QPR let their guard down as far as admitting the aim for the season is a top six finish at the Fans Forum on Wednesday, so all that’s needed now to cement a place there and cap a very satisfactory start is to knock over basement dwellers Preston…

QPR (3-3-1 DWWLDD 5th) v Preston (1-0-6 LLLWLL 23rd)

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Nothing screams Championship purgatory quite like QPR playing Preston Knob End.

Rangers, 11 years at this level, never higher than ninth. PNE, same length of sentence, high finish of seventh. Average position for the R’s over that time is 15th, where they’ve been for the last two years. At Deepdale it levels out at 12th. They’ve played each other 22 times, and if you can tell me about more than three of those then include a CV with it and we’ll get you on staff. There have been some absolute genre classics between these two. Who will ever forget Anthony Gordon’s birthday? What a night that was.

So bored of one another have these two become that they took to trying to score comedy own goals into each other’s nets last year – Thierry Small channelling Andy Pearce’s 90s classic after Ben Whiteman had opened OG’s account for the season in the first meeting at Loftus Road.

If I never see Preston again it will honestly be too soon. It’s nothing personal, so don’t be lobbing butter pies my way – I’d be amazed if they don’t feel the same about us. This is a footballing dental appointment. Once every six months, apparently forever and ever, you go and have somebody poke you in the face for an hour or so, causing extreme discomfort, and then they charge you an ever-escalating fee for the privilege.

But, Egie, she’s twitching. Signs at both ends of the spectrum that these teams may not be the Championship forever stories we long assumed.

Preston, as was always a risk when a steady hand benefactor passes away/you employ Peter Ridsdale, look League One bound at this stage. They have lost six of their first seven games and defeat tomorrow would render it the worst ever start to a campaign for one of the country’s most historic clubs – PNE can trace their existence back as far as 1863 and have never lost seven of eight to begin with. They’ve spent quite a bit of money this year too, but only Alfie Devine looks anything like worth the price tag and Paul Heckingbottom has predictably paid with his job and won the divisional sack race. Difficult to sympathise… not only because he always comes across as an objectionable arse whose teams play the worst kind of shithouse football, but also Preston have won five of their last 30 games, losing 20, and haven’t kept a clean sheet for 25 matches. This is a decline that’s been in progress for a while and our season preview call that this lot look bang in it looks pretty sound at this point.

Who’s taking this job on? You can surely forget the Carlos Corberans and Sean Dyches of this world. It’s going to be a Dave Challinor type, an unproven Robbie Keane sort looking for an opportunity, or a foreign punt. I’m sure people said the same about us post-Gareth Ainsworth, and North End really need a Marti Miracle at this stage. Cifuentes, of course, got things up and running with a 2-0 win at Deepdale. So that’s one memory of the unmemorable, at least.

QPR, meanwhile, appear to be heading the other way. Just one defeat to this point – and that an unlucky, narrow set back against a title favourite – the R’s are fifth in the table with the league’s best defence and plenty more left in the tank if they ever manage to get their preferred starting 11 on the field for any length of time. Injuries were always likely to be a hot topic of discussion at Wednesday night’s fans forum once this week’s episode of Rayan was over, but there was another part of the evening which caught my ear a little bit.

Since they put Damien Delaney up there and he (rightly) described the whole thing as a total “shitshow” the club have been pretty reticent to add players to the panel at these things (hell, couple of years ago they didn’t even want the manager up there). Jimmy Dunne, though, is really growing into the captaincy and leadership role at this place. Alan McDonald was here for 20+ years and is incomparable to any other human being. Certainly his standing at this club will never be matched… but there are traits and tendencies in Dunne's play and the way he speaks that prick that nostalgia gland. The look on his face when the team were accused of sacking off cup games had an element of "anybody who thinks that was a fix can come and see me" about it.

I thought he spoke really well from the panel about his experiences as a 16-23 year-old going into senior training sessions and how he’s fighting to make sure our kids don’t feel the same as he did. I thought his comments about Alfie Lloyd and Kealey Adamson fighting for their right to be involved in the team was spot on.

I really like Jimmy Dunne all round, but he gave a real captain’s knock on his first appearance at one of these things. The most interesting comment he made, for me, was verbalising the ambition and aim to be a top six side this season.

Football clubs don’t tend to do this any more. In the internet and social media age you just set yourself up for a fall. “We’ll keep our targets internal but we know what we want to achieve” is the stock, media-trained answer for these things. We’ve seen why that is first hand. Warbs Warburton went into year three on the back of a strong end to year two and happily admitted publicly that top six had to be the aim, and people wouldn’t believe him if he said anything differently. By the end of January his team was third after big away wins at Coventry and Birmingham and the chat was whether it could chase down Bournemouth for second. In the end it crashed, burned, finished 11th, Mark got the sack and has never had a job of equivalent calibre again. Perhaps he’d have been better off sticking to the “incremental progress” line, in hindsight.

That’s a shame, though. After more than a decade in this league, 22 games with Preston, I want to hear and see a bit of ambition. QPR have been reluctant to put specific number on it. They’ve talked in more woolly terms about wage bills, average age of the team, development models, incremental improvement, getting better every day. For a long time whenever Lee Hoos and Les Ferdinand were asked what the aim was they just straight batted it as “be competitive”. Pffff, roll up, roll up for your £500+ season ticket.

I have understood and supported this approach at various points over the last decade, but I think the team and the recruitment we’ve got here now is well ahead of what we’ve had in the past and in a year when the play-offs go down to eighth that has to be the aim. If we finish eighth and lose the first round I’d still be happy with that and see it as progress – the highest we’ve finished over these 11 years is ninth – but if we’re still kicking around 15th come May I’m disappointed with that. To actually hear somebody from the club come out and state this as an aim was quite refreshing. Maybe they’ll hang themselves with it but I do think after this long in this division these lines about development models, incremental progress, have rather entrenched mediocrity . It’s acceptable to finish 15th over and over again if the development squad wins a couple of pots, or the average age of the team comes down…

I love to see and hear a bit of ambition from us at last, and Julien Stephan (46 yesterday, happy birthday) getting as animated and passionate as I’ve seen him here around the word “standards” which we use all the time on LFW was also music to my ears. We’ve parred the course so far, in my opinion. We were gifted a kind start and I said pre-season we should be minimum top six going into that West Ham game on the other side of the break. That looks almost certain now, but hinges on this apparent ‘gimme’.

Of course, what traditionally happens next is a total footballing fucktastrophe tomorrow afternoon. Typical bloody Leyton Orient. The West London Sport Podcast is very good (and very funny) this week and worth your time. There they talk through the hurdles this version of QPR have cleared that prior hyped-up versions would not have – Portsmouth away on day one, a difficult game at West Brom at the end of a three-game week with a lot of injuries etc. The team hasn’t yet conquered winning a game while dominating possession, and this will almost certainly be a Bolton re-run chance for them to do so.

Basically every version of QPR I’ve ever known and lived with, and certainly every iteration of it over the last 11 years, loses this game. Loses it 1-0, Daniel Iversen wearing a broomstick, Preston’s first clean sheet since the war, daft early goal off a set piece and a mountain of time wasting with a new Championship referee too scared to do much about it. That’s the QPR thing to do here.

Nice that the players believe, and are willing to say it out loud. Avoid the banana skin here I might even start to buy in myself.

Links >>> Fans Forum - Minutes >>> Fans Forum – Patreon Podcast >>> Blackstock late show – History >>> Newbie – Referee >>> Preston Official Website >>> Lancashire Telegraph — Local Press >>> From The Finney — Blog >>> Deepdale Digest — Blog >>> PNE Online — Forum

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Below the fold

Team News: Jake Clarke-Salter has already raced up to four yellow cards – a joint league high – after just five starts and two sub outings. That leaves him one short of a one-match ban with the first amnesty not until round 19 (Stoke A, December 5). Jimmy Dunne confirmed at Wednesday night’s Fans Forum that his ankle injury sustained at Charlton is not serious and he is available for selection here. Julien Stephan is without Karamoko Dembele, Tariq Lamptey, Boy Kemper, Richard Kone, Ilias Chair and potentially Paul Smyth after his early withdrawal at The Hawthorns but Christian Nourry reassured attendees at the forum that none of the club’s current injury issues are long term.

Preston have former Wimbledon forward Jason Euell in temporary charge following the inevitable sacking of Paul Heckingbottom after last weekend’s home loss to Lincoln. Influential midfielder and captain Ali McCann doing his hamstring in a league Cup defeat to Everton certainly doesn’t help their cause – he’s had surgery and will be missing until well after the internationals. Brad Potts, who scored against Rangers at Deepdale last season, and Andrew Hughes are doubts.

Elsewhere: Two much-missed derby games return to the Championship this weekend to the delight of supporters, TV viewers and overtime-seeking police officers everywhere.

Prepare for London Bridge to turn into a demilitarised zone on Saturday morning as Milllll host West Ham in a league game for the first time since 2011/12. Not sure you’d back the Lions for too much here given their injury crisis, but they got an impressive 2-2 up at Middlesbrough during the week and Big Lyndon the Amazing Non-Scoring Striker now has a remarkable four goals in seven starts. The Met have responded to the prospect of this one in a calm and proportionate manner issuing a Section 35 Dispersal Order that stretches from London Bridge in the West all the way across to Blackheath in the east, and from the river all the way down to Hither Green in the south.

Then Sunday morning at Molineux it’s a first league meeting between Wolves and West Brom since 2021 and a first clash between the two in this division since 2008. Cue lots of a hotly contested debate about who does the best version of The Liquidator.

The other Saturday lunchtime games see Cardiff search for a first league win at home to Charlton, but perhaps of more interest is the ongoing soap opera at Sheffield Red Stripe who travel to Stoke. The Blades were dumped out of the League Cup at Fleetwood during the week and the travelling faithful let their players know all about it. Chris Wilder took to the Neil Critchley Memorial Mixed Zone to deliver a similarly damning verdict of his team. Feels like it might be about to go pop that place.

Five afternoon games as well as our own. Look out for two of the early surprise packages – Swansea in second, Lincoln in eighth – meeting at Sincil Bank. The Imps have done all their heavy lifting away from home with three victories but now need to convert their style to their own patch. Two more fancied sides who’ve gone completely the other direction will both be hoping for a pressure relieving win when bottom of the table Burnley host struggling Derby.

Portsmouth v Blackburn already has the look and feel of a three-pointer, Birmingham host Middlesbrough and Disney FC are at home to Southampton. It’s a weekend that starts tonight with Bristol City hosting Watford, and concludes on Sunday afternoon when Bolton travel to Norwich.

Referee: Thomas Parsons takes QPR and Preston for the first time in his fledgling career, in just his fourth ever Championship game. Did Bolton 1-0 Cardiff last week. Details.

Form

- QPR sit fifth in the early Championship table with three wins, three draws and just the one loss from seven league games played so far. Five goals conceded is the joint best defensive record in the division along with fellow early pace setters Swansea. They are winless in three coming into this one though.

- Two of the three victories have come away from home (Portsmouth, Blackburn) and QPR remain undefeated on the road after subsequent draws at Charlton and West Brom. It’s the first time since the last promotion season (2013/14) they’ve remained unbeaten through the first four road trips.

- The defeat at home to Middlesbrough and frustrating draw with Bolton means things aren’t quite as rosy at Loftus Road where QPR have won one of the last seven and three of the last 12 going back into last season. Only Preston (nine) have lost more Championship home games in 2026 than QPR (eight). It’s more home league defeats than the Hoops suffered in the entirety of 2025 (seven).

- Preston have made a shocking start to the season, losing six of their first seven league games in the league and crashing out of the League Cup 4-0 at home to Everton. Their only victory was a 2-1 home success against near neighbours Blackburn and they arrive at Loftus Road having lost 2-1 at Watford and 1-0 at home to Lincoln in the last two games. PNE have scored one goal or fewer in eight of their nine games in all comps. If they lose again tomorrow it’ll be the worst start to a campaign in club history – never have they lost seven of their first eight league games.

- This is a continuation of a collapse in form that began at the start of January when a 2-0 victory at Bristol City made it one defeat in ten games and moved Preston into fourth in the Championship. Since then they have won just five of 30 games in nine months, losing 20 of the others. The Lilywhites haven’t kept a clean sheet in 25 matches in all comps.

- The stat around possession continues to grow, with another win against Cardiff achieved with 36.3% making it 71 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.

- QPR supporter Chris Mepham fulfilled a lifelong dream to score for the R’s at West Brom last week, albeit into the wrong net. That’s the second own goal in our favour already this season after a club record six in 2025/26 and it stands as joint top scorer with Rumarn Burrell and Ilias Chair. Since the start of 2024/25 Rangers have benefitted from a whopping 13 own goals in their favour.

- Two of those own goals came in the two meetings between these sides last season. QPR are unbeaten in six league games against Preston (W4 D2). Both games last season were 1-1 draws and both the Rangers’ goals were scored by PNE players – Ben Whiteman and Thierry Small.

- Preston have lost four of their last seven league visits to Loftus Road (W2 D1), failing to win their last three (D1 L2). Prior to that they did have quite a decent record here, winning five and drawing one of eight visits between 2015 and 2023.

- Preston (-4.2) and QPR (-2.7) are two of the four biggest underperformers when it comes to xG differential between goals scored and xG this season, with Cardiff (-5.6) and Lincoln (-2.8) making up the bottom four. Callum Lang is Knob End’s top scorer with three – 50% of all the goals they’ve scored, the lowest in the league. Only Cardiff (5.8%) have worse shot conversion than PNE’s 6.7%.

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…

“I just flaming well knew it. As soon as I saw the final score that Lincoln had won at Deepdale last Saturday it was inevitable they would press the button right before we play them. Just like Southampton last season. Preston have been an irritable little club to me for some time now and their ‘Preston cramp’ tactic suits them perfectly. I've only had the displeasure of watching them once this season - on the opening day and they were pretty shocking bar a late rally at Bolton.

“I thought we showed real character last time out at West Brom and on reflection I don't believe there was much between the teams in the second half. Although this Saturday's may have come at the wrong time, let’s face it they are in a bit of a mess and I'm confident we'll win. I've said before, there's a real determination with this group and although team selection and minutes managed with players will play a part, we're a better team and I see us winning this 2-0 with Burrell to score first.”

JB’s Prediction: QPR 2-0 Preston. Scorer – Rumarn Burrell

LFW’s Prediction: QPR 3-0 Preston. Scorer – Rumarn Burrell

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