HE might periodically flag up his enduring affection for Newcastle United on his Twitter feed, but John Carver does not expect Joey Barton to be doing his old team any favours when they head to QPR for a game that could determine the fate of their survival battle this afternoon.

The Magpies head to Loftus Road for their penultimate game of the season with a two-point cushion over 18th-placed Hull City, who are also in London taking on Tottenham. If Newcastle win and Hull lose, they will be safe with one game to spare. If the results are reversed, however, United will host West Ham on the final day of the season knowing that another defeat would send them down.

Barton was a member of the last Newcastle squad to be relegated in 2009, although a characteristically hot-headed dismissal at Anfield in the final month of the campaign meant he was not part of the side that lost at Aston Villa on the final day of the season as the demotion was confirmed.

The midfielder has been relegated again this season, with QPR’s second drop to the Championship in the space of three years having been confirmed by last weekend’s 6-0 hiding at Manchester City.

He is part of a club in turmoil, with a national newspaper claiming Barton had pointed the finger of blame at a number of his team-mates earlier this week, suggestions the 32-year-old has subsequently denied on social media.

Given QPR’s implosion, Newcastle could not wish for more appetising opponents as they look to avoid another spell in the second tier, but Carver is not expecting an easy afternoon and has identified Barton in particular as a player who will be desperate to prove a point.

“He won’t do us any favours, there’s no danger of that,” said the head coach. “I don't really know what the politics were when he left. I am not up to date on that side of it.

“But one thing is for sure, knowing his personality and character, although he loved his time here and the fans liked him, he won’t want to do anyone any favours.

“He is quite a proud guy - as you saw last weekend when he faced up to the fans even though they (QPR) lost six. He will want to prove a point and won’t want to go out on a bad point, a low point, of his career with a defeat.”

Newcastle’s last away game could hardly have been more calamitous, with a 3-0 defeat at Leicester encompassing two dismissals, an accusation that Mike Williamson got himself sent off deliberately and a supporters’ protest against the efforts of the players on the field.

Now that the dust has settled on events at the King Power Stadium, Carver accepts that events had been building towards a head for a number of weeks.

However, even he was shocked by the scale of the capitulation against one of the club’s relegation rivals, and the extent to which the fall-out developed a life of its own, with Newcastle’s board even approaching Steve McClaren to take over for the final three games of the campaign, an offer that was rebuffed.

Since losing so spectacularly at Leicester, Newcastle’s senior players have closed ranks, and while last weekend’s 1-1 draw with West Brom was hardly something to get too excited about, it nevertheless represented progress from the previous weekend.

“The Leicester game brought things to a head,” said Carver. “I had not seen that in all the games over 90 minutes, it was the worst 90 I have seen. I had seen glimpses - a first half or a second half - but not for a complete game.

“Leicester was just so bad, across the board. You can be critical of how we defended set plays, didn't keep the ball, didn’t track back, but sometimes you get days like that. That was the first time I had seen it in the time I was looking after the team.

“You could say, ‘Well in the Sunderland game, this wasn't happening and that wasn't’, but that was the first time I saw something totally different.

“Spirits have been lifted breaking that run though, slightly. We broke it and that was important. I don’t think there has been any significant change, although the players might say there has been in their attitudes after that meeting they had. I don’t know what was said.”

Daryl Janmaat is available today after serving a one-match ban, and Papiss Cisse and Rolando Aarons are both pushing for a starting spot after returning to the substitutes’ bench last weekend.

“We now have flair players coming back,” said Carver. “Players who have got goals - Papiss, Rolando. We have attacking players back.

“It is stronger group of players, but not finished article. We still miss (Steven) Taylor, (Cheick) Tiote, (Rob) Elliot, but we are getting stronger just at the right time.”