Sheffield United, most defeats in the EFL, host QPR, four defeats from five, at Bramall Lane on Saturday in a game we’re sure to be telling our grandchildren about in the eons to come.

Sheff Utd (3-0-11 LWWLLL 23rd) v QPR (5-3-6 WLWLLL 16th)

Sky’s Super Saturday Brunch Spectacular >>> Saturday November 8, 2025 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather – Bright, breezy, dry >>> Bramall Lane, Sheffield, S2

Following a club like Queens Park Rangers is a very strange way to spend your free time and disposable income. More often than not these days (and by these days I mean since about 1995) the basic premise is they concoct something approaching your worst nightmare, and then charge you £30 to see it.

We all know the famous/infamous ones by heart now. The Swindon Town debacle (wrong season, Olly), the multi-goal collapses at Chelsea and Fulham, the 7-1 at West Brom, the 7-1 at Coventry, the 6-0 at home to Newcastle, that week where we lost at home to Bolton and Rotherham and it was Rotherham’s only away win in three years of Championship football... but it’s often the repetitive, monotony of the forgettable ones that’s worse.

You get done 7-1, you get angry. You get down the front of the stand and you have a word with Steve Cook. You storm out after 35 minutes. You scream into the internet. You lose 2-1 at home to a managerless Southampton team with their only two shots on target and what? Southampton only got to Loftus Road an hour before kick off on Wednesday, you know that? They'd been sitting on the Westway. Even I won’t remember that game in six months time. But that is our existence as a support base now, and has been for some time. Turn up, go through the motions, lose 2-1 at home to… Millwall, maybe… School End goes absolutely apeshit, we go home, four days later I can barely tell you who scored. And I’m at the certifiable end of obsessive about this stuff.

Another six-game losing run is it? Fair enough, gimme a call when you fancy picking up tools again, meanwhile I’ll be over here booking a Wednesday night in the Blackburn Premier Inn. Still they/we come. Another 16,000+ inside Loftus Road on Wednesday night to watch a club that fell out with its previous manager over set piece coaching stick 12 consecutive corners straight onto the forehead of the nearest opponent, and run a goalkick routine that serves no purpose other than to terrify everybody involved with it and those watching. Thank you, come again, see you for… Hull, maybe.

Following it, living it, writing about it, turning it into my defacto job means it takes some decompressing from come May. After the Marti Cifuentes fall out this spring I got up one morning, went to the Eurostar terminal, and disappeared for six weeks of rattling around in buffet cars not really knowing where I was going. I didn’t think about QPR once, and it was bliss. They must have known it as well because, in the end, they came to me. I was in Perpignan when Rangers announced their first friendly would be… in Perpignan. F me in the A. Like flying to the fucking Solomon Islands and checking into the room next to Keith Stroud. LEAVE ME ALONE.

In the early-ish part of that meander across the bits of Europe that have a) warmer weather, b) tastier food, c) superior trains and d) darker nipples than us, I found myself, on the afternoon of May 24, outside the Duomo in Milan. Now, don’t worry, this isn’t going to turn into some middle class dickswing. Naturally, when visiting one of the architectural marvels of the modern world, a place of worship which took six centuries to complete (1386-1965, still shorter than the time it’s taken for that Leicester points deduction to come through mind), what I was actually doing there was standing outside the window of “The Football Pub – Beer, Food”. This quintessentially authentic Lombardy vibe, which I enjoyed with a couple of like-minded idiots and a bottle of the local (Czech) lager, was spent peering in and up at a television screen showing Sheffield United 1 Sunderland 0 to a room full of exiled Mackems and one Blade who’d gone very, very big with his lone goal celebration and was now sitting in a state of tension hoping his side saw it through.

See it through they surely would. Sheff Utd had already had another, killer goal ruled out by VAR – because who doesn’t want to sit through 46 games of Championship football enjoying the action as it comes only to have some cunt with a laptop turn up for the climax and start giving it “actually, I think you’ll find…” while drawing lines on Microsoft Paint? Sunderland, who’d lost influential Luke O’Nien with essentially the first kick of the game, looked bereft. Chris Wilder, whose team had amassed 92 points in the regular season (14 more than their opponent), was giving it that “we’re Sheff United us, we come in through t‘front door” touchline strut. It’s never over at 1-0, but this near as damn it was.

My little group, who put the functioning into functioning alcoholism, faced a sliding doors moment. Leave what had been a deathly dull game of Championship football 15 minutes early and go and drown ourselves in olive oil and bare-shoulders down by Milan's hip and happening canal, or stay to the bitter end and face a long night at AC Milan v Monza (the team, not the credit card) on 15 beers and no food? Reader, we walked away. The pasta was crisp, al dente, and drowned in a sauce that took you to another place. The pizza crackled and blistered with wood fire round the edge, melting to an irresistible tangle of mozzarella di bufala in the centre. The bottle of Tuscan Fiano sat glistening in 25 degrees of evening sunshine, beads of condensation caressing its neck on their way to the floor. (Okay, maybe a little middle class dick swing). The waitress was a full ten. And it was literally an hour before any of us thought to pick up our phone, drag ourselves back to the brutality of real life, and remark… Sunderland won. Sunderland won?

I mean, however delicious the food and perfect that moment, it might have been worth sticking around to see what happened to that provocative “Yorkshire, Yorkshire, Yorkshire” tosser back at Ye Olde Football Bar and Grill. However bad his treatment, outnumbered a thick 250 to one, it cannot come close to what has happened to Sheffield United since. You were surprised when Luton, ostensibly the best run club in the country for the previous decade, turned one Premier League relegation into a second demotion back to League One. The Blades’ meltdown since the 76th minute of that game is like few we’ve ever seen. There are hangovers, and there’s waking up at three in the morning in a darkened Piccadilly Line train at the Northfields depot with your trousers round your ankles and 3.5lb of liquified, molten shit seeping out the leg holes of your boxers (they were very good about it, TBF).

Sacking your manager because the team messed up one three-game week in April (the Blades lost consecutive games to poor Millwall, Plymouth and Oxford team to finally let Burnley and Leeds escape over the horizon) in a season when his team won 92 points and were 14 minutes away from promotion is a punchy move anyway. When it’s Chris Wilder, a man intrinsically woven into the fabric of the club and the squad that’s been built there, it’s borderline insane. You don’t like Chris Wilder because you’re not meant to like Chris Wilder - he talks a lot of bollocks, and by rights the squad he had here last year should have gone up - but he’s a good manager. I’ve had a soft spot for him having spent early journalistic career covering Alfreton, one of several clubs (Halifax, Oxford, Northampton, Sheff Utd) used to failure who suddenly started posting promotions and 100-point seasons when Wilder turned up. Northampton won a title under him while in administration.

Appointing Ruben Selles, I don’t know, not altogether terrible. Did a good job in dire circumstances at Reading. Likewise at Hull who only survived because of him and looked ridiculous for dismissing him at the end of that job done. Of more concern, a new “forward thinking” ownership group, with an “AI driven recruitment model” which so far seems to have settled mainly on the conclusion that the key to Championship glory lies in signings from the Bulgarian second division. Last season was one built predominantly on loans, they all went back. Vini Souza and Anel Ahmedovic were sold, as they must be, which took two of the four key men out of this team’s axis. Of the other two, goalkeeper Michael Cooper has cratered in form, Championship player of the year Gus Hamer is injured. Whichever AI programme is telling you to let Kieffer Moore go for £2m is not one to be listened to any further.

Some red flags, certainly. But if Sheff Utd had got 24 fewer points last season (eight of those wins, turn them to defeats) they still would have made the play-offs. Our conclusion in the season preview was “hmmm, don’t like the mood music, but if this squad isn’t in the play-offs something has gone very badly wrong”.

They come into this game second bottom, already four points adrift of safety. They have the division’s worst defence. A séance has been held, Wilder has been exumed for a third spell. Sorry, sorry, sorry. It’s moved the needle as far as a 1-0 win at Oxford. Sheff Utd have lost their last three, conceding three goals in each. Carlton Morris scored a hat trick here last week. Even he looked surprised.

Sheffield United are there for the taking. Their best players have either left, or are absent through injury. Cooper, Ahmedovic, Hamer, Moore, Giambi, Damon, Isringhausen. Gutted. Unlike Ipswich and Southampton, there are no underlying numbers here. This lot have lost more games than anybody in the EFL, more games than they lost in the whole of last season. They are conceding at the rate of a cricket team – not one of the good cricket teams either, Kent probably. Their fans are, understandably, fuming, and their recruitment model is prowling the lower reaches of Bulgarian football. This is a footballing shuttle crash playing out in real time. I wouldn't put it past them to fire Wilder and re-hire him again between now and May.

What QPR turns up here on Saturday, do we think? One ready to stamp on their throat and finish them off?

We’re conditioned to think it’ll be the usual charitable donation. Exactly the team you want to be playing in this situation. Another long journey home on EMR’s five-carriage hourly service which really should be a ten-coach train every 20 minutes. If it is, Julien Stéphan will start to face serious questions for the first time. He was brought here in part because he was a manager with experience of three-game weeks. The results against Bristol City and Swansea stood in his favour. But there were warning signs in the Oxford home game, and this week risks being a bit of a disaster. Ipswich, fair enough; Southampton, not for me Clive; turn up and lose this, to this lot… Go get the Marge Simpson grumbly meme.

A clash of two teams with three straight defeats. I can hardly wait.

Links >>> A meltdown like few others – Oppo Profile >>> Warnock haunts old club – History >>> Smith in charge – Referee >>> Sheffield United official website >>> Bramall Lane ground guide >>> Blades Ramble — Contributor’s YouTube channel >>> The Sheff Utd Way – Contributor’s Website/Channel >>> S2 4SU — Message Board >>> Sheffield Star — Local Press

Below the fold

Team News:Kwame Poku has not recovered from his unspecified training ground injury in time to be involved with this one and will try again on the other side of the international break. Rhys Norrington Davies cannot play against his parent club so Stéphan must decide whether to risk teenager Esquerdinha again after last night’s nightmare against Ipswich, or go with the Swansea A option of Sam Field on the left side of the defence. Esquerdinha also has a knock just to complicate that situation further. Two weekends in Cliff’s Tuscan villa for a sighting of Jake Clarke-Salter. Joe Walsh and Ziyad Larkeche are the long term absentees.

Few players exemplify the drop off in Sheff Utd this year more than goalkeeper Michael Cooper who was just about the best in the division last season but has barely been able to find his own arse with both hands this. Still, they’d rather he be available than not, and he was taken off injured at Coventry in the week. Replacement Adam Davies looked shaky in turning a 1-0 lead into a 3-1 defeat. Good news for QPR further forward as well where star man Gus Hamer hasn’t played since October 4 and won’t be available until after the international break and influential Ollie Arblaster is also absent. Tahith Chong is out until the end of the month. Tom Davies is pushing for a start on his return to fitness.

Elsewhere: Watford are starting to get things together under Javi Gracia with three wins and a draw in six games, and they’ve got a great chance of building on that in the Sky game this evening as Bristol City visit Vicarage Road with just 12 fit outfield players from their senior squad.

While Gerhard Struber’s promising start with the Robins looks like being derailed by horrendous injury problems, Middlesbrough’s surprise early assault on the top of the league now looks like costing them their manager. Premier League basket case Wolves have come calling for former player and coach Rob Edwards and he’s keen to make the move, with today’s pre-match press conference cancelled. All feels very Mick Beale for Boro, and while we’re talking about former QPR managers it’s not an ideal time for them to be hosting Birmingham who are having their Jim Magilton moment with two 4-0 wins in as many games this week.

A big theme of this weekend is managers playing their former clubs. The lunchtime games include the John Eustace rivalry between Blackburn and Derby at Ewood Park, and Alex Neil’s Millwall hosting his old charges from Preston Knob End. Blackburn have won that fixture six times in a row including the opening night of last season but Derby are on the longest winning run in the EFL (four straight wins, same as Stockport) and can win five in a row for the first time since December 2023 in the division below. Preston, meanwhile, have been dealt a blow with a nine match ban for striker Milutin Osmajic for racist abuse of Burnley’s Hannibal Mejbri. Swift justice metered out by the EFL and FA as always with that one – that incident took place in February.

If Hull beat Portsmouth in the other lunchtime game they’ve won as many home games this year as they did in the whole of last.

The game of the weekend is another such meeting of former friends. The club that Mark Robins built into league leaders, meets the one he’s rebuilding into a promotion contender as Coventry head to Stoke.

At the opposite end of the scale the division’s two most out of form sides meet at Carrow Road. Norwich are winless in their last ten games in the Championship (D3 L7); their longest losing streak in the second tier of English football since November 2007 (11 games without a win). Leicester have won just one of their last 10 league games (D6 L3), their fewest over a 10-game spell outside of the top-flight since April 2013 under Nigel Pearson (also one). Liam Manning v Marti Cifuentes, the losing manager will be lucky to survive that one with an international break ahead for a reset.

Two newly promoted teams going well meet in Wales. Wrexham have won their last two home league matches – they last won three in a row in the second tier back in March 1982. Charlton Athletic have won 23 points after 14 Championship games this season (W6 D5 L3), their best at this stage of a second tier campaign since 1999-00, when they had 29. They later won the league title that season.

After beating QPR during the week, Southampton will be aiming to win consecutive league games for the first time since April 2024 when they run out at home against Sheff Wed.

The weekend list is rounded out by Ipswich’s trip to Swanselona and West Brom hosting Oxford.

Referee: It’s Lewis Smith for this one, a referee who went from Conference to Premier League in ten months a year ago to become the top flight’s youngest official since Michael Oliver started. Unless there’s a glitch in the Soccerbase system confusing two referees with the same name he’s now splitting his time equally between the Championship and Conference South which seems… odd. Details.

Form

- After six unbeaten (W3 D3) QPR have now lost four of their last five games and each of their last three.

- QPR lost 1-0 at Derby two weeks ago, their first defeat in five away League games, having won three of previous four.

- With 60.5% possession against Southampton during the week, QPR have now failed to win their last 12 games (L9 D3) when holding more of the ball than their opponent – the Saints scored with their only two shots on target. The last time the R’s won with more of the ball was a 2-1 homer against Blackburn in February.

- Sheff Utd have also lost their last three games, conceding three goals in each of them. They have never previously conceded 3+ goals in four straight matches in the second tier (or lower). They come into this second bottom, four points from safety.

- Sheff Utd led 2-0 in the first of those at Preston and 1-0 at Coventry during the week. On each of the three occasions they have led at half time this season they have gone on to lose.

- Chris Wilder’s team have lost more than any other team in the EFL this season – 11 of 14. It’s the most games Sheff Utd have ever lost at this stage of a season outside the top flight. They have already lost more games this season than during whole of last season (ten). They are 24 points worse off than this time a year ago.

- Sheff Utd have lost five of their last six games at Bramall Lane, going down 3-1 to Derby most recently with Carlton Morris scoring a first career hat trick.

- Sheff Utd have the joint worst defence in the league with cross-town rivals Sheff Wed (26 conceded each). QPR are next worst with 23.

- Since losing three in a row against QPR between August 2010 and October 2017, Sheff Utd have only lost one of their last nine league games against Rangers (W6 D2). The R’s are unbeaten in two visits here, mind.

- After losing his first league game against QPR in charge of Sheff Utd (0-1 in October 2017), Chris Wilder is unbeaten in his last five against them in the EFL with the Blades (W4 D1).

- The Blades are very much Callum O’Hare FC this year. The former Coventry wizard has been directly involved in 55% of Sheff Utd’s goals in the Championship (6/11 – four goals, two assists), the highest percentage by any player for a team in the division in 2025-26.

- Rumarn Burrell has now overtaken Richard Kone as QPR’s top scorer with four in his last five games and five goals overall since moving from Burton Albion. Unfortunately, he’s the only QPR player to score since Paul Smyth’s winner at Bristol City. Rangers have scored one goal or fewer in eight of the last nine.

- QPR have scored just one goal from a set piece this season. Only Swansea (zero) have scored fewer from dead balls. By contrast, the R’s have conceded from seven, only bottom placed Sheff Wed (ten) have let in more that way.

Prediction

In our Prediction League for 2025/26 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. QPR_Hibs won last season’s Prediction League at a canter and is lending his thoughts to this year’s previews –it’s JB007007 had his lead at the top of this year’s table cut to five points at the weekend...

“If you are a fan of cryptic crosswords, you may well appreciate a clue that I saw recently, the answer to which sums up how I feel about the current state of all things QPR. If you don’t like crosswords then just skip down to the bit where I tell you how much I think we’ll lose by this weekend. Anyway, that clue went something like this:

“‘Miserable about LP record being played after midnight’ (12 letters.)

“I’ll let you know the answer at the end of the blurb, in case you want to play along.

“Another poor performance against Southampton on Wednesday, although the head coach would have us believe that, actually, we played rather well and were unlucky to lose. Certainly, the stats would back up his view, but I was at the game and would give only RND, Burrell and Smyth any credit for their effort and application. I was particularly unimpressed with our corner kicks, which seemed to alternate between being delivered onto the head of the first defender and being overhit so deep that they went out of play. If Madsen is going to play, then please let him take the corners.

“If Sam Field plays at left back on Saturday, which I think he will, then I think we can safely say that Esquerdinha will not be returning to the first team any time soon. Steve Cook will be back in for whichever one of the centre backs has his name pulled out from Julien’s hat this week. An out of form Jimmy Dunne has to continue at right back because there’s no-one else.

“Sheffield United look extremely poor this season, even losing at home to Southampton recently (the mugs!) They have only three wins, two of them away from home, so there's a strong possibility that, with the right team selection, we could win this game. A lot depends on who scores first and I hope that the result won’t leave me feeling DISCONSOLATE.”

QPR_Hibs Prediction: Sheff Utd 1-2 QPR. Scorer – Rumarn Burrell

LFW’s Prediction: Sheff Utd 1-1 QPR. Scorer – Richard Kone

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Pictures - Ian Randall Photography

sinceApril66 added 12:12 - Nov 8 Deeply resonant about my nostalgia/desire for continental escape… Thank you very much, Clive; so intensely and compellingly written. (Do you really not have a half-written novel you could finish..? If Nick Hornby hadn’t written High Fidelity, I’d have understood myself even less well; ex-wife once jokingly (?) pretended it was my autobiography). And I’m more hopeful about QPR, despite the current difficulties! We have a much better squad than for years (even if it’s sometimes like an inconsistent patchwork quilt) and a manager I have faith in, even though some of his decisions seem bizarre. If we can add Ronnie and Seny and a couple of full-backs as effective as RND I’m still looking forward to contending for the play-offs.

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TacticalR added 13:41 - Nov 8 Thanks for your preview. Yes, we are very forgettable at the moment (except for our lapses in defence). For a while it looked like we had at least solved our scoring problem, and now that has come back to haunt us. This means when the opposition scores it feels like the game is over (and it probably is). This is third 'oppo in crisis' team we have encountered this week, and we haven't done well so far. In fact we seem to be developing a little crisis of our own. Are we back to never winning the ones we're supposed to win?

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