Preview: Portsmouth vs. Queens Park Rangers - prediction, team news, lineups

Portsmouth will attempt to claim a third consecutive victory when they welcome Queens Park Rangers to Fratton Park for Saturday's Championship encounter.

Meanwhile, the R's are hoping to record back-to-back victories after sweeping past Derby County in their most recent outing.

Match preview

Portsmouth have boosted their survival hopes by taking maximum points from their last two outings against Cardiff City and Oxford United.

The South-coast side edged out Cardiff via a 2-1 scoreline at Fratton Park, before they recorded a 2-0 away victory against the U's following second-half goals from Andre Dozzell and Mark O'Mahony.

Those three points were particularly special because it represented Pompey's second away victory of the season, and their first away win since beating QPR 2-1 in October's clash at Loftus Road.

Pompey have now moved up to 18th place in the Championship standings, giving them a sizeable seven-point buffer to the bottom three.

They will fancy their chances of adding to their 36-point tally on Saturday, having won seven, drawn two and lost just one of their last 10 home matches.

Portsmouth will hope that home advantage can help them complete a league double over QPR for the first time since the 1961-62 season.

QPR are sitting eight points above Pompey in 13th position after collecting 44 points from their 33 league matches this season.

Rather than looking over their shoulders, the R's will have aspirations of mounting a playoff push over the final 13 games, with four points separating them from sixth-placed West Bromwich Albion.

They experienced mixed results in recent weeks, having won two and lost three of their previous five matches, with both of those victories taking place at Loftus Road.

After losing to Sheffield Wednesday and Millwall, QPR edged out Blackburn Rovers via a narrow 2-1 scoreline, before they fell to a 1-0 defeat in their away meeting with Coventry City.

However, they quickly returned to winning ways with an emphatic 4-0 victory over Derby, with Ilias Chair netting a brace alongside goals from Koki Saito and Ronnie Edwards to fire QPR to their seventh win in eight home matches.

While they have lost their last two Championship away games, the R's may be able to take some inspiration from the fact that they have avoided defeat in each of their previous four competitive away meetings with Portsmouth since losing 3-0 in August 1998.

Portsmouth Championship form:

Queens Park Rangers Championship form:

Team News

Pompey boss John Mousinho has revealed that Callum Lang is set to miss the rest of the season with a hamstring injury that he picked up in the win over Oxford.

Portsmouth's top scorer joins an absentee list which features Jordan Williams, Conor Shaughnessy, Ibane Bowat, Jacob Farrell and Paddy Lane.

Kusini Yengi could feature in the matchday squad after returning to full training, but it remains to be seen whether Freddie Potts will overcome a calf issue in time for Saturday's home fixture.

As for the visitors, they are expected to be without the services of Jake Clarke-Salter and Zan Celar, while Daniel Bennie is away with the Australia Under-20 side.

Cifuentes has confirmed that the attacking duo of Lucas Andersen and Karamoko Dembele are in contention after getting two weeks of full training under their belt.

The QPR boss could be tempted to stick with the same lineup that started the dominant 4-0 victory over Derby last time out.

Portsmouth possible starting lineup: Schmid; Swanson, Matthews, Atkinson, Ogilvie; Hayden, Dozzell; Ritchie, Aouchiche, Murphy; Bishop

Queens Park Rangers possible starting lineup: Nardi; Dunne, Cook, Edwards, Paal; Varane, Field; Yang, Chair, Saito; Frey

We say: Portsmouth 2-1 Queens Park Rangers

Pompey will be full of confidence after recording back-to-back victories, and having won seven of their last 10 home games, we think that the hosts may do enough to squeeze past a QPR side that have lost narrowly in their previous two away outings.

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