West Bromwich Albion v. Queens Park Rangers (31 Oct) [R]

[DevilDave]

Albion host QPR at the Hawthorns on All Hallows Eve. Can Albion banish the spectre of our two previous losses and return to our winning ways against the R's?

There were a few positives from our loss at St. Andrews Saturday... notably our decent ball movement and attacking play. Unfortunately, they failed to bear fruit as we wasted chance after chance. Our defence, however, needs to play more tenaciously - Blues seemed to create numerous opportunities for themselves, and could have easily scored more than the two they earned on the day.

As for our next opponents, QPR sit at the wrong end of the table at the moment, but they definitely remain a dangerous side capable of scoring goals in bunches.

Kevin Phillips should be fit again and could start for us up front, with Ellington or Kamara as his partner. Paul Robinson has been suspended, so I'm wondering if we could see a back four with Perry, Davies, McShane and Albrechtsen... even though the first three are centre-backs. Neil Clement, anyone?

[DevilDave]

It seems a familiar refrain at the moment. Albion's attacking play was more than decent enough to earn us three points, but our poor defending again betrayed us and allowed QPR to claw out of 2-0 and 3-2 deficits to earn a share of the spoils at the Hawthorns tonight. The fact that it was a shoot-out was not much of a surprise, but IMO we should have come out on top. Simply inexcusable. :mad:

Worse, because of other results tonight, we'll be losing ground to both Cardiff and Preston at the top of the table, and Blues & Burnley will be leapfrogging us as well. :mad:

Kamara started a new scoring streak after failing to tally at Blues. Two more tonight for our Senegalese forward makes eight on the season - which put him near Chopra and Earnshaw on the top goal-scorers list in the Championship. Not bad for someone who's only played six matches since returning from injury.