QPR striker set to return for Portsmouth clash as 4 key players ruled out

Queens Park Rangers are without four key players for Saturday’s game against Championship rivals Portsmouth - but could welcome one January transfer window signing back into contention.

Julien Stephan’s side head into the Pompey clash looking to claim a win that would all but end any lingering relegation concerns they may have. Victory for the hosts could also push the Blues into the bottom three if results elsewhere go against them.

John Mousinho’s men have not won in their past five games and have collected only one point since Gustavo Caballero, John Swift and Marlon Pack all netted in a 3-1 win at Millwall last month.

For the hosts, there is news of a possible injury boost as Trinidad and Tobago international Justin Obikwu is close to being named in their match-day squad for the first time since he joined the Rs from Coventry City in January.

The striker picked up a shin injury in the aftermath of completing his move to West London but has returned to training over the last week. Stephan has admitted he could be in contention for a place on the bench.

He told West London Sport: “He trained this week and will train on Friday. We need to continue to rebuild him physically because he has not played for a long time. But it’s an option for me to involve him in the 20 players. He’s not ready to start the game, but perhaps ready to play some minutes if we need him. We will continue after the international break and the next weeks to rebuild him physically. But it’s an option, yes, for the next game.”

However, the R’s will be without Rumarn Burrell, Nicholas Madsen, Ilias Chair and Steve Cook.

What has John Mousinho said about Queens Park Rangers vs Portsmouth?

Speaking at his pre-match press conference, the Pompey boss said: “We have the break after, so we want to go into it with a win. Everything would feel a lot better if we won the game, certainly in terms of the points total. It would feel better, the impact psychologically of not winning games when we’ve been on top has been difficult to take. But I would rather be a side losing games playing well, rather than losing games getting blown away. I think there’s a lot of hope there. I don’t actually think the break has any relevance to the weekend, but the fact is we want to be a side who doesn’t respond negatively to the pressure of the league position being where it is. Hopefully it happens that we produce a result when we don’t have the buffer. If we do that like we have in the past then great.’”

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