West Bromwich Albion v Queen’s Park Rangers; The Hawthorns, Saturday 8th March 2025, 3pm

Since the disappointing home defeat to Blackburn Rovers, Tony Mowbray’s Albion have gone three games unbeaten with away draws at Millwall and Leeds United sandwiching a 2-0 home win over Oxford United. Mid-table Queen’s Park Rangers are the next opponents with the Baggies looking to complete their second league double of the season having won at Loftus Road on the opening day of the campaign.

Rangers have had a strange season winning just one of their opening sixteen games of the season before losing just one of the next twelve. Having been bottom in late November, they were as high as ninth in table after a 2-1 win at Hull City in January. Two wins and five defeats since then has seen them fall to fourteenth but still only eight points off the play-off places. As Coventry City have shown in recent weeks, any side within ten points of the top six can put themselves in with a shout with a consistent run of form but few teams have seemed able to do so.

The R’s Spanish head coach, Martí Cifuentes, made his name as a coach in Scandanavia initially with Norwegian side, Sandefjord, before impressing with AaB and Hammarby in Denmark. He took over a struggling Rangers side in October 2023 and managed to inspire a late surge in form that saw them secure Championship survival with a 4-0 win over Leeds United in the penultimate game of last season. While the team probably hasn’t pushed on as much as he would have hoped, they do seem to be on track to at least finish in a comfortable mid-table position despite the dreadful start to the campaign.

Former Baggie, Sam Field, has become a mainstay of the Rangers midfield and has popped up with another three goals for the R’s this season, but it is Swiss forward Michael Frey who tops their scoring charts with seven. Ilias Chair, whose 12-month sentence for assault that was handed down in February last year was reduced to community service on appeal, remains one of QPR’s most creative players with six assists to his name so far this campaign – he scored his first two goals of the season in the 4-0 win over Derby County last month. Like most clubs in this division, they are capable of putting in a performance but the consistency they enjoyed either side of Christmas has deserted them of late.

Tony Mowbray’s team has also been inconsistent but they have at least put in back-to-back performances if they weren’t quite able to make it back-to-back victories, something that has eluded Albion since September. No Baggies fan will have complained about earning a point at Elland Road, however, as they became only the fourth team to avoid defeat on that ground in the league this season. And it could easily have been three points had Tom Fellows managed to keep his composure when through on goal late on. It was a hugely encouraging performance full of control and endeavour, and was all the more impressive given the disappointing way in which Leeds took the lead. The Baggies have been able to exert a measure of control in most games this season, but to do so against the Championship’s best team bodes well for the remainder of the campaign.

Mowbray said after last weekend’s game that it was an “almost criminal” decision to leave Grady Diangana out of the starting line up, but felt that he needed Mowatt, Price and Molumby in the middle of the park and opted for Swift and Johnston to support Armstrong with Fellows and Diangana left out. I suspect he may change the approach for Saturday, but he has a number of options available to him with both Dike and Bany available to him as well.

Adam Armstrong has received Mogga’s backing this week as the head coach said that his goals will be important between now and the end of the season. I’m sure they will be, if they come, but he does have just one to his name so far. I guess he is still learning to play with his new teammates but I would like to see a bit more from him. Having said that, he is averaging three shots per game, with Grant on 1.9 his nearest challenger on that statistic, but his xG is only 1.15 in his five appearances, suggesting that he hasn’t had too many big chances. xG per 90 minutes is 0.26 for Armstrong according to WhoScored.com, compared to 0.51 for Maja this season which, with the knowledge that Albion’s number nine has actually exceeded his xG this season, just reinforces what we have been missing since his injury. Given that we also have Lankshear and Dike raring to go, Armstrong will need to start producing soon if he is to retain his place.

Given the closeness of the chase for the final two of the top six places, this is a match that Albion really need to win. Given their inability to pick up three points on their travels, their home games are even more important and QPR, will not being a pushover, are a side they should be beating if they are to maintain their top six spot.

History

Albion and QPR will meet for the 50th time in the league on Saturday with the Baggies having won 23 of the previous 49 league encounters with Rangers have won just 14. Since QPR were relegated from the Premier League in 2015, the clubs have met eleven times with Albion losing just once, a 1-0 defeat at Loftus Road in January 2022.

Rangers’ last win at the Hawthorns was the last Premier League meeting between the teams in April 2015. Both teams had relatively new managers with Pulis having taken over Albion in January while Chris Ramsey had replaced Harry Redknapp in February. Ramsey had failed to turn the club’s fortunes around losing all five games since his appointment was made permanent leaving Rangers deep in relegation trouble. Pulis, on the other hand, had steadied the Hawthorns ship although back-to-back defeats to Aston Villa in the league and FA Cup quarter final had been a set back the previous month. However, no one expected the visitors to take a 3-0 half time lead through Eduardo Vargas, future Baggie Charlie Austin and Bobby Zamora. Victor Anichebe reduced the arrears but when Mulumbu, who had come off the bench, received a red card for elbowing Joey Barton, the hosts’ challenge fizzled out and Barton added a fourth for Rangers in stoppage time. It proved to be a false dawn for Ramsey’s team who would win just once more that season and finished bottom of the table while Albion finished 13th.

The very next meeting between the sides was somewhat different. After the Baggies’ disastrous relegation three years later, QPR returned to the Hawthorns in August 2018 with Steve McLaren now in charge. Darren Moore’s team opened the scoring through Matt Phillips but Joel Lynch soon equalised and it stayed 1-1 until half time. After the break, however, the hosts ran riot with a Kieran Gibbs strike and a Jay Rodriguez penalty putting them 3-1 up before the hour mark. Dwight Gayle added a fourth before Rodriguez converted a second spot kick to make it 5-1, but there was still time for Matt Phillips to score his second and Hal Robson-Kanu to complete the rout with the Baggies’ seventh goal in stoppage time. That was the 34th, and the most recent, time that an Albion side scored at least seven goals in a major competition – only three of those have come in the twenty-first century, one of which, a 7-0 win over Barnsley, came in Tony Mowbray’s first spell at the Hawthorns.

Stat Attack

Current Form

All competitions; most recent game on the right

Last matches

Last meeting

10 Aug 2024 – League Championship
Queen’s Park Rangers 1 (Andersen)
West Bromwich Albion 3 (Maja (3))

Last meeting at the Hawthorns

24 Oct 2023 – League Championship
West Bromwich Albion 2 (Thomas-Asante (pen), Diangana)
Queen’s Park Rangers 0

Albion’s Record against Queen’s Park Rangers