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The Pre-Match Warm Up
Friday 17th March 2006
by Ron Norris & Simon Skinner

After the disappointing performance against Sheffield Wednesday Rangers will be hoping for a much better result against another relegation threatened side in Brighton on Saturday.

Queens Park Rangers v Brighton & Hove Albion
Coca Cola Football League Championship
Saturday 18th March 2006
Kick Off 15:00

TEAM NEWS

Rumour has it that there are injury doubts over Rose and Furlong for this game. According to the official site…oh, hang on…no, nothing to be seen there! Rose took a heavy blow near the end of the Sheffield Wednesday encounter, how Furlong got his knock is anyone’s guess. Scotty Donnelly is back from his foot injury and is likely to make the bench at least after notching for the reserves in midweek. Other than that the usual suspects are still missing with Doherty and Rowlands out for the season.

Brighton are able to welcome back Jason Dodd from a long injury lay off. The man who got David Bardsley sent off at Southampton over ten years ago has been out with an ankle knock for months. Other than that, the only real absence of note is Charlie Oatway, whose ankle was broken by Marcus Bean in the reverse fixture on Boxing Day.

POSSIBLE TEAM
		Furlong	Gallen


	Cook	Bircham	Lomas	Ainsworth


	Milanese	Evatt	Shittu	Bignot



		Jones

A QUICK GUIDE TO OUR OPPONENTS

BRIGHTON IN BRIEF

Brighton are slipping out of the division with a whimper, they have won just one game this year and last weeks draw against Preston halted a run of six straight defeats. Goalscoring seems to be the major issue, they've hit the back of the net just six times since 2006 started and have scored just once in the last 450 minutes of football and that was against the only side in the division worse than them in Crewe and they still lost the game.

LAST FIVE GAMES
Date	Versus	Venue	F	A
11/03/06	Preston	Home	0	0
04/03/06	Plymouth	Away	0	1
25/02/06	Crewe	Away	1	2
18/02/06	Watford	Home	0	1
14/02/06	Norwich	Away	0	3


TOP SCORERS
Name	FLC	FAC	LC	Total
Colin Kazim-Richards	6	0	0	6
Alexandre Frutos	3	0	0	3
Paul McShane	3	0	0	3

RUBBISH FACT

Brighton survived relegation to the Conference in 1997 when they drew 1-1 with Hereford in the last game of the season. The result sent Hereford down instead.

RANGERS VERSUS .....

LAST TIME OUT

Wolves 3 - 1 Queens Park Rangers
Monday 30th August 2005

"Langley gave away a freekick on the Brighton right and was harshly booked by Styles. Carpenter swung the ball in and Guy Butters climbed all over the back of Shittu, forced him to the floor and headed the ball powerfully past the exposed Cole. It was a clear foul but Styles was having none of it. What is more worrying though was the fact that we had conceded yet another headed goal. "

LEAGUE STANDINGS
Pos	Team	P	GD	Pts
14th	QPR	37	-9	47
23rd	Brighton	38	-26	30


HEAD TO HEAD
Played	QPR	Brighton	Draws
72	30	28	14

OTHER MEETINGS

You have to go back a long way to find the last time Brighton beat us at Loftus Road, nearly fifty years in fact, that was a 1-0 win to the visitors in 1957. In fairness we did have a thirty year gap between games but we've played them four times at HQ in the last few years and won two with the other two being 0-0 draws.

GENERAL INFORMATION

THE REFEREE

Tony Leake is one of The Football League's most experienced refs but has never made the step up to the Premier League in nearly ten years of officiating. Must be because he's pony. This will be the third time we've had him this season, the other games were the 2-1 home defeat to Reading and the 3-0 loss away to Coventry.

THE REF RECORD
Season	Games	Yellows	Reds
2005-06	32	71	3
2004-05	37	88	6
2003-04	34	87	7


OPPONENTS LINKS
Official Website	Seagulls.co.uk
Fans Websites	Flying High
	BHAFC.net

QPR CONNECTIONS

Little Leon Knight came on loan to Rangers back in 2001 but got the arse with the manager over something and that prevented us signing him permanently. Eventually he signed for Brighton, did well, but then got the arse with the manager over something and was bombed out to Swansea earlier this season.

RON AND SIMON'S PREDICT-OFF

RON: We should have won last week, Sheffield Wednesday are not a great side and whilst it's all very well saying they made it hard for us, that happened because we let it, we just weren't at the races and some key players underperformed. At home against Brighton things should be different, here's a side who haven't won away from home since October and have lost the last eight in a row away from The Withdean, conceding 21 goals along the way. We should win. 2-0 to Rangers.

SIMON: Having ground out draws in our last two games it is time for Rangers to get back to winning ways. Brighton are a wretched side and this served to make our defeat against them earlier in the season all the more galling. If both teams play to their full potential then we will win. That said, games against teams who are looking not to lose rather than to win are often tough to watch and this has all the hallmarks of such an occasion. 1-0 Rangers

Current score: Ron 22 Simon 28