Preview: Blackburn Rovers vs Queens Park Rangers - prediction, team news, lineups

Blackburn Rovers and Queens Park Rangers will be looking to extend unbeaten starts in the Championship when they meet at Ewood Park on Saturday afternoon.

These two teams are locked on four points apiece, sitting in sixth and fifth place in the Championship table respectively.

Match preview

Suffering a 2-1 defeat at home to Sheffield United in the EFL Cup second round brought an end to Blackburn's unbeaten streak in all competitions.

Nevertheless, the setback does not take away from the impressive job that Tony Mowbray is doing during his early tenure as boss.

Facing Wolverhampton Wanderers and Middlesbrough - two favourites for promotion - was far from the ideal start, but collecting four points has been achieved the hard way.

Blackburn conceded an early goal in each of those contests, only to battle back for a 2-2 draw and 2-1 win respectively.

This is Blackburn's third home fixture in the space of a week. The success over Middlesbrough was their first at Ewood Park since February 20.

Having been somewhat fortunate to retain his role in the QPR dugout, Julien Stephan is taking advantage of the faith placed in him by the club's hierarchy.

Although a penalty-shootout defeat to Millwall in the EFL Cup first round was a disappointment, the fast start from the Lions in the Championship has highlighted that QPR deserve credit for holding them to a draw across 90 minutes.

That has since been followed by a 3-1 win at Portsmouth and a goalless draw at home to League One playoff winners Bolton Wanderers.

When taking into consideration that QPR won their final five pre-season fixtures, there is a lot for Stephan and the club's fanbase to be encouraged about.

The clean sheet kept against Bolton was the Hoops' first in seven competitive contests.

Blackburn Rovers Championship form:

Blackburn Rovers form (all competitions):

Queens Park Rangers Championship form:

Queens Park Rangers form (all competitions):

Team News

Having made widespread changes for the Sheffield United game, Mowbray will likely revert to the Blackburn XI from the Middlesbrough fixture.

Yuki Ohashi needed to be withdrawn after 11 minutes in midweek having pulled up with what appeared to be a muscle injury, while Mathias Jorgensen is also sidelined with a hamstring issue.

Having failed to score versus Bolton, Stephan will consider handing starts to the likes of Paul Smyth and Rumarn Burrell.

Tariq Lamptey is likely to remain on the substitutes' bench, despite a successful 28-minute debut last week.

Boy Kemper and Karamoko Dembele remain unavailable through injury.

Blackburn Rovers possible starting lineup:

Toth; Alebiosu, Atcheson, McLoughlin, Pickering; Morsy, Montgomery; Morishita, Cantwell, Afolayan; Gudjohnsen

Queens Park Rangers possible starting lineup:

Charles; Mbengue, Dunne, Clarke-Salter, Adamson; Vale, Edwards, Poku, Chair, Saito; Burrell

We say: Blackburn Rovers 1-1 Queens Park Rangers

Having a midweek off can only have benefitted QPR, who will take confidence from Blackburn seeing their unbeaten record ended. Nevertheless, Blackburn may prove to be strong at Ewood Park in this season's Championship, leading us to predict a hard-fought draw between two evenly-matched teams.

For data analysis of the most likely results, scorelines and more for this match please click here.