Boss Mick McCarthy believes Town’s Boxing Day opponents QPR can still be play-off contenders, despite currently sitting in mid-table as the Championship season reaches its halfway point.

Rangers are in 12th but are only five points behind the Blues in the final play-off place ahead of both teams' 23rd game of the season.

The Rs are unbeaten in five games, two wins and, in the three game since new manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink took over, three draws.

“I think they can compete for the top six still,” McCarthy said. “I think there are a whole load of teams competing for the top six.

“I see Leeds have had three wins on the bounce, Sheffield Wednesday got a good win, Reading have got Brian McDermott in and they’ve got a good squad of players. There are teams pushing for those six places, definitely.”

The Blues boss believes that Hasselbaink was a good appointment following his successful spells at Royal Antwerp and then Burton Albion.

“He’s been a resounding success at Burton, he was at Nottingham Forest for a while on the coaching staff and he had an amazing career as a footballer,” McCarthy added.

“Everything I hear about him is very, very good, about his coaching, his management and that would just back up his success at Burton.

"He’s left them at the top of the table and he’s unbeaten now at QPR and he’s certainly got much better players to work with.

“I look at their team, the likes of Leroy Fer, Charlie Austin, Matt Phillips, Junior Hoilett, Alejandro Faurlín and Sandro. When I go through them they sound like they’ve got a good team to me, they’ve got good players.

“And if they can get a bit of stability they’ll be a real handful, they could still push for the play-offs.”

The QPR squad contains a couple of faces familiar to Town fans and McCarthy was reminded that early in his time at Portman Road, he said of Jay Emmanuel-Thomas that he’d call him by his nickname JET "when he looks like he’s got a rocket up his backside".

The Blues boss recalled the quip but didn’t want to get drawn into commenting further on the 24-year-old, who he allowed to join Bristol City in a swap deal which saw Paul Anderson join the Blues in the summer of 2013.

“That’s a great line for him to come back and haunt me, I suppose,” McCarthy reflected. “But that’s exactly how I felt and I haven’t changed my opinion on that.

“I will speak to you about Jay after the game. Sod’s law, ex-players come back and score goals, that’s the way it is, I’m not going to talk about him.”

Similarly, he didn’t want to be drawn into discussing former loanee Massimo Luongo, whose spell from Spurs he cut short soon after he took over at Portman Road.

Town are at home on Boxing Day for the first time since 2008 when they lost 1-0 to Birmingham, the scheduled game against Watford in 2010 having been postponed due to a frozen section of the Portman Road pitch.

McCarthy isn’t particularly concerned where the Blues are playing with his three Boxing Day games with Town so far having ended in a 2-1 win at Charlton, a 3-0 victory at Doncaster and last year’s 4-2 defeat of Brentford at Griffin Park.

“I’ll tell you after the game whether it’s nice to be at home when we’ve got the points. It doesn’t bother me one way or the other where we’re playing," he added.

“If we’re travelling, we’re travelling and we’re in the hotel. It’s not about home comforts, it’s about whether we get the points or not.”

McCarthy will be looking for an improvement to Town’s recent home record with the Blues having won just one of their last nine at Portman Road.

Following Saturday’s match Town face a tough trip to Brighton on Tuesday, then a similarly difficult visit to Burnley on January 2nd.

However, McCarthy says he’s currently only thinking about the QPR fixture: “Three big games but until we’ve played QPR, nothing will come into play with either of those.”

With three games coming in such quick succession the Town boss could be considering switching some of his personnel after naming an unchanged team for five matches.

Dean Gerken is certain to keep his place in goal and it would be a surprise if McCarthy were to change any of his back four, from the right, skipper Luke Chambers, Tommy Smith, Christophe Berra and Jonas Knudsen. Full-back Jonny Parr remained sidelined earlier in the week with a calf problem.

In midfield, Luke Hyam has returned from his loan spell at Rotherham but McCarthy hinted that the former academy player would be on the bench. Cole Skuse and Jonathan Douglas seem likely to continue in the centre, while Kevin Bru is another option.

Ryan Fraser could make his first start since returning to the club having undergone the rehab from his knee injury back with his parent club AFC Bournemouth.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles seems likely to be the man to drop out for the Scotland U21 international, who could line-up on the left with Freddie Sears switching to the right. Up front, the Town boss will probably continue with Daryl Murphy and Brett Pitman.

QPR are set to be without star striker Charlie Austin over the Christmas period, due to a hamstring injury.

James Perch is out having suffered a bad knee injury against Brighton, while Jamie Mackie has been sidelined since September with a hamstring problem. You can read our sister site Loft For Words' preview from a QPR perspective here and their look back at previous games between the clubs here.

Town have won 28 of the previous encounters between the sides (26 in the league), Rangers 25 (23) and 18 (17) have ended in draws.

The teams last met at Portman Road in January 2014 with Rangers on their way to promotion to the Premier League via the play-offs.

Second-half goals from Niko Kranjcar, Gary O’Neil and Armand Traore saw the visitors to a 3-1 victory, Tommy Smith volleying a spectacular injury time consolation for the Blues.

Town had been the better side before the break with QPR keeper Rob Green making an important stop to deny skipper Luke Chambers.

In the preceding August at Loftus Road, debutant sub Tom Hitchcock scored in the final minute to consign the Blues to a 1-0 defeat.

Town had gone close to going in front before the break when Green saved from Daryl Murphy, but it was all Rangers in the second half with Clint Hill and Charlie Austin both hitting the bar prior to Hitchcock’s last-gasp goal.

Emmanuel-Thomas joined Rangers after being released by Bristol City in the summer. The former Arsenal youngster made 43 starts and 32 sub appearances for the Blues, scoring nine goals, between July 2011 and July 2013. He has made seven starts and six sub appearances for the Rs, scoring five goals.

Australian international midfielder Luongo - an international team-mate of Tommy Oar - joined Town on loan from Spurs in the summer of 2012 and made eight starts and three sub appearances, scoring once, before McCarthy curtailed his spell at Portman Road shortly after taking over.

QPR striker Charlie Austin was close to joining Town from Swindon in January 2011 before signing for Burnley, who he left for Loftus Road in the summer of 2013.

Town midfielder Giles Coke was with QPR as a youth player, while Blues U21 coach Mark Kennedy was on loan with the Rs for just over a month in 1998, scoring twice in eight games.

Saturday’s referee is Darren Drysdale from Lincolnshire, who has shown 43 yellow cards and one red in 17 games so far this season.

His most recent Town game was the 5-2 win at Rotherham last month in which he booked only one Millers player.

Prior to that Drysdale took control of the 2-0 away win at Brighton in March 2014 in which he booked Tommy Smith and one home player. Earlier that season he was in charge of the 1-1 draw at Birmingham.

Squad from: Gerken, Bialkowski, Chambers (c), Knudsen, Berra, Smith, Malarczyk, Skuse, Douglas, Hyam, Coke, Tabb, Bru, Maitland-Niles, Fraser, Oar, Sears, Pitman, Murphy, Varney.

Photo: Action Images

_superblues_ added 06:23 - Dec 24 Is anybody else bored of mick talking up every team we play?
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Kirbmeister added 06:28 - Dec 24 In interview he was probably asked "what do you think of QPR then?" Perhaps he should have replied "they're sh.., relegation fodder all day long".
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Benters added 06:45 - Dec 24 superblues; well MMis right of course QPR do have as much a chance as anybody else,just like we have the chance of finishing top or mid table.
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Sir_Bob added 06:45 - Dec 24 Superblues..... Yep
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jas0999 added 06:50 - Dec 24 Regardless of what Mick says, this is a home game and after losing the previous two, failing to score a goal, anything but a home win will be a very disappointing result. Tough games to come which will help define our season.
7

muccletonjoe added 07:49 - Dec 24 Skuse and Douglas will be nowhere near good enough, as a midfield. No matter who else plays, we will lose out there.
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iaintaylorx added 07:53 - Dec 24 I would agree. QPR do have one of the strongest teams in the league and will still be a very tough game. Considering they also have a premier-league class striker in their squad, in Charlie Austin, I can't see us keeping a clean sheet...
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Flewitt85 added 08:14 - Dec 24 Maybe a tough game but the league table doesn't lie!! They are 12th and we are 6th and at home and need to win so I think we have a good chance.
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essexboy added 08:48 - Dec 24 Just wish MM would shut up about praising how good other teams are and just concentrate on ITFC.
3

ArnieM added 09:08 - Dec 24 By praising the opposition it leaves them with nothing to motivate their players with. Im sure the Town players are totally aware that MM is focused on his own players and how we will be approaching the game. The last thing you want is for any Club offical to say anthing disparaging about the opposition only to find it is used to motivate their players against us.
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Jimmy86 added 09:23 - Dec 24 I've got no qualms with Mick letting JET go as he was a luxury player we couldn't carry at the time. He has to go down as possibly the laziest player ever to pull on a town shirt. He was always swanning around in the pre match warm up as if he thought he didn't have to do it. Sending Luongo back was a strange 1 for me, guess he was younger at the time and we needed hardened pros to get us out of the mire we found ourselves in.

4

neillrumsey added 09:45 - Dec 24 Bigging up every am we play. MM has to stop this negative approach it must affect the players. It doesn't seem to matter who the opposition are he always talks them up. Why doesn't MM take the Arsene Wenger approach and let the opposition worry about us. We are the home side and must win this game if we want to compete at the top. Disagree with MM regarding Derby. I felt they were there for the taking but we were too negative. Happy Christmas 3 points boxing day please

0

Benters added 11:16 - Dec 24 essexboy; its called covering one's bottom.
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BlueKush added 11:53 - Dec 24 "Dean Gerken is certain to keep his place in goal" Ridiculous - the Derby goal went straight through him.
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bohslegend added 12:13 - Dec 24 @Kirbmeister Spot on! Phil, can you confirm for the numpties on here that journalists almost always ask managers "what do you think of the opposition?" What's a manager supposed top say? The default answer is - say nice things - because anything critical or negative will provide motivation for the opposing team. Two brain cells is all you need to figure that out and yet every time something like this is quoted, the same people come on here wanting to criticise the manager for "bigging up" the opposition. Gets my bloody goat, it does.

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Kirbmeister added 12:27 - Dec 24 Bohslegend- thanks, and when all said and done what bloody difference does it make what he says about the opposition.
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blueboy1981 added 13:41 - Dec 24 bohslegend ........... look in the mirror, I'm not saying you will (too respectful of others for that) - but you may just see a classic example of the people you so disgustingly describe yet again. But that's you - as we've come to expect. Brain cells ......... really ??- if it wasn't Xmas, I could have mistaken your comments for being around April 1st.
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Kirbmeister added 15:11 - Dec 24 Blueboy1981 - it's his opinion, it differs from yours. Isn't that the point of this site?
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neillrumsey added 15:16 - Dec 24 Bohslegend whether journalist's ask an open question about the opposition matters not. It's surely how you answer the question. QPR have a good strong squad but we can be everyone in this league especially at home. You are clearly a very intelligent man !!!
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warktheline added 15:19 - Dec 24 @kirbmeister, different opinions is obviously fine, if you re read bohslegend post you're notice, as usual, he continually mocks or insults forum users!! What kind of response would you expect?
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Kirbmeister added 15:24 - Dec 24 Ok no probs
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blueboy1981 added 15:26 - Dec 24 Kirbmeister .......... absolutely - but what it isn't - IS - a site for personal abuse, from the likes of the said person. Simple:- RESPECT for others - WITHOUT the need for abuse. Too much 'bigging up' can, and has, been seen as a ready made excuse for not achieving am expected result - and more dire entertainment.
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blueboy1981 added 17:24 - Dec 24 ..... 'an' - NOT - 'am'.
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TimmyH added 17:41 - Dec 24 I'm sure in an interview if Mick is asked about the opposition he could make a comment with some 'middle ground' rather than their sh*$ (bohslegends wording not mine) to play-off contenders but no Mick generally ALWAYS goes with the absolute positive about who we're playing against - how about 'not the team they were but can still be dangerous'...we all know currently QPR should be a team we take 3 points from at home.

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ChrisFelix added 19:37 - Dec 24 I agree an exceptional keeper would have saved the Derby goal
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