QPR’s statistical anomaly against Portsmouth before the international break is very in keeping with a bizarre season of feast and famine, which doesn’t show many signs of abating ahead of a Good Friday clash with a similarly chaotic Watford outfit.

QPR (15-8-16 LLLLWW 12th) v Watford (14-14-11 LWDLWD 9th)

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The xG evangelists have spent their international break marvelling over QPR’s freaky 6-1 victory against Portsmouth last time out.

Six touches in the opposition box, six goals. The modern scourge that shots from long range are bad for business swept aside in a clinical demonstration of accurate finishing, summersault celebrations, and big hair. A joyous afternoon after a horrible few weeks, but also that rare thing after many decades of football support – a game you’ve never seen the likes of before.

Perhaps we shouldn’t have been as surprised as we all undoubtedly were...

(Unless, that is, you’re Mr Other Scores from last week’s Prediction League and you did indeed stick 6-1 as your call…)

… Fact is QPR are a statistically weird outfit under Julian Stéphan. Only seven teams have scored more goals than Rangers (55), and Millwall are fourth scoring two fewer, but only Sheff Wed (71) have conceded more goals than our 61. This from a team that has already drawn five games 0-0, and that despite only drawing eight times overall – only four teams have fewer ties than QPR, but no team has more 0-0 draws. A team that drew three goalless away games in a row in January has also lost 7-1, 5-0, 4-0 and 4-1 at various other points, while winning games 6-1 and 4-1.

That’s before we get back into the whole anomalies around not winning with possession – now 19 victories and counting going back 14 months since Rangers last beat a team while holding more of the ball than them. Even Portsmouth had nearly 60% of it while conceding six times at Loftus Road. Watford, by the way, another who prefer to play without and spring in transition, so this could be another one of those Oxford-like tennis matches where the teams spend all afternoon giving it back to each other. It’s nine Watford wins since they last triumphed with more possession (3-2 against Norwich in December).

QPR have accumulated 56 points in each of the last two seasons and can match that total tomorrow with five games still to play. Midtable team gonna do midtable things. But when Christian Nourry said recently that one of his indicators for progress was how much better our record had been against the top eight sides it really highlighted to me just how weird we’ve been this year.

On the one hand he’s exactly right. In the 16 games played against last season’s top eight (Leeds, Burnley, Sheff Utd, Sunderland, Coventry, Bristol City, Blackburn and Millwall) QPR won just two of them (Sunderland A, Blackburn H). Against the top eight as it stands this year (Coventry, Middlesbrough, Ipswich, Millwall, Hull, Southampton, Wrexham, Derby) we’ve won twice as many (Coventry H, Hull H, Hull A, Wrexham A) and still have three games to play. Great success. However, with difficult trips to Ipswich and Millwall still to come, as well as a homer with Derby who may need points to make the six, we’ve already lost more games (seven last year versus nine this) and conceded far more goals (23 last season versus 36 this).

It’s a similar story with our record against the bottom eight. QPR have won just one of four games against bottom two Sheff Wed and Oxford. They’ve failed to score in two of those and failed to score in open play in three. West Brom’s win against us in the Christmas break was their only success in 18 attempts. Blackburn’s 3-1 at Loftus Road was a third win in 18. We of course lost to Norwich at Carrow Road when they were second bottom and had taken one point from nine home games, but the Canaries have since surged up the table under Philippe Clement and against the present bottom eight (Sheff Wed, Oxford, Leicester, Pompey, West Brom, Blackburn, Charlton, Sheff Utd) QPR have now played all 16 games and lost just three of those, winning seven of the others and scoring 26 goals.

Trying to pick out patterns and takeaways from any midtable Championship team is an exercise in knitting fog – listen to the supporter mood music at Stoke, Bristol City, Preston, even Birmingham at the moment. QPR, though, feel particularly erratic.

One thing we have got going for us is two strikers in double figures. Rumarn Burrell hasn’t played since the turn of the year and already has ten goals to his name, Richard Kone has been all over the show in terms of form and performance but he too has now reached ten goals with half a dozen games left to play. The last time we got one striker to ten goals was Andre Gray in 2021/22, the last time we got two into double figures was two years before that when Eze, Wells (both 14) and Hugill (15) all got there together.

That team also conceded 76 goals that season, a pretty remarkable total for a side finishing 13th in this league (Charlton went down that year conceding 65), but testament to how having goals in your team covers a multitude of sins. Burrell, through injury, and Kone, through inconsistency and finding his feet, have been far from perfect, but both will go into next season with a year of Championship under their belts and a big opportunity to attack a second season at this level. Their recent struggles have allowed Rayan Kolli to finally get a run of games and with five goals already it’s not massively inconceivable that he makes ten goals for the campaign either. He’s got a huge chance tomorrow against a Watford team whose whole defence has been on Big Ben's Hampers and Hamstrings Easter Picnic and Wind Sprints for themselves. Bring your boots and a yellow shirt and you too can play full back for the visitors tomorrow.

That is genuinely exciting for next season. There’s a lot of teams in the bottom half of this league would kill for a trio like that going into next August . We’d have been one of them for a long time, trying to make do with Wells/Hugill-style loans we could never hope to keep, or Dykes/Bonne-type recruitment misfits.

Getting two rough diamond, raw strikers in here this year, playing them together, and them both reaching double figures, is one of the big success stories. It’s why, despite the heavy defeats and the ropey stats, we’re sitting 12th and not worrying how Portsmouth are getting on this weekend. It’s random, but it’s safe random, because there are goals in the team.

Behind the curtain, I tend to put my prediction in at the bottom of this preview before opening the email from last season’s Prediction League winner QPR_Hibs to see what he’s put. The amount of times it’s identical is spooky, and I often end up changing mine in those circumstances. Today he thinks we’re going to lose 3-2, and I think we’re going to win handsomely. I think that says a lot.

This could be anything at all.

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Below the fold

Team News: QPR have Rumarn Burrell back in first team training for the first time since the turn of the year, and Justin Obikwu is back doing light work with his debut for the club still left hanging since his January move from Coventry. Ilias Chair and Nicolas Madsen are also ‘back on the grass’ as the club’s chronic injury situation finally begins to ease. Karamoko Dembele and Ziyad Larkeche are the long term absentees. The question now is how hard do you push these guys to get them back into action for the remaining games with little at stake, and in the interests of ‘these previews don’t write themselves’ that’s probably going to be the topper for the Preston look ahead on Sunday. A tribunal has settled the fee owed to Reading for Amadou Mbengue at £350k according to West London Sport.

Watford on the other hand are suffering an availability crisis at full back. James Abankwah has come back from international duty hurt and Marc Bola is also a major doubt compounding the earlier loss of Jeremy Ngakia and Stephen Mfuni. Jeremy Petris will play jabbed up with a dislocated shoulder to ease that situation. Further forward Othmane Maamma remains sidelined and Kwadwo Baah is a doubt. Hector Kyprianou and Rocco Vata are long termers. Will Still’s non-union Belgian equivalent Ed says he had just 11 senior players for training two days prior to this one.

Elsewhere: There is an almost full programme of second tier action this Good Friday with 22 teams in action.

The game of the day is undoubtedly the early kick off between Middlesbrough (second, 71 points) and Milllllll (fourth, 69 points) at the Riverside. In theory they’re chasing down Frank Lampard’s Coventry, who go last with an evening homer against Derby, but with a nine point gap to second and 11 to third the Sky Blues are almost home and hosed and these matches between the chasers are about fitting three teams into the second automatic promotion spot.

Ipswich, who sit in between Boro and Millwall on 69 points, were meant to be playing Southampton here but that game has been postponed because for the first time I can remember the Easter weekend is being used for FA Cup games and the Saints have Arsenal on Saturday. Ipswich, who’ve had an interesting international break from a PR point of view (thank you and praise the Lord that wasn’t us), already had a game in hand (away at Pompey) and will have two by the end of tomorrow.

Southampton, currently sixth, being out of action gives a chance for the others around them to cement positions or stake a claim. Hull currently continue to surprise in fifth, three behind Ipswich and Millwall, and they head to Oxford on whom more shortly. Wrexham can move above Southampton with a win at West Brom while Derby could draw level on points if they shock Coventry.

Oxford and West Brom, of course, are embroiled in drama of a very different nature down at the bottom. The U’s are second bottom on 39 points, one adrift of Portsmouth who they meet on Monday. Pompey go to in form Norwich this weekend on the back of the 6-1 shellacking at Loftus Road and nursing a run of five defeats and a draw from six. In between are Leicester, also on 39 points, ahead of a home tie with Preston Knob End. West Brom and Blackburn have managed to lift themselves to 43, Rovers head to Birmingham this Good Friday.

Everybody else is just about done for the year, although Bristol City have sought to keep things interesting this break by sacking Gerhard Struber and bringing in 78 year old Roy Hodgson until the end of the season – more an exhumation than an appointment. An already disgruntled support base seems less than enamoured with this move and won’t have been placated much by a car crash first press conference, highlights of which included Hodgson saying he was looking forward to a first ever career meeting with Charlton until somebody told him all his centre backs are injured, and the club rep saying they were looking forward to Roy assisting in the recruitment of a new sporting director before the former England boss did a tight two minutes on how he doesn’t know what a sporting director is, does or why they’re required. There’s a couple of clubs who’ve had a right QPR of it this last couple of weeks, and the Robins are certainly one of them.

The two Sheffield sides – United at home to Swansea, Wednesday at Stoke – round out the Friday list.

Referee:Championship newbie Ruebyn Ricardo, a referee with an interesting back story, is the man in the middle for QPR's Good Friday home game with Watford. It’s his second QPR appointment following the 0-0 thriller with Oxford before Christmas. Details.

Form

- The statistically bizarre 6-1 win against Portsmouth was QPR’s 15th of the season. The only time they’ve had more at this point in the year since returning to this level was 17 in 2021/22.

- QPR recorded three players with two goals in the same match for the first time since November 1961 vs Barry Town, when Bernard Evans (2), John Collins (2) and Brian Bedford (3) achieved the feat. @JTSupple

- QPR have won their last two games scoring nine goals in the process having lost the prior four without scoring. The Pompey win halted a run of three straight defeats at Loftus Road.

- Pompey was QPR’s biggest win since January 2020 (6-1 v Cardiff). The R’s last won three in a row while scoring 3+ goals each time in October 2009 and that ridiculous hot weak under Jim Magilton when Preston, Reading and Derby all went for four in the same week.

- Watford have won only three of their last 14 league games having won four in a row. Had won four-in-a-row prior to that under Javi Gracia. They have won one of their last eight away games.

- No team has drawn more games in the Championship this season than Watford (14). Preston are second with 13, and Rangers head there on Monday.

- It means Watford have actually only lost 11 games this season, two fewer than Hull in fifth and five fewer than QPR.

- Despite this, QPR can draw level with the Hornets on 56 points with a win in this game having drawn four fewer games and won one more.

- QPR have conceded 61 goals so far, the worst record in the Championship bar relegated Sheff Wed (79). In the last ten seasons Rangers have conceded 60+ goals in a season on six occasions and 70+ on four.

- Watford are one of four clubs left in the league yet to lose a game having taken the lead. Birmingham and Boro are two of the others along with our Monday opposition Preston. QPR have only lost from a winning position once – at home to Wrexham.

- Watford also have the best comeback record in all four divisions, with 26 points won from losing positions – five more than any other side. They are the only side to fail to beat Sheff Wed over two games, but the two 90th minute equalisers they managed against the Owls are two of nine goals scored in the final ten minutes of games, five of which have been in injury time.

- Portsmouth’s 59.8% possession in that game last week continues QPR’s record of winning without the ball. The last time Rangers won a game with more possession than their opponent was a 2-1 at home to Blackburn last February, the R’s have won 19 games since all with less of the ball than the team they were playing.

- QPR go into this game 12th – just inside the top half of the Championship. The R’s have finished between 15th and 20th in each of the last three seasons. In the ten years since returning to the Championship they have finished in the bottom half of the table on seven occasions and have never finished higher than ninth. Their average final league position over that decade is 15.1.

- Currently ninth and seven points off play-off places, Watford’s best Championship finish since relegation from the Prem in 2022 was 11th in 22-23.

- Last season ‘own goals’ was the joint third top scorer for QPR with four, the joint most own goals in the club’s favour in a single season in its history. Ben Nelson’s farce at Leicester means we’ve gone one better this year with five. Only Rumarn Burrell and Richard Kone (ten each) have scored more.

- Luca Kjerrumgaard, who scored twice in the first meeting back in August, is top scorer for Watford with nine.

- QPR won this fixture 3-1 last season with goals from Jimmy Dunne, Michael Frey and Sam Field. They haven’t won consecutive home games against Watford since 1985-1986 when they won three in a row.

- Watford have won three of their last five league games against QPR (D1 L1), as many as they had in their previous 14 (D4 L7).

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 seems like ages since I’ve watched a decent game of football. The recent ‘International break’ has been a real disappointment, with Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic all getting knocked out of their respective play-off games. England played out a couple of dull friendlies that showed how vital Harry Kane is to their set-up, and Scotland lost both of their games 1-0, when they really could have done with a morale-boosting victory. Lyndon Dykes may be the best on earth, according to a popular chant, but Scotland’s (lack of quality) striker situation doesn’t look like being solved anytime soon.

“Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I had to leave the stadium at the 82nd minute mark during the Portsmouth game. At least I can confirm that, when we score, you can hear the home crowd celebrate (twice!) but not the ‘Pigbag’ music being played, as you walk down Loftus Road. Everything we hit went in that day and I was not surprised to see the match stats showing that we had actually lost the game 1.64 to 1.63 on xG.

“In an unusual move, the hierarchy at QPR dispensed with GDPR regulations and issued a brief injury update this week. It didn’t give much away, save for the fact that Justin Obikwu’s injury was revealed to be a fibular one, and that he may be available to cover for the injured Rumarn Burrell sometime soon. Perhaps even before Burrell becomes available again himself? Now that we are almost certainly nailed on for 16th place, it would make sense to give a run of games to Morgan, Kolli, and possibly Bennie and Esquerdinha with a view to them gaining more experience in the Championship.

“Friday’s visitors, Watford, are on a poor run of just three wins and five draws in the last fourteen games but are still ninth in the table, three points above Rangers. According to Opta, they have less than a 1% chance of making the play-offs, so this game is about as much of a dead rubber as there can be. It’s demised; it’s pushing up daisies; it has ceased to be. There’s very much not all to play for. Despite this, the game is another sell-out.

“As I haven’t got the faintest idea what the score will be, I’ve used the green (home) and yellow (away) dice from my Wembley football game to predict the outcome. This may prove to be a regular feature in the next few weeks.”

QPR_Hibs Prediction: QPR 2-3 Watford. Scorer – Harvey Vale

LFW’s Prediction: QPR 3-1 Watford. Scorer – Rayan Kolli

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