IT was back in March, after Middlesbrough's 4-0 win at QPR last season, that Julien Stéphan labelled Kim Hellberg's side as the Championship's best.
Six months on and on the back of another defeat - this time a narrow 1-0 loss - the Frenchman was again complimentary of Boro, who he expects to finish "very high" in the Championship table.
After a bold summer of investment - Stéphan repeatedly referred to Boro spending £50m in the most recent transfer window - the QPR boss believes Hellberg now has "all the tools" to have a good season.
Boro are still some way shy of their best but have lost just one of their first five games and picked up seven points from a possible nine in the last eight days, lifting them into the automatic promotion places, which is where Stéphan expects them to reside throughout the campaign. But that prediction came with a warning.
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"They will probably finish very high in the table," he said.
"But the competition will be very tough this season. I think the level of the league will be stronger this season compared to last season. But they have all the tools I think to have a good season.
"They have as well a lot of experience and how they manage the second half, how they break some momentum. Of course, to do that, you need to have some people who allow you to do that. They manage well.
"In fact, when they struggle a lot, they find a way to break the momentum. Most of the players played the final of the play offs just three or four months ago, so they have a lot of experience and they’ve added some top players as well.
"So yeah, they will finish high. They also have enough enough quality and enough numbers to go through this season without dropping their quality during the season, even if they have one, two or three players out. It’s a very good team."
Stéphan says QPR can take great heart from the fact they ran Boro so close on Saturday.
He was disappointed with his side's first half display, with Boro dominant and the advantage at the interval should really have been greater than a single goal, scored by Will Lankshear.
But the 45-year-old felt QPR were the better team in the second half, when Radek Vitek made a couple of excellent saves and Boro were also saved by the post.
"I think it was a top second half," said Stéphan.
"We just have to remember it was in March when we played against them and we lost 4-0. We didn't exist at all during that game.
"We were so far off, and that team went to play the final of the play offs. They’ve spent £50 million in the transfer market, and we are now in the beginning of September, just the fifth game and we are able to compete like this during the second half. What an improvement.
"But I have to recognise as well that the first half we were too much in between without the ball in between with the ball. It was not very clear technically what we did. I think we had good ideas but we didn't do well with the ball. We didn't have enough tempo as well with the ball.
"We won most of the duels in the second half. That's why we stay very high on the pitch. But the big, big difference as well, was the quality of the tempo with the ball, the quality of the passes, the intensity of the passes. And that's why it was very difficult I think for them to defend against us.
"We created enough chances in the second half to score at least one time. Sometimes we were unlucky like the situation with the crossbar. Sometimes they had a great return run like Borges did I think against Rumarn's [Burrell] one v one with Vitek, and sometimes we didn't take all the best decisions in the final third.
"But I think we had enough to score at least one time. So yeah, disappointed with the result, but very positive with the way we played this game, and very positive for the future if we learn from this one and if we know now that it's not easy but we have to start the game like we did in the second half."
He added: "I repeat, they spend £50 million on the transfer market so they are normally better than last season.
"We are very close to competing against this kind of team. We’ve reduced the gap a lot between them and us in just a short time."
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