QPR -- 22nd, 18 GP, -13 GD, 16 points v. Crystal Palace -- 18th, 19 GP, -2 GD, 21 points ------ 4 December 2007 20:00 Loftus Road ------ Rangers News: Michael Mancienne may be available, but will have a late fitness test after missing last Saturday's match with a hamstring problem. Sampsa Timoska should be available to return and Jake Cole should be healthy enough to be our bench keeper. Dexter Blackstock will serve the 2nd of a 3-game suspension. The Opponent: Palace comes in having not lost in six straight with three draws (Scunthorpe, Cardiff, QPR) then consecutive wins over Colchester and Preston prior to a 1-1 draw at home against West Brom last Saturday. Clinton Morrison missed most of the second half of Palace's game on Saturday with a virus, but is expected to play. Paul Ifill (thigh) will miss out through injury. The Series: An 88th minute goal from Morrison cancelled out Sinclair's 45th minute goal for QPR as the clubs drew 1-1 at Selhurst Park back on November 10th. QPR leads the overall series 35-26-28. The home side won both games last season. Palace swept us in 05/06. Before that, the clubs hadn't met since 00/01 when both games were 1-1 draws.
[R] in this thread for any English football on Tuesday or Wednesday. Elsewhere around the bottom of the table today everyone has home dates against teams in the Top 10: Norwich (24th) vs. Plymouth (6th) Preston (23rd) vs. Hull (10th) Cardiff (20th) vs. Charlton (4th) Colchester (19th) vs. Watford (1st) They all kick off at 17:45. Blackpool (21st) drew yesterday with Scunthorpe.
The lineups are in. No Mancienne. Zesh Rehman is starting along with Malcolm, Stewart, and Barker in the back. Oh my. 17 year old striker Angelo Balanta makes the bench! QPR: Camp; Barker, Stewart, Malcolm, Rehman; Buzsaky, Rowlands, Leigertwood, Sinclair; Sahar, Vine. Subs: Cole, Bolder, Ainsworth, Nygaard, Balanta. Crystal Palace: Speroni, Hill, Hudson, Scowcroft, Morrison, Watson, Soares, Butterfield, Fonte, Songo'o, Derry. Subs: Fletcher, Freedman, Martin, Hills, Scannell.
Bit surprised to see Rehman in and Bolder out, but I guess De Canio really doesn't want to use Leigertwood in defense. Gives Zesh a chance to get back into things, we could use a strong performance from him.
Norwich are leading Plymouth, 1-nil. Palace have come straight at us to start things off. Defense needs to be on the ball tonight.
Buzsacky played in a perfect corner that found the head of Damion, who was unmarked by the Palace defenders. Excellent!!
FYI, the QPR website says Angelo Balanta was born in "Columbia" -- I assume they mean "Colombia" and not "District of...." or "British...."
Already a very interesting night in the Championship, should be plenty of movement in the table (cept for us, hopefully, since we can only move down a place)
Hey guys. Off to a good start for once. I almost didn't believe it when we scored. We haven't lead in a game since last time we played Palace nearly a month ago.
Same here - I thought for sure Palace had scored since I just popped my headphones back on as the corner was played in
Crap. We gave up a goal off a free kick. A man ran free and just got a touch of it and got it past Camp.