Rangers take on play-off-chasing Hull City this weekend
QPR’s Ilias Chair celebrates after scoring against Hull City in November(Image: James Manning/PA Wire)
QPR are set to welcome back influential playmaker Ilias Chair for the weekend visit to Hull City, after he missed the disappointing 3-1 home loss to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.
Chair, whose only goal of the season came in the 3-1 win over City at Loftus Road earlier this season, has been sidelined mid-December with a muscle injury, but is likely to be back in the travelling R’s squad that head to East Yorkshire looking for just a fifth away success of the season so far.
Jonathan Varane is also expected to be involved, and so, too, Nicholas Madsen, who limped out of the defeat against Rovers with an ankle issue, but that’s not anywhere near as serious as originally feared.
Striker Justin Obikwu is not yet fit following his January move from Coventry City, and leading marksman Rumarn Burrell is also out with a hamstring injury.
Rangers’ sole win in their last 10 away games came at Blackburn back in late November, and while their home form has kept their heads above water, boss Julien Stephan knows his side must improve to avoid slipping further away from the top six.
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“We need to learn from this because it’s not the first time since the start of the season that we concede some goals and after, we drop mentally,” the Frenchman explained.
“It’s a part of the development of this team, and we need to be better in this situation and to believe more, to trust more in our qualities because I think we needed probably 20 or 25 minutes after the third goal to restart – it’s too long in a game like this, it’s too long.
“We needed more quality in possession, more connection, probably more belief as well. We played too long. We had some good ideas in the first half, and technically and collectively we had some good connection, I think, because we wanted to play like this and we prepared well the game during the week.
“But we forgot a lot of things in the second half and we played too long, we played too direct in fact. If we don’t find the collective connection, it’s more difficult for us, especially in this kind of situation.
“It was not a good second half for sure, and I need to review probably some sequences, but my first feeling is we played too long and without enough connection between the players.”
“All the players, they try to do their best. They try to give everything. Of course, it’s not a question of mindset. It was more a question of quality in the second half, and we didn’t have enough quality.
“So, first, this is my responsibility to find the solution and to give some solution to the players for the next game in order to have more consistency.”
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