Monday's match at the Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium could have huge repercussions at both ends of the Championship table, with Queens Park Rangers hosting Derby County.
The hosts finally ended their losing streak in a thrilling draw on Good Friday, whilst the visitors miraculously kept their slim survival hopes alive by defeating league leaders Fulham.
Match preview
© Reuters
After previously losing five on the bounce, it is incredible that QPR are still in with a chance of reaching the Championships playoffs in the final few weeks of the season.
Friday's 2-2 draw at Huddersfield Town finally saw Mark Warburton's side show some fight and desire to halt their losing run, with Luke Amos and Ilias Chair netting to earn their side a point after twice coming from behind.
Many of the top half of the Championship failed to win in a strange set of results on Good Friday, so a point saw QPR drop a place to 12th in the table, but also move to within five points of Sheffield United in the top six.
As a result, their slim hopes of taking part in next month's playoffs are far from over, so if the Hoops can string together three or four victories in their final four matches, then who knows where they could end up.
A repeat of their meeting back in November would do nicely for Monday's hosts, when Andre Gray netted a sensational late goal to earn them a 2-1 win after falling behind to a Tom Lawrence strike early on.
© Reuters
As for the visitors, their never-say-die attitude in this remarkable campaign continued at Pride Park on Friday evening.
Despite falling behind to Fabio Carvalho's effort midway through the first half, Wayne Rooney's inexperienced side rallied in the second 45 to record a thrilling 2-1 victory against the league leaders.
Luke Plange scored five minutes into the second half to level the scores, before Tosin Adarabioyo put through his own net to provide them with a priceless victory.
The only negative to come out of that day was the fact that their incredible win meant very little in the grand scheme of things at the bottom of the Championship table.
Wins for Peterborough United and Reading, as well as a draw for Barnsley, meant that the Rams remain nine points off safety with just four games left to play.
As a result, the fairytale effort from Rooney's side could all be for nothing unless they can pull off the greatest of escapes in the final few weeks, but in a season of catastrophe at Derby, pride has remained at the highest level.
- L
- L
- L
- L
- L
- D
- L
- L
- D
- W
- L
- W
Team News
© Reuters
Despite Keiren Westwood recovering to retake his place in goal for QPR on Friday, their goalkeeping situation remains awful.
Seny Dieng, David Marshall, Jordan Archer and Joe Walsh all remain unavailable, and the quartet are joined by the outfield absences of Rob Dickie, Jeff Hendrick and Chris Willock.
The unavailability of the latter continues to be a huge blow given his seven goals and 11 assists this season, so much of the creativity will be provided by Chair and Amos once again.
Lee Wallace is unlikely to return from his injury, and with the absence of Dickie continuing as well, Warburton is likely to stick with a four-man defence on Monday.
As for the visitors, Max Bird will serve the final game of his three-match suspension, with fellow regular Ravel Morrison remaining a doubt due to illness.
Rooney has no fresh injury concerns to contend with, but Colin Kazim-Richards remains sidelined with an ankle problem that is likely to keep him out for the remainder of the campaign.
With very little options available, the boss could well stick with the same starting 11 that performed heroically against Fulham.
Sixteen-year-old Carlos Richards made his debut off the bench in that game, and is expected to be amongst the substitutes once more on Monday.
Queens Park Rangers possible starting lineup:
Westwood; Odubajo, Dunne, Barbet, McCallum; Field, Johansen; Thomas, Amos, Chair; Dykes
Derby County possible starting lineup:
Allsop; Byrne, Davies, Cashin, Buchanan; Bielik, Thompson; Ebiowei, Lawrence, Knight; Plange
We say: Queens Park Rangers 2-1 Derby County
Despite their outstanding results at home, Derby have still lost eight successive league games on the road, so it is very difficult to predict anything other than a home win on Monday.
The hosts have been far from their best so Derby should give them an almighty contest, but if QPR can build on their draw last time out, then they should have just enough in them to record a narrow victory to potentially condemn their visitors to relegation.
Top tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Queens Park Rangers win with a probability of 52.85%. A draw had a probability of 23.9% and a win for Derby County had a probability of 23.29%.
The most likely scoreline for a Queens Park Rangers win was 1-0 with a probability of 10.71%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (9.73%) and 2-0 (9.2%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (11.32%), while for a Derby County win it was 0-1 (6.59%). The actual scoreline of 1-0 was predicted with a 10.7% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted a 1-0 win for Queens Park Rangers in this match and our team at Sports Mole correctly predicted the win for Queens Park Rangers.
