QPR's Promising Start: Progress with Caution

Queens Park Rangers have opened the season with a swagger that has been missing in recent years, but one of the club’s closest observers is urging a little restraint.

Ian McCullough, a QPR supporter and journalist, sees genuine progress in the way the side has started – particularly in the depth that now sits behind the starting XI.

At Blackburn at the weekend, he felt the difference was obvious.

“They won the game through the strength of the bench,” McCullough said, pointing to an area that so often exposed QPR last season. This time, the replacements changed the game rather than simply filling shirts. “They've got a real quality on the bench that they didn't have last season. In that kind of side the club has progressed.”

That, for a fanbase used to thin squads and tired legs, is no small shift. The sense is that QPR can now influence matches late on, not just hang on and hope.

But McCullough is not getting carried away, and he does not think others should either.

He notes that the early fixture list has been kind. “As I keep saying with QPR, they've played three teams really that they should be beating – Blackburn, Portsmouth, Bolton. Had they lost any of those games, questions would be asked.”

So the mood around Loftus Road is brighter, the squad looks deeper, and the bench finally carries weight. The real measure will come when QPR face opponents they are not simply expected to beat – and when that new-found depth is tested under real pressure.