Hoop Dreams - QPR FC

Just what does it take to get promoted out of the Premiership? That is a question which QPR may find an answer to between now and next May, cast as they are as promotion certainties or at least favourites far and wide. Sufficient resources, in terms of wage bill, transfers paid and the infrastructure around the club, from the stadium to the commercial set-up, can not be ignored in judging a team's readiness to make the step up the league ladder. Two of last season's promoted sides - Newcastle and Blackpool - show the truth and error behind that statement though.

A smattering of top-class players, at least at the Championship level, certainly helps and this is an area where Rangers tick the right boxes. Adel Taarabt, though I spend most of my time moaning about him, is a serious candidate for the best player in the division; Jamie Mackie has been a revelation, a player soaring with confidence which came across even in his brief cameo for Scotland against Spain on Tuesday (why wasn't he on earlier in the game?) Akos Buzsaky on his day, though you never know when that will be, can outshine most Championship players.

Maybe though sometimes quantity trumps quality. If you have enough decent-to-good players, players with experience and with the professionalism to do what is required of them, without ever being the stars, you could have the seeds for a promotion-winning squad. Though Rangers haven't wowed the world with the type of big-name signings that were hinted at when money first flooded into this club, they have brought in players far more frequently than many of their rivals. In fact, Neil Warnock has built close to a new starting XI, with a number of his summer signings unable to even get a game whether it be through injury or through the improved form of others.

Today though he could suffer from a bizarre medical condition that only football managers seem to get - 'the nice headache to have'. Rather than a energy-sapping, nerve-wracking migraine built of worry, doubt and fear, this is just a gently gnawing pain as the boss surveys the many players on his squad sheet and realises that he just can't keep everyone happy. It's the 'type of problem you won't to have'.

With the vast majority of his squad afforded a two-week break because of international fixtures, Warnock has seen a trickle of players returning to fitness so that he now has a few of those difficult decisions to make across the pitch. With Bradley Orr returning to fitness, does he stick with loanee Kyle Walker at right-back? Does Alejandro Faurlin walk straight back into the R's midfield or did Buzsaky impress enough in a central role to warrant a further start? Should signings Leon Clarke or Rob Hulse get a look-in at the top-end of the pitch or is a front-line of Heidar Helguson, with Mackie and Taarabt at close quarters too potent to mess with?

The truth is that the manager is unlikely to make vast changes to his side. But with the fixtures now arriving in rapid succession, with trips to Swansea and Bristol City to come before next weekend, the changes could arrive soon and the real marker of QPR's promotion credentials could be how deep the well runneth - can players itching to break into the team or just coming back from injury quickly re-integrate themselves into the team when required and make up for the niggles and injury problems which will surely arise?

There are far too many questions here for one day and you can't expect me to answer them. Rangers are unlikely to give much of a pointer to how capable their whole squad is today either. But they will soon have to and over the next two months, the readiness of the club to step up a division will be called into question. Come back later today for a match report on the Hoops' sell-out game against third-placed Norwich and don't forget, two more wins and QPR will equal their best-ever start to a season. As Crazy Earl says in vastly different circumstances in Full Metal Jacket, 'these are great days we're living, bros.'