Birmingham and QPR head into Saturday's game at St Andrew's with near identical records sitting fourth and fifth in the table - heady days indeed for these two Championship also rans.

Birmingham (4-5-1 DLWDWW 4th) v QPR (4-5-1 LDDDDW 5th)

Sky’s Super Saturday Brunch Spectacular >>> Saturday October 17, 2026 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather – Cool but sunny >>> St Andrew’s, Birmingham

It would be odd for a fairly meaningless midweek 1-0 loss towards the end of a midtable season to be the low point in a campaign that included 7-1 and 5-0 hammerings on the road, but QPR’s last visit to St Andrew’s wasn’t far off.

Against a similarly out of form Birmingham side (this would be Blues’ only win in eight games of which they lost six) QPR deservedly behind with the time still in single figures and rarely ever once looked like clawing their way back into the game, despite a decent late cameo by Kwame Poku against the club that tried to buy him the previous summer.

Afterwards Jimmy Dunne said there’d been confusion among the players about what they were supposed to be doing. Julien Stephan for his part labelled the performance “embarrassing”. At that point Rangers had lost four games on the spin without scoring a goal, conceding 12 in the process, and were cratering down the Championship table. They’d won just three of 15 games since Christmas, and one of those was the home gimme against whipping boys Sheff Wed.

It honestly felt at that point like Stephan wasn’t long for his job. That Saturday QPR took up barely half their allocation for a usual guaranteed sell out at Leicester, and those who were there mocked their team with frustrated chants of “backwards and sideways, everywhere we go” as the relegation haunted Foxes also went into an early one goal lead. If this QPR team and manager do go on to achieve something, I wonder how much we’ll look back on Ronnie Edwards’ glorious pass through for Harvey Vale to equalise and change the course of that game as a key moment. An hour later the R’s had won 3-1, and a week further still they’d done three on the spin and put six goals through hapless Portsmouth.

Rangers certainly travel to St Andrew’s in different form and mood this weekend. Just one defeat from ten to begin the season, firmly among the early promotion picture, and coming in hot after impressive displays against West Ham and Derby since the extended international break. Stephan now oozes confidence and belief in his interviews, demanding standards and ambition of his players, and the likes of Pierce Charles, Ronnie Edwards, Nicolas Madsen and Paul Smyth are absolutely flourishing under the Frenchman’s guidance.

We’ve spoken a lot about this team in term of tests so far. That was the whole preview for that Derby game – can Rangers win when expected to? Can they dominate the ball against an inferior opponent? Can they knock off a routine win rather than turning the whole thing into an ordeal akin to shitting out a competition sized snooker table?

This has been much of the narrative so far as we seek evidence on just how good the team may or may not be and how far it might potentially go. Can we win a tough opening day at Fratton Park? Can we hold our own against a parachute payment outfit like West Ham? How do we respond to a big early set back against Preston? Can we win game three of a three game week? Are we ever going to win when holding more possession than the opponent (no, apparently)?

That’s inevitable. Not only because 48 match previews a season don’t write themselves (and really fucking don’t when you play three times in a week) and looking for pointers on who’s going to do what in this mad bastard league is a very obvious angle for the early autumn games. QPR, as we know, have been in this league for 11 years and never finished higher than ninth. That’s going to breed a good deal of weary suspicion among the support base that has stuck with them through that decade. We’ve been burned before. We thought Mark Warburton’s team had a great chance. We thought Mick Beale had cracked it. Why, exactly, should we believe it’s different this time?

I think that’s fair enough. I’m very much on Stephan’s side – show ambition or don’t show up. I’m sick of this ‘little old QPR’ routine. I want us to be good, and I’m watching us closely to see if we might actually be. We shouldn’t forget to enjoy it, though.

I’ve read some sniffiness about the performance on Wednesday night – the goals were a bit scruffy, Kolli was a bit sloppy, should have scored more. I’ve seen more magical Magic Kingdoms etc. The atmosphere was obviously dampened by the Amadou Mbengue injury and the fact the wholly uncompetitive fixture went on for 110 minutes into the night meaning people were sloping off for last trains long before full time, but it’s a 4-1 win all the same. We really have got to have a good time with that, and our league position, when given the chance, precisely because it’s been 11 years and never higher than ninth. Let’s get a bit excited about this.

Tough game this one. Big test. Bah. Sorry. So close.

Links >>> Less chat, more action – Oppo Profile >>> Wembley bound – History >>> Kirk in charge – Referee >>> Birmingham City official website >>> St Andrew’s — Ground Guide >>> Small Heath Alliance — Message Board >>> We Are Birmingham — Podcast >>> Birmingham Mail — Local Press

Below the fold

Team News: We await news (should it ever come) about the extent of Amadou Mbengue’s horrible looking injury but for now it’s Kealey Adamson against the world on that side of the defence. Dennis Cirkin serves game three of three of his suspension, while former Blue Jake Clarke-Salter remains one yellow card away from a ban of his own. There were plenty of walking wounded by the end of the Derby victory, but for now the confirmed absentees remain Ilias Chair, Rumarn Burrell, Karamoko Dembele, Tariq Lamptey, Koki Saito and (of course) Justin Obikwu.

Relative to the rest of the Championship, Blues are doing quite well fitness wise. Marc Leonard is a long term absentee with a busted Achilles, and Paik Seung-ho has missed the last couple and won’t be fit for this one either. Kristoffer Lund picked up a knock in a behind-closed-doors game during the international break. Other than that the midweek thrashing of Preston this ground came without further casualties.

Elsewhere: Tonight’s TV game sees two of the relegated clubs clashing with Burnley hosting Wolves. Both had disappointing midweek games – Burnley unable to follow up on their first win of the season only drawing with Charlton at Turf Moor, Wolves surprisingly beaten 3-1 at home by newly promoted Bolton. It leaves Burnley without a home win in the league in 20 attempts going back to this week last year. They’ve already conceded more goals (19) than they did in the whole of their last season at this level (16).

Not half as depressing as Watford following up that 4-0 loss to the Clarets with a 5-1 setback at Cardiff, nor Lincoln going down to nine men early doors and getting done 6-0 at home by West Ham. Both those sides get an early chance for redemption with lunchtime kick offs – the Imps at Millwall and the Hornets hosting Charlton. Cardiff, meanwhile, at least have that result to give them some confidence ahead of a long, early morning slog up to Middlesbrough where Ten Mill Will is already into double figures for goals – joint top scorer across the Football League with Erling Haaland (ten each).

The game of the day among the Saturday afternoon kick offs is undoubtedly the top two meeting in South Wales as Swansea’s surprise title aspirations get an examination from West Ham. The Swans have won 70 points from 40 Championship games since Vitor Matos took over and this is their best start to a season since 1923/24.

Down at the other end of the table, bottom-placed Preston have really shown Graham Alexander what he’s let himself in for with 1-0 and 4-0 defeats so far this week ahead of a trip to Wrexham. It’s also a pretty dire time at Derby as we saw for ourselves on Wednesday and they won’t be looking forward to in form Stoke coming down the A52 – the Potters have scored just one goal in six visits to Pride Park. Norwich, fancied by many, have quietly slipped as low as 20th after four straight losses now, so a big win against fellow strugglers Portsmouth is required.

Blackburn’s smash and grab at Bristol City during the week makes their trip to West Brom a surprise clash between two play-off contenders. City will aim to bounce back from that setback at home to Sheff Utd. Southampton continue their catchup bid with a homer against Bolton.

Referee: Thomas Kirk in charge of this, a fifth QPR appointment of his career and the R’s are yet to win. Details.

Form

- QPR and Birmingham come into this game with near identical records. They’ve both won four, drawn five and lost only one of their first ten games with a +6 goal difference. Blues have scored two more (17) but also conceded two more (11) than their visitors. With 17 points from ten games this is Brum’s best start to a Championship campaign in ten years.

- Both teams have also found the going easier away from home. QPR are unbeaten on their travels, with two wins and three draws from five games representing their best start to a season in that regard since the 2013/14 promotion campaign. The R’s have only gone unbeaten in their first six aways three times in club history, the last in another promotion year 2010/11. Birmingham meanwhile have picked up three of their four wins away from St Andrew’s.

- Both did win at home during the week though, and scored four goals each in the process. QPR rolled over second bottom Derby 4-1 at Loftus Road while Birmingham went one better against rock bottom Preston with a 4-0 win at St Andrew’s.

- A draw might be a good bet here. Nobody in the league has drawn as many as these two (five) so far. QPR’s last three away games have all finished level and if they make it four here it’ll be the longest such sequence since November 2010. Birmingham have drawn four of their five home games so far.

- QPR have conceded just one goal from set pieces – the joint-fewest in the competition, alongside Sheff Utd. They also remain one of five teams in the second tier yet to concede from a corner.

- Only Swansea (seven) have conceded fewer overall than QPR (nine). Pierce Charles’ save rate of 75% is bettered only by Max O’Leary at West Brom and Lawrence Vigeroux at Swansea.

- It’s now 74 games and 24 victories since QPR last beat a team while holding more of the ball than their opponent. The bizarre, elongated end to the midweek thrashing of Derby nudged that stat to 48/52 in favour of the visitors.

- August Priske is the top scorer for Birmingham with four in the league and one in the cup. The Danish striker has three in his last two appearances. Paul Smyth is now out in front as QPR’s top scorer with three goals. The Northern Ireland winger has five goals and two assists in his last nine appearances at Loftus Road.

- Having not been awarded a penalty since March (Richard Kone v Portsmouth), QPR have now been handed two in two games both for fouls on Smyth. Nicolas Madsen scored both.

- When QPR won at St Andrew’s 2-1 in January 2022 (Adomah, Willock) it was their fifth win in eight visits to this ground with a draw thrown in there for good measure. However in the three games played here since the R’s have lost two and drawn one without scoring a goal. Prior to all that they’d gone eight without a win in this fixture between 1984 and 2014, losing eight.

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…

“If ever a relegation was coming, it was at Birmingham. Year after year the decline and poor decision making up top continued until the inevitable caught up with them.Now they’re back in the Championship and mean business. Recruitment over the past couple of years has been decent, albeit costly and has made them a genuine contender for the playoffs.

“What a great night at Loftus Road on Tuesday and nice to see us finally post a few goals. It’s felt like that has been coming and although Derby were pretty poor defensively, I liked the way Alfie took his goal and Vale get off the mark for the season. The night was unfortunately marred by the Mbengue injury and we hope and pray that his knee isn’t one of those that can change a career.

“Blue’s away is going to be very tough, but they will be saying the same facing us this Saturday. I just have this feeling that we’re going to sneak it though and will go for 2-1 and Kolli to score first.”

JB’s Prediction: Birmingham 1-2 QPR. Scorer – Rayan Kolli

LFW’s Prediction: Birmingham 1-1 QPR. Scorer – Kwame Poku

If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via our PayPal account loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk.

Getty Images

Recent Stories