The second part of our fans’ forum piece looks ahead to the rest of the season. What can QPR do to steer clear of trouble and is there cause for optimism?

The fans say…

For the second time this week we turn to our learned panel of supporters for their opinions: Rob Gilbert from Blog and White Hoops, Dave Barton from Dave’s Unofficial QPR Site, regular LFW columnist Chris King and LFW official photographer and writer of the QPR Today blog Neil Dejyothin.

In your opinion, what needs to be done to keep QPR in the Premiership this season?

Rob - Keep it simple and keep our heads. Players such as Onuoha, Ferdinand, Young, Barton, SWP, Zamora and Cisse know this league and have succeeded in it. Fulham, Everton, Swansea, Stoke and Bolton are a real opportunity to pick up points despite our form. Don't be stupid, play our game and the points will come.

Neil - I honestly don't know. I think we've taken so many huge risks at so many different levels, that staying up should be considered a remarkable achievement. And even then I think if we did survive, we should consider ourselves very lucky indeed.

But to try and give you three things:

- The first is settling the squad down and gelling them. We need a consistent and similar team out on the pitch week in, week out.

- The second is to grind out some results. I've only seen thirty minutes of good football since Hughes got here, but there's a whole host of reasons for that, including new players gelling, new ideas and so on. So the players have just got to dig deep and find a way to get points - we're already past the point where performance is important now.

- The third is to get our high profile players back to form. If Shaun Wright-Phillips and Joey Barton can reach the level they're expected, even just somewhere near it, we have a chance, but otherwise I think Djibril Cissé and Adel Taarabt will be key.

Dave - The obvious answer is win a few games but to do that I think they need to work on three major aspects over the next week to stand a chance:

- First is team spirit. Time away getting to know each other and form a bond much like teams do in pre season is a good idea because there seems to be very little fighting for each other on the pitch at the moment and very little in the way of players helping each other through a rough patch in a game.

- Second is set pieces. We look like conceding every time we face one and never look like scoring from one. I'd be working hard on that area, making sure we have a plan on how we are defending and are able to implement it. Then work out several attacking plans, at the moment we seem to pick one player to take all the corners for one game then change it the next week. I'd vary it in a game, have Barton, Taarabt, Buzsaky and Wright-Phillips alternate the corners and at least give teams something to think about. Having a plan from these other than hit and hope might be handy as well.

- Finally I'd be working on keeping possession under pressure and not being afraid to go backwards to keep the ball. We give it away so cheaply at times and it's costing us goals on the counter attack.

Chris - QPR need to change captain, Joey Barton is not a fit leader. His Twitter outbursts make the club’s management appear weak and ineffective, and on the pitch his performances across the season haven’t been sufficient to even earn him a starting place, let alone the armband. It should be given to Anton Ferdinand, and Barton dropped for Diakite until his hunger returns. Rangers should also look to play three up front, Cisse and Mackie on the wings, and Zamora through the middle. To stay up, the R’s need to learn how to hold onto a lead, and pick up points at home.

Name your preferred starting 11 and formation for the Fulham game.

Rob - Kenny, Onuoha, Ferdinand, Gabbidon, Traore, SWP, Barton, Diakite, Taarabt, Zamora, Mackie in a 442.

Chris - Cerny, Young, Ferdinand, Onuoha, Taiwo, Buzsaky, Diakite, Barton, Mackie, Helguson, Zamora (if all fit) – 4-3-3

Dave - Hughes is a 4-4-2 man so that’s what we’ll play. I think we need experience at back, a solid central midfield and creativity in the final third, I’d have Helguson on the bench as I think him and Zamora are too similar to play together.

I’d go with Kenny, Onuoha, Ferdinand, Hill, Taiwo, Wright-Phillips, Diakate, Barton, Taarabt, Zamora, Mackie

Neil - This is a tough one, because it depends on availability of players and we've had a hard time keeping them fit consistently throughout the campaign. Then there's form. If I had the numbers, I wouldn't even pick Shaun Wright-Phillips or Joey Barton at the moment because I think their performances are so crucial to the balance of our play and their poor form is causing us to collapse both ways. But we do not have many options.

Looking beyond the Fulham game, to the rest of the season, I’d want to work towards something that on paper looks unusual, but isn't. I'd have Paddy Kenny in goal, with a back four of Luke Young, Nedum Onuoha, Anton Ferdinand and Taye Taiwo. Taiwo's instruction would be to sit and hold and not venture too far forward, but I would allow Young to get forward as he's done, and provide support and overlapping runs from right-back.

Then I'd have Joey Barton and Samba Diakité sitting in the midfield, but allowing Barton to creep around to the right side. He would provide protection there, especially as Young moves forward, but also because I think Barton does suit the right side and his passing is better when he has less options and can only go one way. So having him creep towards the right in game should help him improve some of his basics.

I chose Diakité just because he's an unknown, but as my idea has quite a bit of work to do, and he's young and physical, he'd get the nod in this instance.

Then I'd have something very strange. No right winger. For now… I'd have Armand Traore over on the left side, who would be allowed to bomb on or come inside. He does these things naturally anyway and is the reason I'd have Taiwo just sitting and waiting in a defensive position. But the main idea would be to let Traore hit the flanks and whip balls in.

I'd have Adel Taarabt playing in the hole and generally allowed to go anywhere, but venturing right side if needed. But Young would be providing the outlet, or at times, Barton. Then I'd play two up top with Djibril Cissé and Bobby Zamora. I'd have Zamora coming into the hole when necessary, if Taarabt has wondered or moved to the right side. I'd play Cisse as far up the pitch as possible, but he can also cover wide areas if necessary because he's got a lot of pace to burn, but having him lurking on the shoulder seems a good idea to me.

Head on the block, will QPR survive relegation this season? Where will we finish and who do you think will be the bottom three?

Chris - QPR will only survive with a drastic turnaround in fortunes and the injection of urgency and discipline from the manager. Hughes has a mammoth task on his hands in trying to keep the R’s up, and it can be done, but with games running out it’s hard to imagine anything but a desperate slog to avoid the dreaded bottom three. If we beat Fulham and Everton, we can stay up. If not, it’s relegation. I’m going to go with eighteenth, and a valiant but ultimately fruitless battle against relegation. Bottom three will be QPR, Wigan and Bolton Wanderers.

Rob - Head on the block eh!? Well I've had a feeling for a long time that the Fulham game was vital. A win in a West London Derby could easily spur us on to survive. However a loss or a draw and I think it's curtains. Unfortunately I don't see us winning a pissing contest at the moment, let alone a derby against a well organised Fulham side. So I think we will lose next Saturday and ultimately go down in eighteenth with Wigan and Bolton. I'll revise that prediction if we beat Fulham and switch us out with Blackburn.

Neil - It pains me to say this, but I think we will go down and I hope I'm wrong about that. Whoever goes on a mini run is going to save themselves, but I just can't see us being that team. I think we will have some good performances and even great wins, but it may be too far and few between as we struggle to find the consistency we need over a period of time. As for bottom three, hmm…I'm not sure, my gut feeling is Blackburn will survive and Wigan and Wolves will be the other two to go, but if Wolves can get some momentum from a new manager then you never know.

Dave - Yes but only just. We’ll finish sixteenth with Wigan, Blackburn and Wolves going down.

LoftforWords says…

In yesterday’s forum piece I returned to a theme that I’ve been banging on about all season – the constant, and expensive, short termism that infests QPR. Today I’m going to start with another favourite topic, this season’s bizarrely structured fixture list.

By starting with Bolton at home on day one and finishing with Man City away on the final day Rangers managed to pull a list of dates for 2011/12 that essentially saw them staring with their easiest fixture and building up to their hardest. Looking through the list at the start of the season the potential problem stuck out like a sore thumb – QPR played none of the top eight before October, then played them all at once almost in ascending order. That horror run will be repeated over the final ten games of the season which is fast approaching.

Now of course everybody plays the same team twice over the course of nine months so the fixtures are largely irrelevant in normal circumstances, but they’ve fallen in the worst possible way for QPR and been at the root of many of our problems this season. For example we conceded six goals and six points to Bolton and Wigan in August pre-Fernandes takeover when had we played them just a few weeks later and started with Man City at home and Liverpool away instead we’d probably be six points better off now and our rivals six worse. Having all the difficult games bunched together sapped confidence for a busy Christmas run of winnable games and ultimately cost Neil Warnock his job, the board all too acutely aware of the need to act fast with the same nasty run of games waiting for them from March onwards. And now, with a final four fixtures of Chelsea and Man City away, Spurs and Stoke at home we’re effectively battling to stay up with a shorter season than the teams around us.

Despite all of this I was absolutely sure we’d be fine this season until half time at Blackburn last week, and now I’m almost positive we’ll be relegated. Our team, on paper, is far superior to the other four teams that are down there with us but first of all that doesn’t matter, ask West Ham, and second of all we cannot get that team out there on the pitch often enough. Barton comes back from a three game ban and Cisse picks one up, by the time he’s back which other stupid bastard is going to have got themselves sent off and cost us a winnable match and his services for three matches?

When a team gets on top of QPR and starts to dominate, hitting the bar and the post and forcing outlandish saves from Paddy Kenny without scoring I’ll often relax back into my seat and say “It’s not their day.” Usually in such circumstances Rangers will win with their only attack of the game – that’s not exclusive to us, it’s a football wide phenomena. By the same token when I’m looking at a league thinking who is going to be relegated, along with the obvious candidates who simply lack quality, I’ll often go for the team that should stay up but is that lethal combination of not very good and not very lucky. That’s QPR this season.

When we play well we find a way not to win the game – either through a poor refereeing decision (Villa H, Norwich H, Chelsea H), missing a number of excellent chances (Newcastle H, West Brom H), a moment of individual crass stupidity (Wolves H, Norwich H) or some other piece of misfortune. When we play badly we’re not good enough to grind a result out (Liverpool A, Blackburn A, Arsenal A).

The body language of the team at Blackburn last week told me a lot as well. Don’t be fooled by that second half comeback, that was almost exclusively down to Jamie Mackie who found himself on a field with ten others who really didn’t look like they gave a toss in the first half as the goals rained down on them. I’ve seen that trait in QPR teams before, and recently relegated West Ham sides too. A trip to Portugal together may help, but I come back to the fixtures again because I’m of the opinion that Hughes will get this collection of individuals playing for each other just as we run out of winnable games. I expect us to suddenly start playing, and fighting, and looking pretty decent around March 10 at which point we’ll still lose because we’re playing the likes of Spurs, Man Utd and Man City.

The Premiership has never been easier for a promoted team to survive in than it is this season, and we’re making an absolute pig’s ear of it.

Team for Fulham: Kenny, Onuoha, Ferdinand, Gabbidon, Taiwo, Taarabt, Barton, Diakite, Traore, Mackie, Zamora.

Two weeks ago I said there was no way Adel Taarabt could ever play anywhere other than striker in a 4-4-2 formation because his attitude and work rate would make him a liability anywhere else. Now suddenly the “new Adel” seems like he’s one of the first names on the team sheet, and probably wide in midfield as well given how he was crowded out of the Blackburn game through the middle. Jamie Mackie’s performance off the bench at Ewood Park probably means that he and Taarabt should edge out Shaun Wright-Phillips who, like Barton, I don’t think is playing as badly as people make out but is certainly not playing well. The centre of midfield is the big problem at the moment. Personally I think Hughes will say all the right things about Barton for as long as he needs him, and then bomb him out at the first possible opportunity. At the moment we’re relying on him, and Diakite who I dare say every QPR fan would have in their starting 11 for this game despite him only being in the country for a week.

Final Position Prediction: 18th, relegated with Bolton and Wigan. I think it’s been McCarthy holding Wolves back and whoever they manage to finally get to take the job will enjoy a new manager bounce that will see them climb away. Blackburn seem to have enough good players to get out of it despite everything going on around them, although they’re one Yakubu injury away from certain relegation. Wigan are the worst team in the division, Bolton have been unlucky with injuries and can only be saved in the short term by new manager syndrome as well.

Three reasons for optimism

Rob

1 - The other four teams with us are utterly atrocious.

2 - Zamora and Cisse are more than good enough a strike force to keep any team up

3 - Taarabt looks like getting back to something like his best.

Dave

1 - Of our remaining thirteen games we have seven of them that we are capable of getting points from and if we manage that we’ll be fine.

2 - We have some real attacking talent in the side now and if Taarabt, Cissie, SWP and Zamora all click we can give anyone problems.

3 - Our owners seem to have a long term vision for the club and if we do survive then we could have a bright future.

Neil

1 - There's plenty to look forward to. On paper the squad is far stronger than at the start of the season and they can only really improve from here, even if time is against them.

2 - The second is that football never works in the way you might expect. It could take one good performance to make them all click and understand each other and we need that to happen. As much as there are tough fixtures in the run in, some of those sides will be feeling the pressure as well and that can help us. You would also expect us to get better the longer we go on, so hopefully we will reach a level where we're much more in those games than we think at this point in time.

3 - The third…when we've got our backs to the wall, we generally as fans galvanise ourselves and give it a go. If we're on top form, we can help accelerate the gelling process but getting behind the team passionately and helping them understand what it means to wear the shirt. The quicker they fall in love with us the better.

Chris

1 - There are still games remaining, and we have the players to turn this around, at least to a certain extent.

2 - Cisse and Zamora linked up well against Wolves and look to have the makings of a good partnership.

3 - The new signings need time to gel, and once they have had more playing time, we may see an improvement in the overall team performance.

LFW

1 – We have the best starting 11 of the teams at the bottom of the table by some considerable distance.

2 – Playing the top eight teams altogether at the end of the season may be a nightmare, but we did actually take two wins and a draw from those fixtures at the start of the season.

3 – We’re coming back from a two week break and team building trip into two winnable home games. Win them both and the whole mood and atmosphere will change.

The bookies say…

Professional odds compiler Owen Goulding offers the bookies’ perspective on the remainder of the season.

With 13 games left, it's looking like a five horse race in the battle to avoid relegation. Bookmakers and punters alike are frantically predicting results for each of the teams down there in a bid to find who will be playing under the Npower guise next year. Wigan are the current favourites at 1/3 and this seems about right to me. For every one step forward they make, they tend to take two steps back - Martinez performed the great escape last year, but this season I just can’t see it.

Blackburn, Bolton and Wolves are all priced at 4/6 for relegation. In my opinion, Wolves are the worst squad of the lot. Djibril Cisse helped McCarthy keep his job a bit longer but the truth is he should have gone long before. The team that has represented Wolves in recent weeks would only be a slightly above average Championship side in my opinion. Kevin Foley, David Edwards, Christophe Berra are very average. In fact, bar Kevin Doyle and Steve Fletcher, you would be hard pushed to find another player from Molineux that any other manager currently down there would want.

Which brings me on to QPR. QPR now have a whole host of players who the other four managers around them would kill for. This in part explains why QPR are rated by the bookies as the least likely of the five teams to be relegated. A current price of 5/4 means they are the only team of the five currently odds AGAINST for relegation. I know QPR fans aren't as confident, but it is definitely the case that Rangers have by far the best squad of the five on paper. A lot will depend on the influence of Diakite as the injury to Faurlin has been massive and Rangers are crying out for an all-energy ball winning midfielder.

Can anyone else be involved in the battle to avoid the drop? Well Stoke and Aston Villa look like candidates for the obligatory tumble down the table, but with the bottom five so far detached, I am discounting anyone else. I expect Wigan to go, I think with their current squad, even Paul Daniels would struggle to magic Wolves out of a return to the Championship. Which for me leaves one of three. Bolton have a little bit too much in their locker as I see it- QPR could easily get it together with the quality of players they have - especially with Diakite to come in and Taarabt currently displaying more tricks than Wayne Dobson. One twisted ankle for Yakubu coupled with a very difficult run in for Blackburn tips the balance for me. So its Wigan, Wolves and Blackburn - and you'll struggle to find a bookmaker who disagrees. Let’s hope the bookies have got it right.

Tweet @loftforwords, @neildejyothin, @robgilbz, @chriskking

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Spaghetti_Hoops added 11:39 - Feb 23 Antii I am not interested in what the bookies think or where the mug money is going. Betfair is a more reliable guide. Guys who are in a better position than a QPR fan to make judgements on the probabilities are working that market. Like all sports betting it is about what is going to happen, not what has happened up until now. QPR fans find it difficult to unravel the two, particularly those who went to Blackburn.

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jo_qpr63 added 21:40 - Feb 23 Northernr- Diddnt we play better in 2nd half? Not "going down with a whimper"
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