Queens Park Rangers vs Blackburn Rovers. Sky Bet Championship.
Loftus Road StadiumAttendance13,560.
Report and highlights from the Sky Bet Championship clash at the Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium
Saturday 5 October 2019 18:30, UK
QPR returned to winning ways in emphatic fashion, beating Blackburn 4-2 at the Kiyan Prince Foundation Stadium.
Nahki Wells' seventh goal of the season put them ahead after half an hour and Ebere Eze doubled their lead early in the second half.
Blackburn were given hope by Bradley Dack's 57th-minute penalty but Bright Osayi-Samuel restored Rangers' two-goal advantage three minutes later.
Substitute Jordan Hugill sealed a resounding Rangers win by heading home Ryan Manning's cross with 13 minutes remaining. Adam Armstrong netted a late consolation for Rovers, who were well beaten.
It was the response boss Mark Warburton wanted after back-to-back defeats, before which the R's had won their previous four Sky Bet Championship matches.
QPR's emphasis on keeping possession - and moving the ball sideways or backwards in order to do so if necessary - contributed to an uneventful start to the game and some tetchiness among the home fans.
But Rangers' patience was rewarded when a move built from their own half led to the opening goal.
Ryan Manning collected Ilias Chair's pass and sent in a left-wing cross which Osayi-Samuel climbed above Amari'i Bell to head back to Wells, who volleyed into the far corner from near the edge of the six-yard box.
Bell had been brought on to replace Rovers defender Greg Cunningham, who was taken off after 16 minutes with what appeared to be a knee injury.
Another slick Rangers move led to their second goal, scored four minutes after the interval.
Manning beautifully exchanged passes with Chair before releasing Eze, who skipped through Derrick Williams' half-hearted challenge and slotted past keeper Christian Walton.
Warburton's side have youthful exuberance and can be great to watch going forward, but they have been guilty of lapses at the back this season - they are yet to keep a clean sheet - and their shortcomings were evident again.
A couple of minutes after Rovers had a goal disallowed for offside after Williams had touched in Lewis Holtby's low cross, Yoann Barbet brought down Dack, who tucked away the resulting free-kick.
But Rangers quickly hit back through Osayi-Samuel, just as Warburton was about to take him off. Josh Scowen pulled the ball back from the right and Osayi-Samuel turned away from Darragh Lenihan before applying the finish.
Hugill missed a decent chance before eventually finding the net, the on-loan West Ham striker's sixth goal of the campaign.
Armstrong pulled one back after being set up by Elliott Bennett's low cross with four minutes remaining but it was too little too late.
Mark Warburton: "If we win every game 4-2 from now until May I'll buy you as many beers as you could possibly want! On a serious note, of course you want to keep a clean sheet. The trouble with defenders is that it's easy for people behind keyboards to jump on and go: 'Oh, Yoann Barbet!' - but he's the last line of defence.
"If he doesn't make that tackle they go: 'Why hasn't he tried to tackle him?' We missed the tackle ahead, didn't maintain our shape and then they're forced into that last-ditch tackle. Yoann Barbet has been outstanding and will continue to get better. It's worrying that we gave a soft goal away. I was more frustrated with the second goal they scored. We were sloppy and complacent and we can't do that."
Tony Mowbray: "QPR play on the counter-attack and are good at what they do. They sit lots of men behind the ball and they break - and today when we exposed our defenders we got found out a little bit. We could have kept it as tight as we did in the first half and it might have finished 1-0 because we didn't look like we were going to score.
"We needed to make the game a bit more stretched and see if we could score a goal. We scored two, could have had a few more, but ultimately you can't lose the goals that we did and that's what cost us the game. In the second half we decided to attack, be more positive and open the game up and our defenders didn't really deal with the situation. You see the game and if you know anything about football you can see that we are a decent team, but you can't lose four goals."
