QPR boss Mark Warburton insists he won’t be underestimating former Hoops hero Gareth Ainsworth and his Wycombe Wanderers side this evening despite the Chairboys looking set for an instant return to League One.

Wanderers arrive at Loftus Road cut adrift at the bottom of the Championship table and are 12 points from safety with as many games remaining.

Warburton has sympathy for his opposite number but knows the Wycombe boss, who scored 21 goals in 152 R’s appearances between 2003 and 2010, will be eager to kickstart a great escape at the ground he once called home.

“Wycombe are an absolute threat,” Warburton said. “They may be having a tough time of things at the moment, but they’ve got the smallest budget in the division.

“Gareth, Richard Dobson – who I both know very well – and his staff have done a magnificent job in getting them up to the Championship.

“Have done underperformed this season? Absolutely not. The have been in every game and the unity and team spirit they have is impressive. They have physicality and are good at what they do.”

December’s reverse fixture saw the spoils shared as Anis Mehmeti’s 88th-minute equaliser denied QPR three points on the road and Warburton is expecting a similarly close contest tonight.

“They can hurt any team,” he said. “Gareth will be the first to say that they have probably lacked that little bit of nous in the final third that someone like Teemu Pukki at Norwich can offer you – that’s why the strikers get paid big money.

“They create chances, are dangerous on the transition and commit bodies forward. They are a good team and have our utmost respect.

“We know we have to prepare well and deliver a performance to get anything from the game.”

The hosts go into the game on a high having returned to winning ways at Bristol City on Saturday courtesy of what Warburton described as ‘not far away from our most complete performance of the season’.

“We had a game-plan and the players deserve enormous credit,” he said. “We moved the ball well and controlled the game for long, long periods. I was really pleased – there were some big performances.

“We have to keep that up now. Everyone’s got a job to do.”