Are QPR to be party poopers, or perfect guests once more, when the R’s head to an Ipswich side that will be promoted to the Premier League with a win on Saturday morning?

Ipswich (22-15-8 WLDWDD 2nd) v QPR (16-10-19 WDDLLL 14th)

Sky’s Super Saturday Brunch Spectacular >>> Saturday May 2, 2026 >>> Kick Off 12.30 >>> Weather – Scorchio >>> Portman Road, Ipswich, Suffolk

I’m not sure even the Banana Grove’s finest would be able to spot the niche pub quiz connection between Crewe, Reading, Wolves, West Brom, Preston, Newcastle, Man City, Burnley and West Brom (again), but those of a hooped persuasion need no reminder.

All of those teams, over the last 25 years, have won a league, a promotion, qualified for the play-offs, or been able to celebrate one of those achievements, with a win against QPR on or around the last day of the season. There we are, in our bridesmaid dress, every bastard year, for the celebrations, the pitch invasion, bloody Status Quo. What’s that coming through the door now? It’s another party invite. Hmmmm. Tell em I would come, but I can’t, because I’d rather pull off my own arm, and eat it.

It seems if you’re having a big bash then QPR has to be the first name on your guestlist, and you can see why. Inoffensive, unthreatening, rolling up bang on time with a punch bowl and a tummy ready for tickling. Don’t mind us, we’re only here for the beer. I’d want us there, if I were you, and Watford were unavailable.

It’s really difficult to envisage tomorrow being any different at Portman Road. Ipswich are a quality side with a terrific manager and have already laid waste to us once this season. Their best players are their wingers, which is jolly unsporting against a team whose worst players are full backs. One of the biggest problems in the game at Loftus Road was the decision to start Esquerdinha at left back against Sindre Egeli – a tactic that took all of 30 seconds to bear fruit in the form of George Hirst’s opening goal – and given Rangers have long since had nothing to play for, and have spent the second half of the campaign nursing a significant injury list, you’d expect a few match ups of that type when the teams are announced tomorrow morning.

Even when they had things riding on the outcome, QPR have been lousy against the bigger teams and top six in the division this season (worse, somehow, even than last year). A home win against champions Coventry was a season highlight, but in 11 games against the present top six Rangers have only won two (Wrexham A, Coventry H), losing the other nine and conceding an enormous 35 goals in the process (more than three a game on average). Cov won the other meeting 7-1, Ipswich beat us 4-1, Millwall have won 2-1 and 2-0, Southampton 2-1 and 5-0, Wrexham 3-2 at Loftus Road. If you’re a Boro or Millwall fan tuning in tomorrow hoping for a favour, you really should know better. It shows the enormous gap we still have to bridge to break into that promotion picture – albeit there are eight places to play for next May.

If defeat does come to pass tomorrow it’ll leave Rangers on four straight losses and six without a win to finish, their longest winless run of the season, which is a real shame for a campaign that once promised so much. Another 70+ goals conceded, another ten home defeats for your ever-increasing ticket price, six wins in 24 games since Boxing Day, two wins in the final 14 away matches, more defeats than last season, and a league position almost exactly where it was a year ago. On paper, disappointingly static.

The big area of progress, and the thing that does offer some hope of an upset tomorrow and better things to come, is up front. After a decade of trying, Rangers have finally recruited a couple of potentially very good strikers, and not a bad supporting cast either. If the visiting team are fit and focused tomorrow, any Ipswich nerves and tentativeness would be exacerbated by the sight of Richard Kone smashing around up top. Another goal last week moves him to 11 for his first Championship swing and he’s really growing into the level for me. Hard working, physical, pretty clinical when a chance presents (not you, Hull away) that’s a terrific pick up by a club on our budget and I think he could really be one to watch in this league next year – explosive potential there, when you think how Zan Vipotnik looked for Swansea 12 months ago and how he went on and grew once he’d got some Championship miles on his clock.

Rumarn Burrell much the same. I don’t think he’s technically as good as Kone, but he’s a lot quicker, and they make a bloody awkward pair to play against – particularly when so few teams are used to facing an old fashioned front two (one of the big plus points with Julien Stéphan is he’s willing to play that too). He needs a really good pre-season. The news that the injury against Derby will “only” keep him out for three to four weeks is good, but bringing him and Poku back into meaningless games and losing them both again (Poku, it seems, seriously) summed up our biggest problem throughout the season – we can’t keep our best team on the pitch. Stéphan again used his press conference this week to say changing that is the biggest improvement the club can make, over and above any more new signings. As we saw with Chris Willock previously, an injury like the one Burrell has had can niggle for months, and beget other similar injuries. He needs to be carefully managed. I thought putting those players into meaningless games last week and running that risk was nuts.

Still, having waited four years to get a striker into double figures Rangers now have two, and no surprise to see early summer transfer rumours already circulating about them. They’ve helped the team score more goals this year than last (61v53), win more games (16v14) and finally start winning at Loftus Road (ten home wins, three more than 24/25, the most since 21/22, the same total as the three teams currently competing for sixth spot). The R’s have scored 40 times at home, only Coventry are more prolific. They have 58 points, already the best total in four seasons.

The problems elsewhere in the team, other than the chronic injury situation, are obvious and well documented. We’ve struggled in goal, where the botched decision making around Paul Nardi and Joe Walsh from last summer has hamstrung the team from the first whistle; at full back, where again a punchy call to try and go with Ziyad Larkeche and Esquerdinha has made it a problem position throughout; and central midfield, where much was expected of Jonathan Varane and he hasn’t been able to kick on the way Nicolas Madsen has.

They’re not difficult fixes. Strikers, as we know, are expensive and difficult to find – but we’ve got two of those now. Goalkeepers and full backs, much easier and cheaper – two of the three best keepers at this level this year (Rushworth, Vitek) are Premier League loans.

In a sport where your trading is restricted to two windows a year, and in a division dominated by parachute payments which we’re no longer in receipt of, we were never going to be able to rebuild a whole team from the lows of the Beale/Critchley/Ainsworth farce in a year, or even two.

Recruitment was better this year, focusing on the obvious physical flaws of the 24/25 class and finally making a brave, concerted effort to sort our forward line out. We’d have been incredibly lucky to sort out our goalkeepers, defence and midfield at the same time - you do that incrementally over a few transfer windows. If you’ve got Kone and Burrell in August with a year under their belts, Nicolas Madsen going into year three, players like Harvey Vale, Kieran Morgan, Ronnie Edwards, maybe Daniel Bennie and Amadou Mbengue, with more miles in their legs, that’s not a bad position to be in. It leaves you probably only needing three or four this summer rather than our usual eight or nine (or 13 or 14), as long as you also address the obvious bleed of experience, leadership and game smarts from the squad. My fear is they may underestimate the latter in pursuit of the non-existent Youngest Average Age In The League trophy. I’d quite like us to compete for some of the real ones (no, I’m still not over that Plymouth debacle).

I think most juries are still very much out on Stéphan. There’s been some good. The team is often a lot better to watch than it was previously and, as we’ve said, it scores more goals. I was very impressed with his bold, decisive action to jettison the much-talked-about “game model” after the Coventry catastrophe and take charge with his own style. This season, in the old-is-new footballing world of long throws and bullying the goalkeeper, would have been a disaster had he not done so. I like how calm he is, whether things are going well or not, and as we’ve said several times he is the head coach and much of the serious decision making is done above and around him so you have to be careful what he gets blamed for. He came into a very difficult situation, politically, followed a popular predecessor, and had a flawed team to manage that has struggled for fitness throughout. He’s done quite well with that hand of cards, in my opinion.

He has, though, been too tightly wedded to his 4-4-2 since that Coventry disaster, regularly allowing his team to lose the midfield and get outnumbered and outplayed down the middle of the pitch. That his team come out for second halves in dribs and drabs and let in nearly a quarter of all the goals they concede in the first ten minutes (two in the first meeting with Ipswich) is not a good reflection on him. I thought after the first half at Birmingham, and the comments made afterwards, that he was a gonna. It’s worth remembering that six wins in 24 games stat – Oxford have gone down winning seven in that time. It’s been largely relegation form through the back half of the year, taking us from a point off the play-offs to now closer to the bottom three than the top six. That’s not great momentum to carry into next campaign.

His recent interview comments about the need for more experience, his ongoing selection of players like Rhys Norrington-Davies who won’t be here next season ahead of development prospects the club are desperate to hype, and further comments this week about action needed to get the best team on the pitch more often, have sounded and looked a lot like what Warbs Warburton and Marti Cifuentes said and did towards the end of their time here. Lo and behold stories about a potential return to France this summer are starting to do the rounds. I wonder if that flat we’ve got him in comes with a garden?

In all seriousness, famous last words, I don’t think there’s a lot in that as it stands. Could be an agent putting a name about (which I know we went all Married At First Sight Australia about a year ago but happens All The Time), or even QPR wanting to make it known what a good appointment this guy was and what a great job he’s doing because, look, see, other clubs want him. Or it could just be bollocks, as so much “reporting” is at this time of year. I expect him to be our manager in 26/27, and I’m okay with that. I don’t really have strong feelings towards him either way really, which is difficult to get used to after the highs and lows of Warbs, Honest Mick, Critchley, poor Gareth and Marti’s Estrella and paella. The Frenchman hasn’t really lived up to the “we need experience of three game weeks” hype – still too many Derby aways and not enough Leicester aways – but it’d be a shame to get a year of Championship learnings into him and then have to start all over again (again). I don’t think we will do.

I’ll spare you the traditional mawkish overshare and cringey list of thank yous, other than to say a big thanks to Jamie and the others who’ve filled in for me at some often really quite dreadful performances (imagine agreeing to stand in at Coventry away) and QPR_Hibs who has really attacked the match preview part of the Prediction League ‘prize’ with gusto and great commitment through a 48-game season. If you want to write for us next season, we pay, and we’d love to hear from you (loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk). I’m going to make a concerted effort to do more things like Awaydays, try and inject some fun back into it, so it’s not just me moaning and pontificating every week. Thanks to Andy and Jaz for running the back office/editing the audio/sorting the tech/preventing me from jumping off the roof of the Crown.

That, naturally, means LFW will return next year, our 21st, partly because so many of you take the time to say nice things and tell us how much the site means to you, mainly because in this climate that Patreon is paying for my food. If you have taken the trouble to make a positive comment or say something nice this year thankyou for putting some more petrol in my tank while I’m running on fumes. If you do value the site, and don’t have a Patreon sub, please consider taking one out, I know times are hard but it is the only thing keeping the show on the road at the moment and there will be some great content on there over the next month (honest, promise).

One more time then…

Links >>> Town seek Aguero moment – Oppo Profile >>> Impey double – History >>> Ward in charge – Referee >>> Ipswich Town Official Website >>> Ipswich Star – Local Press >>> East Anglian Daily Times – Local Press >>> TWTD – Blog and Forum >>> Talking Town – Podcast

Below The Fold

Team News: Ipswich have announced that this Saturday’s game will be the last before retirement for Loftus Road favourite Ashley Young, and the occasion will be marked by a ceremonial dive and flypast of incontinent seagulls before kick-off. A shame, really, that Amadou Mbengue might be missing after limping out at half time of the Derby game a week ago – could have granted him a Day of Freedom to mark the occasion (the fact Young himself is injured and unlikely to play might not have mattered to him).

Rumarn Burrell also departed early a week ago and won’t be involved. Karamoko Dembele is among the long termers. As ever in these circumstances, the team selection will likely be the most interesting bit of the day. I was really hoping we’d get to see a bit of Jaylan Pearman before the end of term – regular watchers of the development squad who don’t usually get excited about much coming through that system tell me we might have a live one there – but I don’t know if the Australian is done following the midweek cup win at Dulwich Hamlet.

Apart from long termer Conor Townsend, Ipswich have a fully fit squad to choose from (must be nice) with Leif Davis, Jack Taylor and Wes Burns all back in training after recent issues.

Elsewhere: There are two issues outstanding as the Mercantile Credit Trophy heads into its final day.

Coventry (away at Watford) have long since been crowned champions so the issue at hand in our game is whether it’s Ipswich, Millwall or Boro going with them in second.

Ipswich are promoted with a win. A draw will be enough if Millwall fail to win at home to relegated Oxford and Middlesbrough do not win by more than five goals at Wrexham. The Tractor Boys are up regardless if Millwall and Middlesbrough fail to win.

Millwall will be promoted if they win and Ipswich fail to win. Middlesbrough will be promoted if they win, Ipswich lose and Millwall fail to win. Or if they win by 6+ goals, Ipswich draw & Millwall fail to win.

That Boro situation is complicated further by Wrexham needing a win to settle the other outstanding issue – the race for sixth place.

Wrexham will be in play-offs if they win, providing Hull do not win by one more goal at home to Norwich – the pair currently have respective goal differences of +4 and +3. A draw will be enough for the Welsh side if Hull and Derby fail to win and are in the top six regardless if Hull and Derby lose, providing Wrexham’s margin of defeat is not more than Hull’s. The Rams are at home to Sheffield Red Stripe.

Hull will be in play-offs if they win and Wrexham fail to win, or they win by one more goal than Wrexham’s margin of victory. A draw will be enough if Wrexham lose and Derby fail to win. The Tigers are in the top six regardless if Wrexham lose by one more goal than Hull’s margin of defeat and Derby lose.

Still with me? Well, just you wait. There is a scenario in which Wrexham & Hull could both win (3-2 & 2-0, 4-2 & 3-0, 4-3 & 3-1 etc) and finish with identical records. In this scenario, the head-to-head record between the sides would come into play – Hull did the double over Wrexham, so would finish higher in table.

Derby will be in play-offs if they win and Wrexham and Hull fail to win. A point will be enough if Wrexham and Hull lose.

Of course, under next year’s vastly improved play-off set up, Wrexham, Hull and Derby would all be home and hosed already and able to rest players tomorrow for the knock outs. Which is much better.

With Sheff Wed (West Brom H), Leicester (Blackburn A) and Oxford (Millwall A) all confirmed as relegated there’s little to play for at the bottom, though the Owls can finally get out of negative points with a win.

Fun in the sun for Bristol City v Stoke, Portsmouth v Birmingham, Preston v Southampton and Swansea v Charlton.

Referee: Bold choice for a big game. Details.

Form

- QPR have 58 points, two more than they finished with last year, and already their best total for four years. Currently 14th, the R’s have finished between 15th and 20th for the last three seasons.

- QPR’s form against the top six in the Championship this year is lousy. They’ve won two (Coventry H, Wrexham A) of 11 games so far, losing the other nine, and conceding 35 goals in the process (3.18 a game). They’ve somehow managed to get even worse in that regard than last year when they won one (Sunderland A) but drew with Leeds, Burnley, Sheff Utd, Coventry and Bristol City twice for nine points and five defeats. That picture does change somewhat should Hull sneak into the last play-off spot tomorrow, mind.

- QPR are weirdly good in their final away games of seasons. They won at promoted Sunderland last May, Coventry the year before and Stoke the year before that. In all Rangers have won their last five final awayers of the campaign, and six of the last seven with the other being a 2-2 draw at West Brom in 2020. The last defeat was a 2-0 at Leeds in May 2018 in Ian Holloway’s last game in charge. They’ve won six and drawn one of their last ten games on the final day.

- That said, QPR have won only two of the last 14 away games in all comps and have only won six of 24 games anywhere since Boxing Day. It’s 19 losses for the season, one more than last year, and one more than relegated Leicester.

- QPR come into this game winless in five, with three straight defeats. Another loss here would make it the longest winless run of the season at six.

- QPR do have a pretty decent recent record at Ipswich though. Town’s various ups and downs have meant only three meetings at Portman Road in nine years but the R’s are unbeaten in those games (0-0, 2-0, 0-0) and haven’t conceded a goal here since a 3-0 loss under Holloway in November 2016. If the Tractor Boys win this it’ll be a first double over us since 2009/10.

- Ipswich will be promoted with a win here but are having a wobble at the worst possible time. They’ve won just one of the last five games, with three draws, leaving nine points on the table. Mind you, the defeat at Portsmouth was their only defeat in 14 games and they’re unbeaten in 17 on this ground since Charlton won here in November (their only home loss) so steady your erection down for a moment.

- In fact, Ipswich have lost just one of their last 43 home Championship matches (W28 D14). No Championship side has conceded as few home goals - 17.

- Ipswich have scored 2+ goals in 15 of their last 22 league games. Former QPR loanee Jack Clarke is the top scorer here with 16 goals. Seven of those have come from the bench including the crucial equaliser at Southampton during the week. No Championship side has scored as many goals from substitutes this year as Town with 18.

- That Clarke goal at St Mary’s was the 21st time Ipswich have scored in the final 15 minutes of games, more than any other side in the league. QPR are third in that regard on 18, with Coventry in between the two on 20.

- QPR have kept one clean sheet in their last 15 games (Bristol City H). Only Sheff Wed (88) have conceded more than Rangers’ 70. In the last ten seasons Rangers have conceded 60+ goals in a season on six occasions and 70+ on four.

- QPR’s last 20 wins have all come with less possession than their opponent – they are yet to win a game this season where they have dominated the ball. The last time it happened was a 2-1 home win against Blackburn in February 2025.

- Richard Kone is now out in front as QPR’s top scorer this season on 11 – he and Rumarn Burrell (ten) are the first R’s players to get into double figures since Andre Gray in 2021/22 (also ten). Only Coventry (51) have scored more home goals than Rangers this year though Ipswich are level on 40.

- Behind them Paul Smyth and Own Goals are tied on six. QPR have never had more own goals scored in their favour in a single season before, and no Championship side has had more in 25/26. Ipswich are level, also on six, so…. BUNDLE.

- Brad Potts’ goal for Preston on Easter Monday was the 16th QPR have conceded in the ten minutes straight after half time this season in all comps (including twice in the first meeting with Ipswich) – 21.33% of all the goals the team have conceded overall.

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. JB007007 now surely has an unassailable lead in the race to replace last year’s winner QPR_Hibs with one game remaining despite Anti Heinola’s late run for the crown…

“It’s the end of the world as we know it. The final countdown. This is the end, beautiful friend…...it is incredible how many songs have been written about the end of the Championship season. It ain’t over till it’s over – there’s another one for you. But, seriously, the time HAS finally arrived for the last game of the season and, this year, I’m having to break with my regular routine. We usually seem to be away from home on the final day, so I’ll stick on ‘Radio 5 Live’ and sit in my garden to listen to the twists and turns as the play-off and relegation places change, sometimes minute by minute. QPR are rarely involved at either end of the table and, perhaps, that makes it all the more enjoyable. Strangely, we may actually have some influence on the automatic promotion race on Saturday, but I will not be able to listen to any drama as it unfolds, as I will be away in Edinburgh at a family event. I’ll be relying on the odd mobile phone check to find out what’s going on, which will feel quite weird.

“I was pleasantly surprised by the way we started last Saturday’s game against Derby after the abysmal efforts in the preceding two matches. Daniel Bennie and Harvey Vale had excellent games, and we really should have been two or three goals to the good by half-time. Unfortunately, we were hit by the quadruple whammy of bad luck (for their first goal anyway,) the opposition goalie having a worldie, poor substitutions and more injury problems – meaning we finished the game with 10 men. Oh, and a great piece of skill from Jaydon Banel to win the game for the Rams, of course.

“Congratulations must surely go to the Development Squad on winning the London Senior Cup Final on Tuesday evening with a 5-1 victory over Dulwich Hamlet. It was such a shame that the game was not allowed to be streamed live and, as yet, I’ve not seen any highlights either. Whether any of that DS team will be rewarded with a place on the subs bench on Saturday remains to be seen.

“Saturday sees us travel to Portman Road to attempt to put a spanner in the works of Ipswich’s automatic promotion hopes. We have a good recent record there, with two 0-0 draws and a 2-0 victory in our last three visits. However, we were soundly beaten by them at Loftus Road earlier in the season, conceding a goal two minutes into either half, a bad habit that has affected us throughout the whole season. I was amazed to learn that QPR haven’t lost in their final away fixture since 2018, when dirty Leeds beat us 2-0 and we finished 16th. Sadly, I think Ipswich will be too good for us and, although we’ll make it difficult, they will do enough to secure their promotion.

“That's all from me. Thanks to Clive for letting me spout a load of old rubbish every week. I can't say that I'm going to miss it, next season, in all honesty! And, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

QPR_Hibs Prediction: Ipswich 2-0 QPR. No scorer.

LFW’s Prediction: Ipswich 3-0 QPR. No scorer.

If you enjoy LoftforWords, please consider supporting the site through a subscription to our Patreon or tip us via our PayPal account loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk.

Pictures - Reuters Connect

Recent Stories