QPR aim to put their dismal London derby record to bed, and prove they can raise their game on the rare occasions the Championship gets a little intense, with Brentford in town on Saturday.

Queens Park Rangers (11th) v Brentford (17th)

Championship >>> Saturday March 11, 2016 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather — Misty start, bloody lovely day >>> Loftus Road, London, W12

The Premier League, for the teams scrapping to stay in it, is about intensity. You get 38 games, across 36 weeks and even allowing for breaks for international football that means you’re only playing a round of matches on a Tuesday a couple of times a season.

In a conventional season, which this obviously isn’t, teams only looking to avoid relegation can pretty much write off the two games they have with Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea. You can also dismiss the two fixtures with Arsenal unless you’re lucky enough to pull them in that annual period around March when they blow up and play themselves out of contention for everything while Arsene Wenger steadfastly refuses to believe that sopping wet individuals like Theo Walcott don't have the stones to see anything other than their latest tattoo or dressing room selfie through to the end.

That reduces you to 32 matches and if you’re of the utterly bone-idle, completely out-dated and thoroughly unambitious school of Harry Redknapp and you write off all the away matches as too difficult to try and compete in as well that leaves you with 16 games — Redknapp lost all 14 of his away matches with QPR in 2014/15 and at one point described them as “bonus matches”.

Requiring 11 wins and half a dozen draws to stay in the league, those remaining matches start to feel like major events. Even in August, if you happen to get a home game with Sunderland or Norwich you dare not lose and probably need to win. There’s an intensity and a desperation about those games and while managers say there’s a long way to go and it’s a marathon not a sprint there isn’t and it’s not.

The international breaks exacerbate this. A break at the end of August, September and October mean you’ve only played nine times by the start of November — even a moderately bad start and you’re staring into Christmas with only a couple of wins on the board. Or, if you’re Mark Hughes and Kia Joorabchian at QPR, none at all.

The Championship is not about intensity. Or, at least, not for the majority of the season.

The Championship gives you 46 games in the same period of time, and plunges you into the League Cup a round earlier. You will, excluding a Christmas period when you play five times in a fortnight, play three games in a week on 11 separate occasions assuming you lose comfortably in the first round of both cup competitions — which QPR do. By the time November ticks around, and the Premier League teams have played nine games, Championship sides have played 16. Individual results mean almost nothing at all until the very latter stages, only prolonged periods of one sort of result make a great deal of difference. MK Dons lost ten of their 13 matches through September and October and aren’t in the bottom three now. Derby lost one of the final 19 matches they played in 2015 and aren’t in the top two. It is, to borrow an oft-used phrase from rugby league, merely about staying in the arm wrestle.

To compare it to another sport, a Championship season is like a basketball game for uninitiated basketball fans. Team goes forward and scores, other team gets the ball back and goes forward and scores, and that’s repeated over a prolonged period of mononty until, with two minutes to go, the coaches start showing an interest, calling time outs and throwing some tactics into the mix. Individual Championship results start to get important, and games more intense, around April. I speak as somebody who went to an NBA game for the first time and, bored as hell, put my coat on with two minutes left and got ready to leave only to find myself still sitting there 45 minutes later with a sweat on.

Neil Warnock’s QPR side of 2010/11 were absolutely perfect for this environment. They could arm wrestle as long as you liked, well after everybody else had lost interest and gone home. They went 19 matches unbeaten to start that season and at one point, around the time a shambolic refereeing performance turned an away game at Portsmouth into an absolute lottery and the game finished 1-1, some people were starting to feel the unbeaten record was becoming a hindrance — and games were being drawn when they could have been won through fear of losing. Nonsense, of course, QPR were just very good at Championship football.

When the intensity did come, in the closing weeks of the season, with the added Ale Faurlin hearing distraction, QPR coped with that as well — drawing at Cardiff and almost winning, winning at Watford to seal the promotion, not winning but crucially not losing at home to Hull and so on.

There have been signs of late that this current QPR team may grow into one that can stay in the arm wrestle. Victories have been ticked off against promotion chasing Derby, Birmingham and Ipswich without conceding a goal. The problem has come on the rare occasions intensity has been upped — a large travelling support at Milton Keynes against a team fighting to stay in the league, and in London derbies. QPR have lost all four of their matches against London rivals this season, extending a winless run against capital neighbours to 16 matches. They’ve conceded ten, including seven to Fulham, and scored once. This includes a 1-0 set back at Brentford in the corresponding fixture this season. The London matches, and that one at MK, account for the only four occasions the R’s have lost by more than a single goal this season.

As we look ahead to next season QPR not only need to be able to plod their way through prolonged periods of Championship action without falling in a hole quite as regularly as they have done this term, but also an ability to go with those rare increases in pressure and intensity when they do happen. There have been hints at the former, but no suggestion at all that they’re able to do the latter this season. Out of form Brentford at home, in a West London derby, presents an ideal opportunity to put that right.

Links >>> Learning from mistakes — Interview >>> Graham gets derby — Referee

Tony Thorpe sneaks in from typically close range to give QPR a 1-0 win against Brentford on this ground during the 2003/04 promotion season for Ian Holloway’s team.

Saturday

Team News: Despite playing through the entire match against Derby on Tuesday with a hamstring issue, apparently Clint Hill isn’t able to do so again tomorrow. Tart. That makes the back four selection interesting, with Rangers seemingly having finally accepted that Paul Konchesky is not much of a footballer any more. A recall for the left back, with Perch moving back to the right and Onuoha going back to centre half, looks like the only option sadly. Maybe Jack Robinson might get a long-awaited debut. We can only hope, or we won’t sleep. Grant Hall, sadly, looks like he’s going to be out for sometime.

Brentford’s Maxime Colin is out for the season having his name turned back the right way around. Long term cruciate knee ligament victim Scott Hogan is working his way back to fitness but Alan McCormack has had a row with his wife and might have to stay home and look after the kids while she goes out with her mates.

Elsewhere: Nine games on Saturday, two on Sunday, three on Tuesday and one on Friday. And if that’s not Championship enough for you, Tigers Tigers Rah Rah Rah are playing three times in those six days — Franchise at “the lair” tomorrow, Trees at home on Tuesday, Boro away on Friday night. Boro go to Belgium’s finest tomorrow, then host Allam’s magical snow leopards at the end of the week.

The Mad Chicken Farmers have two outings, with the Champions of Europe at home on Saturday ahead of a local derby at Ipswich Town on Tuesday night. Ipswich are at the Red Dragons on Saturday.

There’s a Lancashire derby in the corner of a retail park vaguely close to Bolton, with Preston the vsitors. Tarquin and Rupert meanwhile may have to slum it in working class hovels like Barnsley and Gillingham if they don’t pull their fingers out of the red pepper hummous and get some sort of result at home to the Wurzels.

Look, I’m going to level with you, everybody is playing every day this week. And ,it’s late. And I was trying to cleverly interlink all of them but I want to go to bed now so let’s rattle through the rest of them shall we? Huddersfield v Big Spending Burnley in a north off. Trees vs Owls. Neil Warnock’s Rotherham, three wins on the bounce, meet the Derby Sheep, scared of their own shadow. Wolves v Brum is tomorrow. Brighton v Waitrose is on Tuesday.

In an unprecedented development in this league of twists and turns, despite what everybody expects and believes in, no two teams beginning with B are playing each other this week.

Referee: Essex official Fred Graham, who up this point hasn’t really believed in the red card as a form of discipline and has boycotted it for several years, is the man trusted with keeping a hold on this one. Stats and QPR history available here.

Form

QPR: Rangers have lost two of their last 11 games, but have only won four of those. Three of those victories have come in the last four home matches, all against teams chasing the play-offs and all without conceding a goal. In fact, QPR’s perceived leaky defence has tightened up a lot of late — famous last words. Only Ipswich have conceded as many as Rangers in the top half of the table — 42 — but 22 of those came in QPR’s first 11 matches of the season which means they’ve shipped just 20 in the other 25 matches. The London derby record is well known — no wins in 16 attempts and four defeats (F1 A10) so far this season including a loss at Brentford in the first meeting this season. TJaronn Chery has scored in his last three matches at Loftus Road.

Brentford: The Bees, currently seventeenth with 43 points, have lost nine of their last dozen games including five of the last six. They’re conceding goals as well — 14 in the last six matches. They’ve lost four of their last six away games as well, but victories at Preston — notoriously difficult to score against — and at Reading in the other two matches are eye catching and concerning. Overall they’ve won five, drawn four and lost eight away from Griffin Park this season. A loss at home to Charlton last weekend somewhat dented Brentford’s own London derby record which, since promotion to the Championship is a reasonably impressive three wins, three draws and two losses. Alan Judge has a Championship-leading nine assists this season.

Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion isawqpratwhitecity tells us…

"Jimmy keeps us guessing. It's a surprise when we win, it's a surprise when we lose. Hopefully he'll delight us this game and give a shake to one of our pet hoo-doos, the derby. Brentford have been weak lately, just two wins and a draw in their eleven games this year, although one win was a solid result at in-form Preston. On Tuesday, our defence without Hall was mighty against Derby, but can 'Our Man Clint' take the pressure? I'm crossing my fingers."

Jim’s Prediction: QPR 3-1 Brentford. Scorer: Tjaronn Chery

LFW’s Prediction: QPR 1-1 Brentford. Scorer — Matt Phillips.

The Twitter @loftforwords

Pictures — Action Images

Photo: Action Images

QPRski added 08:59 - Mar 12 A good preview as always and it is great to read to read a report detailing facts about "progress". Let's hope that we can break our London derby jinx. I agree that our back four configuration is key. I would minimise the changes and keep Perch as LB and play Henry as RB (as successfully tested by Neil Warnock). Let's for back-to-back wins. COYR's!
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