An elongated international break comes to a close tonight as QPR return to action with a difficult Westfield derby against West Ham - here are five questions facing the R’s in this next tranche of fixtures.

West Ham (4-3-1 WWWLD 2nd) v QPR (3-4-1 WWLDDD 6th)

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Give domestic football three weeks off and see what happens.

Manchester City bring the entire Premier League to the brink of collapse when it turns out their declared revenues were somewhere in the region of £900m higher than the reality (shocked, shocked I tell you). Southampton are praised by the FA for their “contrition” (is it… in the room with us now?) in the Tonda Eckert affair and the manager escapes with a slap on the wrist. Ian Holloway is a Dead. Man. Walking. And, errr, Graham Alexander is the new Preston manager.

Okay, that last one probably doesn’t live up to the crazy billing, but I’ll tell you what is disconcertingly new and bizarre – we’ve started receiving invitations to play-off chats in the LFW postbag…

For a team that has been in this league for 11 years without ever finishing higher than ninth it does feel a little odd to be saying QPR have parred the course so far to sit sixth in the league. Nevertheless, we have done pretty much what I expected us to do with a kind fixture list that included two newly promoted teams and the four sides that finished 18th-21st last season.

Now, in fairness, on this year’s nascent ladder it does include the teams currently third, fifth and ninth while Blackburn and Bolton have been a good deal more competitive than we expected. Still, Middlesbrough looked like the only real challenger in that opening set of games and lo and behold it’s the only one Rangers have lost so far.

The R’s are only one point better off than this time last year, which feels a bit strange given the mood music then and the optimism and feel-good around the place now. If you match the results up stride for stride then we’re three points better off with a win at Portsmouth instead of a draw and a hard fought point at West Brom instead of last year’s insipid defeat at The Hawthorns. But if you swap in Oxford for Bolton and Sheff Wed for Cardiff then we’re almost note for note what we did in 25/26, albeit this year’s Boro defeat looked a lot different to last year’s.

It leaves us, and the other general Championship watchers, in something of a quandary – are QPR any good or not? If it’s the former, here are the five challenges Julien Stéphan's team will need to meet in the affirmative.

- The fixture list

After that so-called kind start, things get markedly more difficult from here starting tonight away to a West Ham side that is second in the table, has already scored 22 times this year, and put four through Wolves and six through Wrexham on this ground. Jarrod Bowen is currently running at a shot or a chance created every quarter of an hour. It’s a huge test, and it’s not the only one in a hectic October that starts with a three-game week, ends with a trip to Southampton who are second to West Ham in the scoring stakes and put five through the R’s just a few months back, and includes a visit from surprise league leaders Swansea. Visits from Derby and later Lincoln and Burnley to W12 look a little kinder.

It feels like you’ll know a lot more about Rangers’ promotion credentials after that little lot as we head into the November internationals. Julien Stéphan refuted this when he spoke with LFW/Hoopsa earlier this week pointing out this is just five or six games and one month in a typically long and hard Championship season, and he’s right to the extent that there are plenty of significant challenges that lay beyond whatever happens over the next few weeks.

Our analyst Andrew Scherer points out that this is the most compacted Championship fixture list there has been since the Covid lockdown. Having finished with two three-game weeks, we come straight back into another with Derby and Birmingham due over the next eight days. QPR have been dealt a particularly cruel hand. Seven of our away games this season come after a midweek match (only Stoke have more), which is a fixture pattern we famously excel at. We also boast a joint league-highest seven double aways (two away games played with max four days’ turnaround, e.g. Tuesday-Saturday). There is a week to come where we’re at Burnley on a Tuesday then Lincoln Saturday, and another where a midweek at Derby is followed immediately by a trip to Preston. When you compare how much we're getting screwed to, say, Watford, who have three such doubles and one of those is QPR/Charlton, it feels like we might want to swap the team coach for Bonnie Blue's Bang Bus.

This team is going to have to show hitherto unseen levels of durability to achieve with this diary.

- Strikers/goals/possession

I should probably apologise to Richard Kone personally for hanging the LFW Memorial Millstone around his neck in the summer. After he and Rumarn Burrell both reached double figures in their first ever seasons at this level I saw no reason there couldn’t be breakout years for both in 26/27. Kone, in particular, looked like a Vipotnik MKII in waiting to me, but has come back unfit, out of shape, out of form, and repeatedly injured. Burrell, meanwhile, has scored only against newly promoted Cardiff (though his approach work for the goal at West Brom was worth a score) and he's now injured too.

I said in the summer that QPR finally having a collection of proper strikers for the level after years of loan patch ups, failed European projects, and Conor Washington punts was the main reason for excitement this year. As it turns out, own goals is joint top scorer with two and Rangers have probably left a good six points on the board with the chances missed against Bolton, Charlton and Preston. Look in again in a fortnight and we might well be wishing we had those fixtures back again.

The stat around possession continues to grow, with the 60.6% against Preston only enough for a point. It’s now 72 games and 23 victories since QPR last beat a team while holding more of the ball than their opponent – at home to Blackburn in February 2025. The R’s had 72.4% of it against Charlton and 52% in the loss to Boro. If you want to be positive you could say it means games like tonight, and the ones to come at Birmingham and Southampton, might suit this team better than we think – the R’s are one of only two Championship sides still unbeaten away. But, by the same token, it’s going to make the likes of Derby and Lincoln difficult to ice in W12.

QPR are quietly on a run of one win in eight games at Loftus Road going back to last season. This needs to change if we’re to achieve this year.

- Ronnie Edwards/Pierce Charles/defence

As it turns out, the best thing about Rangers is actually the defence. Only table topping Swansea have conceded fewer goals.

Our conclusion last season that even a steady Premier League loaned goalkeeper would probably give you a 16-18 goal swing on the accident prone Walsh/Nardi/Hamer triumvirate has so far been proven in spades with Pierce Charles making an enormous difference to the way the team plays. Charles comes into this game on the back of an excellent international break in which he’s kept four clean sheets in four games and saved a penalty. The footballing world is starting to wake up to what a potential star he could be. Likewise Ronnie Edwards, who has banked both player of the month awards so far and – bar the first 20 minutes at Portsmouth – has looked imperious in defence and midfield. If Jake Clarke-Salter is fit to start alongside Jimmy Dunne it’s starting to feel like that more advanced role is where Handsome Ron is best suited, although Monsieur Julien wouldn’t really be drawn on that in our interview.

It’s all a stark improvement on last season when only Sheff Wed conceded more goals than QPR in the Championship, but the real test of it starts now. West Ham have bagged 22 times already, their xG is the league’s highest. Faced with a crisis club, Nuno Espirito Santo is basically trying to Keegan his way out of this division – they have a 6-0, 4-2, 3-2 and 2-2 already on their slate. There’s not a lot of suave tactical sophistication here, they’ve got the best attacking players in the league so they’re just going to fire into the air and see who runs off. Will QPR tonight?

- Injuries and availability

For me, this is going to be the key. Stéphan is right, the season won’t be decided tonight, or at Southampton in a couple of weeks. Swansea, West Brom etc are doing their best to gatecrash but I still think there feels like a pretty set top four in this league (Boro, West Ham, Wolves, Southampton) and you’re likely to get your arse handed to you by a few of those as you go along. With the play-offs going down to eighth you just have to hang in the race, be within striking distance come March/April and, most crucially, have a team that is fit and available to do that.

Charles in goal with Lamptey and Cirkin at full back, Dunne and Clarke-Salter in the middle with Edwards and/or Kamara ahead of them and Madsen/Vale making the play for the likes of Chair, Saito, Poku behind people like Burrell and Kone feels like a team that could easily finish in the top eight this season. How often will the team look like that? That’s going to decide it.

Already, tonight, nine games in, there are 11 first team players either definitely out or doubtful for the West Ham game. QPR do not have the budget, the squad depth, or the quality of development squad to be able to cope with a list that long for more than the odd game here and there. For the second time this year we’re heading to The London Stadium in a good place, in high spirits, and keen to test ourselves against West Ham, but with too many players injured to make a proper fist of it. Now, the absolutely ridiculous schedule that’s been inflicted on teams (already covered) means we’re not alone – Millwall are missing 13 players for a difficult trip to Middlesbrough, Norwich are 12 down for a lunchtime game at the league leaders. The problem is, QPR have now been like this three seasons running.

The club continue to deny this is a problem or a trend. Stéphan pointed to not only the schedule but also players like Cirkin, Lamptey and Kamara not doing a full pre-season with us, and chose to sidestep the question about why it keeps happening. At the fans forum Christian Nourry described the work between the first team coaches and performance department as “sensational”, and name checked a load of the performance staff personally for their work in a week where we’d already lost Chair, Kone, Lamptey, Dunne and Smyth in the first halves of three games. I might have gone for the downplay and “let’s see” approach myself, given our record, but as we know from various “90% availability” studies they don’t seem to believe that said record is that bad at all.

With the optimism around the place, the heightened expectations, the expanded play-offs, and the quality of the team they’ve put together… I don’t think that’s going to wash if a third season in a row goes the way of the treatment room.

- Standards

Stéphan used said forum to stress the door was always open for any player when asked about the interminable saga with Rayan Kolli. Has that door creaked open any wider over an international break in which Kolli has scored three times in the stiffs and the two first team strikers ahead of him have been crocked? The manager says non...

“For me the standards are more important than the injuries. Let me explain what I want to say… We can have six or seven players, offensive players, unavailable, and if I consider that the standards from one player is not enough good, I will not put him on the pitch. And we can have all the players available, all the strikers available, and if one of them has a good, good, good standard every day, I will put him on the pitch. So, the situation of Rayan is completely different with the injury situation.”

That’s going to be a hard sell to fans if a big night for the football club slips by tonight with Alfie Lloyd toiling up front while Rayan’s barnet bobs around at the back of the away end again. One does wonder why Richard Kone’s big bum is something we have to help him with, show him love, get round him, because he’s a “monster”, but Rayan Kolli’s is a matter of standards. It can only lead you to the conclusion there is far, far more to this than a player supposedly desperate to play for QPR not running around enough.

Setting that aside, I did enjoy hearing a QPR manager talking medium and long term rather than short, and talking about standards. For too long the club has been beset by short termism, hiring and firing managers focused only on getting results in the next six games for fear of losing their job. Standards at the place – be it the Roberts/Richards/Laird cohort, be it the Barton/Bosingwa/SWP years, or further back – have been in the bin. It’s often felt like a place only really cared about by the long-suffering support, who for their troubles have been conditioned to expect less and less from their club each year cos “it’s hard, innit?” To hear a manager not only talking about sky high standards for his players, but also demanding ambition in his pre-match (“show ambition or stay at home”) was absolute music to my ears.

He’s right. You build standards, and culture, over time. As soon as you sacrifice them once because you’ve got a difficult game and/or a few injuries you’re dead in your initialled tracksuit. You have to be strong and consistent on these things and it was a pleasure to hear the QPR manager speaking that way. No excuses, this is us, fucking do it. Or, whatever that is in French.

We’re talking the talk. That’s nothing new though. Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is whether we can actually walk the walk this time.

Links >>> Julien Stephan – Interview >>> Portsmouth, Blackburn, Hibs – Awaydays >>> International breakdown – Analysis >>> Free-scoring bounce-back – Oppo Profile >>> In form Ferdinand – History >>> Ricardo in charge – Referee >>> Esquerdinha love letter – Column >>> Join the dark side – Column >>> West Ham Official Website >>> Football Ground Guide – London Stadium >>> Knees Up Mother Brown – Forum >>> Hammers Chat – YouTube Channel >>> West Ham Till I Die – Blog >>> WHUST – Supporters Trust

Parish Noticeboard
- Friends and former teammates of Ludek Miklosko will be on the pitch the honour the Czech goalkeeper before tonight’s meeting between two of his former clubs, following his death at the age of 64. The Czech played 373 times for the Hammers between 1990 and 1998, before joining QPR in a Christmas Day transfer and making a further 57 league appearances.
- Tickets for next week’s trip to Birmingham are now on general sale, although there are only a couple of hundred left. Details.

Below the fold

Team News: It’s one of those days where the team selection might end up being more interesting than the match itself.

QPR are definitely missing the suspended Dennis Cirkin and Rumarn Burrell who picked up an injury described as “not a bad one” and “not the same as last year’s” in our interview with Julien Stéphan this week but nevertheless likely to rule him out well into November. Jake Clarke-Salter is one yellow card away from a ban, leading the division with four yellows so far.

Other than that they may also be missing: Richard Kone, who was taken out of service after a lousy start to the year only to get crocked by a horror tackle in the development squad game at Bolton; Tariq Lamptey, who hasn’t been seen since sitting down in the first half of the Charlton game; Boy Kemper, injured in the first tackle of his league debut at Portsmouth on opening day; Justin Obikwu, who apparently hasn’t trained during the international break (if he indeed does exist at all); Karamoko Dembele, out since January with an ACL rupture; Harvey Vale, injured in the warm up against Preston and withdrawn from Ireland duty as a result; Rayan Kolli, who’s still learning about standards; Ilias Chair, injured in the first half against Middlesbrough. So, Kealey Adamson against Jarrod Bowen and Alfie Lloyd against the rest of the world then? A (sadly) typically chunky injury list for QPR over the past couple of years. However, several of these players (Kone, Kolli, Lamptey, Dembele, Kemper) have all featured in the club’s videos from training this week, so I wonder if the starting 11 will be one of the club’s ‘haha, gotcha’ moments? We can but hope.

It’s a situation further complicated by a potential FIFA suspension for Glen Kamara. The international governing body can sit the midfielder down for five days after the Finnish FA complained that QPR had forced him to return home from international duty early and without their permission, potentially further exacerbating our availability issues for this game.

West Ham’s free scoring centre back Konstantinos Mavropanos was withdrawn early from Greece’s 0-0 draw with Germany a week ago but the knock he suffered in that game is not serious. Tomas Souceck played in a training ground friendly over the break and may feature for the first time this season after picking up a nasty thigh injury at the World Cup. Mohamadou Kante is suspended after his ‘take one for the team’ red card in the draw at Millwall last time out.

Elsewhere: Some five months after the fact, the FA finally got round to holding their hearing into Tonda Eckert’s conduct during the 2025/26 season which saw his Southampton team expelled from the play-offs despite winning their semi-final against Middlesbrough and docked four points for the start of this year. He’s been issued with what seems like a rather lenient six week ban from football suspended for two years (so, nothing at all really) with the panel citing the “contrition” shown for the spying on other teams’ training sessions. I have to say, I must have missed all the Southampton contrition over this myself and they’ve immediately responded to the verdict by putting a video of Eckert celebrating captioned “I just don’t think you understand” out on their socials just to re-affirm how contrite they are about the whole thing. Still, nice chilled start for them on the return to action – Portsmouth head to St Mary’s on Sunday morning.

The other ten fixtures are all on Saturday with surprise league leaders Swansea leading us off at lunchtime with a home game against a Norwich side that was heavily fancied by has so far struggled to get going. Charlton v Bristol City and West Brom v Birmingham are also in the 12.30 slot, for reasons known only to the host broadcaster.

The Rob Edwards derby between Middlesbrough and Wolves is obviously the pick of the afternoon games, but watch out for a few of the surprise packages in this year’s fledgling Championship. Derby and Wrexham are batting below expectation so far ahead of a meeting at Pride Park, Bolton and Stoke are both doing rather better than we thought they might ahead of their game in Lancashire. All three of the victories that have given Lincoln an unlikely top half berth at this stage have come away from home, so the 12/5 generally available on them winning at a fairly shambolic Sheff Utd might be worth a sniff.

Elsewhere, Graham Alexander is the new Preston manager. Personally I’d have stayed where I was at Bradford rather than run the significant risk of passing my old club coming the other way come May, but perhaps that’s why I sit here writing this shit and he’s a professional football manager. We’ll start finding out when Knob End host injury ravaged Millwall at Deepdale. Watford v winless Burnley and Blackburn v Cardiff have the look of early six pointers.

We’ll do it all again Tuesday/Wednesday with yet another midweek round as well.

Referee: It’s a big old Friday night televised fixture for a relatively inexperienced referee - Ruebyn Ricardo in charge here, just as he was for QPR’s last away game at West Brom. Details.

Form

- QPR have started the season with one defeat (Boro H) in eight games to sit sixth in the fledgling league table. They’ve drawn four of the other seven, however, including home games with Bolton and Preston so could and perhaps should have been a good deal higher. Two of the three wins have come away from home – at Portsmouth and Blackburn.

- QPR are unbeaten in four road trips so far having also drawn at Charlton and West Brom. They have only managed a longer away unbeaten run from the start of a season twice this century, eventually winning promotion on both occasions - 2010-11 (first nine) and 2013-14 (first five).

- Predictably, West Ham have already risen to second in the early standings. The pre-season title favourites have lost one (Charlton H) and won four of their eight games so far. They are the only other side in the division still to lose away from home.

- Nuno has been taking very much a Kevin Keegan approach to the task. West Ham have scored 22 times, three more than the nearest rival (Southampton, 19) but have conceded 11 leaving nine other teams with better defensive records including Portsmouth and Watford in 19th and 20th. All three teams with this many goals after eight games since 2004-05 have gone on to win the league - Wolves 2008-09 (23), QPR 2010-11 (22) and Coventry 2025-26 (22). Their xG of 18 is the league’s best as is their shot conversion of 17.5%.

- Only Sheff Wed (89) conceded more goals than QPR (73) in the Championship last year. It was the seventh time in the last ten seasons that Rangers had shipped more than 60 goals in a campaign, and the fifth time they’d given up in excess of 70. So far that trend has been reversed – the R’s have conceded seven times and only league leaders Swansea (six) have let in fewer.

- The dramatic comeback from 2-0 down against Preston with ten men was the seventh point QPR have retrieved from a losing position already. Only Middlesbrough (eight) have a better record when falling behind.

- The stat around possession continues to grow, with the 60.6% against Preston only enough for a point. It’s now 72 games and 23 victories since QPR last beat a team while holding more of the ball than their opponent. The R’s had 72.4% of it against Charlton and 52% in the loss to Boro.

- No player has been involved in more Championship goals this season than West Ham's Jarrod Bowen (four goals, three assists), while he also ranks second for both shots (32) and chances created (24). Bowen also scored two of the Irons’ nine goals across three chaotic League Cup ties as well to put him out in front on six. He’s having a shot or creating a chance every 13 minutes, the best ratio by a player in a Championship season since Brentford’s Saïd Benrahma in 2018-19 (one every 12 minutes).

- What was less expected, perhaps, is centre back Konstantinos Mavropanos matching him stride for stride with four league goals of his own. Six goals from set pieces (not including penalties) is the league’s best total.

- QPR have three players (Burrell, Smyth, Chair) and the ever-prolific Own Goals tied on two. Only Cardiff (148) and Middlesbrough (140) have had more shots than Rangers (138).

- QPR were beaten on their first visit to this stadium 2-1 after extra time in the FA Cup back in January. Richard Kone had equalised Crysencio Summerville’s opener to force the extra period but West Ham were ultimately victorious thanks to Valentin Castellanos. That was the first competitive meeting between the sides in 11 years since the 2014/15 Premier League campaign where the R’s were beaten 2-0 at Upton Park and Charlie Austin missed a penalty in a 0-0 draw at Loftus Road.

- QPR’s last away win at West Ham was in September 1993 when Les Ferdinand (two), Darren Peacock and Gary Penrice all netted in a 4-0 victory over the newly promoted Hammers at Upton Park. The sides have only met six times in East London since, mind, with West Ham winning four of those and two others finishing in a draw.

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 irrational dislikes of each of our opponents this year…

“As a young kid I felt my world had fallen apart when my West Ham supporting brother came running onto the field near our home informing me that Phil Parkes had just signed for his team. Parkes was the main reason I started supporting QPR, so was naturally devastated. Little did I know our parents had written to the club to inform them that one heck of an upset had been caused by this transfer. Several weeks later an envelope was waiting for me when I got back from school with a letter and photo from the big man himself apologising and suggesting he may be back at some point in the future. Nevertheless, a rivalry was created that on several occasions needed the old man to step in – more to save me from another hiding! As we’ve grown and matured and are best buddies there’s now a mutual understanding and bar one incident while standing over our dad’s hospital bed some years back, no more close shaves for me.

“The Hammers have started to click and should have with the squad at their disposal. This season may give them a chance to try and build an atmosphere at that wretched venue they call a football stadium.

“On reflection, I’m still torn on the Preston game and result. Sure, we did remarkably well to salvage a point but my concern is still with scoring goals when we’re playing well and dominating games. We will certainly have to be more clinical here as chances will be fewer and farther between. I’m also hoping the international break will have given us a bit of time to get some players off the treatment table as we’ll need our strongest available. However, I don’t think this will be a good night for us and am expecting a defeat. I’m going 3-0 to West Ham.”

JB’s Prediction: West Ham 3-0 QPR. No scorer.

LFW’s Prediction: West Ham 3-1 QPR. Scorer – Kwame Poku

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