BORO v Queens Park Rangers (The Championship)
The Riverside Sat 13th December 2025 ko 3pm
Well, here we go again! Another game in this helter-skelter Championship season, where the games come along with the frequency of winter rainstorms. I type this as Storm Bram is retreating into the North Atlantic after doing its work principally along the island of Ireland, the West coast of Great Britain and especially the far North of Scotland and the Northern Isles. The Teesside area did not escape the wild winds and rain but the Pennines and Northern England had it worse. In songwriting terms trains, boats and planes (in addition to travel by road) have been greatly inconvenienced if not completely cancelled for the storm at its height.
One gentleman on social media quipped that Kim Hellberg is probably building an Ark at present, having experienced only rain (and sometimes winds) in Biblical proportions since he arrived in Middlesbrough. Maybe KH will think the weather here is always wet and windy despite the fact that Middlesbrough, Hull and London are all amongst the lowest rainfall areas in the UK and we are not generally in a hurricane belt. Let’s hope boat building is part of Kim’s Scandinavian skillset.
In case you read this, Kim Hellberg, I don’t want to make this piece concentrate too much on your Arrival at Boro, comparing too much with the situation on The Day Before You Came. However your being Swedish does make that very tempting. Instead of referencing the beautiful harmonies that well-directed personnel create, the snappy and varied tempo and the classical creativity shown by the artists on display, I might instead refer to more a Progressive feeling about the current enterprise.
The opposition in this, Kim Hellberg’s fourth fixture in the hotseat at Middlesbrough, will be Queens Park Rangers. We know them by their nicknames: the Os, the Hoops from their classic blue and white striped shirts, or even the Rs. But perhaps not so known on this Blog where we have a history of posts (prompted by Jarkko’s enquiry) about the activity of previous QPR Club Secretary Ron Phillips. He decided the club literature and signage would look “better” by removing the apostrophe from the club’s name. So, despite the fact the apostrophe remains in the name of the green area known as Queen’s Park, and in the name of the local Underground railway station, the football club is now officially known as Queens Park Rangers. This was apparently to the distaste of the official club historian Gordon Macey. Both Phillips and Macey are no longer with us, which is probably no surprise since this decision was made during the 1967-68 season. Perhaps we should know QPR as “The Missing Apostrophes”, or does that too much like a Progressive Rock Band?
As mentioned above the season’s fixtures come along at speed and in flurries. When completed, this Match Preview should be posted the day after the game away at Charlton Athletic played yesterday evening on Tuesday 9th December (in other words posting on the morning of Wednesday 10th December). Otherwise it would drop onto screens across the world very late for this Saturday match.
The League season so far:
Played Won Drawn Lost For A GD Pts Posn
BORO 20 11 6 3 30 21 9 39 2
QPR 20 9 4 7 27 30 -3 31 6
(after the matches on Tuesday 9th December 2025)
Recent Form (most recent games last):
BORO W D L W W W. (Tuesday’s 2-1 win at Charlton)
QPR D W W L W W. (Tuesday’s 2-1 home win against Birmingham)
Boro’s Opponents:
It still seems strange to say this, but Boro’s head coach has been in post for a shorter period than his opposite number at QPR. Julien Stéphan is young(ish) at 43 years even though he is older than Boro’s head coach (37 years). He has twice previously managed the home-town club (Rennes) for which he played as a defensive midfielder, with a spell in charge at Strasbourg between those two stints coaching Rennes. He was appointed to his position at QPR in June 2025.
Does football management remind you of a merry-go-round or a fairground Roundabout? Then try this to see if this upsets your equilibrium. Stéphan’s predecessor at QPR was one Marti Cifuentes Corvillo (MCC). He had previously been the coach at a certain Swedish club called Hammarby IF, about which most Boro supporters probably knew very little until a month ago. MCC coached Hammarby from 12th January 2022 until he left with immediate effect on 30th October 2023, with 2 fixtures of the season left to play. That enabled him to join QPR.
MCC remained at QPR from 30th October 2023 until he was placed on “gardening leave” on 29th April 2025 (it was reported he’d been in contact with West Bromwich Albion over that club’s vacant manager’s role although he was not put on the shortlist for that job). Two months later his employment at QPR came to an end, when he was replaced by Julien Stéphan.
MCC had been in charge of QPR on 26th April 2024 when The Missing Apostrophes beat Leeds United 4-0 in a game which saw QPR secure its Championship status and ultimately sealed the promotion of Leicester City back to the Premier League, finishing Champions after one season away. Don’t blink though, because Leicester has already returned to The Championship following that promotion, as did both Ipswich Town and the 2023-24 Play-Off winners Southampton. All 3 clubs spent only one season amongst the “Big Boys”.
So, colour me surprised if you wish, but MCC was then appointed to manage Leicester City on 15th July 2025 following their most recent relegation. But, with all this resembling “The Twilight Zone” as much as a Roundabout, it seems to me that if MCC’s career at Leicester takes a turn for the worse, he could always offer his services to Blackburn Rovers where two recent games have been abandoned before completion due to flooding. If the weather near his home has been anything like that in North Yorkshire, MCC will have had plenty of time to improve the drainage in his garden during his 2 months QPR gardening leave this spring. He could make some money giving consultancy drainage advice to Rovers.
Upfront, Jamaican Rumarn Burrell (a £1M buy from Burton Albion this July) has 9 league goals for QPR this season and Ivorian Richard Kone (£2.75M from Wycombe Wanderers in August) has 4 goals. Meanwhile Japanese left winger Koki Saito cost £2.78M from Lommel SK in Belgium and he joined in August 2025. QPR has invested a little over £8M in players this season.
French goalkeeper Paul Nardi (who has ALSO played for Rennes – all this Roundabout stuff makes me sound like a Yes man) has kept 4 clean sheets and, whilst now 31 years old, he has played U17, U18, U19, U20 and U21 football for France but not for the full national team.
Their Last Games:
On Tuesday 9th December 2025 Boro successfully travelled to Charlton where a 2-0 lead at half-time was converted to a 2-1 win after a nervy last 10 minutes or so (the team conceding an Edmundson own goal on 81 minutes). It was a good performance and a very good result. On the other hand QPR held a 1-0 lead for over 50 minutes at home to Birmingham City before the fireworks started in injury time. Birmingham equalised on 90+3 and then QPR went up the other end to score the winner in 90+6 (goals by Dunne and Morgan for those Missing Apostrophes).
That means Boro remains in 2nd place but is now only 5 points (FIVE for those who remember the old BBC teleprinter) behind Coventry City at the top of the league, and five points ahead of Millwall in 3rd place (with Millwall to play away at Derby on Wednesday 10th December). At the time of typing, a 9 points gap separates Boro from 7th placed Stoke City (the team immediately below the Play-Off positions for those who saw Play-Offs as the club’s 2025-26 main objective).
There are those who had already awarded the Championship title to Coventry City but that team has now drawn its last game against 10-man Preston, having lost its previous game 3-0 at Ipswich. A lead of 10 points for Coventry over Boro last week is therefore now down to 5 and, as we all know, all teams can hit a difficult spell at some point in the season. Maybe, just maybe….
Where does this take us?
Firstly, you’d think the amount of rain we’ve had recently would fill all the Topographic Oceans which might exist so it will be interesting to see whether the sprinklers will still be in use at The Riverside prior to the match. But as to the game itself, it’s Your Move as much as mine to predict the outcome. To give my Five per Cent for Nothing, I’m beginning to get more than hopeful about this season although I’ve Seen All Good People, many of whom used to go to the Riverside with me, drift away from Boro over recent years. Hopefully their replacement by others is now under way! However, being the supporter of a football club like the Boro is to be the Owner of a Lonely Heart most years. Maybe this year things will be different.
For THIS game, after the midweek results, Boro has 13 points out of the last 18 in the last 6 games. So does QPR after the late show against Birmingham. However, Boro’s three successive wins come immediately after a change of Head Coach with Kim Hellberg hardly having time to put on his training-ground kit before finding his new team (OUR team!) entering a full-on list of pre-Christmas fixtures. The change in the performances and the results have come after a period when the team appeared to have stalled following Boro’s stellar start to the season. The football is Progressive and the ground will Rock if this improvement continues.
A month ago some players seemed on the way out. Morgan Whittaker has played 19 league games for Boro in the current season and had been singled out for criticism by some supporters for his lack of contribution to the team performances. In recent weeks, under Adi Viveash when he was “holding the reins” and then under Hellberg, Whittaker has been transformed into a goal machine who also contributes to the game generally.
Or we could look at Alex Gilbert who had almost disappeared from the team and was actually sent out on loan to Charlton Athletic in January 2025 for the rest of the season. Yet Gilbert returned this season and was given a surprise start in the match against Hull on 5th December, when he played so well and scored a good goal, so that he started again at QPR. Or perhaps Riley McGree, who we KNOW has always had the talent but seemed either long-term injured or had been simply forgotten or sidelined. All three, and others, appear to have turned their season (maybe their careers) around and, with that, the fortunes of the club.
An increasingly restive feeling about the style of football and the results under the Coach Who Cannot Be Named has been replaced with an infectious optimism under his recently appointed replacement. That might even be to underplay the degree to which the atmosphere surrounding Middlesbrough Football Club has changed in such a short time. It is as though Kim Hellberg has flicked the switch “on” and we can now hear the music. It is well structured, inventive and often loud!
It is difficult to believe that Hellberg has been head coach and in charge of the team only for the last three games. Some of the players appear to have had a new lease of life. A new page in the album seems to have been turned over.
The team currently stands second in the league table but if we could just Hold On, then perhaps It Can Happen to our club. If things continue as they have in the last three matches, I can foresee being delivered to The Gates of Delirium. The old Ayresome Angels may morph into Starship Troopers as this new craft rises into the heavens. But, before we are carried away with our newly found confidence and enthusiasm, we must remember that the league season is a Long Distance Runaround and certainly not a sprint.
The game at home to QPR may hold its own threats because that team is clearly “on the up” having entered the Play-Off positions following Tuesday’s round of games. But Boro will have an important home advantage, and I am sure an ebullient home crowd will play its noisy part.
I don’t want to feel Close to the Edge but I want Boro to Make It Easy. I’d love it (to quote Kevin Keegan) if at the end of this season, and after several previous seasons of disappointment, we Boro supporters can look back and tell Wonderous Stories about 2025-26. I hope that Boro can Lift Me Up.
lf asked whether I believe Boro will win, I’ll shout a confident “YES!” Lift off can be achieved on Saturday. If you doubt it, wait until you see OFB’s score prediction.
Forever Dormo 10th December 2025
Correction in about the last third of the piece, where I mentioned Alex Gilbert had started (and scored) at Hull on 5th December, and started again at QPR last night. Of course instead of QPR I meant to say Charlton. The whole Match Preview is about the QPR game so Gilbert could hardly have already played in that!
Many thanks FD, another excellent preview to add to the list this season and many before. We are blessed on Diasboro.
No time to post properly but just wanted to say thanks and to note that the particularly eagle-eyed among you may recall that QPR top scorer, Rumann Burrell, was on the books at Boro for a little while - singed as a project for the youth squad from Grimsby Town.
A hallamnby fan just posted this on twitter
"Supporters of Boro - don’t panic! In all teams Kim Hellberg managed so far he had a bit of a rough start.
Once the players fully get into his way of thinking - both results and style of play will improve! Hang in there!"
😱
@paulinboro - If three successive wins with "lost" players miraculously reappearing for those games is a bit of a "rough start", I'll take it any time of the season! Imagine what it might be like when results and style of play improve! Is that possible? I suppose 6-1 at Hull and 4-1 at QPR would be an improvement but it seems a little greedy to ask for much more than we have had so far!
Well that has certainly put me in a good mood for a day, with yes songs all coming to mind. A wonderfully creative and progressive opener FD. You are certainly the new squire of the opening piece, and you and I both know where this post is going. I mean, howe I could leave it without joining in your tribute to one of the best bands from these shores. You had to be awake, man, to catch all your clever, but appropriate references. This being a football blog of course, I was just waiting for a mention of Roger Dean the renowned Australian footballer of yesteryear – then I remembered he was an Aussie Rules man (to be honest it was Google that remembered that one for me !)
Another brilliant opener to join the growing catalog of number one hits, and to set us up for the ritual that is a Saturday afternoon at the match. Thank you
A great starter, FD. Who’d have thought you’d be a Yes man?
No time to post properly but just wanted to say thanks and to note that the particularly eagle-eyed among you may recall that QPR top scorer, Rumann Burrell, was on the books at Boro for a little while - singed as a project for the youth squad from Grimsby Town.
Did Burrell then move on because he got burnt at Boro, Andy? 😉
No time to post properly but just wanted to say thanks and to note that the particularly eagle-eyed among you may recall that QPR top scorer, Rumann Burrell, was on the books at Boro for a little while - singed as a project for the youth squad from Grimsby Town.
Did Burrell then move on because he got burnt at Boro, Andy? 😉
😆😆 I did warn that I didn’t have time to post properly!
@powmillnaemore - YES - it was Roger Dean who designed a large proportion of the album covers for the records issued by the band. I had it mind that Hipgnosis had been responsible but, in fact, that design group only did a small number (though responsible for many LP covers, gatefolds etc for a whole crowd of other artists like Pink Floyd, 10cc, Wishbone Ash, Peter Gabriel and others). Happy Days. Just like these days, following Boro...
Always good to read anything you write, Dormo. So this was a very enjoyable opener since, as a Renaissance Man, you are knowledgeable about most things, apart from how to write a dull sentence. I appreciated all of your background research on QPR, and feel well informed about what should be a good game as well as an important one for both sides.
I'm afraid I'm not very well-informed about the musical tastes of you young bloggers, but I appreciated the ingenuity of all of the references to songs and groups about which I am culpably ignorant. Many thanks for all of the work and thought that went into your piece.
It's a real honour to read your comments, Len. Thank you. I will now float off to the Poisoned Penguin for a few hours.
Forever Dormo, Just brilliant and by yourself with that article you have banished the 'Black Dog', that has cheered me up no end. Thank you! The smoke has cleared from the water and mostly in my mind.
I shared an office with a Yes fan who used to play them all the time and it drove me mad. Never mind I was always more of a 'Safe as milk' fan myself along with a lot of other bands too.
Here's hoping the 'Marton Oracle' is on form too.
Once again many thanks to you and all the other headline writers too. Many, many thanks.
UTB,
John
Wow, Dormo! What a great read! Thanks for all the huge effort you’ve put into this tremendous opener!
I’m really looking forward to Saturday’s game, especially if this is the one where Hellberg finally gets over his ‘rough patch!’
Great read, Dormo. Excellent reading, really.
I still do not understand the Hoops name change. 'Queen's' has a different meaning than 'Queens' - so how someone can change that. As you say, the place is STILL called Queen's Park.
Well, it’s like Middlesborough would be misspeled one day Middlesbrough. Or maybe not a good example. Mistakes happen ...
About the gap to Coventry. It is currently five points. But do you ever wonder, IF Tommy Conway had scored (well, we all MUST remember the chance he had late in the game at 2-2) against Coventry, we would have most propably won the game. And if we had won, we WOULD be one (1) point ABOVE Coventry already now.
So small margins in football as we use to say!
Up the Boro!
@jarkko I was just reflecting on the very same thing. Ken used to get vexed on here about talk of a six-pointer game, quite rightly pointing out that only 3 points are ever at stake. However, that game does seem to be the epitome of the 6 point game. If only TC had scored, we’d probably be back on top now.
Thanks, gentlemen, for the kind words about the Match Preview. It was a bit of a rush to put it together after the game at Charlton but, in view of the reaction, it was clearly worthwhile. Even more so in light of the comments by John Richardson. It's always a good thing to banish the Black Dog back into his outside kennel. Let's hope he stays there, and three points in the QPR game can't do any harm in that regard.
Incidentally and since I mentioned "penguin" in my last post, that is one of the small number of Welsh words which have transferred into English. The English language has proved an aggressive language in terms of its spread not only within the UK but across the whole world. That, of course, has been fuelled by political and economic considerations. Ingoring the very direct discouragement against speaking Welsh represented by the "Welsh NOT", which will be known by any person of Welsh extraction, until fairly recently there will have been educational, employment and social advantages to speaking English rather than Welsh. The result is that even within Wales the speaking of the Old Language has been actively discouraged amongst those wishing to "get on in life" for many centuries. This is the opposite of other languages where knowledge of Greek, Latin and French (for example) has been seen as a "good thing" and words coming from those languages into English have been a torrent.
Pen (head) and gwyn (white) - thus penguin in English - is said to have been first used by Welsh sailors to describe the Great Auk, now extinct, and the name has been adopted for the penguins in the southern hemisphere which have a similar shape. The first English use of penguin is understood to date back to 1577. More of the commonly found Welsh words can be seen in describing geographical features of the land which have subsequenlty been adopted by the incoming Saxons or whatever. So "Pen y Ghent", the hill in Yorkshire (head, or hill, on the border), Penhill (the hill in Wensleydale - so a tautology hill-hill or top hill in English), Aber as in Aberdeen, Aberfeldy, Aberystwyth etc meaning "mouth", and "Afon" which in Welsh means river and has been used all over these islands.
You can imagine an incomer pointing to a natural feature and asking the local what it, or its name, is. "Afon" comes the reply. So that becomes one of the many Rivers Avon.
@martin-bellamy Even a draw would have made the do just two points.
Had he scored. Bugger.
Up the Boro!
Do we honestly need to keep referring to Conway’s “missed” opportunity against Coventry, I am sure the man himself doesn’t need reminding, let’s look at or refer to his many positive contributions to the team. He may be suffering a loss of confidence in front of goal, which I am sure will return, he still gives 100% for the team and his work rate has contributed to victories, so don’t “play the man”.
Come on BORO.
@exmil - I think all of us on this Blog want to see Conway score a goal, probably in the hope that the long-awaited goal will open the floodgates and others will pour out shortly afterwards. I heard Kim Hellberg say it is his job to improve players, to make them better players. If he can do that with Conway then it could save the club millions...
I don't think we can discount the possibiity that Hellberg WILL improve Conway. After all just look at Whittaker, Gilbert, Bangura and McGree. Do they look better players now than, say, 8 weeks ago? Having said which, is it now 15 games since Conway last scored? Obviously a striker must strike every now and then. What if that became 20 games? Twenty five? Perhaps something is going on between Hellberg and Conway right now, because Hellberg is obviously aware of the issue.
Wow, what an excellently crafted piece of journalism, thank you FD for an enjoyable and musical read.
I am hoping that we can accrue a minimum of seven points from the next three games in order to try and keep the chasing pack at bay. Both Southampton and Ipswich are making rapid progress after slow starts and I suspect they will be there or there about come the end of the season.
I am also conscious that the next three games are also potential banana skins, as we have struggled against QPR, Bristol City and Blackburn in previous seasons.
Hopefully DS will have recovered from illness and will be able to start instead of DB, that apart it should be the same team again and ideally another win without any second half drama! CoB 😎
@exmil I think the context in which @Jarkko and I raised this issue is perfectly acceptable. Neither of us offered up a criticism of “the man”, we merely discussed what could have been.
As a striker, your job is to score goals. If Sol Bryn had failed to do his job in front of his goal, I’m sure he’d have had plenty of criticism and there’d have been calls for him to be replaced.
At the moment, TC looks to be struggling positionally - he’s obviously desperate to score and I don’t blame him for that. In a parallel universe, Whittaker would have squared the ball to him against Charlton and he’d have had a tap in (or over the bar!) - as it happened, MW scored instead.
I’d be very happy if our new manager can get him back on track - a goal soon could make all the difference.
Many thanks for your preview,which is appreciated taking into consideration the busy time of the year for everyone.
i did do a post all drafted out and lost it into the ether ! Ball cocks !
Grateful thanks for your work.
Just one point I thought of the other evening while watching our rejuvenated players returning to the first team,
Managers make players, coaches make players they need to be welcomed. Some need an arm around them some a kick up the arsenal ?
Mcgree a case in point ! He was fit to play for Australia but didn’t seem to want to play for Boro. Had he a falling out with Carrick or Woodgate ?
Pleased to see him back in the fold .
Management in any industry is a combination of father figure, confidant or headmaster to teach and instruct and command by example or leadership. Quality shines out in any discipline!
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OFB