Norwich v QPR: Championship – live!

What a fine goal! Godfrey drives a long crossfield pass to find the full-back Aarons in all kinds of space on the right side of the area. He looks up and plays a precise low cross to the similiarly unmarked Buendia, who drags the ball into the corner from eight yards. It was beautifully constructed, a really neat move, although QPR’s defending was on the shambolic side of negligent.

5 min Norwich are already playing some lovely stuff. They look so confident and purposeful in possession. You’d hope so after seven straight wins, but even so, it’s very nice to watch.

2 min An early half-chance for Norwich. Buendia shovels a nice pass through the inside-right channel for Pukki, who looks offside but is allowed to play on. He moves into the area and slams a shot from a very tight angle that is claimed at the second attempt by Lumley.

1 min A good start from QPR. Cousins’ inswinging cross from the left is headed towards his own goal by the under-pressure Godfrey, and Krul makes a comfortable save.

1 min Peep peep! QPR get the match under way. They are wearing their fuchsia pink (sic) away strip; Norwich are in yellow and green.

Norwich manager Daniel Farke has picked the same starting XI for the eighth consecutive game, so he has. QPR’s caretaker manager John Eustace makes five changes.

Norwich City (4-2-3-1) Krul; Aarons, Zimmerman, Godfrey, Lewis; Trybull, McLean; Buendia, Stiepermann, Hernandez; Pukki.
Substitutes: McGovern, Vrancic, Leitner, Rhodes, Klose, Hanley, Cantwell.

Queens Park Rangers (4-2-3-1) Lumley; Rangel, Furlong, Lynch, Bidwell; Cameron, Cousins; Wszolek, Eze, Freeman; Wells.
Substitutes: Ingram, Leistner, Scowen, Manning, Osayi-Samuel, Hemed, Smith.

Referee Scott Duncan.

Plot spoiler: Norwich City will be playing Premier League football next season. Seven straight wins have given them a seven-point promotion cushion with seven games to go, and it’s nigh-on impossible to see them blowing it now.

They have been up and down a few times in recent years, but I suppose it’s better to be a yo-yo club than a dodo club. And those of us who used alleviate the extremities of puberty in the late 1980s and early 1990s will always feel the world is a slightly better place when Norwich are doing well.

They should have too much today for a QPR side that have lost 10 of their last 13 games, a run that prompted the sacking of Steve McClaren this week. QPR have been up and down a fair bit in the past decade, too, but at the moment the Premier League feels a mile away. If their miserable run continues to the end of the season, they might even end up in League One.

Kick off is at 12.30pm.