Queens Park Rangers head into their Championship encounter with Barnsley sitting in 13th position, just six points adrift of a spot in the playoffs.
Meanwhile, bottom-placed Barnsley are seven points adrift of safety with nine games remaining, leaving Gerhard Struber's team to push for victory at Loftus Road.
Match preview
© Reuters
With his team on a six-match unbeaten run, QPR boss Mark Warburton would have been frustrated with the suspension of football due to the coronavirus pandemic.
However, that run of results has left the Hoops 11 points above the relegation zone, allowing club officials to start to put plans together ahead of next season.
From Warburton's perspective, he will view the final nine fixtures as an opportunity to go under the radar with regards to promotion to the Premier League.
Although they are placed in mid-table, everyone associated with QPR will be optimistic that positive results over the next few games will leave them on the brink of the top six.
While achieving their current position has taken a team effort, there will inevitably be responsibility on the shoulders of Eberechi Eze to add to his 12 goals and eight assists before his probable move to the Premier League.
As far as Barnsley are concerned, there will already be tentative plans in place for a return to League One with the club sitting at the bottom of the table.
With just three of their direct rivals to come in the remaining nine games, it leaves the Tykes realistically needing to achieve a number of surprise results against teams chasing promotion.
Losing to Reading and Cardiff City without troubling the scoresheet will not fill Struber with a great deal of confidence, but there is a feeling that Barnsley could relish being the clear underdogs to avoiding dropping down to the third tier.
Nevertheless, Struber needs bigger contributions from the rest of his squad, who have been left reliant on Cauley Woodrow and Conor Chaplin chipping in with 24 goals and Alex Mowatt and Jacob Brown contributing 15 assists.
Queens Park Rangers Championship form: DWDWDW
Barnsley Championship form: LWWWLL
Team News
© Reuters
Struber has been handed a boost after goalkeeper Samuel Sahin-Radlinger agreed to play until the end of the month, when his contract is due to expire.
The Yorkshire outfit have a fully-fit squad, although Toby Sibbick will not be able to feature after returning from his loan period with Hearts.
QPR will be without United States international Geoff Cameron, who is serving a ban after his red card before lockdown.
Jordan Hugill is expected to lead the line after West Ham United gave the green light for the forward to see out the season at Loftus Road.
Queens Park Rangers possible starting lineup:
Kelly; Rangel, Barbet, Hall, Manning; Amos, Ball; Samuel, Eze, Chair; Hugill
Barnsley possible starting lineup:
Sahin-Radlinger; Ludewig, Sollbauer, Halme, Williams; Thomas, Ritzmaier, Mowatt; Woodrow; Brown, Chaplin
We say: Queens Park Rangers 2-1 Barnsley
We expect an open game at Loftus Road with both teams realistically needing to push for maximum points. Although that throws up the possibility of a surprise result, we are backing QPR to pick up where they left off in March.
Darren Plant
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Queens Park Rangers win with a probability of 49.73%. A win for Barnsley had a probability of 27.39% and a draw had a probability of 22.9%.
The most likely scoreline for a Queens Park Rangers win was 2-1 with a probability of 9.51%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (7.98%) and 2-0 (7.29%). The likeliest Barnsley win was 1-2 (6.78%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (10.4%). The actual scoreline of 0-1 was predicted with a 5.7% likelihood.
