The Championship fixtures will conclude this midweek as West Bromwich Albion strive to secure a return to the Premier League with a result against Queens Park Rangers.
West Bromwich Albion's automatic promotion hopes were dealt a huge blow as Huddersfield Town enjoyed a 2-1 victory over the Baggies at the weekend - a result which all but secured the Terriers' survival before Danny Cowley's surprise dismissal.
However, The Baggies were in dreamland when Brentford fell to a 1-0 defeat to Stoke City, which kept West Brom in second place, just as Leeds United secured the top spot. Now, Slaven Bilic's men must simply match or better the result of Brentford in their game against Barnsley to avoid slipping out of the automatic promotion spot and moving into the play-offs... seems relatively straight-forward right?
There are always two teams at play and QPR are very much looking to play the role of party spoilers when they make the trip to the West Midlands. Whilst potentially climbing up another spot in the table to finish the campaign in 13th might not seem like a great incentive for the Rangers players, the chairman will certainly be keen to get that little bit more in finance!
Manager Mark Warburton has been critical of his side post-lockdown, but a 4-3 win over rivals Millwall last time out will have raised spirits. A win which ended Millwall’s top-six aspirations.
Previous meeting:
Last time the two sides met back in September 2019, West Brom managed to get the better of a 10 man QPR side and beat them 2-0.
Nathan Ferguson opened the scoring in the 53rd minute as the youngster rifled a shot past Joe Lumley into the bottom left corner of the goal.
QPR's day got even worse in the 84th minute as defender Yoann Barbet saw red for bringing down Baggies substitute Robson-Kanu as the striker was through on goal. To make things worse Matheus Pereira scored from the resulting free-kick, deciding to go hard and low to beat the wall.
Predicted lineups:
West Brom predicted XI: Johnstone; O'Shea, Hegazi, Ajayi, Townsend; Sawyers, Livermore; Pereira, Krovinovic, Grosicki; Austin (4-2-3-1).
Kieran Gibbs is the only injury concern for the Baggies, as the left-back misses out with a hamstring injury - aside from that Bilic has a fully fit squad to choose from.
QPR predicted XI: Lumley; Kane, Barbet, Masterson, Manning; Cameron, Ball; Shodipo, Chair, Eze; Oteh (4-2-3-1).
As for QPR, they are expected to have two absentees - as Angel Rangel misses out with his torn Achilles from earlier in the season and Bright Osayi-Samuelis also expected to miss out as the midfielder prepares for a move abroad to Club Brugge.
Score Prediction: West Brom 2-0 QPR
Match Preview written by Jordan Hall