There’s a good deal more optimism around QPR this summer than there has been for quite sometime, but what’s that based on, is it justified, and will it survive its first examination at Portsmouth on Saturday?

Portsmouth (14-13-19 WWLWDL 18th) v QPR (16-10-20 DLLLLD 15th)

Sky’s Super Saturday Brunch Spectacular >>> Saturday August 15, 2026 >>> Kick off 15.00 >>> Weather – Scorchio >>> Fratton Park, Portsmouth

Follow the money. That’s our usual season preview starting point.

Wage bill has long been considered one of the most reliable indicators of how a team is going to perform. In a 46-game season, with a long winter of three-game weeks, the clubs that can afford to have the biggest, deepest squads of senior players tend to come through in the end. QPR have an average position of 15th in this league over 11 years, exactly where they should be for the spend. Few better other examples of that than Southampton last year who were as low as 18th in the league after winning just two of their first 16 games, but eventually made the play-offs on an unbeaten run of 24 through the back half of the year. When QPR lost 5-0 at St Mary’s in March the home bench included Tom Felllows, Cameron Archer, Ross Stewart, Shea Charles and Fandab Edozie.

It’s why, despite liking virtually nothing about any of them, we’ve still placed West Ham, Wolves and Burnley high up. Similarly Lincoln City, about whom we love so much, we’ve tipped to go down, for the same reasons Oxford, Rotherham, Burton, Blackpool, Plymouth and others have succumbed before. Might stay up one year, might stay up two, but it gets you in the end. Our opponents this Saturday, Portsmouth, lucky to survive their second year at a level their owner has branded a “financial catastrophe”.

It’s not failsafe, though, otherwise the sport would be completely tedious. Leicester City took one of the strongest and best paid squads the Championship has ever seen and got it relegated to League One. Luton, fresh from the Premier League and flush with parachute payments, did the same the year before. Sheff Wed are one of the biggest clubs in the country, they start their season tomorrow at Leyton Orient. There are myriad other factors – fuck knuckle owners in those cases – at play here.

So, we look at finances, but we look at owners too. We look at who the manager is because, as Philippe Clement showed versus Liam Manning at Norwich last season, managers still matter a hell of a lot. We used to say Carlos Corberan was worth six places to West Brom – turns out it was more, they finished 21st last year. We look at who’s good in both boxes. Bolton, for example, just don’t look like they’ve got a goal in them at all to me, despite this week’s Ryan Hardie pick up. We look at the recruitment, the direction of travel, the mood of the supporters, the atmosphere at home games – Stoke bad, Blackburn very bad. And, in the end, we usually call about half the division right almost to the place, and the other lot off by sometimes ten places or more.

Sheff Utd are a good indicator of how tricky this season previewing malarky can be. I’ve sen them tipped as high as sixth, and as a surprise relegation candidate. We’ve stuck them bang in the middle so the most we can be wrong is 12 places.

QPR have a similar vibe about them this summer. Sporting Life says we’re a good bet for relegation at 20/1 – in fact it’s one of their six big bets for the year. Gab Sutton says we’re a good bet for the play-offs.

Our season preview looks at the other 23 teams and then we effectively do QPR in this first match preview of the season. So here it is… I think Rangers have got a lot going for them.

There are, as usual, many ways this could go wrong. Injuries and availability have been a chronic issue for the last two years, and certainly in 25/26 the team finished a good deal lower than it should have done because of this. The club have tried to downplay the issue and drown you all in statistics and like-for-like comparisons, but anybody with two eyes in the front of their head knows what’s gone on here for the last two years. Pointedly, as was the case at the end of last season, Julien Stephan is not letting up on this either, telling BBC London this week that he was without a full available squad for about “75-80%” of last season. This has to improve if the team is to improve, not least because faith has been placed in several Tariq Lamptey and Dennis Cirkin types who could be brilliant, difference-making talents for this team but have dire recent fitness records. They, along with Glen Kamara, are Twitter-pleasing signings - lots of YouTubers with open-mouthed title cards talking about what QPR are "cooking" - but are they Championship winter signings? We'll find out, this winter.

Other teams are throwing big money at a season where eighth gets you in the play offs. Some clubs are doing that smartly (Middlesbrough), other clubs have Jon Walters as director of football. QPR have spent money too. Ronnie Edwards, Richard Kone, Rumarn Burrell, Nicolas Madsen, Jonathan Varane, Zan Celar, Koki Saito, Karamoko Dembele… these players were not cheap. This has been the most substantial outlay on players by Rangers since they came out of the Premier League. It really has to get better this season, at least to the extent of moving out of Stoketown and into Bristol Cityville on the league table, and we have to start making profits on these players if we’re not to quickly work ourselves back into the post Mark Warburton situation we found ourselves in under Gareth Ainsworth. Buying players is the easy bit, we’re yet to make serious money on any of them. If we stay 15th and don’t get a big sale then, really, what are we doing here?

The positives start with the strikers. It may not work out for either/or Richard Kone and Rumarn Burrell. I’m not convinced by the latter playing wide on the right. The former remains very raw, and got schooled a little bit by Millwall’s brilliant centre backs last week. But there aren’t many more exciting young pairs than these two outside of the parachute payment clubs. QPR have spent money on Conor Washington, Lyndon Dykes and Macauley Bonne, they’ve gone to Europe and come back with Seb Polter and Idrissa Sylla, they’ve tried the loan market and sometimes it was Nahki Wells and sometimes it was Tomer Hemed. The club has, finally, succeeded in furnishing us with two potentially very good strikers. There’s not a lot of back up, with the ongoing farces around Rayan Kolli and Justin Obikwu meaning Alfie Lloyd is effectively the only cover, but those two are good. Not many people were talking about Zan Vipotnik after seven goals in his first year at Swansea and he had a big break out 28-goal year which I think Kone is well capable of something similar.

A number of the ‘project’ players we’ve invested time and money in are now going into year two or three of Championship football. They’re hardened to the league now, they know what it’s about, this really should be the year where a lot of these guys play their best football and grow into sellable assets. I’m talking Nicolas Madsen, Harvey Vale, Koki Saito, Ronnie Edwards, Jonathan Varane, Kieran Morgan types here who’ve all shown bits and pieces but never really put it together consistently over a full year. No excuses now, and plenty of potential among all of them. Great ages too, no older than 26.

The team had very obvious faults at the end of last season and, whether they prove to be successful or not, the club has made very early, deliberate moves to address that. Wherever you stand on QPR there was broad agreement in May we were weak in goal, at full back, and in the centre of midfield. We’ve signed two keepers, three wide defenders, and one central midfielder with I reckon at least one more to come (De Keersmacker continues to be linked from Oxford). That’s better than flogging a dead horse (Joe Walsh) because “development model” or pretending everything’s fine until you get your arse handed to you in the last week of August and having to rush out and pay over the odds for Isaac Hayden, Rhys Norrington-Davies and “something exciting for the fans” (Koki Saito). There are question marks over all the signings (Pierce Charles gave you a nice overview of what he’s good at and not last week) but it’s good, aggressive, purposeful summer recruitment that deserves to be rewarded with some upturn in results. Mind you, as one commenter said yesterday, QPR do this every year and they’re always 15th in the end.

The squad still lacks depth compared to some. It really would help if the development squad could make the step from winning pots and pans at its level into its actual purpose of delivering first team ready players. Isak Alemayehu impressed in pre-season, but we’ve seen that before with Kieren St Aimee, Dennis Oli, Tyler Blackwood etc. Everyone always looks great in pre-season. The strength, though, is much better than it was. If you’d said when Nico Hamailenen and Osman Kakay were playing actualy Championship football for us that our full backs for the new year would be Boy Kemper and Dennis Cirkin on one side and Tariq Lamptey and Amadou Mbengue on the other I’d have laughed at you. There are single points of failure (what happens if Jimmy Dunne gets injured? Or Madsen?) but we’re getting more towards the point where there are two players for each position.

It’s also quite a strange Championship this year. No Sheff Wed gimme, but the promoted teams look nowhere near as good as last year’s cohort in my eyes, and it’s a motley collection of relegated sides – albeit West Ham calmly went out and splashed £22m on a player today, and Wolves have Raul Jiminez up front. We’ve got a very kind start on paper – two newly promoted teams and the sides that finished 21st, 20th, 19th, 18th and 14th on last year’s ladder prior to a jumbo international break in September.

I’m not expecting a promotion push necessarily, but you get into the play-offs for finishing eighth this year and that really should be our aim (have to say it feels very QPR indeed to me to finish ninth in the first year the play-offs go to eighth). After 11 years spent mostly in the bottom half of this division it’s time for some progress now. Having inherited one of the worst QPR teams I’ve ever seen in the Gareth Ainsworth season, a team I was certain would be relegated and only wasn’t because of Marti Cifuentes’ miraculous coaching job, it was always going to take Christian Nourry and Andy Belk several transfer windows and recruitment cycles to wrestle it into any kind of shape. That’s largely been done now, and no small amount of cash has been spent on it. These are now this regime’s players, with this regime’s manager, and this regime’s staff. We should really be seeing a bit of forward momentum this year for the first time in a while.

Very much looking forward to Adrian Segecic’s fifth minute opener tomorrow afternoon.

Links >>> Season Preview 26/27 – Contenders >>> Season Preview 26/27 – Midtable >>> Season Preview 26/27 – Strugglers >>> Pompey push – Oppo Profile >>> Great result, crap legacy – History >>> Finnie in charge – Referee >>> Portsmouth official website >>> Fratton Park Ground Guide >>> True Blue Army – Forum >>> P04Cast – Podcast >>> Pompey Chimes – Forum >>> The News – Local Press

Below the fold

Team News: QPR carry residual injuries to Karamoko Dembele and Tariq Lamptey into the new campaign and Justin Obikwu is back on the missing list too. Glen Kamara hasn’t played for anyone for nearly six months but is in the travelling squad. Rumarn Burrell got a bang to his calf early in the Millwall game but is expected to be fit along with Paul Smyth who was subbed off with his own knock in the second half and Jonathan Varane.

Portsmouth have also made a couple of late additions to their squad ahead of this one. Chelsea’s 17-year-old White City-born winger Ryan Kavuma-McQueen comes in on loan today along with Brentford defender Benjamin Arthur who signed earlier in the week.

Elsewhere: A couple of big early tests for our enormous season preview and predictions in this opening Championship round. Wolves, who we think will push for the automatic promotion places, start tonight at home to Blackburn, who we think might finally be taking a long overdue trip into League One. Then tomorrow it’s Middlesbrough, who we (like several others) think might be champions this year, are at home to Lincoln, for whom we think this might all be a bit much. Remember the Imps come into that game unbeaten in 29 league fixtures and won at Derby in the cup last weekend.

The lunchtime game tomorrow is a Lancashire derby between Preston and Bolton, both of whom we had down for real seasons of struggle.

Couple of post-preview transfer moves to make you aware of. Alex Mowatt has left West Brom on the eve of their opener at Norwich to join Derby who travel to Charlton. Not that we needed another reason to kick Stoke after giving them a bit of a going over this week but Milan Smit, a player they spent the thick end of £5m on as recently as January, as been loaned to Bundesliga 2 outfit Darmstadt as the Potters get ready to host Swansea on Saturday.

Bristol City v Millwall make up the afternoon games and then Sheffield Red Stripe play Birmingham in the early evening kick off.

Two televised games on Sunday start with Watford, about whom plenty of concern abounds, hosting Southampton, who presumably know how the Hornets are going to line up already. I bet Burnley and West Ham are delighted to see each other again so soon following their respective relegations in May.

Monday Night Football sees newly promoted Cardiff host fellow Welsh outfit Wrexham.

Referee: 'Finnie in charge of Portsmouth trip' are words to spark fear into most QPR fans but fear not, it’s a different spelling and it’s an actual referee. Details.

Form

- QPR finished 15th in the Championship last season for the second consecutive year with a record of 16-10-20. Only Ipswich, Coventry and Wrexham scored more home goals than Rangers’ 40, but only relegated Sheff Wed (89) conceded more league goals than our 73.

- QPR failed to win any of their last six Championship games last season and lost the last four. They haven’t lost five league games in a row since a run of six in October 2023.

- Portsmouth finished three places lower with three fewer points despite losing fewer games (19) and conceding fewer goals (64). Pompey struggled to score goals, just 49 in the league – Leicester went down scoring 58.

- Portsmouth did the double over QPR in 24/25, as many times as they’d beaten them in their previous 16 league meetings (D5 L9). Last season this game finished 1-1 at Fratton Park on Boxing Day with a Jimmy Dunne goal, and then the return fixture blew out 6-1 at Loftus Road with doubles for Paul Smyth, Rayan Kolli and Richard Kone.

- After that disaster in W12 Portsmouth finished last season losing just one of their final eight league games (W4 D3); only Southampton (17) earned more points in Championship since the beginning of April than Pompey (15).

- Both sides began the season with a League Cup exit. QPR missed four penalties out of four in a shoot out against Millwall at Loftus Road after a 1-1 draw. Portsmouth took the lead in front of 9,000 travelling fans at West Ham be Adrian Segecic’s first half opener couldn’t stop them slipping to a 3-1 loss at the London Stadium.

- That was QPR’s 16th penalty shootout and the first time they’ve failed to score in one. @JTSupple

- QPR have now lost eight of their last nine cup ties against London sides. The outlier is Leyton Orient away in the League Cup in 2021.

- Mark Sykes’ own goal equaliser for QPR in that cup game continues a weird recent trend in this area. Rangers equalled the club record for own goals received in 24/25 with five, and then went one better with six last season.

- Segecic’s goal at West Ham continues his hot run from the end of last season where he either scored (five) or assisted (three) in each of his final six Portsmouth appearances. He was the top scorer here last year with 11.

- Portsmouth won 1-0 at Oxford on the opening day of last season to continue an unbeaten run in the first game of the campaign which goes back six years. QPR started last year with a 1-1 home draw against Preston and haven’t won their first game since Mark Warburton’s side got up and running with a 2-0 homer against Forest in 2020.

- QPR haven’t won at Fratton Park in seven attempts going back to the final day of 1999/00 when Gerry Francis’ men won 3-1 with goals from Richard Langley, Kevin Gallen and an Andy Myers own goal.

Prediction

In our Prediction League for 2026/27 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 won both prizes last year and has kindly agreed to keep up tradition and offer his thoughts in this year’s match previews…

“Welcome back to another QPR season of promise, highs, lows and heads in hands.
A theme you’ll pick up from me this season is a dislike of most teams whether that stems from historical games, players, managers and fans past and present. Most that know me laugh at my petty reasonings and I know I should get over myself. I’ll be brief on them and hopefully they will jog memories and sentiments.

“I actually don’t mind Pompey and living within an hour of there, know some decent fans. They have a proper stadium and the atmosphere is real football. Plus, they detest Southampton which is always going to sit well with me. Unlike our strong preseason results, theirs have been indifferent, but they’ve made some significant signings and will be confident going into the new season for an improved campaign. I thought they did quite well at West Ham in the cup until they conceded and will take some positives going forward.

“More importantly, I’m enjoying the vibe and unity around our camp currently. I think our recruitment and squad reshaping has been smart based on our restrictions and think we have a team, fitness and availability notwithstanding, that’s capable of pushing on this year.

"Pompey will no doubt be hoping to get off to a fast start at home but I’m expecting us to start this game with a real purpose and intent, unlike our last visit there, and I can see us kicking the season off with a victory and Chair to bag the first in a 2-0 win.”

JB’s Prediction: Portsmouth 0-2 QPR. Scorer – Ilias Chair

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

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

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