Birmingham City will host visiting rivals QPR at St. Andrew's Stadium in the Championship tie on Friday.
Full predictions, stats & game poll for the Birmingham City v Queens Park Rangers match are shown here (plus the best game odds).
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Form Guide
Birmingham City
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Birmingham City will be hoping to bounce back here following a 2-1 Championship loss in their previous game against Preston North End.
In that game, Birmingham City managed 59% possession and 16 attempts at goal with 4 on target. For Birmingham City, the goalscorers were Jay Stansfield (46') and Krystian Bielik (51' Own goal). At the other end, Preston North End got 10 attempts on goal with 3 on target. Milutin Osmajić (67') scored for Preston North End.
It’s not been often in recent games where Birmingham City have shown defensive steel. The facts show that Birmingham City have failed to prevent opponents from scoring in 5 of their previous 6 clashes, leaking 9 goals along the way.
Their previous form shows that Birmingham City:
- have not been beaten in the league by Queens Park Rangers in their last 2 games.
- are unbeaten in their previous 3 league matches at home.
Queens Park Rangers
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In their last game, QPR drew 1-1 in the Championship match with Swansea City.
In that match, Queens Park Rangers managed 49% possession and 11 shots at goal with 3 of them on target. The only player on the scoresheet for Queens Park Rangers was Lyndon Dykes (92'). On the other side, Swansea City got 8 attempts at goal with 3 on target. Josh Ginnelly (7') was the scorer for Swansea City.
The strike force from QPR have been starved of goals over their previous 6 clashes, netting the poor return of only 4. In those fixtures, The R's have also seen the overall goal aggregate against them equal 7. Despite that, we must now wait to see whether such a trend might continue on in this match.
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Head to head
Inspecting their past head to head meetings going back to 24/10/2020 shows that Birmingham City have won 3 of these & QPR 2, with the tally of drawn matches standing at 1.
A combined sum of 11 goals were scored between them during those clashes, with 6 of them for The Blues and 5 created by The R's. That is an average goals per game value of 1.83.
The last league encounter featuring the two was Championship match day 38 on 18/03/2023 which ended up with the score at Queens Park Rangers 0-1 Birmingham City.
That time, Queens Park Rangers had 60% possession and 15 shots at goal with 2 on target.
On the other side, Birmingham City got 10 shots on goal with 6 of them on target. Tahith Chong (3') scored.
The match was refereed by Keith Stroud.
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Team News: Birmingham City
It’s a low absenteeism rate, with just one fitness concern for the Birmingham City gaffer John Eustace to contend with due to a largely intact squad. Alfie Chang (Knee Injury) is sidelined.
We are thinking that The Blues may well employ a 4-2-3-1 formation in the match with John Ruddy, Cody Drameh, Dion Sanderson, Kevin Long, Emmanuel Longelo, Ivan Sunjic, Krystian Bielik, Oliver Burke, Jay Stansfield, Keshi Anderson and Koji Miyoshi.
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Team News: QPR
From a largely available squad, there’s just the one fitness worry for the QPR manager Gareth Ainsworth to be concerned with. Jimmy Dunne (Shoulder Injury) won’t be playing here.
From our viewpoint, The R's could decide to begin the game with a 3-4-3 lineup using Asmir Begovic, Osman Kakay, Steve Cook, Morgan Fox, Paul Smyth, Sam Field, Andre Dozzell, Kenneth Paal, Chris Willock, Sinclair Armstrong and Ilias Chair.
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Prediction
Queens Park Rangers should have enough to break down this Birmingham City side, but that probably won’t quite be as many as the goals that they could concede.
We are anticipating a narrow 2-1 advantage for Birmingham City by the time that the referee blows the final whistle. Expecting it to be very competitive.
Our expert partners are tipping under 3.5 goals for this match. Check out their VIP predictions here.
Andre Moura,
23:23 17/09/2023
🏟️ Team Focus:
Birmingham City
Formed: 1875
Stadium: St. Andrew's Stadium (29,409)
Captain: Dion Sanderson
Chairman: Thomas Wagner
Manager: John Eustace
Competitions: Championship position 6
⭐ Key Man: Jay Stansfield
Mostly taking up the Striker position, Jay Stansfield was born in Tiverton, England. After having made a senior debut playing for Fulham in the 2019 - 2020 season, the dangerous Forward has hit 2 league goals in the Championship 2023 - 2024 campaign so far coming from a total of 3 appearances.