Harry Redknapp insists a top-six finish would be a good achievement for Queens Park Rangers, despite their start to the season.
Having suffered relegation from the Premier League last term, many pundits made the Loftus Road club favourites to bounce straight back into the top-flight. And this looked to be a reasonable assessment when the Londoners avoided defeat in their opening 11 matches in the Championship, of which they won eight and drew three.
However, they have recently endured a dip in form, and the 1-0 defeat at Charlton Athletic on Saturday was their third consecutive loss, meaning they have slipped to fourth in the table and seven points behind second-placed Burnley. Although Redknapp believes his players can still accumulate enough points from their remaining 15 fixtures to clinch automatic promotion, he also feels a playoff finish is acceptable.
“This is the first blip we’ve had all season, it can happen,” he told Alan Brazil’s breakfast show on TalkSPORT. “We have put a new team together and if you said at the start of the season that we’d make the play-offs, we’d have been quite happy. But when you’re up there all season, you get disappointed when you lose a few games. We can still make automatic, it’s not impossible. If we end up in the play-offs, I’d still fancy us.”
QPR are back in action next weekend, when Leeds United visit the capital for a Saturday lunchtime kick-off. The Whites were held to a goalless draw against Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium, which has damaged their chances of finishing in the playoff places. Brian McDermott’s side currently trail sixth-place Reading by seven points.
