Queens Park Rangers vs Norwich City. Sky Bet Championship.
Loftus Road StadiumAttendance14,132.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship clash between Queens Park Rangers and Norwich City at Loftus Road as Adam Idah cancelled out a Lyndon Dykes opener to earn a point for the Canaries.
Wednesday 19 April 2023 23:32, UK
QPR's survival hopes and Norwich's play-off challenge both took another blow as they drew 1-1 in the Sky Bet Championship at Loftus Road.
Lyndon Dykes' ninth-minute goal put Rangers ahead but Adam Idah, sent on as a half-time substitute, equalised in the first minute of the second half.
Rangers' awful slide down the table continues and the west London side are in serious danger of relegation to League One.
They are now without a victory in seven and have won just once in 21 matches since December.
Several of their players being unavailable for much of the season has been a key factor in their demise.
And it was a familiar story as one of those players, defender Jake Clarke-Salter, back in the side after a two-month absence, limped off in the second half with yet another apparent muscle injury.
Norwich, meanwhile, have now won just one of their past eight games and their hopes of an immediate return to the Premier League are fading fast.
They were thrashed 5-1 at Middlesbrough in their previous game and although this was an improvement, David Wagner's side still looked well short of promotion material.
QPR had conceded a goal in the opening 10 minutes in five of their previous six matches - but this time they got an early goal themselves.
Ilias Chair cut in from the left and lifted the ball towards Dykes, who controlled on his chest and fired past keeper Angus Gunn from near the edge of the six-yard box.
Rangers kept up the pressure and almost doubled their lead when Kenneth Paal's free-kick deflected off Norwich defender Jacob Sorensen and against the post.
The Canaries were struggling badly - and were fortunate not to be reduced to 10 men when Andrew Omobamidele escaped with only a yellow card for a wild challenge on Aaron Drewe.
But having managed not to ship an early goal at the start, QPR conceded one at the beginning of the second half as Idah made an immediate impact.
After Gabriel Sara's shot was palmed out by keeper Seny Dieng, Idah reacted quickly to the loose ball and followed up to score.
Both sides struggled to create clear-cut chances after that, although QPR substitute Luke Amos went close when he shot over.
QPR's Gareth Ainsworth:
"Without a shadow of a doubt they feel they can stay up. We're not even below the line, and that's important, but there are going to be twists and turns. The boys know exactly where they've been, sliding for quite a while now, and it's about trying to address that slide and stopping the rot.
"I think it's going to go to the wire without a doubt. There are five or six teams there and we're going to try to get as many points as we can to get out of this. We didn't get beaten by a team that's pushing for the play-offs, so I think it's a good result. But we do need more points - I know that - and we've got to make sure we keep playing with the same attitude."
Norwich's David Wagner:
"It's disappointing because we only got the draw. In the first half we didn't start at our best, conceded a very avoidable goal where we have to stop the cross much more aggressively and with much more passion and desire. Apart from the last five minutes of the first half I don't think we were very creative or put much pressure on the opponents.
"The second half was better. No complaints about the effort or how the players fought, but in possession we didn't play to our best. We were not able to calm the game. Sometimes it was more like a basketball game - up and down, up and down. This is not how we like to play, how we're used to playing, and unfortunately this was one of the reasons we only got a draw. You can't complain about the effort of the players. But we can, and we have to, play better football in possession."
