Queens Park Rangers (A) Schumacher's Preview

After a defeat away at Sky Bet Championship leaders Leicester City on Saturday, Argyle now face three teams who share the bottom eight positions in the division.

The Pilgrims travel to Queens Park Rangers on Wednesday night, before two home games before Christmas against Rotherham United and Birmingham City.

Manager Steven Schumacher says that getting some points from this trio of games is important, and could help the Pilgrims’ league position. However, he is far from taking them lightly, and recognises the immediate threat of QPR, who have won their last three games.

He said: “If you can pick points up against these three teams, then you pull away from them, but they'll be thinking exactly the same. You just got to take it as it comes. Just focus on QPR, try to beat them if we can, or get a result away from home if we can.

“Then we’ll come back to Saturday and get ready for that one.

“It's a busy period. We knew that we were playing teams in the bottom half of the division: let's see how we get on.

“If you look at our results, we're not far away; eight points from the top six and whatever it is, it's so tight, and it's always like that. The teams that can be consistent with their performances do tend to do well, but getting back-to-back wins isn't easy.

“As long as you keep sticking the points on the board as often as you can, then as you can see, it's so tight and anyone can move up and down. It's just staying calm, keep believing in what we're doing, knowing where we're at, knowing what we're up against and keep moving forward regardless.”

QPR sacked previous manager Gareth Ainsworth, and replaced him with Marti Cifuentes who, since taking over, has lost just one of six games, including winning the last three in succession.

The wins have lifted the previously ailing Hoops to 19 points from their 20 games in 22nd place, leaving them three points and four places behind Argyle.

“We're going to a team in QPR who are in really good form, three wins on the spin, which isn't easy in the Championship,” said Schumacher.

“We have to make sure we put in a perfect performance to get an away win that we all desperately want. 

“I think when they changed manager, that made a huge difference. When you look at QPR's squad, it's full of talented players. It's got loads of good individuals who like to play a certain way.

“Marti's gone in there and done a really good job, found a way to get the best out of [Chris] Willock and [Ilias] Chair; Paul Smyth's chipped in with a few goals and Lyndon Dykes is a really good player.

“[Cifuentes] has found a way to utilise his best assets and they've had some great results over the last few weeks. The three wins on the spin for them has put them right back into the mix. They'll come into the game with confidence, and we have to make sure that we're ready for it.

“I think the best way to try and get results against them is to try and attack. I've just mentioned their forward players there, but we feel as though if we're on it, we've got creative, good forward players as well.

“We need to make less errors away from home. Big turnovers right in your own half can cost you because all the teams have got quality, so we have to sort of be aware of that.

“We need to look after the ball more, pass it properly and then, when we get into the attacking half, be clinical again. We got into some brilliant areas on Saturday; I lost count of how many times we got into the penalty box. We had 15 shots, but didn't manage to find the net.”