The famous last-minute Matthew Rose fluke which won this fixture 3-2 for Rangers in the 2004/05 season. There’s a rare bit of Jamie Cureton genius in QPR colours after it as a bit of a bonus as well.

Tuesday

Team News: QPR have Jamie Mackie back fit (for now) and pushing for a start after a typically swashbuckling cameo against Aston Villa before Christmas. Jordan Cousins, however, continues to be dogged by hamstring problems and Tjaronn Chery is also out. Just a week to go until the transfer window opens and we can dispense with the notion that Steven Caulker is carrying a hip injury.

Kazenga LuaLua is grounded for the hosts while Uwe Hunemeier has a hand injury following an encounter with a particularly lively with a Christmas cracker. Laim Rosenior’s in laws haven’t buggered off home yet so he might have to stay home while Beram Kayal will be available as long as he can find the broken bulb in his Christmas lights this evening. Jamie Murphy is a doubt after a Christmas Day incident with the Pie Face game.

Elsewhere: A second consecutive morning match on an odd day thanks to our Sky Overlords means QPR have been able to get properly tanked up over Christmas and watch almost all of round 3,978 of this year’s Mercantile Credit Trophy play out already. The exception is the Tuesday afternoon encounter between the Derby Sheep and Brum. Boxing Day often adds a sprinkling of high scoring games to make the second tier gruel more palatable for the festive period and we saw a little bit of that today. Relegated Rotherham secured a second home win of the season, 3-0 up at half time and eventually squeezing through 3-2 against second-bottom Wigan Warriors. Neil Warnock thought he’d got a late win as his Seventh Annual Farewell Tour reached Brentford this morning, but the Bees scored in the 90th having conceded in the 89th and escaped with a 2-2. And the Wurzels continued their recent crash in form by blowing a 2-1 lead to lose 3-2 at Wolves, though an apparent injury time equaliser was wrongly ruled not to have crossed the line.

What else can I tell you about today? Well the turkey curry was half decent but is now having a similar effect to yesterday’s roasted parsnips, a minute of silence prior to Leddersford’s 2-1 win against Nigel Clough’s Burton Albion in memory of Ross McCormack’s cat Mrs Whiskerson was impeccably observed, and pretty much everything else went as you’d expect.

The Mad Indian Chicken Farmers were beaten 2-0 at Barnsley in today’s match between two sides beginning with B, Michael Mancienne’s dalliance with the Christmas sherry did him little good as an own goal and red card set Nottingham Trees on their way to a 2-1 loss at Borussia Huddersfield, Tarquin and Rupert continued their relentless march towards the end of season masked ball with a 2-0 win at beleaguered Ipswich, and the Champions of Europe made it eight wins from ten with a worryingly impressive 4-1 success at Preston Knob End.

Oh and Reading. How could we forget Reading? Fascinating place. 3-1 against the Carrot Crunchers today, Alex Neil looks like he’ll be gone long before the decorations come down.

Piss taking aside, Sheffield Owls were seriously impressive in winning 1-0 at Champions Newcastle this evening - only their second win against a top six side in the last 18 months. Sadly, another reason for Brighton to go into tomorrow's game hungry for blood.

Another full round of fixtures is scheduled to begin roughly 25 minutes after this one has finished.

Referee: If you feel like you’ve only just recovered from Keith Stroud’s monumentally shambolic handling of our recent trip to Nottingham Forest, then I’ve got some bad news. That’s right, the man who’s refereed QPR more than anybody else on the league list, who’s already in three figures for yellow cards this season, is back again. His last Brighton appointment was only a month ago too, just the eight cards in that one v Fulham. Extensive case history and stats here.

Form

Brighton: This is going to make fairly terrifying reading. Brighton have only lost two games all season (league leaders Newcastle have lost five) and only one of those (Brentford 2-0) has been at home where they’ve won eight and drawn two of the other ten. Albion have only lost one of their last 21 home league games. They’ve scored 22 goals on their own patch this season — two a game on average — and conceded just six. Albion have won their last three matches and are unbeaten in 16 league games coming into this one — a run that includes 12 wins and four draws. Since that Brentford defeat they’ve won six and drawn two of eight home games scoring 16 and conceding only four. Chris Hughton’s side has kept seven clean sheets on their own patch already in the league this season, including three shut-outs in the last five matches here, and have 13 clean sheets overall which is the best record in the division. They’ve beaten QPR to nil, scoring six, in the two meetings between the sides on this ground since it opened.

Brighton have scored more league goals in the second half (22) this season than QPR have netted in total (20).– Jack Supple (@JTSupple) December 21, 2016

QPR: Rangers, as we know, are on a five-match losing run and they’ve failed to score in four of those. The last three games have all been lost 1-0 which means it’s 270 minutes since the R’s last found the net, and even that one from Joel Lynch turned out to be mere late consolation against Wolves. Extending the horror out, Rangers have won three of the last 17 in the league having initially started the season with three wins from the first five. Goals are an issue — Rangers have scored the joint fewest in the league (20) with Wigan, Rotherham have four more and Ipswich two. The away record of three wins, two draws and five defeats isn’t that bad — sixth-placed Sheff Wed have also only won three times on the road and 13 teams in the division have won three or fewer away from home. But, again, a total of just ten goals is equalled or bettered by all but four of the other Championship sides.

Prediction: Reigning Prediction League champion Dylan Pressman kindly took time out of his Christmas break to offer us…

“There is no point pretending that, on current form, we have any chance against high-flying Brighton. It is possible that there could be a surprise (that's why they play the games, as they say) but 2-0 seems a reasonable guess.”

Dylan’s Prediction: Brighton 2-0 QPR. No Scorer.

LFW’s Prediction: Brighton 3-0 QPR. No Scorer. Sandro substitution sweepstake 55 mins.

The Twitter/Instagram @loftforwords

Pictures — Action Images

Action Images

isawqpratwcity added 22:40 - Dec 26 "...if somebody had offered you that record on the understanding that one of the three wins would be a 1-0 victory at Chelsea, as it was, we’d have been inclined to take it. Bitter, small minded monkeys that we are." Of course, we would. We're not delusional. We know a good deal when we see it.
0

TacticalR added 00:22 - Dec 27 Thanks for your preview. Let's face it, this is a bonus game.
0

derbyhoop added 04:43 - Dec 27 Brighton have 13 clean sheets, Only Wigan have scored less than our 20. Brighton only lost twice this season and 1 in last 21 home games. Every chance of a shock, high scoring QPR win. OR they might declare at 5. Seems far more likely.
0

RBlockG added 06:09 - Dec 27 Hoping we can keep eleven men on the pitch.
0

onlyrinmoray added 12:08 - Dec 27 We will lose... just admire Krockaert as a footballer. If we win I will eat mushrooms as a penance
0