QPR return to Championship action at Loftus Road this Saturday, opening the 2025/26 season with a visit from another side tipped for a struggle this year in the form of Preston North End.

QPR (14-14-18 WDWLLW 15th) v Preston (10-20-16 DLLLLD 20th)

Sky’s Super Saturday Brunch Spectacular >>> Saturday August 9, 2025 >>> Kick Off 15.00 >>> Weather – Warm and sunny >>> Loftus Road, London, W12

A tale from May’s Patreon subscriber exit surveys: “LoftforWords has become incredibly negative of late and I’m finding it a bit much”.

The cons of turning your hobby and passion into your job mean that by the time we get to May every year I am, kindly put, ready for a break. The idea of penning another match preview or getting involved in another debate over whether Kenneth Paal was a five or a six on Saturday brings me out in hives.

Last season this was especially true. I had gone into it pretty optimistic about QPR’s chances given the way they’d finished 2023/24 under Marti Cifuentes. It felt to me like we were finally getting somewhere again, with a head coach I liked and believed in. To have that torpedoed pretty much straight away, from the first game of the season, and start again with another sequence of two wins from the first 17 was chastening. That the team was able to recover to the extent it did was miraculous really, and testament to the head coach’s ability to pragmatically adapt and get the best out of what he’s been presented with, but you couldn’t really say it was enjoyable could you? Bar Derby at home, even the wins felt like baffling ordeals, achieved often by giving up possession entirely and letting opponents punch themselves out before catching them on a counter attack or Jimmy Dunne at set pieces. The draw at Bristol City was a highway robbery. And just as you thought they might push on into the top half of the table after all they collapsed all over again, necessitating a nervous old night clinging to a 2-1 at poxy Oxford.

With the background politics around this website, access and interviews being pulled, the whole fans forum weirdness where Christian Nourry appeared alone and then promised another one with the manager which never materialised, the onset of anonymous message board accounts, failure to win any of the last six home games culminating in a 5-0 to Scott Parker’s Burnley, and then the final, inevitable disintegration of the relationship with Cifuentes and how that was handled… I think if you go back and listen to the Patreon stuff we recorded at the end of the season I clearly don’t sound like a man with a lot of road left to run.

So, on the other side of a summer spent deliberately putting time, geographical distance and thought space between myself and QPR, where am I now as we prepare to do it all over again? Treating this as part 24/24 of our season preview, what to say about this latest iteration of our team and club?

The positives mainly revolve around a couple of the incoming signings – Amadou Mbengue and Kwame Poku.

We’ve said for years now this team lacks pace, power and physicality and with those two, along with Burton’s Rumarn Burrell, there does seem to have been an effort to address that. We’re a different team when we have a defender capable of carrying the ball out from the back past the first opposition press - which is why Jake Clarke-Salter looks good in this team for the 20 minutes he’s available each season and Ronnie Edwards looked like a God in it - and Mbengue does seem capable of doing that. We’ve hammered the club in the past for letting Edwards types move into and out of clubs like Peterborough without us getting involved until it’s too late and we have to beg a loan, so to get that Poku signing over the line after a chase of 4+ years and under heavy competition from elsewhere is worthy of praise.

One of the main criticisms of last summer’s intake was the lack of EFL experience, and that inability to cope with the physicality of this league and its relentless fixture schedule and three-game weeks. Again, there appear to have been some acceptance and learnings there. Poku and Mbengue have played a ridiculous amount of games for their age, and often in tough situations at Colchester, Peterborough and Reading. You need durability to play for QPR, you’re going to be going through some adversity here, the Belgian league this is not.

The new head coach, Julian Stephan, is interesting. The model here now, where that role is very much bibs balls and cones and everything from goalkeeping and set pieces through to recruitment - and even the over-arching principles of how the team plays - are the responsibility of somebody else, means you’re going to attract a certain style and calibre of candidate even before you factor in our challenging budget. From the list that threw up Stephan was one of the better options, with excellent pedigree early in his coaching career and some situations later on he’ll have undoubtedly learned a lot from. Had we appointed him as Mark Warburton’s replacement at the time he departed we’d have been ecstatic, fresh from a French cup win and Champions League qualification. Unless we’ve lied to him, or he’s chosen not to listen, then he should be coming into this situation eyes wide open and have a much more harmonious relationship with those above him than Cifuentes did over his final 12 months.

Some of the other arrivals around him as well are encouraging. The Steve Bould appointment was a bit of an eyebrow raiser, given his long history as assistant to Arsene Wenger and that he was a full blown manager in his own right at Lommel within the City Football Group until last season. Odd that you’d want to step down from the main man to come and coach the defenders at QPR, no? A real coup for the club, certainly, but you do wonder if this doesn’t start well how long before the rumours about him getting the top job start to surface.

The success of the development squad at the end of last year renews hopes that we might finally have some prospects from there ready to step up. Esquerdinha at left back seems to be the prime one they’ve got their eye on. Given his performance in the cup final against Brentford, and use throughout pre-season, it is a bit surprising/ominous that Alfie Tuck didn’t even command a squad number.

The negatives, by and large, centre on our financial place in this increasingly barmy Championship world. It is going to be extremely difficult to move beyond the 15th and 18th place finishes we’ve achieved in the last two seasons with our transfer budget and, more importantly, our wage bill. We desperately need to start bringing in big transfer fees to release us from this vice. This year you have Birmingham and Wrexham coming out of League One, rather than Paul Warne’s Rotherham, chucking Premier League money and wages around, and even Charlton have spent the best part of £10m. Other clubs from the bottom half of last season’s table have responded in kind – a £5m player going in at Swansea, ten high-earning incomings for John Eustace at Derby. It’s getting fierce out there, though thankfully Sheff Wed appear to count out one of the relegation spots straight away.

Whether the lesson about team over individuals has been heeded or not remains uncertain. You could go through last summer’s recruitment and pick out plenty of individual success stories – Morrison, Varane, Morgan, Saito, Edwards later on – but together they did not add up to a cohesive, competitive, Championship team. No pace, no power, no height, no progression from midfield, no striker, poor full backs etc. If we take Mbengue as a straight Edwards/Clarke-Salter replacement, and Poku as an upgrade on Paul Smyth, how many of those issues have been solved?

The only correction made in the full back positions has been to release the first choice on the left side. A big old season ahead for Ziyad Larkeche, who looks suspect at this level defensively to my eye. There have been no additions, progressive or otherwise, to a central midfield where Jack Colback has been released and Jonathan Varane has spent much of the summer injured and being linked with moves away. If he was to leave between now and the end of the window the centre of the park looks painfully thin on numbers and quality. Sam Field, bless him, has shown again in pre-season that, for all his strengths, if you try to play out through him problems await. Burrell looks a reasonable punt up front and an upgrade on Alfie Lloyd who goes out on a much needed loan to Leyton Orient, but is him, Frey, Kolli and Celar really that much of an upgrade on the Frey, Kolli, Celar and Lloyd combination we tried to complete last season with to much missing of chances, missing of games, and general falling over their own arse? The Charlie Kelman situation is immensely frustrating.

There, once again, can’t be many worse collections of strikers, central midfielders and full backs in this league than ours, and the only thing we’re apparently doing to correct that is going after Koki Saito again. Love him, but if there’s one position on the pitch we’re not short…

Whether this is really the opportune time to drop your experienced goalkeeper for the development prospect I am, again, not sure. That short term competitiveness v long term sustainability balance that Nourry talked about at the fans forum is a balance we got wrong at the start of last season. There has to be some pragmatic acceptance of the league we’re in and our place within it. Get the spine of your team sorted, get the dirty work done, establish your position in the game and the league, and then you can hang whatever development prospects you like off the side of it - not before. Without it, you’re just pissing players into a furnace. You risk doing them more harm than good.

And, of course, another recurring theme from last year is the injuries. We go into a first game of the season against a poor Preston side tipped for struggle, a game we could really do with winning, with a ridiculous list of absentees for this time of year. Players who desperately needed a good pre-season – Frey, Kolli, Clarke-Salter – haven’t had one. All the players you would expect to be injured are injured again. It’s becoming chronic. When you read that Lloyd’s debut for Orient will be delayed because he got injured in his first training session down there you start to believe the curse is real. Ian Holloway would have had Kim down here burning some incense long ago. With our budget, our squad depth, we literally cannot afford to have that amount of payroll sitting in the South Africa Road stand every week.

We’ll find out where we are soon enough. The rush to judge in August is a bit daft. Trying to write season previews with a month of transfer window left is largely futile. What do Sheff Utd and Coventry, universally tipped for the top six, look like if Hamer and Rudoni leave on deadline day without replacement? If we were to add Sheff Wed’s Max Lowe at left back as has been rumoured, if we were to finally be the Championship side to prise Kone out of Wycombe, if we sign Brian Central Midfielder who can actually pass the ball forwards every now and again, how much better would things look and people feel? Conversely, if Varane goes and we think we’re doing this with a midfield of Field and Morgan…

Perhaps the biggest unknown of all this time around is how the QPR fans are going to be with their team, manager and club, particularly if this doesn’t go well or start positively. I’ve rarely been prouder of our support than over the past few seasons. The club needed you, and you all stepped up. The custodians charged with running our club for us made an absolute dog’s breakfast of it. One appallingly bad call after another. Bad money thrown after good, people like Mark Warburton and John Eustace allowed to walk out of the building, people like Mick Beale entrusted instead, so many Tyler Roberts wankers through the door, until we had a League One squad with a League One manager and no money to do anything about any of it. In the past such fuckwittery has brought angry protests to Loftus Road, pitch invasions and crowds hanging round outside banging on the doors. Resignations and sackings have been demanded, and achieved. Crowds have plummeted. This time the support base railed round, sold the ground out regardless, took thousands upon thousands to away games, and backed the manager brought into sort it all out to the hilt.

Cifuentes was the most popular and successful manager here since Neil Warnock. The manner of his departure has left many regulars cold. As I said in our France write up, there is a deal of arms folded and “go on then if you think you can do better” from regular home and awayers who were all in and are now fed up. You get rid of a popular manager doing a good job and it does apply that pressure to get better and improve which, as discussed, will be difficult in this climate. Will that crowd stick with the club and the people that run it if they’ve erred again? How much tolerance is there left?

We’d love to hear from more guest writers this season if you fancy putting fingers to keys and getting something off your chest – loftforwords@yahoo.co.uk. If you haven’t read Gareth Dixon’s guest column from earlier this week you really should.

“The curtain lifts. The drums roll. The gates open. The circus continues, and we’re still here.”

Links >>> Season Preview – Contenders >>> Season Preview – Midtable >>> Season Preview – Strugglers >>> 1-24s Part One – Patreon >>> 1-24s Part Two – Patreon >>> The modern circus of West London – Column >>> Fan Forum – Minutes >>> Langford in charge – Referee >>> Helguson at the double – History >>> Heckingbottom’s bomb squad – Oppo Profile

Below the fold

Team News: Any hope QPR would have a better run with injuries this season seems to have fallen at the first hurdle.

Michi Frey needed a good pre-season more than most after only completing 90 minutes six times last season, but he hasn’t been seen at all and will now not return until the first international break in September. Rayan Kolli whose breakthrough into the first team has been hampered by a succession of injury absences, he too has only made fleeting substitute appearances this summer. Paul Smyth hasn’t been seen since the Toulouse game but will return at Watford next week from a groin injury. Jonathan Varane got half an hour in against Brentford as he comes back from an injury that has disrupted most of his summer but then suffered a concussion in that game so has to sit out this week. Jimmy Dunne aggravated a hip injury against Brentford and will be scanned this week to determine the length of his absence. Steve Cook was also injured in that final friendly. Jake Clarke-Salter seems permanently crocked, no sign of him at all this summer. With Kennth Paal released and Ronnie Edwards back at Southampton it potentially means the entire first choice back four from last season is unavailable with only Amadou Mbengue by way of incomings. As we predicted six weeks ago, Joe Walsh is likely to start the season as first choice goalkeeper and Paul Nardi is free to speak to other clubs. Sorry if your favourite player isn’t available.

West London Sport reports from Friday’s press conference that, despite using false nines through the final friendlies, Julien Stephan does intend to play with an actual striker tomorrow, possibly for as long as an hour. Fuck me ambassador, chill out with the chocolates for five minutes.

Preston manager Paul Heckingbottom promised to throw a bomb under his squad this summer when QPR won at Deepdale for a third consecutive season on Good Friday. Whether that’s been achieved with nine in and nine out will be known in time. Striker Emil Riis has gone to Bristol City, Daniel Jebbison replaces him looking to improve on a dire loan at Watford. Goalkeeper Freddie Woodman has retired early but Daniel Iversen feels like an upgrade, returning to a club he represented well previously on loan. Thierry Small was terrific on the left side of Charlton’s defence last season, likewise Brighton’s Odeluga Offiah on loan at bitter rivals Blackpool, but centre back Jack Whatmough has gone to Huddersfield, partner Ryan Porteous has returned to Watford (and then moved to LAFC) and summer signing Jordan Thompson arrives from Stoke injured. Preston, along with the rest of the Championship, have been linked with Wycombe’s £3m+ striker Richard Kone as well as Portsmouth midfielder Callum Lang at £2.5m, but Heckingbottom used his final press conference of the summer to say he was being left to look at “frees and loans” from this point. Robbie Brady, Brad Potts and Will Keane are all injured. Alfie Devine signed on loan from Spurs on Friday in time to play in this game.

Elsewhere: Last chance to file your “most unpredictable league in the world copy” before we crack on with the important business of getting the three relegated parachute payment clubs promoted straight back to the Premier League.

One of those was first up last night with much fancied Ipswich Town getting first swing at a live Sky game playing one of the teams hoping to challenge that monied guard at the top in Birmingham City - themselves are throwing wads of cash in pursuit of a Premier League return under Tom Wagner’s Knighthead consortium. Even since we published our season preview earlier this week tipping Blues for fourth place they’ve added another centre forward in Marvin Ducksch from Werder Bremen - £2m and a three-year deal for a 31-year-old mind. In between the oppressive refereeing of Andrew Kitchen (we’re back, baby) a 1-1 draw managed to escape. Big Lyndon stepped off the bench to make impact by conceding an injury time penalty (harsh, mind).

Some really intriguing storylines among tomorrow’s early 12.30 kick offs. Charlton are back at this level for the first time since 2019/20 and have lashed out around £10m on new players including our own Charlie Kelman. Nathan Jones’ side have a home game to start against a Watford side that looks stacked in attack and light at the back – one of the hardest calls we had to make in our season preview. Frank Lampard’s Coventry must surely be one of the promotion favourites this year after three consecutive seasons of last second heartbreaks right at the key moment, they start at home to apparently stricken Hull who have responded to successive spending embargoes and accusations of reckless financial mismanagement by adding John Lundtsrum and Oli McBurnie to their line-up. And then there’s Wrexham, the first club to ever go from Conference to Championship in successive seasons, starting out life back at this level for the first time since 1982 with just about the toughest possible trip on the calendar – Southampton away. The Saints became the first side ever relegated from the Premier League with seven games still to play having won only one home game and one away all season but look absolutely stacked for a return under Will Still. Ronnie Edwards continues to be held hostage.

Five games in the traditional kick off slot other than our own. @AnalyticsQPR and myself were torn on the best bet for the final play-off spot in our Patreon deep dive last week between Liam Manning’s Norwich and Millwall. Alex Neil takes his Lions back to his former club on the opening day to provide us with an early clue. Oxford we felt were most likely to fill a spot in the bottom three if Hull or Preston get their act together, they start at home to Portsmouth who must improve on an away record of just three victories in 24/25 if they’re to make good on their positive summer preview press. Not a lot of love around for Middlesbrough who start at home to a Swanselona hoping to maintain the momentum which got Alan Sheehan their job permanently. Stoke will be gash as always, but there’s a lot more positive noise around their opponent Derby where John Eustace has had serious transfer market backing and previously had unfashionable and poorly funded Birmingham and Blackburn sides in play-off content. Ryan Mason’s first gig at West Brom is an intriguing one – the Baggies have had a lousy pre-season featuring defeats to Lincoln and Blackpool but a home game against Blackburn and former boss Valerian Ismael should be a nice enough start.

Sheffield Red Stripe and Bristol City start where they both left off, facing each other at Bramall Lane just as they did in May’s play-off semi-finals. It means, bizarrely, Rob Dickie was sent off against Sheff Utd and served his two-match ban across games against Sheff Utd and Sheff Utd again.

Sunday, my God, will there even be a game? Sheff Wed are trying to cobble together a team/hotel/bus/kit/sock tape from the wreckage of Derek Chansiri’s destruction of their club and face a daunting trip to Marti Cifuentes’ Leicester were a fire sale of players and hefty points deduction are yet to materialise.

Referee: Not many more experienced referees on the EFL list than Oliver Langford – this will be his 30th QPR appointment which is more than he’s had with any other club. Preston have lost 16 and won only six of 26 appointments with this referee. Details.

Form

- This is the eleventh consecutive season of Championship football for both QPR and Preston, the joint longest current stint at this level along with Bristol City.

- QPR won just two of their first 17 matches in each of the last two seasons and have gone into the last two Novembers sitting bottom of the Championship.

- Rangers have lost their opening league match in each of the last three seasons – they’ve never done so in four in a row before. Mark Warburton’s 2-1 success at Stoke in 2019/20 is the only time the R’s have won their first game of the season since 2017/18 when Ian Holloway’s team defeated Reading.

- PNE are similarly poor on day one. They have failed to win their opening league game in each of the last six seasons (D2 L4), but QPR were the last team they did beat in round one – 1-0 against Steve McClaren’s side at Deepdale in 2018/19.

- Michael Frey was top QPR scorer last season with nine goals. We haven’t had a player reach double figures since Andre Gray scored ten in 2021/22.

- Milutin Osmajic bagged 15 for the Lilywhites (9 Lge, 3 LC, 3 FAC), including the opening goal in this fixture in December after Steve Cook’s foot exploded. Emil Riis was second with 12 goals but has left to join Bristol City.

- Preston finished 20th in last season’s Championship, surviving by one point and two places with a last day 2-2 draw at Bristol City. It was their lowest league placing since promotion back to this level from League One in 2015.

- That survival came despite a dreadful second half to the season in which Paul Heckingbottom’s men won just one of their last 15 games.

- Away from home they failed to win any of their last eight away games and have lost four of the last five. Their last away win was a 1-0 at Norwich on February 11.

- Only Cardiff, Oxford and Plymouth (two each) won fewer away games last season than Preston (three).

- Nobody drew more games in the whole Football League last year than Preston’s 20. That equals the club record.

- QPR have won each of their last four league games against Preston North End, as many victories as across their prior 17 meetings with the Lancashire side combined (D4 L9).

- Preston have lost four of their last six away league games against QPR and will be looking to avoid losing three in succession for the first time since 2010.

- QPR’s record at Loftus Road has been in the bottom three for home results in the Championship for three consecutive seasons. Last season they won just seven times on this ground – only Hull and Sheff Wed (six each) won fewer. They won none of the last six home games last season and haven’t won in W12 since Valentine’s Night against Derby.

- QPR’s eclectic pre-season included a 5-0 sweep of Stevenage, a 6-0 loss to Castellón, a 2-1 win against Toulouse, 2-2 draws with Cardiff and Heerenveen and a 1-0 set back against Brentford.

- Preston’s summer has seen them lose 2-1 to Bamber Bridge, 3-1 to Liverpool, 1-0 to Man City, 2-0 to both Tranmere and Bolton. They got a 1-0 win against Chorley and a 0-0 with Getafe.

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. We welcome a new contributor this year as QPR_Hibs won last season’s Prediction League at a canter and has agreed to lend his thoughts to the previews...

“I'm old enough to remember when Match Of The Day used to be good. When John Motson was commentating and there were decent pundits in the studio like Alan Hansen with his "never win anything with kids" spiel, perhaps an early warning to Christian Nourry about his transfer policy? One of my favourite MOTD moments was hearing the Liverpool talisman use the words "rank bad defending" during an otherwise serious analysis of a game, a phrase which amused me so much that I bestowed that title on my Fantasy Football team for years afterwards.

“I am not as big a critic of Ziyad Larkeche as some people and also think that Liam Morrison and Jimmy Dunne have had good pre-seasons, but I am still expecting some rank bad defending during the opening fixture against Preston, especially with our continued insistence on playing out from the back.

“Julien seems to have settled on an attacking three of Poku, Chair and Dembele in front of (probably) Field and Varane although Madsen got a fair amount of game time in the most recent PSF games. I am surprised how little Vale has played but that could be down to his "loading" requirements. Who knows? Certainly not the fans.

“Who plays up-front is anyone's guess. I think most people were expecting Burrell to get a half hour run out against Brentford. I suspect that Celar will start if he is still in the building come Saturday afternoon. Whoever it is, I wish them good luck!

“Preston (main shirt sponsors 'Spud Bros') usually seem to be competing with QPR for that coveted 16th spot, so you'd hope that this would be one of our easier fixtures this season. I can't see us keeping a clean sheet but am going for an inspired performance from Kwame Poku to get us the three points.”

QPR_Hibs Prediction: QPR 2-1 Preston. Scorer – Kwame Poku

LFW’s Prediction: QPR 2-0 Preston. Scorer – Ilias Chair

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 - Ian Randall Photography

GroveR added 10:05 - Aug 9 "Sorry if your favourite player isn’t available." 😂
0

TacticalR added 12:53 - Aug 9 Thanks for your preview to this joyous new season (including, for you, the joys of running a message board). Agree there is a big question mark over Larkeche. Esquerdinha was very impressive in the Premier League Cup Dev squad final, as his skill on the ball allowed us to switch straight from defence to attack. How good a defender Esquerdinha is remains to be seen. Getting rid of Nardi doesn't seem sensible with everything else going in. God knows what our place in the Championship is with the big money coming in from above and below. What seems obvious is that goals are a luxury we can't afford, so we're left praying that existing players like Celar will somehow come good. We seem to have more momentum than Preston, but that's not saying much. Let's see what happens.

0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Derby County Polls