Next Saturday, 7th of February 2015, a Southampton, hurting in their pride, will visit Loftus Road to measure forces with a QPR side in need of points for round 24 of the English Premier League, a match during which the Saints will try to return to wins after last weekend’s home upset and that The Hoops need to win in order to try to escape the pits of relegation zone.

After their FA Cup home defeat at the expenses of Crystal Palace almost ten days ago, the Saints were once again caught off guard at St. Mary’s Stadium and sucumbed at the hands of a stone cold Swansea that sealed the three points thanks to a goal by Jonjo Shelvey. Ronald Koeman’s boys have controlled almost the entire match with 64% of ball possession and a dozen of goal attempts that didn’t prove to be enough to overcome an inspired Fabianski, who managed to frustrate all of Southampton’s attacks. At the same time, the home side attacking trident showed some poor finishing skills and not even the immense talent of Tadic and Pelle was enough to open breaches on the Swans’ defensive wall.

The Saints now have two consecutive home defeats that turn their upcoming fixture at Loftus Road into an event of great importance since, if they lose, they might drop another place in the EPL table. For that particular match, Ronald Koeman will not be able to rely on the services of Ryan Bertrand, who is currently suspended, and he is not certain if Schneiderlin, Wanyama, Long and Jay Rodriguez will recover in time from their respective injuries. There are, nevertheless, some good news for the Dutch manager that will be probably be able to use the team’s latest signing, the Serbian international playmaker Filip Djuricic, who arrived on loan from SL Benfica on the last day of the Winter transfer window.

As for QPR, the London team are definitely not going through the best of moments and currently occupy the 19th place of the EPL table, just two points above Leicester, who are currently at the bottom of the table. The recent lack of wins is bringing some extra problems to Harry Redknapp’s boys, who sucumbed at the hands of Stoke last weekend. QPR currently have the worst defence line of the Premier League with 42 goals conceded in just 23 matches. The Hoops’ upcoming fixture will most certainly not be an easy one but, regardless of their opponents’ quality, QPR cannot withstand to continue with their poor recent streak.

QPR

Stats: W-0 L-4 D-1

Recent Form - LLLLD

Southampton

Stats: W-3 L-2 D-0

Recent Form - LLWWW

Possible Line-ups

QPR (4-4-1-1) - Green - Onuoha - Dunne - Hill - Isla - Fer - Henry - Barton - Vargas - Kranjcar - Austin

Southampton (4-3-3) - Forster - Clyne - Fonte - Gardos - Yoshida - Reed - Davis - Ward-Prowse - Tadic - Elia - Pelle

Prediction

QPR 1 Southampton 2