QPR v West Brom: Inside track on Mark Warburton's side

We spoke with Clive Whittingham, from LoftforWords, and David Fraser, from the Open All R's podcast, to get a proper look at Mark Warburton's side.

See what they had to say here...

How have QPR started this season? It seems things have been going quite well...

CW: Superb, particularly when you consider how low expectations were for this season and the reasons for that.

We’re playing an attractive, attacking brand of football after several years of unwatchable drek.

We’ve got several products of our youth and youth scouting system in the first team playing brilliantly – Ebere Eze, Ilias Chair, Ryan Manning.

We’ve already won three away games which is as many as we managed in the whole of 2017/18 and only two shy of last year’s total. We’re scoring plenty of goals and we’ve been able to recover from going behind against Wigan and Sheff Wed and go on to win anyway. It’s been beyond anything we could have hoped for.

There are three caveats to this though, the first of which is historic.

We have, under Ian Holloway and Steve McClaren over the last three seasons, gone through little periods in a season of looking quite good only to then collapse into a long losing run. Nobody who has been watching Rangers since we returned to this division four and a bit seasons ago is getting carried away.

The second is to do with the defence, which is yet to keep a clean sheet and has proved accident prone. Much like West Brom, we’ve been able to recover from that and win anyway to this point but we won’t get much further making the mistakes we’re making and conceding the penalties we’re conceding back there.

The third is the fixtures. The teams we’ve beaten, bar Sheff Wed, are all struggling to one degree or another – Stoke, Wigan, Luton, Millwall. Let’s see what happens this week with back to back games against West Brom and Cardiff.

DF: Things have been going surprisingly well - after eight games we are a point off the top and in the top six and we’ve just won four in a row. This is all something even the most optimistic QPR fan would have never have predicted in the summer.

And how it's been achieved is (so far) remarkable. Mark Warbuton made the most wholesale of wholesale changes in pre-season - he moved on 15 players (including Darnell Furlong) and replaced them with 15 cheaper players. And the the cheaper players are better.

Along with his band of Queens Park Strangers, Warbuton has also shown faith in two or three home-developed youngsters who are contributing to some of the most exciting football we have seen in a long, long time.

After many years of misery, we are enjoying ourselves right now. Don’t ruin it, Baggies!

What are the expectations at the club this season, in your opinion?

CW: Expectations were rock bottom at the start of the year, both within the fan base and to impartial observers.

I felt optimistic saying we’d finish 16th and the FourFourTwo season preview had us relegated.

We’ve been attempting to get our house in order after the disgusting excess of the Hughes and Redknapp days for the last four years but halving a wage bill and then halving it again while not regressing on the pitch is a difficult, time consuming thing to do.

The Steve McClaren era set us back, and we finished last season with three wins from the last 23 league games and only really the poor quality of the bottom three kept us out of serious trouble.

We then shifted 20 players over the summer, including key players like Luke Freeman and Mass Luongo, while bringing almost that many new faces in the other way. That, again, is difficult to do and get right in one transfer window.

We’ve been astonished by the start made, and we’re not getting carried away, but some are now daring to dream of the sunlit uplands of mid-table mediocrity.

That said, it does look a poor league this season. We’ve lost several big/rich/well run clubs who could dominate at this level (Brighton, Wolves - sorry, Newcastle). Several relegated Premier League clubs with big parachute payments have got themselves into varying degrees of state (Huddersfield, Stoke, Middlesbrough). Several bigger name clubs who have spent big to get to the Premier League and missed now have FPP catching up with them (Birmingham, Sheff Wed, Derby).

None of the teams promoted this season look capable of doing a Wolves (sorry) or Sheff Utd and going straight through. We might have picked a good season to be quite good.

DF: At the start of the season, without question: it was to stay up. QPR have been beset by a number of problems, not least financial, for a number of years and there was a feeling that we might be in for a long slog.

We might still be but at the moment, were loving it!

How has Mark Warburton taken to the job so far?

CW: Brilliantly. He was easily the best candidate from an appalling list of potential names touted over the summer – when people are talking Tim Sherwood and Steve Cotterill it becomes any port in a storm but Warburton did well with Brentford and Rangers and wasn’t given much time at Forest.

His reputation has taken a bit of a dive and he’s been out of work for a while so he needs this to go well, which is positive for us.

He’s been decisive, not afraid to just completely rip the squad apart and rebuild it in the summer despite there being no money to spend.

He talks straight, no clichés, no bullshit and no trotting stuff out because he thinks it’s what supporters want to hear. And the football has been great.

Again, it’s early days, it might all fall apart, but very good so far.

DF: I don’t think I am getting carried away in saying it was a disgrace that Jurgen Klopp got awarded the World Coach of the Year over Mark Warbuton!

He was very brave in coming in and making the mass changes he did. It was and still is a gamble but so far it's very hard to fault him.

What style of play can we expect to see from QPR?

CW: Warburton has always been a 4-2-3-1 manager but he’s adapted that to take away a protective midfielder and add a second striker. That’s basically because Jordan Hugill and particularly Nahki Wells are better when played together in a two rather than alone as a one.

It’s also allowed us to continue selecting Ebere Eze and Ilias Chair behind them, two prodigiously talented youngsters who the club, and the club’s accountant, have big hopes for.

Ryan Manning and Todd Kane have been very attacking from wing back either side of that.

We’ve switched to a back three to get the more aggressive, rudimentary Toni Leistner back in there after the more cultured pairing of Grant Hall and Yoann Barbet made an erratic start as a two.

It’s a bit Kevin Keegan-style at times, we’re conceding loads, but it’s thrilling to watch.

DF: We are a footballing side, with attacking fullbacks, maurading midfielders who cause defences a lot of problems and two strikers in Nahki Wells and Jordan Hugill who know where the back of the net is.

We are vulnerable at the back though and let in too many goals. Every QPR fan will know exactly how teams can score against us but there’s no way I'm telling you... Ask me on Saturday night!

Who are the big threats for the R's and why?

CW: Hugill and Wells are joint top scorers in the league but if Eze and Chair are in the mood they’re worth the entrance fee alone.

We’ve got Bright Osayi-Samuel to play with those two as well, bit of a speed merchant, and Marc Pugh has impressed there as well.

DF: QPR fans have a code amongst each other to not mention anything to the outside world about Ebere Eze for fear of losing him.

I am not to mention that he is statistically the best attacking player in the Championship so far this season and I am not to mention how he is tearing apart defences at will this year. In particular, I am to mention that he is the most exciting attacking talent we have had since Adel Taraabt. So I'm not going to mention him at all.

For similar reasons, I'm also not going to talk about our other superb youngster Illias Chair.

Are there any injury worries at Loftus Road that could play a part this weekend?

CW: None that we’re really aware of. Grant Hall missed out last weekend but Geoff Cameron can slot in either as the third centre back or the defensive central midfielder no problem.

Lee Wallace hasn’t played since signing from Rangers in the summer, but Ryan Manning is first choice in his position anyway after a terrific start.

DF: Our captain Grant Hall missed the Luton game with a knock last week and might be touch and go for tomorrow.

It could also be a week or two too early for Angel Rangel and Bright Osayi-samuel to return from their respective injuries.

What's your predicted XI for the encounter?

CW: Lumley in goal; Cameron/Hall, Leistner and Barbet three centre backs; Kane and Manning wing backs; Dom Ball defensive midfield; Eze and Chair behind Hugill and Wells.

Given West Brom’s attacking threat I wonder if he’ll leave one of the forwards out to add an extra defensive midfielder, Cameron next to Ball, but I wouldn’t like to pick one from Hugill, Wells, Eze or Chair to drop the way they’re playing.

DF: Lumley, Kane, Barbet, Leistner, Hall, Manning, Ball, Chair, Eze, Hugill, Wells

What have you made of West Brom from afar this season, do you think they could secure promotion this year?

CW: I didn’t fancy them much to begin with. They were never the same last season once the superb Harvey Barnes had gone back and obviously there was quite a talent drain over the summer.

Plus, all the stereotypical stuff about how much Bilic would know about the Championship which people trot out as if this is some incredibly complicated, wonderfully advanced, intricate bastion of high footballing standard – spoiler alert, it’s an absolute bog of mediocrity.

Then you got Austin. I know Charlie isn’t fit yet but if Phillips feeding Austin is enough to get a Harry Redknapp QPR team promoted with half the squad hating the other half and the manager phoning it in from his portacabin then it should be more than enough for you lot.

DF: Do you mean the QPR veterans team?! It’s fair to say that QPR fans respect Matt Phillips, love Darnell Furlong and idolise Charlie Austin, who is the best striker I have seen here since Les Ferdinand. Furlong and Austin in particular should get a warm welcome from the home crowd tomorrow.

There is a real feeling that the West Brom game is our first major test of where we really are and the Baggies are probably the strongest team weve played at home so far this season. The unbeaten record of West Brom tells you all you need to know - that we have our work cut out to get three points.

I would expect that West Brom will be there or thereabouts come the end of the season given the players you have, the experience of the manager and the set-up of the club - see you at Wembley for the play-off final?!

Your match prediction?

CW: 3-3. We both seem to be in that sort of mood.

DF: We score goals but we let them in at the other end as well. Heart says a home win but head says 2-2 draw

You can keep track of Clive's work here.Meanwhile, you can listen to David's work here.