Queens Park Rangers travel to the King Power Stadium to face league leaders Leicester City on Saturday in what is by no means an easy game.
Although Leicester did in fact lose their last league game at the hands of fellow high-flyers Leeds United, they are overwhelming favourites going into this one. The league table speaks for itself, however QPR will be looking to put up a fight.
With just one loss in their last seven, the R’s are in relatively good form considering they are a side who are battling relegation currently. During that spell they have beaten a couple of decent sides in Bristol City and Blackburn Rovers as well as beating two of the teams near them, Millwall and Rotherham United.
As a result, QPR have in fact moved out of the relegation zone and are arguably playing some of their best football of the season at the minute. Although they may only be out of the bottom-three on goal difference, things do indeed look a lot brighter than at this point a month ago.
Improvements have been seen since Marti Cifuentes took the job from Gareth Ainsworth in late-December, and his style of play is truly starting to blossom. Fans will be far more optimistic for the final quarter of the season due to that reasoning, however they may well slip back into the bottom three on Saturday when facing off with top opposition.
Leicester are deservedly favourites for this, yet know that QPR will come out fighting. In the return match earlier in the season, the Foxes would come out as victors through a late Harry Winks strike. That being said,bQPR did play the final third of the game with ten men and would’ve taken plenty of positives from that game.
In an interview with Leicester’s official website, Foxes defender Wout Faes, gave the R’s plenty of respect prior to their clash on Saturday.
“They’ve changed their manager recently and I think they are a good team. I remember the game over there, it was a tight game and I am expecting a bit of the same from a team who are fighting for their club.”
That ‘fight’ in which Faes eludes to will no doubt be on show this weekend and has been a characteristic of Cifuentes side in the last couple of months. Fight and camaraderie may just be what keeps the them up this season.
Writer’s View
This is by no means an easy game for Leicester, and the respect in which Faes has shown QPR exemplifies that. Although Cifuentes isn’t probably expecting three points from this, he’ll be hoping that his side can put in a good performance nonetheless.
Unfortunately for the R’s, they do have one of the hardest run-ins in the entirety of the Championship and wins may become few and far between. Nonetheless, if the past month is anything to go by, they’ve shown that they are capable of an upset and they may just cause another couple prior to the commencement of the season.
