PR: QPR vs Hull City

If you’re a fan of symmetry like me, you’ll appreciate the season QPR have had so far. Played 6, won 2, drawn 2, lost 2, scored 9, conceded 9. Form in the past 5 games: WXLXW. Their current position in the table of 11th, also has them firmly established in mid-table. Despite how mundane this looks on paper, you wouldn’t want to be supporting Rangers these days with a dodgy ticker. 2-nil down to Sunderland, they came back to snatch a draw with 2 goals in the final 3 minutes. 3-nil up against Middlesborough, they almost let it slip before seeing out a 3-2 win. In fact, their previous match also finished 3-2, away at Watford. That impressive victory inflicted a first defeat of the season on the Hornets, and QPR will be confident they can get a further 3 points on home turf on Tuesday night.

Part of that confidence may well come from an underestimation of their opponents. Whether it’s a fan or manager not able to believe it after a “shock” loss (cough, cough, Dean Smith), or pundits tipping them for defeats and relegation, City have been consistently written off. In fact, you can still get 80/1 for them to win the league with a certain bookie. That price makes them one of the favourites to go down; madness.

The reality is that City find themselves in 3rd place after a good start that’s seen them firing on all cylinders. One particularly pleasing point will be that we’ve managed the same number of goals (5) since Tufan went off against WBA as we’d managed before the key playmaker was injured. That’s been all down to the poaching abilities of our new star Colombian striker though, with Oscar scoring all of those 5 goals. His hat trick coming almost 5 years to the day since the last one in the league when Abel Hernández scored 3 against Burton Albion. There’s something about South Americans scoring for fun in the Championship for City.

This brings me nicely on to the point about pronunciation. Having lived in Spanish-speaking countries for the past 10 years, and being married to a Mexican, I can finally put to bed any confusion with how to pronounce Oscar’s name. The key is the accent (á): Abel Hernández = Her-NAN-dez. Oscar Estupiñán = Es-tu-pin-YAN.

Back to the match, and I would expect lots of goals. I’m tipping a 2-2 with Tetteh to open his account. I’m also expecting Cannon to start, and perhaps even Christie and Mcloughlin as Shota tries to manage a schedule of 3 games in a week. Watch out for Chris Willock for the Rs. If the Tigers can manage to keep him under wraps, they may well be able to turn that 2-2 into a victory.
UTT.

Today’s match preview was provided by Hull City OSC’s Mexico-living fan Jason Harrison.