After back-to-back defeats on the road it was back to Loftus Road for a tough encounter against Burnley. The visitors have only conceded two goals on the road before this game and after beating Aston Villa 3-1 in midweek this wasn't going to be easy. Ian Holloway made just one change to the team, which lost last weekend. Marcus Bean was dropped to the bench and replaced by Paul Furlong who was joined in attack by Kevin Gallen. Rangers started the game brightly attacking towards the school end. Gallen and Cook combined well early on and Rowlands fired a shot straight Danny Coyne in the Grimsby goal. Gallen was next to try his luck but his shot was again straight at the keeper. It was clear from early on that Burnley would be a tough team to break down and without Gallen in midfield we weren't looking as good on the ball as we have in previous games. The visitors almost took the lead after ten minutes. Robbie Blake got clear of Simek and was bearing down on goal. Simek slid in with an excellent tackle to clear the danger and Blake's appeals for a penalty fell on deaf ears. The referee then upset the away side even more by giving Rangers a penalty. A free kick was hit to the far post and Santos had his shirt pulled to stop him getting off the ground so the ref gave a penalty. It looked harsh at the time but it was a silly foul to make right in front of the referee. Kevin Gallen stepped up to take it as the Burnley fans tried to put him off. Gallen kept his cool though and placed his shot into the bottom corner to give Rangers the lead. Now we had the opening goal it was always going to be difficult for the visitors to change tactics and before they knew what had hit them it was 2-0. Another silly foul on the right gave us a free kick. Lee Cook curled in a brilliant delivery and Santos had a free header, which he put past Coyne for his third goal of the season. It was all too easy and the game looked over before it had really got going. Burnley tried to push forward to get back in the game but with just one man up front they found chances hard to come by. They should have got back into it though with another penalty. A ball into the box saw a Burnley player brought down. The ref put his whistle in his mouth and pointed to the spot but decided to play the advantage first to see what happened. Blake's shot went wide and the ref gave a goal kick much to the annoyance of the Burnley players. All game the ref decide the play the advantage and then pull the game back if nothing came of it which was great to see but in this instance I thought he got it wrong and should have given the away side a penalty. Rangers then killed the game off with a comedy goal on 24 minutes. Martin Rowlands played a hopeful ball forward for Furlong to run onto. Coyne came running and had plenty of time to kick the ball clear but as he swung his foot towards the ball he completely missed the ball and fell over leaving Furlong with an open goal and he calmly passed the ball into the empty net for 3-0. Coyne stayed down and was carried off the pitch as QPR fans struggled not to laugh at the nature of the third goal. The game was all over now and Rangers relaxed knocking the ball around but created very little for the rest of the half. Martin Rowlands was on the end of a late tackle by Valois and last season's player of the year looked in a bad way as he limped down the tunnel. Marcus Bean replaced him with Serge Branco going out wide and with the midfield now looking more workmen like than creative, it was hard to see us adding more goals to the three we already had. Burnley ended the half on top with a few corners but they never really troubled the Rangers back four with Santos and Rose in outstanding form. Burnley improved after the break with Robbie Blake at the heart of everything they did. Bignot prevented him from scoring with a quality last ditch tackle but he was also booked for a foul on Camara. Rangers were going through the motions and the second half was a pretty dull affair. We almost grabbed a fourth through Kevin Gallen. Cook did brilliantly on the left and crossed for Gallen who hit his shot too well and the keeper pushed his shot onto the bar. If Gallen had miss hit it he would have probably scored. Furlong was next to go close after a nice through ball by Bircham. Furlong looked all set to score his tenth of the season but his shot hit the side netting. Kevin McLeod was brought on to add some pace to the team as Serge Branco went off but McLeod had very little impact on the right wing. Gallen had one more chance to score but his powerful shot was well saved by the keeper. Gino Padula came on for the outstanding Matthew Rose who got a standing ovation as he went off. Burnley pushed hard late on to get a consolation but Frank Sinclair missed their best chance slicing wide from ten yards out. As injury time arrived Frank Sinclair put in an awful tackle on Cook and was lucky to only get a yellow card, Sinclair then lost the plot cupping is ears to the QPR fans which prompted plenty of Chelsea reject and rapist what's the score chants. During all this Furlong's battle with Mcgreal got out of hand as Furlong had a kick out at the defender. The ref missed it and Bircham acted as peacemaker taking Furlong away from the defender and Furs was lucky not to be sent off. The final whistle signalled another three points for Rangers and moved us up to fourth place in the table. It wasn't our best performance of the season but we took our chances when they came and a 3-0 win over Burnley is an excellent result. Rangers now face a tough November
but we are quite capable of doing well in some tough games especially
if we can keep the impressive duo of Santos and Simek fit at the
back. Players Ratings 29. Paul Furlong: Scored
one and could have had more. A typical Furlong display as he had
a real battle with the Burnley defence and he came out on top.
7/10 |
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