QPR’s Championship fixture with Crystal Palace was rained off on Tuesday night leaving the R’ still further off the pace. Elsewhere Heidar Helguson has left the club on loan.

Rangers were due to meet the Eagles in the Championship tonight at 8pm with both teams looking to put mediocre starts to the season behind them with a good performance and win. However the news came through just before 7pm that referee Mick Russell, officiating a QPR game for the first time, was not happy with the state of the Loftus Road pitch after a day of heavy rainfall and had decided to call off the game.

Manager Jim Magilton told the QPR official website: “We've been guided by the safety officer and the referee.The rain hasn't stopped all afternoon - the groundsman and his staff have done everything they can to get the game on, but unfortunately the weather has won today. We apologise to the fans that were looking forward to a good game, both our own and the Palace faithful. We were really looking forward to it ourselves, so we're bitterly disappointed. It's just one of those things though. It was a home game and we were looking forward to it, but we've got to accept the decision.”

Earlier in the day the club had confirmed that 32 year old striker Heidar Helguson is returning to his former club Watford on loan until the end of December – less than a year after signing for Rangers from Bolton. The signing of Helguson has been mired in controversy since the start with the player initially returning to Bolton after the official website had announced his arrival, only to re-appear a week later with no clarification from anybody. He then signed permanently but long serving club secretary Sheila Marsen was removed from her position shortly afterwards. At the end of the season manager Paulo Sousa was fired for disclosing confidential information to supporters that subsequently appeared on message boards – including details of Helguson’s on going injury problems and medical examination, or lack of one, when signing for the club. That, and his poor form that has seen him score just six times, have made the transfer something of a disaster.

Watford though are delighted to get their former hero back, especially as QPR will be paying a sizeable portion of his wages while he is at Vicarage Road according to the Watford Observer. Helguson still has two years left to run on his Loftus Road deal – the folly of handing out long contracts willy nilly laid bare once more. Helguson joins a Watford side that moved up to sixth, eight places above QPR, after winning 1-0 at Plymouth this evening.

There will be full reaction to both tonight’s cancellation and the Helguson deal in ‘This Week…’ on LoftforWords tomorrow.

Elsewhere in the Championship tonight the big result of the evening came at Derby where Nigel Clough’s struggles continued. Barnsley boss Mark Robins secured his first win as Tykes boss at the second attempt, winning 3-2 at Pride Park. West Brom kept up their good early season form with a comfortable 3-1 home win against Doncaster. Plymouth now prop up the division closely followed by Ipswich who drew 1-1 with Nottingham Forest. High flying Sheffield United and Preston both suffered surprise defeats 3-2 at Coventry and 3-1 at Scunthorpe respectively.

It has been a bad day all round for Preston who earlier had to loan influential defender Sean St Ledger to Middlesbrough with a view to a permanent move. Preston chairman Derek Shaw said: "My honest view is if we don't do this type of thing we'll be getting 10 points deducted and we'll end up going into administration. Everybody saw the Southampton situation in the summer. They've seen it at Derby and at Bradford and we don't want it to happen here. With our gates and the turnover of the football club we're competing against some very big clubs, but we always seem to get onto the same subject where money is everything in the game." Boro kept up their pressure on the leaders with a 3-1 win at Sheffield Wednesday tonight despite falling behind in the second minute.

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