- QPR in Training, 1962 - From Who Ate All The Pies "Photos in The Snow"- For QPR and Football Updates and perspectives throughout the day, visit the QPR Report Messageboard. All QPR and football perspective welcome...Also Follow: QPR REPORT ON TWITTER
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- Watch Neil Warnock Training Session: (Highest Winning Bid for Charity)
- Post Your Best Wishes to Neil Roberts Thread
- Compilation of Leeds-QPR Match Reports & Managerial Comments ([Congratulations to Neil Warnock on becoming a Grandfather!)
- Video Leeds-QPR "Highlights"
- Past Christmas Greetings From The Club
- Birthdays for Fitz Hall and Ed De Goey
- Ron Hunt Turned 65
- Five Year Flashback: Adam Czerkas Loan "Pole Axed"
- Graham Mackrell Flashback
- "What's The Point of Chelsea Football Club?"
- "Why winning promotion to the Premier League is not always good for a manager's prospects"
- QPR Youth Director, Steve Gallen in India...Previously QPR-India Update re QPR's Chairman and Vice Chairman in India
- QPR Points at This Stage, Compared to Past Few Seasons (An Improvement!)
-December 2010: after 21 games, 41 points
-December 2009 after 21 games, 29 points
-December 2008, after 24 games, 36 points
-December 2007: after 23 games, 24 points
-December 2006, after 23 games, 24 points
-December 2005, after 24 games, 32 points
MIRROR- Tarbs wants to join Chamakh in the Prem!
- Taarabt desperate to join Chamakh in Prem
Published 23:00 19/12/10 By Sarah Winterbur
QPR captain Adel Taarabt is itching to join Moroccan team-mate Marouane Chamakh in the Premier League.
Taarabt was heading straight to Chamakh’s house after this Elland Road defeat, revealing: “We are together every day. We are the only two Moroccans in the English league so we are very close.
“He has settled in very well but I was not surprised. For him to go to Arsenal was perfect because he came from a French league, he speaks French, Arsene Wenger speaks French and eight-nine players speak French there. For him, nothing changes.
“It was different for me at Tottenham - I arrived at the age of 17 and it was difficult. Of course he helps me and gives me advice. He believes in me 100 per cent and is just waiting for me to play in the Premier League.
“He knows I want to be there and that I can play there so that helps me a lot. I know I have to keep working and hopefully one day I will be able to do this.
“I don’t know if I will play in the Premier League with QPR, but if not I hope with another team.
“QPR have given me a chance and hopefully I can get them up to the Premier League. This is my job this season and we will see what can happen.
“At the start of the season if people told us we wouldn’t lose in the first 19 games then we would have taken that. Now we have lost two games and of course people will look at us and the situation.
“But we know what we can do and we can come back.” MIRROR
INDEPENDENT - Paul Newman: History points to Rangers reversing their recent decline
The Football League Column: Seven of the last 10 Football League champions led the table at Christmas
Fans of Queen's Park Rangers worried over their loss of form – Neil Warnock's Championship leaders have won only three of their last 11 matches – might give themselves some Christmas cheer if they look back at the table as it stood 12 months ago. While the consensus is that this is the country's most competitive and unpredictable division, recent evidence suggests that final finishing positions can generally be forecast even before the season has reached the halfway mark.
Look back at the Championship table after last year's Boxing Day programme and you will find the two automatically promoted teams, Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion, already filling the top two spots, while Sheffield Wednesday, Plymouth Argyle and Peterborough United were lying in the bottom three places, which was where they would finish five months later.
Nottingham Forest, Cardiff City and Leicester City were already sitting in third, fourth and fifth places, with the final play-off slot the only position of significance to change hands by the end of the season – seventh-placed Blackpool replacing sixth-placed Swansea City.
Seven of the last 10 Football League champions – Fulham (2001), Portsmouth (2003), Norwich City (2004), Reading (2006), West Bromwich Albion (2008), Wolverhampton Wanderers (2009) and Newcastle (2010) – led the table at Christmas. Birmingham dropped a place but still won automatic promotion in 2007.
QPR, currently three points clear of second-placed Leeds with a game in hand, will be hoping, nevertheless, to avoid the fates of Burnley and Ipswich Town, the only clubs in the last 10 years to fail to win promotion despite topping the table on Boxing Day.
A 5-1 defeat away to a Paulo Wanchope-inspired Manchester City in the last match of December 2001 put Burnley on the slippery slope. Having won 15 of their first 24 matches, Stan Ternent's team won only six of their last 22 and did not even make the play-offs.
Three seasons later, Joe Royle's Ipswich led the table until mid-February, only to be elbowed out of second by Wigan Athletic after winning just one of their last five matches. West Ham beat them in the play-offs.
The most spectacular surge towards a Football League title in recent years came from Sunderland, who were in 11th place on Boxing Day 2006. Beginning with a New Year's Day victory at Leicester City, Roy Keane's champions won 16 of their last 20 matches, having begun the season with four straight defeats. West Brom, in fifth place on Boxing Day 2001, are the only other automatically promoted team in the last 10 years who were not in the top three by Christmas.
Over the last 10 years Crystal Palace have made the most progress since Christmas to win promotion via the play-offs. A 1-0 defeat at home to Millwall on Boxing Day 2003 left Palace 20th, but Iain Dowie's team propelled into a sixth-place finish before beating Sunderland and then West Ham to reach the top flight. Palace threatened to do it again four years later, but after finishing fifth, having been 23rd in mid-November, they lost to Bristol City in the play-offs. What George Burley would give for a similar revival this year with his team currently sitting in 22nd place.
Palace underlined their credentials as the Championship's most unpredictable team in the second half of the season when they slipped from sixth on Boxing Day in 2008 to 15th at the end of the campaign. Coventry, nevertheless, suffered an even steeper fall from grace in 2003, dropping from sixth to 20th after winning only one of their last 21 matches.
The bad news for those propping up the table is that every side occupying 24th place at Christmas since the turn of the century has been relegated. Preston North End are currently bottom but Darren Ferguson's team will swap places with Sc**thorpe United if they win at Glanford Park on Boxing Day.
How high up the table do you have to be to feel confident of avoiding relegation? Walsall went 13th with their Boxing Day victory over Cardiff in 2003 only to finish 22nd. Indeed, they are the only club relegated in the last 10 years who were not in the bottom seven at Christmas. Independent
- Latest Actim Index Championship Rankings
- Ex-QPR Chris Arthur Joins Rotherham on Short-Term Deal
- Michael Meaker Sought by Yate Town
- Three Year Flashback: QPR's Chief Scout Resign
- Articles re Ray Wilkins and the Great Job Ian Holloway is Doing
- Compilation of Ecclestone Buys Out Briatore
- Several Articles/Interviews with Warnock
- Author of new Book On Bernie Ecclestone
- Three Year Flashback: Fans/Club Consultative Meeting Report
- Year Flashback: Hart and Harford In...Magilton and Gorman Out
- Prize-Winning Football Blogs and Websites (Not QPR Report!)
