Team: Green, Perch, Onuoha, Angella, Konchesky, Faurlin, Henry, Phillips, Luongo (Doughty), Chery (Mackie), Austin
Subs Not Used: Smithies, Hall, Tozser, Gladwin, Emmanuel-Thomas
Attendance: 16,651 (including 629 R’s fans)
I thought it was a good point in a poor game. Both full-backs for QPR wasted the ball and we gave away too many corners and set pieces which looked the only way they were going to score.
To be fair, we didn’t look like scoring either, too many balls passed across the back, then across midfield instead of forward movement and a final back-pass and hoof to nobody!
We had a great chance near the end but missed an open goal to win it, when it seemed easier to score! Neither keeper had much to do. I thought Angella was our best player and Dawson theirs.
The subs were far too late for QPR and right at the end a free kick in a decent position, with seconds to go, and we play it in the corner to waste time? At least it was sunny and warm!
Tony Phillip
Charlie Austin provided Hull City with another reason to regret their failure to finalise a £4m deal for him two years ago as he scored for the sixth time in seven matches.
Austin had agreed personal terms and was on the verge of joining them from Burnley when Hull had second thoughts because of a medical. Since then, Austin’s value has more than tripled and he has not stopped scoring for QPR, the club that stepped in to sign him.
His latest strike earned Rangers a point and it was the second he has scored against Hull this year. No wonder Steve Bruce was pondering what might have been after Austin dented Hull’s 100% home record.
“It’s probably the worst decision this club has made, certainly in the last three years,” the Hull manager said.
“He’s a terrific centre-forward and would have been great in our team, but it wasn’t to be.”
“It’s got to be my biggest regret since I’ve been here when you look at the money involved. It was the first time he had ever been scanned when he first came here and he’s obviously got a problem. But he trains, plays and scored every week, so it’s a nice problem to have.”
The QPR manager, Chris Ramsey, is the man benefitting from Austin’s goals. “He looked like a Premier League striker with his work rate and involvement in some of our link play. Charlie is really enjoying his football at the moment,” he said.
“You saw his commitment. He is also showing a lot of character in the dressing room and talking to the younger lads. He’s doing really well and has bought into what we are trying to do”
Austin’s latest goal – cancelled out later in the first-half by an excellent header from Michael Dawson – came in the 26th minute when he located space to guide a header that the Hull defender Andy Robertson diverted on to the underside of the bar before it bounced inches over the line, according to the assistant referee.
Bruce was not convinced the official was correct after viewing the decision again and called for goal-line technology to be used in the Championship.
“I can’t decide if it’s a goal or not, but the linesman waved straightaway. Maybe he was a bit too hasty. However that’s clutching at straws.”
Hull equalised in the 38th minute and, once again, a set piece was responsible as Dawson outmuscled and out-jumped Nedum Onuoha, neither of them straightforward tasks, to head in Tom Huddlestone’s free kick.
The second-half followed a similar pattern to the first, with Hull again making the early running. Sam Clucas, who has adapted well to the Championship following his summer switch from Chesterfield, almost opened up the QPR defence with an inventive break down the left then Huddlestone’s through ball was fractionally too strong for Sone Aluko.
Aluko’s attempt to reciprocate by putting Huddlestone clear a minute later was less impressive, but the striker was close with a 56th minute shot that curled wide as the pressure mounted and left Austin an isolated and frustrated front-man at times, even if Ramsey didn’t see it that way.
Whatever his mood, though, Austin would surely have taken advantage of Matt Phillips’s 64th-minute cross that presented Tjaronn Chery with the easiest of opportunities at the far post. Chery was two yards from goal, but somehow managed to place the ball over the bar.
It was a miss so glaring that even Bruce took note. “It was the right result. They certainly had the outstanding chance in the second-half.”
Jason Mellor – The Guardian