QPR and Birmingham have both lost three on the spin going into tonight's goat rodeo at St Andrew's, and with Rangers conceding 11 goals in the process the travelling faithful really are approaching this one with trepidation.

Birmingham (13-10-13 WDWLLL 12th) v QPR (13-8-15 DLWLLL 16th)

Mercantile Credit Trophy >>> Wednesday March 11, 2026 >>> Kick Off 19.45 >>> Weather – Pretty nice >>> St Andrew’s, Birmingham

There was a really good discussion about a lot of the issues currently facing the QPR team on the most recent West London Sport Podcast and if you want a nice microcosm of the thoroughly awkward position the club has swiftly worked itself into then skip to the end and listen to the section on Joe Walsh.

The goalkeeping position (much like the left back and the central midfield positions) was one of those they botched from the very start. Paul Nardi was a Marti Cifuentes pick and his lack of penalty box command had been found out in the return fixtures last season after a good start to life at QPR where performances at places like Norwich, Cardiff and Watford kept a poor side’s head above water. The club wanted him moved on, and Joe Walsh to start, and both keepers were well aware of this – I said this was the case on Gab Sutton’s pre-season preview show in the middle of the summer when Julien Stephan had barely put his foot through the door.

However, Walsh had only played two games of Championship football in his life (both dead rubbers on the final day of the previous two seasons at Coventry and Sunderland). The sensible thing to do would be to start with Nardi, or if you really can’t stomach him then A N Other experienced keeper on loan perhaps, with the idea that Walsh plays the cup games (lol) and then becomes the team’s regular first choice from January onwards after starting in the FA Cup. By doing it the way they did it left them nowhere to turn if Walsh a) started badly or b) got injured. In the end he did both. As Dave McIntyre points out, this was going wrong as early as July where Walsh gave a bizarre performance in a 6-0 pre-season defeat by Spanish lower league outfit Castellón. You then had to go cap in hand back to Nardi who was a) pissed off and b) low on confidence, with predictable results.

QPR have flipped and flopped between three goalkeepers ever since. Walsh has come back from that early nightmare quite strongly since January with good performances at Stoke and Charlton, but still looks fragile in confidence and prone to a really bad game every three or four outings. That never better exemplified than last week where he looked absolutely fine and made a couple of good stops in the surprise win at Hull, then fell in a complete hole for the 5-0 at Southampton where three of the goals were probably his fault and two of them you’d have done better with yourself.

I pity anybody that has to play behind this QPR midfield at the moment but Walsh has now conceded 11 goals in three games and watching him walk off the pitch, alone, looking up to the sky and shaking his head, with the Middlesbrough players and fans celebrating behind him, and the three empty sides of Loftus Road in front, was tough to see on a human level. You wonder if we’re doing him more harm than good at this point.

Back in the podcast studio, the lads were torn on what to do next. Former R’s striker Kevin Gallen was inclined to recall the more experienced Ben Hamer, the journos said you may as well stick with Walsh and really see what he’s got about him given there’s only a dozen games left and QPR are safely marooned in midtable with little to play for. I’m probably with the hacks, I don’t see any point in picking Hamer ahead of Walsh at this point, but Kevin’s retort was really interesting: “There’s 15,16,000 people coming this weekend who want Rangers to win”. A sentiment that really speaks to those of us trekking around the country watching the team get its arse handed to it every game at the moment.

All over the team now you have these situations where what’s good for “the project” and the long term may not be good for the team in the short term.

Steve Cook sitting at the back of the dugout as the most unused of unused subs, for instance, having played really well through a January in which only one game was lost and four clean sheets were kept, no point in him even jogging up and down the touchline apparently while the team is shipping goals at a rate of nearly four a game.

You’d ideally want Esquerdinha playing the remaining games at left back, not a middling loan from Sheffield United, but look what happens when he does. Kieran Morgan similar. With a midweek trip to Birmingham, a long Easter Monday at Preston with no trains, an early morning start for a trip to Ipswich, short term pain for long term gain is a really a difficult sell to the fans – particularly when the short term pain is coming in the brutal form of the last fortnight, and the team was only three points from the play-offs six weeks ago. It’s a really tough spot for the manager to be in, which is probably why he looks so utterly “QPR’d” by it all and just sits in his press conferences now saying “this is the reality”.

Aside from the goalkeeping, there’s no better example of the absolute knots they’re tying themselves in than Stephan’s comments before tonight’s game about the potential to move Ronnie Edwards into midfield. “I have to find some options. That’s why I wanted to see Ronnie in the last 15 to 20 minutes of the (Middlesbrough) game as a midfielder. To change the shape we need experienced players who understand very quickly what you want to do on the pitch. I think now, in this moment, you need to be very simple. The more simple, the better it is, because when you drop in terms of confidence, especially with some young players, you don’t have to invent difficult things—just stay simple and try to rebuild confidence.”

I mean if it isn't striking you as some form of ludicrous that the manager is talking about a dearth of experienced players and considering moving our £4.5m left sided centre back into midfield because we've got nobody else, and cover him in defence with somebody whose legs are held together with elastic bands and chewing gum when we're playing away tonight and again on Saturday, while our best and most experienced defender sits on the bench and our best and most experienced left sided midfielder plays for Norwich, then I'm concerned for you.

I think so much of this continues to show the inexperience of the people making the decisions on the football side. Whether it was Les Ferdinand or now Christian Nourry, the one thing they both had in common is they’d never done that job before. Both talk about pathways and development model, but I think also frequently lose sight of the most important thing which is the first team’s result on the Saturday afternoon. Get that right first and foremost, and build the rest out from there. Development squad trophies, youngest average age in the Championship, most minutes for teenagers… They all mean absolutely nothing if the team gets beaten at the weekend, and keeps getting beaten. It’s always “jam tomorrow” at QPR, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to believe in short term pain for long term gain when we get to this point of every season and it looks and feels exactly like this. The long term gain is so long term we never actually get to enjoy it.

Sign players and build a team whose first and foremost aim is to play well and compete for QPR. If they end up going somewhere else for big money, fantastic, and of course we need that to happen regularly, but the primary aim should be putting a competitive team on the pitch for QPR each week of players who want to be here. As soon as you start describing yourself as a development club, a stepping stone, "don't want players for whom this is their final destination", then that's how everybody sees it. Like some poxy little club you have to do some time at before you get to go and play for somebody proper. That's why we get to this point every season and it looks like this - half the squad missing, the other half on the beach, not going up and not going down but not enough of them arsed about QPR enough to want to get the result anyway and so they get beat every week.

I’m torn myself. I used to absolutely hate it when Harry Redknapp was our manager. Just chucking good money after bad to have Javier Chevanton and Oguchi Onyewu sit on our bench never playing rather than dare have a youth teamer there. Bring Luke Young out of retirement to play centre back in a midweeker at Blackburn against Rudy Gestede rather than give Coll Donaldson one game of football. I know, ideally, Walsh, Morgan, Esquerdinha, Tylon Smith need to be playing now. But I’ll also struggle to stand there tonight and watch that Southampton game all over again and convince myself this is all for some sort of greater good 12-18-24 months down the line.

For the sake of the fans behind the goal, and the young players involved, we’ve got to stop the rot somehow.

Links >>> Struggling to live up to the hype – Oppo Focus >>> Wembley bound – History >>> Backhouse in charge – Referee >>> Birmingham City official website >>> St Andrew’s — Ground Guide >>> Small Heath Alliance — Message Board >>> We Are Birmingham — Podcast >>> Birmingham Mail — Local Press

Below the fold

Team News: Tonight’s the night for Amadou Mbengue. He has walked the high wire on nine yellow cards since Stoke away. He’s managed five games without a card at all. If he can get through tonight he has reached the 37-game cut off point for a suspension for ten yellows. Can’t wait to see what he does with this.

Apart from that, your guess is as good as mine at this point. Kwame Poku was meant to be back on the bench at the weekend but “didn’t feel ready”. Ilias Chair, correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe we’ve ever actually been told what his problem is? Not seen since December 6, not going to be seen any time soon. Dave Mc reports it’s a bone bruise for Justin Obikwu (why on earth the club couldn’t just say that at any point over the past seven weeks is just completely beyond my comprehension). Rumarn Burrell, Karamoko Dembele, Ziyad Larkeche are all out for the season and given the complete radio silence on Nicolas Madsen you start to suspect that might be the case there as well.

Elsewhere: Everything’s coming up Millwall. A big 1-0 home win last night in a tough game against play-off chasing Derby leaves the Lions third, just a point behind Middlesbrough. While Alex Neil’s side were putting on a sixth win in seven games, his former club were doing him a favour up in Stoke – 2-0 up against Ipswich it looked like they’d blown it at 3-2 but the Potters got a last minute penalty to draw 3-3.

With Hull’s win at Wrexham it’s really shaping up to be a terrific end to the season in that top five. Coventry have 74 points ahead of a homer with Preston Knob End this evening. Boro are second on 69 and host Charlton tonight. Then it’s Millwall a point back and Ipswich in fourth on 65 with Hull on 63.

Wrexham have possession of the final play-off spot and their defeat means Derby lose no ground, but there’s a chance for Southampton to close to within one point with a win at struggling West Brom tonight. That relegation zone is very much the focus tonight with second bottom Oxford hosting 20th-placed Blackburn, four points separate the two. West Brom hold the final relegation spot in between them after Leicester’s 2-0 win at home to Bristol City last night. Portsmouth lost at home to Swansea and are playing themselves back into the picture with three defeats from four. Sheff Wed, bless them, 1-0 up in stoppage time at home to Watford looking for a first home win of the season and first win anywhere since September and the Hornets equalised in stoppage time – second time this season they’ve done that to them.

Norwich v Sheff Utd makes up the midweek list.

Referee: Carlisle’s Anthony Backhouse for this one, last with QPR for the final game of last season at Sunderland and not a single red card to his name so far this (oh God). Details.

Form

- Birmingham come into this game 12th. They have not finished in the top half of this division since a tenth placed finish in 2015/16, ten years ago. That was QPR’s

- QPR and Birmingham both come into this one having lost three on the spin. Blues have lost 3-0 to Millwall, 3-1 to Boro and 1-0 at Charlton leaving them with one win from the last six in all comps.

- Birmingham had never lost three games in a row under Chris Davies before. Their last such sequence was March 2024 when they lost four in a row which culminated in a 2-1 defeat at Loftus Road and Jimmy Dunne’s spectacular last minute winner.

- QPR, of course, have been beaten 5-0 at Southampton, 2-0 at home by Sheff Utd and 4-0 by Middlesbrough to leave them 11-0 down on aggregate over the last three matches. Rangers have also have one win in the last six games.

- The last time QPR lost three in a row without scoring was three years ago when Gareth Ainsworth was beaten 2-0 by PNE, 1-0 at Wigan and 1-0 at home to Birmingham.

- Only Sheff Wed (73) have conceded more goals this year than QPR’s 58. The season already includes 7-1, 5-0, 4-0 and 4-1 defeats and the R’s have shipped 15 goals in their last five games alone.

- QPR have conceded 4+ goals in four different league games under Julien Stephan - twice as many as under Marti Cifuentes (two) and one more than under Gareth Ainsworth (three). @JTSupple

- Southampton away was the 13th time QPR have conceded 5+ goals in a Championship match since the EFL rebrand in 2004 – only Barnsley (17) have suffered that fate on more occasions in that time in this division.

- Joe Walsh has conceded 30 goals in his 13 appearances this season – 2.31 goals a game.

- Middlesbrough won at Loftus Road on Sunday with 70% of the possession. QPR haven’t beaten a team while enjoying more of the ball since a 2-1 homer against Blackburn last February. All 17 wins since have been achieved with a lower possession stat than the opponent.

- The difference between Birmingham’s home and away form is stark. Blues have lost 11 on their travels and just two at St Andrew’s. They have won eight games here and five away.

- Middlesbrough’s 3-1 win here last week and Hull’s 3-2 in October are Birmingham’s only home defeats in 42 league games at St Andrew’s.

- QPR’s surprise 3-1 win at Hull is their only away win in ten attempts. The R’s have won two of their last 13 away games after winning three and drawing one of the four just before that.

- QPR had eight shots on target in that Hull win, more than they’ve managed cumulatively in the three games since (three v Sheff Utd and Boro, one at Southampton).

- Birmingham have won ten of 21 games when Marvin Ducksch has started up front for them, losing only five (including the last two). Without him they have won only three and lost eight of 15. The German has ten goals in 30 appearances and is Brum’s top scorer tied with Jay Stansfield.

- QPR won the first meeting this season 2-1 in spectacular fashion. Kieran Morgan’s last second winner was the second time in as many meetings in W12 that rangers had beaten Blues 2-1 with a last second long range goal at that end of the ground.

- Birmingham did the double over QPR in 2022/23 but Rangers are unbeaten in three since, winning the last two. Rangers have a good recent record at St Andrew’s. They’ve lost only three of ten and won five of the others. Prior to that they’d gone eight visits here without a win dating back to 1983/84.

- QPR’s only double so far this season is against Hull (3-2, 3-1). This game is one of four remaining chances to secure another (Birmingham A, Leicester A, Bristol City H, Swansea H).

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…

“Back in December, for my birthday, my other half said she would treat me to W12 hospitality at a future game at Loftus Road. Do you recall the heady days of December when QPR were actually winning football matches? Anyway, Middlesbrough was my fixture of choice and so we arrived at Mecca at 14.00 on Sunday. The encounter was all very pleasant, if a bit over-priced in my opinion. We had a good meal, a couple of beers and heard a few words of wisdom from an extremely softly-spoken Rumarn Burrell.

“Then the game started and it all went to crap. I usually sit/stand in PU, so it was quite a different experience watching Varane passing it backwards, or occasionally out of play altogether, from the comfort of my padded seat near the halfway line in the South Africa Road stand – still no leg room available though. Needless to say, there was no singing or shouting from the hospitality crowd and, as we sat in silence, I could mainly hear the Boro fans’ voices coming from the School End. We did stay until the end of the game where we were encouraged to go back into the W12 restaurant in the hope that some of the players might appear, but we decided just to go home. You remember when you used to watch Bullseye and that couple that came last, and won about £6 still said “Thanks Jim, we’ve had a lovely day!’ Well, we weren’t even able to say that.

“There is a thread on the LFW forum at the moment discussing the similarities of this Stephan season with the ‘Schteve’ McLaren one. It reminded me of an old Athletico Mince podcast where they did a humorous sketch called ‘McLaren picks the QPR team.’ If you’ve not heard it, it’s well worth tracking down via your favourite search engine, and as I can’t be arsed to predict anything QPR line-up related this week, I’m just going to quote the opening lines of the song that featured in the aforementioned sketch. It actually seems quite insightful.

I choose the team from the adults in the squad. I put the one with gloves into the goal.
For my defence, I choose the tallest lads and in midfield, I put the brightest boots.
And then upfront, I put one fat, one thin and one to take the corners that we win.
I tell them all to pass the ball around and try their best not to damage the pitch.

“Rangers visit St Andrew’s on Wednesday night to play Birmingham City. For reasons known only to my psychiatrist and me, I reckon we’ll get a draw.”

QPR_Hibs Prediction: Birmingham 1-1 QPR. Scorer – Harvey Vale

LFW’s Prediction: Birmingham 2-0 QPR. No scorer.

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