QPR’s positive start to the season risks falling the way of another injury crisis, and with league leaders Swansea in town on Saturday the latest raft of casualties have arrived at an inopportune moment.

QPR (4-5-2 DDDDWL 9th) v Swansea (7-2-2 LWWWWL 1st)

Sky’s Super Saturday Brunch Spectacular >>> Saturday October 24, 2026 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather – It’s a hurricane, storm time’s comin for you todaayyyy >>> Loftus Road, London, W12

If you’re one of those anxious types that has to have wallpaper noise on in the background during every waking hour to stop your inner monologue from eating you alive (God bless Married At First Sight Australia and it’s 80-hour season runs) then I bring you glad tidings from the world of YouTube where some absolute banter merchant has dropped every episode of classic Sky One football soap Dream Team in catalogued playlists.

If you don’t like Jamie’s player ratings, or you’ve noticed we’ve forgotten to change the intro on the referee piece again this week, then please do appreciate this process is currently being conducted against the considerable backdrop of Lynda Block aggressively shagging her way around the fictitious Midlands town of Harchester. Even Holby City’s own Ray Wyatt has had a piece now (poor Kitty). It’s worth it for the Keysie cameos alone: “Come on Lynda, don’t make me beg.” I miss 90s TV.

You do forget quite how bloodthirsty that show was. Low-budget scripted TV doesn’t really lend itself to the sort of large ensemble cast of repeatable characters you get at a football club and many weird and wonderful reasons had to be found to explain where people had gone when they inevitably got a part in The Bill or Emmerdale Farm. Eddie Moliano… on loan to QPR. Ooof, fate worse than death, mate. Or, perhaps not, given death was in fact the option taken by the script writers on a frankly implausible number of occasions. Hired gunman shoots the wrong bloke at the cup final (RIP John Black), hired police sniper shoots the right bloke in the changing room (RIP Jamie Parker), new rich owner beaten to death in his office by jilted rival (RIP Prash), hometown hero impaled on his own clothes peg (RIP Fletch). That cup winning side was swiftly broken up when their plane disappeared over the North Sea (RIP… well quite a few of them actually) and the team bus was more of a flying death trap itself – a hideously unreliable method of getting the squad from A to B (RIP… everyone left by that point).

Writer and producer Jane Hewland said she was quite relieved when it was drawn to a close after ten years and more than 400 episodes, such was the challenge of keeping the show on the road with what was clearly becoming an ever more implausible list of storylines. Mind you, given that reboots are all the rage, maybe she should give W12 a visit, where golden child Nicolas Madsen is apparently the latest to join QPR’s ever plaguesome injury list until… well until after the international break. Like always.

Rumarn Burrell will also not be seen until the other side of that hiatus. Less surprisingly, but no less annoying, Tariq Lamptey also won’t do service for another month at least. Amadou Mbengue will be lucky to see action before next November’s international break. And the problem with this “don’t worry, the cavalry’s coming” approach is Rangers are losing three players for every one they get back. With four more games to play before said international break, goodness knows what state we’ll be in by then. Actually, never mind the games - Madsen, like Harvey Vale before him, went down in a warmup. I’m starting to think laying those mines on the training ground might have been a mistake.

It actually wouldn’t surprise me, when the team sheet drops tomorrow, if things aren’t quite as bad as has been made out in the build-up. It suits us if league leaders Swansea think it’s the classic ‘Arry “down to the bare bones” situation. This iteration of QPR likes to deal in Easter Eggs, so don’t be shocked if there’s a surprise, fan-pleasing comeback for an Ilias Chair-type come quarter to two tomorrow afternoon. Karamoko Dembele, for instance, scorer in the Development Squad against Bristol City at the start of the week.

Nor would I put it past the R’s getting a result, despite Swansea’s formidable start to the year, impenetrable defence and league-best away record. We’re spirited, good to watch, and difficult to beat if we get that Charles-Dunne-JCS-Edwards combination in there. Rangers have essentially gone from two players in every position to one, but it’s still a very reasonable 11 at Julien Stéphan’s disposal with Dennis Cirkin returning from his ban. Well, it is for the first hour or so at least.

Still, you couldn’t mistake the manager’s mood in his pre-match briefing with the press. He told the written media the situation was so dire that he and John Eustace had led a delegation to the fourth official in the Derby game to plead for a nominal amount of added time at the end of a game that was obviously done – they were ignored, and another ten ensued to take playing time that night to something approaching 110 minutes. It’s been a nutty schedule, and we’re not the only team suffering.

Stéphan rarely gets high with the highs or low with the lows, but he looked and sounded as down as I’ve seen him in his time here with the possible exception of Birmingham away last season. Exasperation and frustration writ large as the Frenchman once again said he’s no idea, and no way of telling, how good his group of players really are because he never gets to see them play together as a group. “Don’t know. I don’t know. I didn’t once use the players altogether at the same time, so I don’t know. I couldn’t answer after one game, I need 10-15-20 games in a row, this is normal for a manager.” Ouch. This feels like a good team, with a good manager, but how many times this season has Monsieur Julian been able to make a substitution of his own volition, for tactical reasons, rather than because one of his players has keeled over or can only play a managed set of minutes? And for all that managing of minutes, what difference has it made? QPR have finished each of the last three games with ten men due to accumulated injuries during play. Rangers have made 40 changes to their starting 11 this season, more than any other team in the league. It must be driving the guy insane.

It’s doing the same to the support base (online, at least, we’ll wait and see what the pub chat is tomorrow). This is a third straight season of this situation recurring and the Madsen news has sent the message board into a frenzy of people’s favourite theories – hectic fixture schedule, hybrid pitches, lasting Covid effect on ligaments, recruiting injury prone players, changing nature of football, personnel in the performance department, absolute outright rank bad luck and coincidence…

Unwise to reach a conclusion from this distance. From much closer in the club themselves clearly don’t know why this is happening, otherwise they’d stop it (right?). Another annual review, anyone? Is there anything to be said for another Mass?

It may be that there is no link. All these myriad injuries that have literally hamstrung the last two seasons and now threaten to do so for a third-year running are all happening for different, specific, individual reasons, perhaps. I find that pretty implausible – my experience with rugby league where the same Wigan, Leeds, Wakefield types post excellent availability year on year while the same Hull FC, Huddersfield, Castleford outfits are all completely dead by round 12 has taught me not to believe in coincidences. But it is at least possible that we’re just terribly, terminally unlucky. Perhaps it is a curse. Ian Holloway would have had Kim wafting her woowoo stick around the training ground long before now. If somebody else’s knee explodes with nobody near them then you best start believing in ghost stories Miss Turner, you’re in one.

One thing anybody would surely struggle to deny at this point is that QPR have a problem. This manager, and his predecessor, have both said it, and the chairman of the club said it in his introduction to the latest set of accounts. It’s widely felt Rangers have a team capable of making the play-offs this year, if they can get that team on the pitch. To miss out in a year when qualification stretches down to eighth because of player availability problems, again, would try the patience of even football’s most tolerant fanbase.

One of the things that does puzzle me in all of this is how the club’s rhetoric, attitude and coms flip when it comes to talking about our availability issues. When appearing at the Soccerex conference over the close season, CEO Christian Nourry spoke passionately about being “best in class” and “getting Premier League ready”. At the fans forum and during his media round during the September break (and my God, compare his mood a fortnight ago to his press conference this week) Stéphan spoke repeatedly about setting standards super high at the club, and told his players not to bother going to West Ham that Friday unless they had the ambition to go there and win. It’s probably where I find the pair of them most impressive. Typical QPR, 15th every year. No, bollocks. Other clubs our size have gone past us, why can’t we aspire and achieve? Why can’t we have a category one academy? It’s where I warm to Christian the most. Standards, and ambition, at a club that for a good deal of my 30+ years following it has had neither, or at least lots of the latter with little of the former.

When it comes to injuries, however, this flips around rather. Stats are used to convince you, the fans, this isn’t as big a problem as it would appear to you when you’re standing at Stoke watching Karamoko Dembele play as a lone striker. We have 90% availability, as long as you discount Ziyad Larkeche's busted ACL – my hot air balloon company has a perfect safety record, apart from that one time with the pylons. (The stats produced by Padula’s Shampoo on page 13 of this thread paint a very different picture, by the way.) The EFL’s annual report into such things says we’re “midtable”. We point (with plenty of justification) to the schedule, to similar problems at Millwall, Norwich and elsewhere. They’re not wrong, but QPR have played three games in a month, and none of these Madsen, Mbengue, Lamptey types were away on internationals so got a three week break. The work of a performance department that has overseen 2.5 years of this is described as “sensational”. People in other areas of the club perceived to be underperforming, particularly the academy, have been moved on, often quite ruthlessly. The new women's manager lasted five minutes this season. By contrast, the performance department get personal name checks at the fans forum. And, yet, still the injuries come. It doesn’t add up.

Why is it okay to be midtable for this stuff? Why is it inevitable that a hectic fixture list kills our chances? Why is it fine, as long as the same thing has happened to Millwall? Why is it fine, because none of them are long term? Why are we in such a rush to stress it's not the same injury as before, as if the same player getting injured multiple times in multiple different ways is that much better? When it comes to player availability those standards and ‘best in class’ demands seem to slip into denial, obfuscation, and an acceptance of mediocrity. Could be worse, could be six months not three. Could be worse, could have been the same hamstring again. Could be worse, could be Derby etc etc. We're failing by our own terms here, aren't we? Standards. Best in class. Premier League ready.

Christian clearly has enormous faith in this part of the operation: “We wouldn’t have pursued the recruitment strategy we did this summer – i.e. taking players with an injury history with the trade-off of Premier League quality – and bringing them into the squad if I didn’t believe the collaboration between coaching, performance and medical was excellent.” Presumably he’s referring to Dennis Cirkin and Tariq Lamptey, primarily, there. Lamptey already onto a second significant absence of this fledgling campaign. I wonder what it would take to shake that confidence? Nourry knows he doesn’t even have to get promoted here. If he turns the Championship’s perennially 15th-placed side into a play-off contender, with the youngest average age in the division, and sellable assets, given the shitshow he inherited, then bigger jobs and headhunters will very quickly be knocking at his door. Same with Stéphan, potentially same with the head of recruitment Andy Belk. They've all done very promising work. Nothing is undermining their project more than this issue.

If the injuries dry up, and the absentees return, then this season remains all here for them, and for us. We’ve lost twice, that’s it. We could very well win tomorrow. The platform is there, still. A bad October, a bad November even, are not terminal to a team’s prospects – it’s okay to be suffering now as long as you’re fit and in form come April. One of our happiest memories together, one of our most spectacular run ins, one of the biggest of big nights at Loftus Road, came in a season where we didn't win for 12 games in the autumn, Vauxhall Motors knocked us out of the FA Cup, and the manager dangled by a thread. Preston were fourth in January last year, Southampton 14th. The Saints won one of their first 13 games in 2025/26, then lost none of their last 19. You've got to stay in touch, but it's then about peaking at the right time. It’s possible we suck this up for a week or three (or four) and come out the other side flying through the second half of the season.

Where it is more damaging – catastrophically so, in fact – is the business model. The stated aim and plan is to get a player trading model going at this club. So far that genuinely big sale has alluded them, while not insignificant money has been spent acquiring assets. Injuries to Rumarn Burrell, and whatever is going on with Richard Kone, are particularly damaging as these were your most obvious candidates. Dembele, Poku, Saito, Madsen, Lamptey… this is nightmare stuff because these are all the players we've invested in and are supposed to be fattening for market. Nobody is spending big money on somebody with the recent records of any of those players, and deleting the old injury updates off the official website won’t change that I'm afraid.

As it stands the only real big money sale potential we currently have in the team, in form, and fully fit, is Ronnie Edwards. Again, you wonder what Ruben Gnanalingam and Richard Reilly think about this - funnelling their personal money into a football club and then spending Saturday afternoons with many of its most expensive and sellable assets sitting up with them in the posh seats.

Might be alright tomorrow, we’ll find out through the teeth of the gale. It’s our sort of game to win and it wouldn’t surprise me if we do. But, big picture, we can’t carry on like this, can we?

Links >>> Super Soaraway Swans – Oppo Profile >>> Sublime Taarabt – History >>> Allison in charge – Referee >>> Swansea Official Website >>> Swans Cast – Contributor’s YouTube Channel >>> Planet Swans — Blog and Forum >>> Swansea Independent - Forum >>> Wales Online — Local Paper >>> The Jack Army — Forum >>> SOS - Fanzine

Parish Noticeboard
- From 19.30 on Saturday, no Overground or Southern service between Shepherd’s Bush and Willesden Junction, reduced service southbound.
- No service all weekend on the District Line to the west of Embankment - Richmond, Wimbledon, Edgware Road and Ealing Broadway branches.

Below the fold

Team News: Noooooo more. I’m almost as tired of writing about QPR injuries as I am about the Rayan Kolli soap opera.

Let’s do Swansea. The super soaraway Swans have been dealt a blow this week with the news Ronald will miss the next two months with a hamstring problem. The Brazilian scored a last-minute winner in their last away game across the capital at Millwall. On the other side of the pitch Josh Key is also ruled out. Man City teenager Jeremy Monga, who impressed so much on this ground in a dreadful Leicester team a year ago, may play the first minutes of his loan spell.

Elsewhere: In the history of the Football League no team had ever gone a full year without winning a home game, until 2026. This week Burnley, courtesy of an away fixture at Lincoln, can do nothing about joining Sheff Wed in that ignominious and exclusive club. The Clarets last won at Turf Moor on October 18 last year, 2-0 against Leeds. The Imps are also finding the going tough on their own patch – two draws and three losses so far, compared to three wins a draw and two defeats away. Burnley have lost a league leading 15 points from winning positions.

It’s a weather-beaten weekend which starts tonight in just the sort of place you’d love to spend Friday evening in the midst of a ‘named storm’ as Bolton host Middlesbrough. Boro have won the last eight meetings between the two sides.

The TV games at lunchtime tomorrow focus largely on the wrong end of the table with Charlton hosting surprise early strugglers Norwich who have lost their last six games and conceded 16 foals doing it, Portsmouth at home to injury ravaged Millwall, and Sheffield Red Stripe at Bramall Lane against ailing Derby where owner David Clowes has issued the Dreaded Vote of Confidence™ in John Eustace prior to kick off. The Rams have one win in 12 games and the league’s worst attack with just nine goals scored and just five separate scorers (also the league’s lowest total, along with Charlton).

West Ham v Southampton is the very obvious pick of the afternoon games – the Hammers already have a 4-1 win under their belts in a League Cup tie between the sides.

The four clubs tucked in behind Boro in third are all also in action with Birmingham on a hot streak of three straight wins on their way to Cardiff; surprise early hit West Brom heading to a Preston side for whom new manager bounce has consisted of three defeats and nine goals conceded; even more surprising Stoke at home to Bristol City; and Wolves hosting the ever farcical Watford who have lost nine of their last ten away games.

No Championship club has lost as many as Preston’s 20 in 2026, defeat tomorrow will make it their worst year since 20211 (21) with two months of the year still to play.

It’s a list rounded out by the Rathbone derby between Blackburn and Wrexham. Rovers have won only two of the last 16 meetings between the teams, and not since 1980, but striker Andri Gudjohnsen has six goals from an xG tally of 2.2 – the league’s best return.

Referee: Sam Allison, who refereed a game between these sides in 2024, is in the middle on Saturday. Details.

Form

- QPR’s 3-0 loss to Birmingham last Saturday was only the R’s second defeat in 11 league games this season. However, it means Rangers have now won only one of their last seven, losing two, and have dropped out of the early playoff reckoning for the first time, currently sitting ninth.

- Swansea also lost last weekend, going down 1-0 to West Ham in South Wales with 69% of the possession and zero shots on target. The Swans, however, had won four on the spin before that and seven of their first 11 games. It means, despite also losing two games, Vitor Matos’ team are nine places higher than Rangers and sit top of the Championship tree coming into this game.

- QPR go into this game ninth with 17 points after 11 games. This time last year they were ninth with 18 points after 11 games. Swansea are 16 places and ten points better off at this stage than they were a year ago – 23 points at this stage is their best ever start to a second-tier season.

- QPR have won two of their six home games, and two of their last nine in W12 going back into last season.

- No Championship team has drawn more than QPR’s five.

- Swansea have won six of their last eight away league games (D1 L1) and could win three in a row for the first time since October 2023. Four away wins so far is the division’s highest total.

- Swansea have won every game they’ve led this season. They have dropped zero points from winning positions – the only team in the league to hold that record. They have won nine points from losing positions – only West Brom (ten) have done better.

- Swansea have the league’s best defence with just eight conceded and five clean sheets. They have faced just 119 shots on goal, the best record in the league. Goalkeeper Lawrence Vigouroux saves 77.1% of the shots he faces, the league’s best record. Only three teams have conceded fewer than QPR’s 12.

- Swansea’s league games this season have seen just 24 goals scored (16 for, eight against), the fewest in the Championship, while Rangers’ games have seen 27 (15 for, 12 against), the joint-third fewest.

- Swansea are yet to score a goal from a set piece. Derby are the only other side in the league without one. They have only conceded one from set pieces, the joint best record in the league.

- It’s now 75 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. Swansea’s average 59.5% possession is the division’s third highest behind Cardiff (61.6) and Boro (59.6).

- Paul Smyth is the top scorer for QPR with three, followed by three players (Chair, Madsen, Burrell) and Own Goals on two. Having equalled the club records for own goals in their favour in 24/25 (five) the club then broke that with six in 25/26. Adam Idah is the Swansea top scorer with four having scored six in the whole of last season.

- QPR have a dreadful recent record at home to Swansea. The Swans have won 2-1 on this ground in each of their last two visits, albeit last year’s was decided by a nonsense penalty decision for a foul committed somewhere out by the Uxbridge Road. That made it seven league meetings here without a victory for the R’s (D3 L4). The last league win was a 4-0 success under the caretaker charge of John Eustace in April 2019, although there was a 5-1 FA Cup success for Mark Warburton the season after in January 2020.

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…

“The Swans are another where I have some fond memories of healthy rivalry with work colleagues and clients. There have been some great games – too many to list, but I seem to get myself into awkward situations with this opponent. Whether that’s listening to us go a couple of goals up very early whilst arguing in our box office to let me in after losing my season ticket card or Paddy Kenny being responsible for me nearly being ‘ejected’ from their corporate with his fine penalty save some years ago.

“Having both lost last time out it will be interesting to see how the teams respond. We certainly weren’t at our best at St Andrews, but we really did shoot ourselves in the foot with all three goals conceded. Well highlighted I know, but the fragility of our squad is a worry and the further news this week that key players we were hoping to see sooner rather than later is going to hold us back. As if this next period of games isn’t difficult enough already.

“I think we may be in for one of those losing streaks I can see Swansea winning this 1-0.

“Finally, I want offer my thoughts and prayers to Ted Hendrix and his family at this difficult time.”

JB’s Prediction: QPR 0-1 Swansea. No scorer

LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 Swansea. Scorer – Rayan Kolli

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

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