the time like a straight up hamstring pull but is being described by the club as a “contact injury”. Jonathan Varane fell awkwardly into a sliding tackle in the worst affected area of the pitch against Sheff Wed and has now been ruled out until “later this month” with a knee sprain as rumours circle about a move to St Etienne. Liam Morrison pulled out in the warm up, he will return to training next week. Kwame Poku has suffered another hamstring injury to further compound a horrible first season at the club and won’t return until next month at the earliest. Jake Clarke-Salter’s ankle injury from the Leicester game takes him out for another month and although Ilias Chair was said to be back in training and nearly ready to go over Christmas he is now also being slated for a February return.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka is back from AFCON where his DR Congo side was eliminated in the final seconds of a 120-minute epic against Algeria earlier this week. West Ham have spent a quick £50m on two new strikers this week in the form of Taty Castellanos from Lazio and Pablo from Gil Vicente. Both made debuts against Forest and will look for more minutes here. Summer signing Mads Hermansen and set piece specialist James Ward Prowse are among a growing bomb squad of players told to look for employment elsewhere. George Earthy has returned to Bristol City on loan. Callum Wilson is working on the terms of a release with Coventry lurking.

Elsewhere: The magic of the FA Cup is so magical this year they’ve had to spread it out across four days and ten different kick off times.

Inevitable Wrexham would be given big Friday night billing at home to struggling Premier League side Nottingham Forest, but if you’re a bit sick of all the Ryan Reynolds hype and Disneyfication nonsense then fear not because over on “Discovery+” there’s a veritable smorgasbord of magical myth and legend waiting to unfold as MK Dons host Oxford United, Fleetwood Town travel to Port Vale, and Preston Knob End face off against Wigan Athletic. Roll up, roll up, subscriptions right this way.

Saturday breakfast, four games to go with your bacon and eggs. Some genuine proper™ cup ties among them too. Wouldn’t want to be Marti Cifuentes taking Leicester City to Cheltenham Town in this state. The reformed Macclesfield club hosting Crystal Palace is lovely for them. Wolves at home to Shrewsbury potentially the opposite for Rob Edwards. Of course, though, the real quiz here is the all Premier League tie between Everton Reserves and Sunderland Reserves.

Nine ties have survived both the weather and the broadcasters to stay where they should all be in the first place – 3pm on Saturday. It includes one of the non-league sides still left in, Boreham Wood hosting Burton, and big upset potential as out-of-form Southampton head to Doncaster. Middlesbrough get to try out their Premier League potential away at Fulham and there’s an Eddie Howe derby between Newcastle Reserves and Bournemouth Reserves. Ian Holloway’s Swindon are denied a trip to Salford by the snow.

Exeter have a potential club saving tie away to Man City who have rightly copped a whole load of public grief for refusing a request from the visiting club to turn over their share of the gate to help their survival cause. I’m right with you, evil petro-chemical state-backed sport washing vehicle that completely forgot itself, but if the fan ownership model is to work in this country it’s got to work better than getting the begging bowl out because you’ve overstretched yourselves putting together a League One side you can’t afford. Exeter have not been short of money-spinning cup ties, player sales or sell on percentages in recent times.

Four games at 17.45 for reasons I just cannot really fathom. Discovery+ for Bristol City v Watford? Come on now. Birmingham go to Cambridge, another non-leaguer Weston-super-Mare are at Grimsby, but of course you all really want to watch the 7,000th meeting of Spurs Reserves v Aston Villa Reserves don’t you? Mind you, if Audrey Roberts ends up getting the sack afterwards it might be worth a little look.

Saturday night 8pm for Chelsea at Charlton. Bet the police are delighted with that. Give London Bridge the swerve I reckon.

Sunday midday for Derby v Leeds. Stop doing this to people. You’ve got me feeling sorry for bloody Leeds fans here. Portsmouth v Arsenal at 14.00. Then a real collection of slop alongside our own game at 14.30 including Swansea v West Brom and Hull v Blackburn. Snore. Man Utd Reserves v Brighton Reserves at 16.30 because Man Utd have to be on the television.

Monday night football is Liverpool v Barnsley.

That’s magic.

Referee: If you thought that Everton v Wolves game looked a bit chaotic and nonsensical during the week well, good news, here’s the referee from that one for you… Thomas Kirk details. Mercifully, no VAR at this stage.

Form

- QPR arrested a poor Christmas run of a draw and two defeats with a 3-0 home win against struggling Sheff Wed last Saturday. It means the R’s have won five of the last six games at Loftus Road, scoring 16 goals.

- That victory last Sunday was a seventh home league win already, equalling or bettering the club’s totals in each of the last three seasons (seven in 24/25 and 23/24, six in 22/23).

- Away from home things haven’t been going so well for QPR. They have won one of the last seven losing five, and none of the last five road games. Their only away win since October 22 was a 1-0 at Blackburn on November 26.

- West Ham have won just three of their 22 games in all comps so far this season. They come into this one winless in ten, losing six, with defeats in the last two games against Wolves (20th) and Nottingham Forest (17th).

- West Ham have won two and lost eight of their 11 home games so far, conceding 25 goals in the process.

- Nuno Espirito Santo has won just two games out of 16 since replacing Graham Potter as West Ham manager.

- West Ham are on an unbroken stint of 14 years in the Premier League, but have never had this few points at this stage of a season.

- QPR have lost to Premier League opposition at this stage of the competition in each of the last two seasons. They have been eliminated at the third round stage in each of the last five seasons, and in 16 of the last 21. It has topped up a total of third round exits which now stands at 53, more than any other club in the country.

- The only times QPR have been beyond the fourth round recently was a fifth round tie with Watford under Steve McClaren in 2018/19, and another at Wimbledon in 1996/97 secured by Trevor Sinclair’s bicycle kick. They haven’t been in the sixth round/quarter final since 1995 when they lost at Man Utd having beaten West Ham in round four. That, in turn, was the best performance since getting to the same stage in 1989/90. All of this means we have been beyond round four of the FA Cup only four times in the last 31 years.

- Unusually, given QPR’s cup record, the R’s have won the last three FA Cup ties against West Ham. Andy Impey netted the winner the last time the sides met in this competition in 1995 as the R’s advanced to the quarter finals – they’ve never been as far in the comp since. Rangers also won the chaotic 1988 meeting at Loftus Road 3-1, and won 6-1 in W12 in 1978 after a replay. The overall FA Cup record between the sides is 4-3-3 in Rangers’ favour.

- The last meeting between the sides was a 0-0 draw in the Premier League at Loftus Road in April 2015 when Adrian saved a penalty from Charlie Austin. QPR lost the away game that year 2-0 at Upton Park with goals from Diafra Sakho and a Nedum Onuoha own goal. West Ham are unbeaten in five home games against Rangers, with our last win coming at Upton Park in August 1993 4-0 (Ferdinand 2, Penrice, Peacock).

- Rumarn Burrell’s tenth of the season against Sheff Wed last week made him the first QPR player to reach double figures for goals since Andre Gray in 2020/21. Since then the top scorers have been Lyndon Dykes with eight and seven and Michi Frey with eight.

- Jarrod Bowen is the West Ham top scorer with six. Bowen has six career goals in six appearances against QPR - the only team he's scored more against is Brentford (seven).

- Rayan Kolli is the first ever QPR player to score two goals as a substitute in two different games – Norwich H 24/25, Sheff Wed H 25/26. @JTSupple

- If West Ham and Wolves are indeed both relegated this year it will be the first time in the 137 year history of the Football League that there is no W in the top flight - barring a Wrexham, West Brom or Watford promotion. @RichardOsman.

Prediction

Can’t just suppress 65 million years of gut instinct. West Ham 2-0 QPR.

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