Hoop Dreams - QPR FC

It has been very hard not to focus on Neil Warnock since his arrival. As QPR have turned round their form, won two games on the trot and kept their first clean sheet in donkeys' years, the players have enjoyed a small degree of acclaim, but most of the attention has rightly been heaped on the new manager.

That is very unlikely to change today as he travels to the club he is most famously associated with, and whom he supported as a boy, Sheffield United. The win over WBA was pretty unexpected, the victory on Tuesday night probably less so. But if Warnock can make it three on the bounce, QPR's supporters will be in dream-land.

QPR Team News

Lee Cook returns to the squad after getting over a virus and will give Warnock a new attacking option on the wing. He was one of the few QPR players to regularly perform under Mick Harford, so surrounded by players in an altogether more positive frame of mind, he could really get going as the season nears its conclusion.

Captain Mikele Leigertwood, a former Blade, is also fit after suffering a gashed shin against Plymouth in midweek.

Sheffield United Team News

The Blades will never give up on the idea of the play-offs until it is mathematically impossible and they are far from those type of considerations just yet, sitting just four points behind sixth-placed Cardiff City who have a game in hand.

They will be without striker Ched Evans though who is out with a broken collarbone but can call on Darius Henderson who is now available after serving a suspension. Jamie Ward and Lee Williamson are both unavailable though with hamstring injuries.
Form

Improving all the time for QPR. With three games won out of their last four it isn't even too late for typical play-off talk to resurface around Rangers once again, though none of the players have got caught up in such speculation, and defender Kaspars Gorkss claimed such talk has been damaging to the club after the WBA game.

If they prefer to just concentrate on the day job and forget about silly talk of pushing for promotion, the next task on the horizon is improving the side's away form. Warnock has shown the players how to win games again and also how to keep a clean-sheet. Now he needs to remind them how to pick up points on the road which has been a relatively rare experience for Rangers. Their last away success came last November when they beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 and they've lost their last four away games at Middlesbrough, Coventry City, Peterborough and Nottingham Forest.

They don't have a particularly great record against Sheffield United either and have failed to beat them in their last seven attempts. This season the clubs have already met three times and Rangers have been less than inspiring in each game. Two dire draws in the league and cup, the latter which led to a capitulation at home in the replay, would suggest that Rangers could struggle today and that the game could be low on entertainment.

That said, whilst QPR's form looks to be on an upward curve, United's has been going in the opposite direction. They've lost three of their last four games and desperately need a result today to get their promotion challenge back on track.
Prediction

When QPR were losing (and you don't have to look back to far to remember that), it seemed like whatever they did, they were doomed to end up pointless. Different combinations in defence, new strikers up front, new personnel in the dug-out - all failed to have the required effect on the team's results.

Could the opposite effect now occur? Could the positive spirit which was abundantly clear in their last two games spur them on to an equally lenghty winning run? Is a late dash for the play-offs completely unfeasible?

Probably yes. But sometimes footballers can be simple beasts. Caught in a losing streak, they, just like the supporters, can start to believe they are doomed to failure. Likewise, win two games in a row and they can think they are world-beaters. If Warnock can harness that feel-good factor once again, I expect them to make three in a row this afternoon.

AWAY WIN