West Brom v QPR - Match preview

Good Friday’s humbling at lowly Rotherham was a real low under the Spaniard and as poor as anything the Baggies have mustered in dark days under Corberan’s predecessors.

Albion have been almost impeccable at The Hawthorns since the head coach checked into the Black Country last October. Seldom has a performance been so bad and lacking fight it required a serious response.

The visitors were hapless in South Yorkshire on an afternoon that could easily have been anything like seven or eight to the hosts and – without meaning to disrespect Rotherham – that would have been one of the more embarrassing league results in the club’s proud history. All in front of 2,100 travelling fans who deserved better.

It would be remiss not to mention Albion’s ever-growing injury list and thinning available options.

Okay Yokuslu might return today – and the Turkish midfielder is the squad’s most valuable player – but that aside there is no other good availability news in sight.

Away from home, some stand-in players, and other starters still involved, have not been up to it.

The away misery sunk to a new low at the Millers. Jordan Hugill was hopeless on loan at The Hawthorns yet made to look a world beater by Albion’s dire defending. It is no exaggeration to say the striker should have had five goals. He had to settle on two – doubling his league tally for the campaign.

Semi Ajayi was given such a runaround he was jeered off by the the travelling faithful. Has the Nigerian got it in him physically and mentally to go again today? There were team-mates in green and yellow who did not fare much better.

Corberan said of his team’s latest misery away from The Hawthorns: “What is very clear is that we’re not having the results away we want and we need to achieve.

“Of course, on the back of that I am responsible to try to solve it, because this is my work. It’s true the last performances away have not been the ones we’ve wanted or we needed to achieve to be higher in the table than we are right now.

“It is my responsibility to make the decision to change this.”

It is not all bad news ahead of QPR’s visit today. Albion, let us not forget, have not lost on their home patch since the head coach’s first game at the end of October. They have only drawn twice, including the last home game against Millwall.

Gareth Ainsworth’s visitors’ form should also be a pick-me-up for the Baggies. The Rs have been dreadful since the boss swapped Wycombe, where he was a club legend, for Loftus Road.

They have lost six of seven matches under Ainsworth and nine from 10 in all. QPR are only outside the drop zone due to Reading’s recent points deduction.

Albion, meanwhile, are still just five points from sixth. More than anything, though, they owe their fans a performance.