Hoop Dreams - QPR FC

QPR's seemingly irrepressible slide down the Championship table could be arrested or further deepened tonight, as the Rs welcome a side who are far from having a positive season of their own. Ipswich Town sit just one place above the relegation area and the buzz surrounding the appointment of Roy Keane has quickly dissipated as the club has put its own promotion ambitions on hold for this season. As we know though, QPR have the weakest form in the whole league and so The Tractor Boys may be quietly confident of picking up what would be only their second away win of the season.

QPR Team News

Rangers are forced into a number of changes ahead of tonight's game but considering the woeful result against Peterborough on Saturday, that is far from a bad thing.

Both Peter Ramage and Mikele Leigertwood are suspended and as a result, Matt Connolly will most likely deputise for Ramage at right-back and Damion Stewart should come in to partner Kaspars Gorkss in central defence.

Leigertwood played on the right side of a four-man midfield on Saturday and there are ready-made/more suitable candidates available such as Hogan Ephraim, Akos Buzsaky or Angelo Balanta.

Up front, top scorer Jay Simpson will surely be recalled after being demoted to the bench for the Peterborough defeat, as Tamas Priskin, a loan signing from tonight's opponents, is unable to play under the terms of his loan.

Ipswich Team News

Roy Keane has no current headaches in terms of injuries to his squad and will have been pleased to see striker Jon Walters come through his first game back after a hamstring injury against Middlesbrough.

Keane has a number of options up front, including Jon Stead, who scored a brace against Rangers when the two sides met just after Christmas, loan pair David Healy and Daryl Murphy, both brought in from Sunderland and Pablo Counago, who scored in the corresponding fixture last season.

Form

None worse than QPR's, truly dire and if it were to extend another two months, it would be enough to see them playing League One football next season. One point from 15, one win in 12 games, four-and-a-half hours without a goal. Try and put a positive spin on those statistics.

Ipswich are the league's draw specialists with 15 already this season and despite being seven places lower down the table than QPR, they've lost two fewer games. Just one away win all season highlights where some of their problems have come from though and particularly early on in the season, they showed a complete inability to actually hold on to a winning lead.

Head-to-head, the visitors also have the advantage, being unbeaten in eight against Rangers and winning the last three. In this fixture last season, Jim Magilton masterminded a smart counter-attacking victory over QPR which nipped in the bud any straining hopes of a play-off spot. Going on to then manage the Hoops, his time at the club now remarkably looks like a tranquil oasis of good football and decent results, despite the rumours of head-butts behind the scenes.

QPR last managed a win against Ipswich in August 2005, with a 2-1 win at Loftus Road.

Prediction

It's not looking good is it? All the above doesn't bode well for QPR's hopes this evening in front of what I'm sure will be a very low and potentially pissed off crowd. It seems silly to say it, when the club have leaked goals all season and have remarkably gone 17 games without a clean sheet, but the biggest problem could be who will step up to act as the creative provider in this team.

It could be Adel Taarabt, but he is pretty unreliable and won't respond well if the crowd gets on his back as he sets off on a trademark cul-de-sac dribble. Buzsaky has probably been the most disappointing player in the QPR squad this season. Maybe he is finally due a good game? Alejandro Faurlin does what he does well but at the moment, that doesn't appear to be a great deal. Perhaps Lee Cook or another player returning from injury will step up to the plate?

In short though, I can't see a glut of goal-chances for Rangers tonight. Considering Ipswich's record, this game has a draw written all over it. But I think it could get even worse than that for the brave few who venture out tonight.

AWAY WIN.

Harold Winton, honorary Life President of QPR, sadly passed away last night after fighting cancer for the last five years.

The club will hold a minute's silence prior to tonight's game against Ipswich Town to pay their respects to a man who served as a club director and financially contributed towards the club's signings of Dan Shittu and Marc Bircham.

Along with sons Matthew and Alex he also paid for the signing of striker Doudou in 2001 and after stepping down as a club director was named as a honorary President by QPR.

Speaking to the QPR website, Gianni Paladini said:

"He was a true QPR fan who not only assisted the club through thick and thin, but also helped in securing the services of Doudou, Dan Shittu and Marc Bircham.

"He was a true gentleman and he will be missed by everyone at the club."

Condolences to his family and I'm sure the QPR crowd will be eager to pay their respects tonight to a man who did a great deal for their club.

Stuck in a dismal run of form, QPR laid down one of their poorest results of the season on Saturday, losing 1-0 at bottom and seemingly stranded side Peterborough United. The new manager effect clearly holds greater weight in Peterborough than in west London, with the Posh's new boss Jim Gannon (pictured above) managing what Mick Harford has failed to achieve in four games for QPR - win a match. Below is some food for thought as Rangers consider new ways to try and save an increasingly nightmarish season.

1 - Too much change can be a bad thing. Were the current management of QPR not to be proactive in trying to arrest the club's slide down the table, then a lot of observers would rightly charge them with being over-complacent. So in entering the loan market to bring in defensive and midfield cover and most notably last week, two new attacking options, Mick Harford has clearly identified some of the team's weaknesses and tried to tackle them head on.

But getting the balance of a team right, especially when morale and confidence are very low, can be difficult and going on the results and performances in his four games in charge, it certainly looks like the new boss has tried to change too many aspects of the team too quickly.

Bringing Matt Hill into the side was common sense and though it hasn't arrested the team's alarming rate of conceding goals, it does provide an experienced and vocal player who will muck in in what could be a difficult remaining few months. Likewise for Nigel Quashie in central midfield.

That QPR also had to look for new strikers is undeniable with only Jay Simpson providing anything like satisfactory performances this season. To throw both Marcus Bent and Tamas Priskin into this game though, when both have struggled for games and goals this season, seems rash now and almost like an unnecessary snub to Simpson, one of Rangers best players this season.

Sometimes these experiments work. This weekend, it didn't.

2 - Things can only get ...worse? It's bad enough to be trailing to the league's bottom side and failing to craft any decent chances of your own, but to contrive to get two of your players sent off in almost identical situations is truly laughable.

Misplaced passes in the centre of the field forced firstly Mikele Leigertwood and secondly Peter Ramage to make desperate, even foolish lunges to try and reclaim the ball, but the alternative in both cases was to allow the Posh to go on a dangerous counter-attack. Leigertwood's tackle was particularly reckless but it arose from lazy play and poor decision-making, which is blighting Rangers' season.

Ramage will now miss tomorrow's visit of Ipswich, who could draw to just a point behind Rangers with a win. More damagingly, Leigertwood will miss that game and two further fixtures at Coventry and at home to Watford, games which now take on the aura of relegation battles instead of opportunities to press for the play-offs.

3 - Looking up or looking down? QPR now find themselves closer to the relegation area then the play-off spots and though it seems ridiculous to think about it when the club has been portrayed as ambitious, Premiership-chasers for so long, few QPR fans will be confident enough to not cast some anxious glances towards the bottom of the table.

You don't have to go back too far (2003/4) for the Hoops' last appearance in the third tier of English football and as recently as 2005/6 they finished 21st in the Championship, just one place above the relegation area.

In that season, they managed to get to the magic 50-point marker which though no guarantee of Championship football, is the first landmark on the way to safety. That would basically require 6 wins from QPR's remaining 18 games (7 to be more certain) which is clearly within this team's capabilities. But with two wins in the last three months, a relegation scrap is not in the realms of the impossible either.

4 - To add insult to injury... As QPR were hitting the lows at Peterborough, a couple of their former employees were finding life away from Loftus Road not unpalatable.

Wayne Routledge seems to have quickly settled into life at Newcastle and provided a key role in their 5-1 demolition of Cardiff with two assists whilst Dexter Blackstock notched a brace for Nottingham Forest, taking him to 10 league goals this season and keeping his side in the hunt for automatic promotion. You can harp on for too long about players who have now left, but surely both still had something to contribute for QPR.

Not exactly a match to make the mouth water. Over the last six games, no two teams in the Championship have worse form than Peterborough United and QPR. As both clubs bed in new managers, with Peterborough appointing new boss Jim Gannon just this week, the overriding aim for both sets of players and supporters as well will be three points by any means necessary.

QPR Team News

One new headache for the QPR manager is who to pick from his haul of loan players. Only five loan players can be named in the match-day squad, so Mick Harford will have to choose from Carl Ikeme, Nigel Quashie, Adel Taarabt, Tamas Priskin, Marcus Bent and Jay Simpson.

Ikeme seems to have supplanted Radek Cerny in the QPR goal and with central midfield options looking light, Quashie is almost certain to start as well.

Harford worked hard to get both Priskin and Bent in this week after bemoaning the club's striking problems after the Scunthorpe defeat, so those two are also a good bet to feature.

That leaves one from Taarabt and Simpson to sit it out. If it was me I'd go with the former, despite his undoubted ability but I suspect it might be the latter. Either way, with a game against Ipswich on Tuesday, it won't hurt to rest at least one of these players.

To complicate matters, The Mirror is today reporting that the club is lining up another loan for Aston Villa midfielder Isaiah Osbourne. The 22-year old holding midfielder is not high up in Martin O'Neill's estimations and had loan spells last year at Nottingham Forest and Middlesbrough. With the club still to officially announce a contract for free agent Moritz Volz as well, it could soon be an all-new Rangers team taking to the field.

The addition of Lee Cook to the match-day squad and possibly the starting XI will in effect feel like a new signing as well. Cook made his first appearance of the season last weekend, coming on as a sub in the Scunthorpe game and certainly raised the bar for the team in terms of effort if not creativity. With some more match-time under his belt, he could start to have a greater influence on the team.

Form

As bad as it comes. As mentioned above, neither of these sides can buy a win at the moment.

It's not been a great start to life with Rangers for Mick Harford, with one point in three games. Peterborough can outdo that though, with just one point in four since a Boxing Day win over Bristol City. Defensively both teams are all at sea as well. Rangers have gone 16 games without a clean sheet, the longest such run by any team in the Championship this season whereas the Posh have the leakiest defence in the league, with 51 goals conceded already.

Prediction

The stats above suggest goals but I think this will be a more cagey affair. Peterborough look doomed and in a sense could play with more freedom as a result, but with Gannon appointed just days ago they will be happy to pick up only their fourth win of the season.

Rangers on the other hand are chronically short on confidence and where earlier in the season they would have set about Peterborough at will, the prospect of another embarrassing defeat may loom larger in their minds. With the home side buoyed by the buzz of a new boss, I think Rangers could really struggle in this game. Sometimes it is has to get really bad before it gets better.

HOME WIN