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QPR reignite Premier League survival bid with West Bromwich Albion demolition QPR reignite Premier League survival bid with West Bromwich Albion demolition
(about 1 hour later)
Maybe there is hope for Queens Park Rangers yet. Relegation favourites at the start of the day, QPR finished it only one point from safety and wishing that they could play West Bromwich Albion every week. Albion were blown away inside the opening 45 minutes on an afternoon when Bobby Zamora filed a contender for goal of the season and Joey Barton added a late fourth. Maybe there is hope for Queens Park Rangers yet. Relegation favourites at the start of the day, QPR finished it only one point from safety and wishing that they could play West Bromwich Albion every week. This was about as good as it gets for QPR as everything clicked into place on an afternoon when Bobby Zamora filed a contender for goal of the season and Joey Barton twisted the knife with a late fourth.
It was that sort of day for QPR as first-half goals from Eduardo Vargas, Charlie Austin and Zamora set Chris Ramsey’s side up for a second away win of the season and planted a few seeds of doubt into Albion minds in the process. With a trip to fellow strugglers Aston Villa to come on Tuesday night, this was a timely shot in the arm for the visitors. It was a scoreline that nobody could have predicted beforehand and, as Barton celebrated in front of the travelling supporters at the final whistle, it felt like a trick of the mind that QPR had come into this game on the back of five straight defeats and with only one away win to their name all season.
Forget those statistics. It is all about the here and now and this was a result to send confidence coursing through Chris Ramsey’s players ahead of Tuesday’s crucial game at Aston Villa. The margin of victory flattered QPR a little and who knows how Ramsey’s side would have reacted if Albion had taken one of several chances to get back to 3-2, but the visitors weathered that storm and ran out comfortable winners when Barton drilled home in injury time.
By that stage Albion were playing with 10 men after Youssouf Mulumbu was sent off for elbowing Barton 11 minutes after coming off the bench. Tony Pulis claimed that Mulumbu “led with his hand up” rather than his elbow but the fact that the Albion head coach has no intention of appealing against the decision tells its own story.
Pulis was more upset with how his team performed during a first half when QPR scored three times – “we powder-puffed our way through 45 minutes of Premier League football” – implying that complacency had set in. “Getting to 33 points, people listen to social media and the press,” he said. “We haven’t got over the line by a mile yet. I said to them afterwards: ‘If you’re not on it 100% in this league, you’ll get a rude awakening.’’”
Albion must be sick of the sight of QPR and Charlie Austin in particular. The striker scored a hat-trick in a 3-2 win at Loftus Road in December and he took his tally for the season to 16 with a far-post header here. To put it another way, a quarter of Austin’s Premier League goals have come against Albion.
Eduardo Vargas, with a superb dipping shot from 25 yards, had already put QPR in front by the time Austin nodded in Niko Kranjcar’s flick on. It was Zamora’s goal, though, that took the breath away. Running onto Matt Phillips’ pass, Zamora outpaced Joleon Lescott in the inside right channel and, without breaking stride, exquisitely flicked the ball with the outside of his left boot over the head of Boaz Myhill and into the net via the underside of the crossbar.
Not bad for a player that is unable to train or complete 90 minutes because of his creaking body. “He’ll go into some sort of programme over the weekend to try and get him ready for Tuesday,” Ramsey said. “We have to take him off after a certain time because we need him for the rest of the season.”
Desperate to inject fresh life into his team, Pulis brought on Victor Anichebe at half-time and was rewarded with a goal 13 minutes later when the substitute headed in Saido Berahino’s centre. The Albion comeback never materialised, however, and it was left to Barton, not for the first time in his life, to have the final word.
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As for Albion, they must be sick of the sight of QPR and Austin in particular. The QPR striker scored a hat-trick in a 3-2 win at Loftus Road in December and he took his tally for the season to 16 with a routine header. To put it another way, a quarter of Austin’s Premier League goals this season have come against the Midlands club.
Tony Pulis’s side remain eight points clear of the relegation zone but there is little comfort to be found in a fixture list that sees them take on Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal in four of their last five matches. Victor Anichebe scored early in the second half here but the Albion comeback never materialised and a miserable day for the home team was complete when Youssouf Mulumbu received a straight red card for elbowing Barton.
QPR were in dreamland by the interval. Zamora’s goal, three minutes before the break, put the visitors 3-0 up and it is hard to imagine he has scored many better. Running onto Matty Phillips’ measured pass, Zamora outpaced Joleon Lescott in the inside right channel and, without breaking stride, took the ball early, nonchalantly, and quite brilliantly, flicking it with the outside of his left boot over the head of Boaz Myhill and into the far corner of the net via the underside of the crossbar.
The signs had been worrying for Albion long before that. There were only 15 minutes on the clock when Vargas gave QPR the lead with another fine individual goal. Latching onto Austin’s flick on, Vargas got to the ball ahead of Chris Baird, drifted inside, took a couple of touches and wrapped his right foot round the ball to send a dipping 25-yard shot across goal and into the corner.
Although Brown Ideye had a couple of decent chances for Albion either side of that goal, the home team looked flat and QPR soon added a second. Phillips swung in a corner from the right, Niko Kranjcar, on for the injured Vargas, flicked the ball on and Austin, arriving at the back post unmarked, had the straightforward task of heading home.
Desperate to inject some fresh life into Albion, Pulis introduced Anichebe at the start of the second half and was rewarded with a goal 13 minutes later. Saido Berahino showed pace and persistence on the Albion left before digging out a right-footed cross that Anichebe, from about eight yards out, headed beyond Robert Green.
Ideye and Berahino both had opportunities to pull a second goal back before Albion were reduced to 10 men when Mulumbu, who had only been on the pitch for 11 minutes, caught Barton with an elbow in an aerial challenge. Barton, however, was not finished and drilled in QPR’s fourth in injury-time after some shambolic defending.