Birmingham v QPR: Unders the angle for Friday's fixture

• Birmingham boast impressive defensive numbers

• QPR to take a pragmatic approach to St Andrew's

• Under 2.5 Goals has banked in 8/14 collective contests

• Read Betfair's new 90 Minute Payout offer here

Birmingahm v QPR
Friday, 20:00
Live on Sky Sports Football

Birmingham 1.9210/11 slipped to a second successive Championship defeat after table-topping Preston produced a second half comeback at Deepdale to secure top honours on Tuesday night. Jay Stansfield had given Blues a deserved lead just after half-time with his third goal in four matches but a freak own goal changed the course of the contest.

Miscommunication between Krystian Bielik and Kevin Long led to the former putting through his own net. Birmingham boss John Eustace lamented the freak own goal which kickstarted North End's comeback, with City supremo feeling his side had still done more than enough to at least take a share of the spoils in midweek.

Eustace said, "I thought we were excellent, we played some fantastic football. I'm really disappointed to lose. Two sloppy goals, conceding just after we scored, via an own goal, is very disappointing and the second goal was disappointing too. But I'm ever so proud of the effort of the boys to come to the top of the league and play like we did and dominate."

Elsewhere, Lyndon Dykes' stoppage-time goal rescued a point for QPR 4.507/2 against fellow strugglers Swansea at Loftus Road. The Welsh side were heading for their first league success of the season before Dykes' headed home Ilias Chair's cross to spare Rangers a fourth consecutive home defeat this this term.

R's manager Gareth Ainsworth was not content with the result despite rescuing a point late on but praised his players for their endeavour. He said, "We've had some bad feelings around this place recently but things are slowly starting to turn around. The work rate from the players - and the fans - was amazing and there was only one team in it."

Jack Colback remains suspended for QPR, whilst new signing Reggie Cannon isn't fit enough to feature at St Andrew's.

Go low on goals

Birmingham have enjoyed their St Andrew's outings thus far. The Blues have bagged W2-D1-L0 in front of their home supporters, with John Eustace's troops performing particularly impressively in the defensive phase of the game. No second-tier side is conceding fewer Expected Goals (xG) per-game with just 0.46 xG of that total arriving from open play.

Going forward, City have struggled to be consistent in front of goal and Birmingham's tally of eight goals is comfortably the lowest figure in the top-half of the table. However, visitors QPR have also toiled in the final-third, bagging a measly seven strikes in their seven showdowns, producing the fourth-lowest xG per-game output of 0.77.

With Gareth Ainsworth's outfit enjoying relative success on the road with a pragmatic and functional approach, Rangers unlikely to deviate away from that plan on Friday night, potentially leading us towards a close, competitive clash that's perhaps lacking in goalmouth action. With that in-mind, taking Under 2.5 Goals holds plenty of appeal at 1.758/11.

The proposed play has already paid-out in eight of the duos combined 14 fixtures.