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

Queens Park Rangers will travel to the south coast for their Boxing Day meeting with Portsmouth at Fratton Park.

The R's are sitting in seventh place in the Championship table, while Pompey are hovering just outside of the drop zone.

Match preview

Portsmouth should head into Boxing Day with a renewed sense of belief after they bounced back from three consecutive defeats with a return of four points from two matches.

Callum Lang and Ibane Bowat fired Pompey to a 2-1 victory over Blackburn earlier this month, before the former scored again in Saturday's hard-fought 1-1 draw against Derby County at Pride Park.

With two points separating them from the bottom three, Portsmouth will be keen to pick up positive results against QPR and Charlton Athletic in their final two outings of 2026, as they look to avoid dropping into the relegation zone before the end of the calendar year.

John Mousinho's charges will be grateful to have home advantage for those two fixtures, considering that four of their five Championship victories have taken place at Fratton Park.

The south coast side have also enjoyed success in recent meetings with QPR, having won each of their last three head-to-head encounters, including a narrow 2-1 success in February's home fixture.

However, Pompey may be a little concerned by the fact that they have lost their last two Boxing Day league matches.

While Portsmouth are battling to stay in the division, QPR are targeting a top-six berth after winning five of their last seven matches, including a dominant 4-1 victory in Saturday's home clash against a Leicester City side managed by former Rs boss Marti Cifuentes.

Koki Saito, Richard Kone, Karamoko Dembele and Amadou Mbengue all got on the scoresheet in a destructive first-half display, which enabled QPR to ease to a fourth consecutive home victory.

As a result of their fine form, Julien Stephan's side are sitting just a point adrift of sixth-placed Millwall ahead of the Boxing Day fixtures, while they are eight points adrift of the automatic promotion spots.

Despite putting his team in top-six contention, Stephan will still be challenging his players to improve on their travels, having seen his side win just one of their last five road trips (D1, L3).

QPR will head to Fratton Park with the aim of clinching their first competitive away win over Portsmouth since running out 3-1 winners in May 2000.

However, their recent Boxing Day record will not inspire confidence, having won just one of their previous 11 league games on December 26 (D2, L8).

Portsmouth Championship form:

W L L L W D

Queens Park Rangers Championship form:

W L W W L W

Team News

Portsmouth remain without the services of Josh Knight, Conor Shaughnessy, Jacob Farrell, Connor Ogilvie, Florian Bianchini and Thomas Waddingham.

Key attacker Josh Murphy is a doubt after being forced with a hamstring injury in the early stages of the second half against Derby.

The defensive duo of Zak Swanson and Bowat are set to return to the squad after missing Saturday's draw due to illness and injury respectively.

Meanwhile, QPR are unable to call upon Ziyad Larkeche, Harvey Vale, Rayan Kolli and Ilias Chair due to injury.

Defender Jake Clarke-Salter is awaiting the results of a scan after picking up a knock in Saturday's 4-1 win over Leicester.

Rumarn Burrell and Kone are set to resume their productive forward partnership, having scored nine and five league goals respectively this season.

Portsmouth possible starting lineup:

Schmid; Devlin, Matthews, Poole, Swanson; Kosznovszky, Dozzell; Lang, Chaplin, Yang; Bishop

Queens Park Rangers possible starting lineup:

Hamer; Mbengue, Dunne, Cook, Norrington-Davies; Dembele, Varane, Madsen, Saito; Kone, Burrell

We say: Portsmouth 1-1 Queens Park Rangers

QPR may have won five of their last seven matches, but they have won just one of their previous five away games, and considering they have failed to win any of their last four away matches against Portsmouth (W1, D3), we think they will have to settle for a point against their relegation-threatened hosts.

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