Hoops bask in glory over Blues
Written By: Robert Halter
It was a fifteen years wait for Queens Park Rangers fans to see local West London rivals Chelsea visit Loftus Road in the top flight division and for the Hoops Shaun Wright-Phillips, it was a chance to face his former Blues. With the derby now resumed, QPR had yet to record maximum points in their opening four home matches in the Premier League and faced their sternest test so far against a Chelsea side sitting third place in the table, going into the match. But it was the R’s that won a penalty on nine minutes, after the Hoops goalkeeper Paddy Kenny punted a long ball forward and the advancing Heidar Helguson was tripped in the box by David Luiz. Referee Chris Foy pointed to the spot and Helguson stepped up to blast his penalty into the top left corner as Petr Cech despite getting a hand on the ball could not prevent the goal. Matters grew worse for Chelsea when Jose Bosingwa got a straight red card for pulling down Wright-Phillips outside the area on thirty two minutes but Adel Taarabt was unable to trouble Cech with the free kick. The Blues misery was compounded when they were reduced to nine men with another straight red for Didier Drogba following his two footed lunge into Taarabt by the centre circle in the fortieth minute. But despite being two men down, Chelsea went close with a glancing header by Frank Lampard from Meireles’s cross, a minute into the second half. Two minutes later, the Blues surged forward again as Branislav Ivanovic’s low drive was parried away by Kenny. But the Hoops had a chance to go further ahead on fifty four minutes but with just Cech to beat, Luke Young drove the ball past John Obi Mikel, and wide of the mark, after being put in the clear by Taarabt. Young wasted another opportunity on sixty five minutes as he fired the ball directly at Cech, when unmarked in the box. A soaring run by Joey Barton was close to wrapping the game up but his low drive went past Cech’s right hand post in the seventy first minute. Five minutes later, another Hoops chance failed to be converted when Helguson blasted over from close range off a Barton free kick. Although in the seventy ninth minute, it was Chelsea’s turn to waste an opportunity when Nicolas Anelka directed his header into Kenny from an Ivanovic cross. Lampard’s then squandered a chance three minutes later, when he deflected over Luiz’s scissors kick. In an unsavoury end to the match Kenny squared up to John Terry which illustrated a game littered with yellow cards and ended with Queens Park rangers getting their first victory of the season in London’s W12.