"Big, big, big" - QPR concerns over Ilias Chair, Karamoko Dembele blow | OneFootball

We asked our QPR fan pundit how impactful the absence of Karamoko Dembele and Ilias Chair could be

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

As if QPR's season wasn't going badly enough, injuries to Karamoko Dembele and Ilias Chair have served as additional crushing blows as the R's bid to fight off relegation.

Marti Cifuentes' side sit bottom of the pile in the Championship and things are looking incredibly bleak for them in the midst of an 11 game winless league run.

Losing two of their most creative sparks certainly hasn't helped their quest to get their heads back above water, but having proved last season they could turn it on in the second half of the season, hope isn't all lost yet.

Whether they can do that or not remains to be seen, but we asked our QPR fan pundit Louis Moir whether he can see his side turning things around if that duo are out long term.

Our fan pundit struggles to see a way in which QPR can turn their season around without their injured duo, but even with them available, he still believes the R's are destined for the drop.

Speaking to Football League World on the absence of Dembele and Chair, he said: "The current state of the injury crisis at the club is pretty ridiculous. You could near enough make a starting XI of players that are out.

"Chair and Dembele are big, big, big, big players for us and with the lack of creativity going forward it's obviously going to hinder us.

"I think for a fact, Dembele is going to be out for a while and it looks like Chair is going to be out for a number of weeks so there's no chance that either of them are coming back after the international break.

"With us where we are now, sat rock bottom going into that break, it's a horrendous position to be in and I just can't see a way that we're going to get ourselves out of it with severe injuries or not.

"Even when we didn't have this huge injury crisis, we still weren't playing that well at all.

"No matter who's playing, you can't excuse the way we're conceding goals or the lack of effort that's being put in.

"We just look weak and we've looked weak all over the pitch all season, hence why we're bottom of the league and we're the easiest team to play against and I just can't see a way in which we get out of this. We look destined to go down."

The stats paint a dismal picture for QPR

Cifuentes is certainly a man under pressure at QPR, and he won't be resting easily over the international break, with huge question marks now lingering over his future at the club.

After their remarkable run towards the end of last season, it's a position few Rangers fans believed they'd find themselves in at this point, but having now played a third of the season almost, things aren't getting much better.

Those stats certainly don't paint a pretty picture, so it's easy to understand why our QPR fan pundit is so concerned for his side's future.

With news that Dembele and Chair are both facing lengthy spells out, Cifuentes will likely be glad of the international break, which should at least allow him to get some of the other absentees closer to fitness.