Northern Ireland international has faith he and QPR colleague can get the goals need to fire west Londoners up table ahead of Reading clash on Saturday

Brent & Kilburn Times: Matt Smith scored for Queens Park Rangers in their friendly defeat at Union Berlin on Monday night (pic: Steve Paston/PA)Matt Smith scored for Queens Park Rangers in their friendly defeat at Union Berlin on Monday night (pic: Steve Paston/PA) (Image: PA Wire/PA Images)

Conor Washington is confident he and fellow Queens Park Rangers forward Matt Smith can strike up a good partnership in the Championship this season.

The QPR forward pair linked up in attack against Bournemouth in a 1-0 pre-season defeat, but dovetailed well despite not scoring.

Both Washington and Smith will hope they have done enough to keep hold of their starting berths to face Reading on the opening day this Saturday.

And the 25-year-old hopes to get more opportunities in attack over the course of the campaign than he managed during pre-season.

“That’s the first time I’ve played up top this pre-season, which is a bit disappointing for me, but hopefully I start there and get to play there this year,” said the Northern Ireland international.

“Matt and I had a good partnership going towards the end of last year and I managed to get a few goals when I played up there in a two.”

Against Bournemouth on Saturday, QPR looked dangerous on the counter-attack, especially in the opening 25 minutes.

Washington himself missed two chances to open the scoring for the Loftus Road club, before Jordon Ibe netted what proved to be the winner for the Cherries in the 41st minute.

Despite the defeat, there were certainly positives for the west Londoners to take from the match, particularly their organisational work without the ball.

And Washington admits that the Rs may have to employ a similar game plan in the opening weeks of the Championship campaign.

“There are going to be a lot of games, especially in the first five matches, where we’re not going to have as much as much of the ball as we’d like,” added the Northern Ireland international.

“Teams like Reading want to keep the ball and pass it, but we need to be confident in ourselves, confident in our shape and then break from that and hurt teams.”

With nine months of hard work to start on Saturday, Washington will hope to hurt teams with his goals.