Previews · Championship ·
QPR vs Swansea: QPR must find goals without Madsen and Burrell to beat the leaders at Loftus Road
- Kick-off
- Venue
- Loftus Road, London
Swansea win. Logged 21 Oct, 19:10 UTC, never edited.
What happened
QPR 5–0 Swansea. We said Swansea win 2–1: Wrong result, 0 points.
- Our full-time data has the score but not the scorers or goal minutes, so we do not name them here. We said Adam Idah v Ronnie Edwards; without the goal list we cannot say how that duel went. We said QPR's missing goals and Swansea's defence would decide it; QPR scored five and Swansea none.
- Our full-time data has no shot or possession figures for this game. What we got right: nothing in the result. Where we were wrong: we gave QPR one goal and Swansea two; QPR won by five, and Swansea did not score.
Before the match: our preview
In 30 seconds
- Swansea are top on 23 points, six clear of ninth-placed QPR, after losing 1–0 at home to West Ham on Sat 17 Oct.
- QPR drew five of their last ten games and won only one of their last five.
- Swansea did not have a shot on target against West Ham, and they will still win at Loftus Road.
The story
Julien Stéphan's QPR come into this one bruised. They beat Derby 4–1 on Wed 14 Oct, then lost 3–0 at Birmingham three days later, their first away defeat of the season. Stéphan blamed a lack of freshness after three games in eight days, and since then there has been worse news: Nicolas Madsen felt something at the end of the Derby game and is out until after the November international break, and so are Rumarn Burrell and Tariq Lamptey. Ilias Chair will not be back for this game either.
Vitor Matos's Swansea are still top, but the 1–0 home defeat to West Ham on Sat 17 Oct ended their unbeaten home league record and a run of four straight league wins. They did not put a shot on target that day. They get Filip Lissah back from his one-match ban, which settles a back four that had Ronald filling in at right-back.
Swansea have 23 points from 11 games, one ahead of West Ham and Middlesbrough. QPR are ninth on 17, level with Southampton and Wolves, and two points behind Stoke in sixth. A home win puts QPR back in touch with the play-off places; a Swansea win keeps them top whatever West Ham and Middlesbrough do.
This decides it: whether QPR can score without Madsen and Burrell, who have four of their goals in the last ten games between them. Paul Smyth is still available, and Swansea have kept five clean sheets in their last ten.
Form
Four draws in a row before the Derby win.
Four wins, then a first home defeat.
The games, with scores
| QPR | 17 Oct | at BirminghamCH | L 0–3 |
| 14 Oct | v DerbyCH | W 4–1 | |
| 9 Oct | at West HamCH | D 1–1 | |
| 19 Sep | v PrestonCH | D 2–2 | |
| 12 Sep | at West BromCH | D 1–1 | |
| Swansea | 17 Oct | v West HamCH | L 0–1 |
| 13 Oct | at MillwallCH | W 1–0 | |
| 10 Oct | v NorwichCH | W 2–1 | |
| 19 Sep | at LincolnCH | W 2–1 | |
| 12 Sep | v BurnleyCH | W 3–1 |
Latest first. Latest on the left. CH = Championship. OddsIntel match database, read 20 Oct 2026.
Team news
Checked Wed 21 Oct 15:15 UTC: West London Sport (QPR), Swansea Bay News (Swansea) and Sky Sports. Reported = not yet confirmed by the club. Line-ups: confirmed about an hour before kick-off; they go under Updates. We don't publish guessed XIs.
Two of QPR's three leading scorers in their last ten games are out: Madsen and Burrell have two goals each. Smyth, with three, started at Birmingham. None of Swansea's main scorers is on the injury list: Yeo, Adam Idah and Ronald started against West Ham, and Žan Vipotnik and Eom Ji-Sung came off the bench.
Swansea 4-3-3 · v West Ham, 17 Oct
- Vigouroux
- RonaldCabangoWelshTymon
- FrancoFultonStamenic
- YeoIdah (key battle)Opoku
- Kolli
- SmythKamaraValePoku
- KemperClarke-SalterEdwards (key battle)DunneAdamson
- Charles
QPR 5-4-1 · at Birmingham, 17 Oct
Who to watch
The duel to watch: Adam Idah against Ronnie Edwards. Idah led the line against West Ham and has three goals in Swansea's last ten; Edwards sits in the middle of QPR's back five. If Edwards wins the long balls and keeps Idah facing his own goal, QPR can stay in it; if Idah holds it up, Yeo and Opoku arrive beside him.
QPR
Paul Smyth
Started on the left of the midfield four at Birmingham; with Madsen and Burrell out, QPR's goals have to come through him.
- 3
- goals, QPR's last 10
Swansea
Adam Idah
Started up front against West Ham, and level with Yeo on goals.
- 3
- goals, Swansea's last 10
Swansea
Yeo
Played on the right of Swansea's front three against West Ham.
- 3
- goals, Swansea's last 10
Goals in each side's last ten games, all competitions. OddsIntel match database, read 20 Oct 2026.
Head-to-head
The last five of the ten meetings we hold, back to 2022, all in the Championship. The away side won four of them, Swansea at Loftus Road in April 2025 and again in April 2026.
All 5 meetings
Result for QPR. The last five of the ten meetings we hold, back to 2022. OddsIntel match database, read 20 Oct 2026.
Numbers that matter
Goals scored, last ten: QPR 12, Swansea 14 (higher is better)
Close, and four of QPR's twelve came in one game, against Derby.
Goals conceded, last ten · fewer is better: QPR 11, Swansea 7 (lower is better)
Swansea let in fewer, and three of their seven came in one game, at Southampton.
Clean sheets, last ten: QPR 2, Swansea 5 (higher is better)
Half of Swansea's games end with nothing against them.
Last ten games each, all competitions. OddsIntel match database, read 20 Oct 2026.
Our call, explained
Our call: Swansea win 2–1. They have won three of their four away games in the last ten, at Derby, Lincoln and Millwall, and the defeat at Southampton is the only time anyone has scored more than once against them in that run. QPR have five home games in the same window and won only two, and they now play without two of the men who scored their goals. Smyth can still hurt Swansea, and QPR have scored in three of their five home games, so we give them one. The gap is the missing goals: Swansea are hard to score against, and QPR have lost two of the men who scored theirs.
Where this could go wrong. QPR have drawn five of their last ten, so a tight game could easily end level. Swansea were blunt against West Ham; if that carries to Loftus Road and Richard Kone, cleared after going off late at Birmingham, adds a threat off the bench, QPR can win a scrappy game, as West Ham did at Swansea on Sat 17 Oct. If Smyth is shut out, Swansea can win by more than one.
Updates
24 Oct, 21:15 CEST
Full time: QPR 5–0 Swansea. Our 1–2 call: wrong result. See What happened.
Next: nothing further; this match is finished.
Data note: results, scorers, the table and line-ups from our database, read 20 Oct 15:10 UTC, so the counts run to both sides' games of 17 Oct. Both last tens are all Championship games, back to 22 Aug. Team news and match details from West London Sport, Swansea Bay News and Sky Sports.
Our call was timestamped by an independent service before kick-off, Wed 21 Oct, 19:20 UTC.
How the timestamp works
Timestamped before kick-off by an independent service (DigiCert, RFC 3161), Wed 21 Oct, 19:20 UTC. The call file is the exact version that was timestamped. The file with our call and its timestamp token: call file · timestamp. Its fingerprint (sha256):
4b2475c20262cfc3a66a378b4cfb40fc3fe288149e064912a3a3ec2854a6bb0b
Our calls so far
- calls right
- 27/42
- home win every time
- 19/42