Burnley v QPR

The Clarets welcome Queen’s Park Rangers to the Turf this weekend for what is the final Saturday home game of the season.

Clarets’ boss Steve Cotterill is faced with a number of welcome selection problems ahead of the game thanks to the return to fitness of Micah Hyde and John McGreal. Both came through a midweek reserve game at Bamber Bridge against Preston and will be pushing for a starting place.

McGreal and Hyde to return?

The Hoops have lost in all of their last three visits to Turf Moor, extending a run which has seen them not win here for 26 years. You have to go back to our disastrous 1979/80 season for the last QPR victory, Rangers winning 3-0 here in a season which saw the Clarets relegated to the Third Division.

They are currently on a run which has seen them not pick up a victory since a fantastic 3-2 victory at Sheffield United some six weeks ago. They then drew their next four and have lost the last two. These were both home defeats, losing 2-1 to Stoke, and then disastrously losing 2-1 last weekend to relegation candidates Crewe.

Rangers go into the game with new boss Gary Waddock expected to ring the changes following two successive defeats. Kevin Gallen returns from a three-game ban, while Scott Donnelly, Stefan Bailey, Georges Santos, and Shabazz Baidoo will all be pushing for a starting place. Sammy Youssof and Matthew Rose will face fitness tests, with Youssof looking particularly doubtful with a back injury.

The Clarets as we know welcome back John McGreal and Micah Hyde, and with Wade Elliott, Garreth O'Connor, Duane Courtney, Danny Karbassiyoon, Kyle Lafferty and John Spicer all playing for the reserves in midweek, there really is healthy competition for not just the starting eleven, but also for the subs bench.

Cotterill has said he will experiment in these final few games, and the starting eleven and the bench is anyone’s guess at the moment. He will certainly welcome the competition though and following the ITV Digital collapse (sorry), it looks like we are finally starting to get a squad together.

Next season will see us start with a healthy number of players for the first time in four years, and although that is what we are all looking forward to now, let’s hope we can pick up some points to see us move up the table and finish this season in a respectable position.