There is still a job to do before QPR walk into Southampton, but Julien Stephan has at least given them something they badly needed: a bit of late-week hope. The head coach sounded cautiously optimistic on Wednesday that Ilias Chair, Boy Kemper and Alfie Lloyd could all be available for Saturday’s trip, even if one of them is still carrying more uncertainty than the others.
That matters because QPR have spent enough time this season juggling fitness concerns without needing another awkward selection headache. Chair has been out since 5 September, when he went off after 14 minutes of the home game against Middlesbrough. Kemper, who has recently returned from an ankle injury, hobbled off at the weekend during the 5-0 win over Swansea and then missed training in the early part of the week. Lloyd, meanwhile, scored in the 4-1 home win against Derby and has now trained in part, which is hardly the same as being fully over the line but is certainly better than a blank injury bulletin.
Stephan plays it carefully, but the signs are better than bad
Stephan did not try to sell certainty where there was none. He said he would wait until the big training session to be sure Chair and Lloyd were available for the next game, and he made clear it was still early in the week. That is the sensible line, because football managers love optimism right up until they have to write the team sheet and discover reality has other plans.
Still, the tone was encouraging. Stephan said it was quite positive that both would be OK, while also stressing that he needed the full session to confirm it. On Kemper, the message was similar: he did not train, but Stephan believed it would be OK by the end of the week. Not a doctor, he added, which is probably wise, but optimistic all the same.
The one real warning light in the whole update was Jake Clarke-Salter. Stephan was much less certain about him, admitting there was more of a question mark and that he did not know whether the defender would be available by the end of the week. In a week when QPR need clarity, that is the part that still leaves the picture unfinished.
So the short version is this: QPR are not walking into Southampton with a fully clean bill of health, but the situation is better than it might have been. Chair, Kemper and Lloyd all have a live chance of making the squad, and for a team heading into a tricky away test, that is no small thing.
