Queens Park Rangers will be looking to play with freedom as they look to climb back up the Championship league table when they face Bristol City this weekend.

The R’s will make the trip to Ashton Gate Stadium on Saturday on the back of facing Barnsley last night (Wednesday) as they looked to bounce back from a 2-1 defeat to Birmingham City which saw them slip from mid-table down towards the drop zone.

The Championship is extremely tight with just three to five points between teams placed 10th and 18th.

Manager Mark Warburton will be keen to put the last match behind them as he blamed the poor state of the pitch in part for his side's 2-1 loss at Birmingham.

Charlie Austin opened the scoring for the visitors at St Andrew's, volleying home from Todd Kane's right-wing cross in the 44th minute.

But Stefan Johansen missed a one-on-one chance and Macauley Bonne wasted two opportunities, before Kristian Pedersen levelled with only eight minutes remaining.

Alen Halilovic then curled home Birmingham's winner from 20 yards three minutes later, securing their first home win in 13 games.

And a disappointed Warburton said: "I felt the pitch was really poor. It was tough for both teams, hence you didn't see a nice game of football.

"You saw balls being lumped forward because it was so hard for players to make good decisions.

"The pitch is dry, rutted and it's a really difficult playing surface for good players. For both teams it was very challenging.

"But we had the one bit of quality in the first half when, after a great ball in, Charlie put in a great finish.

"We were in control then and what we had to do was do the ugly side in the second half better than we did.

"Stefan Johansen had a huge chance to make it 2-0. That was the deciding moment.

"But he looked down at the pitch, it bobbled over when he would finish those nine times out of 10.

"Unfortunately we didn't defend the second phase very well (for the equaliser) and we let ourselves down in the last five minutes."