QPR beat Watford 2-1 at Loftus Road to make it three consecutive wins and deal a seemingly fatal blow to the Hornets’ already slim chances of reaching the Sky Bet Championship play-offs.
Rayan Kolli and Paul Smyth both scored their third goals in two matches, with the pair having netted twice in Rangers’ 6-1 thrashing of Portsmouth prior to the international break.
Kolli put Julien Stephan’s side ahead in the 26th minute and Smyth struck shortly after the hour.
Imran Louza pulled a goal back with a superb 85th-minute free-kick, but the visitors were unable to find an equaliser.
Harvey Vale helped set up both Rangers goals, continuing the impressive form that led to his recent Republic of Ireland call-up.
Shortly after finding space on the right and curling a left-footed shot against the far post, Vale crossed from a similar position towards Smyth, who headed back across goal for Kolli to nod QPR into the lead.
Rangers had been on top – they had a goal disallowed after 45 seconds when Amadou Mbengue challenged Jeremy Petris near the edge of the penalty area and slotted into the net, but he was adjudged to have fouled the left-back.
A good chance for the hosts was squandered when, during a swift counter-attack, Vale over-hit a pass to Smyth, who would have been in on goal, and keeper Egil Selvik was able to gather.
At the other end, goalkeeper Joe Walsh pushed away Luca Kjerrumgaard’s left-footed shot, and Watford seemed to be growing into the game before Kolli opened the scoring.
Rangers then almost scored a carbon copy of their goal. Again, the excellent Vale delivered a left-footed cross from the right which was directed back across goal by Smyth, but this time Kolli was denied by Selvik.
QPR were unlucky early in the second half when striker Richard Kone’s header from Rhys Norrington-Davies’ cross bounced off Smyth and whizzed wide.
But they doubled their lead in the 63rd minute after more good work by Vale, who delivered a low cross into the box and, after Daniel Bennie’s effort was blocked, Smyth pounced on the loose ball to score from close range.
Watford struggled to create clear-cut chances but their goal was a superb strike, with Louza’s free-kick flying beyond Walsh and into the far corner of the net.
Rangers’ win was thoroughly deserved, though, and took them level on points with Watford.
The managers
QPR’s Julien Stephan:
“When a player deserves it, when a player trains well and trains with intensity, when he is in good form and has talent, no problem – 16, 17, 18, 20 years’ old, he can play.
“If he didn’t play more before it was because probably he didn’t do enough during the training sessions.
“Now he plays a lot because during the training sessions he shows a lot of qualities. For me there is always a link between what you do during the week and what you do in the game. Always.
“If you train well, you have more chances to do some good performances. If you train not very well, not with enough intensity, no chance to perform. So when they understand that, OK.
“I think the main step for Rayan in the last weeks is that.”
Watford’s Ed Still:
“We’ve given ourselves too much to do in the last part of the game. In terms of the content of the game, what feels like an instinctive explanation of the result is that we’ve not defended the box well enough.
“It’s one of the things we’ve done really well – defending our box. We’ve been really strong on that and the players have adapted to how I want us to defend the box.
“We’ve done it really well and been consistent there, but we’ve not done that today. Both goals were down to our lack of quality in those moments in the defensive box.
“We knew we had that capacity in the last part of the game, with the players that we had on the bench.
“You just want to be in the game at that point. We’ve left ourselves with too much of a mountain to climb.”
