Bowen’s got Adkins goin’ the right way
forever hold his head in shame. How United would love him now. Zaha is a talent – pure and simple. He makes things happen. He inspires.
As he did with emerging talent Meyer, who enjoyed Zaha’s masterly craft so much that he tried a cheeky effort himself in the ninth minute which forced Hart to make one of his many fine saves, diving to his left to palm out a 20-yard curler. Another of Hart’s saves kept out Zaha’s shot from close range, then the forward should have done better when he blazed over the crossbar moments later. The chances continued to fall for Palace and on the hour mark Luka Milivojevic screwed his mistimed shot wide when it looked easier to score.
McArthur could have grabbed a second, only for Charlie Taylor’s sliding tackle to deny him, with Zaha then hitting the crossbar.
Few can fail to have enjoyed what Burnley have added to the Premier League in recent years.
They love nothing better then breaking from defence and it is a myth that they rely just on the long ball, playing good one-touch football.
What is desperately missing is a cutting edge – they did not have one decent effort on goal – and Palace took advantage.
It was no surprise when they took a 16th-minute lead – but just how the ball ended up in the goal still baffles.
McArthur’s cross caught everyone by surprise and it simply rolled into the net, despite Meyer trying to claim it.
Then it was all Palace. And Zaha. And Townsend’s wonderful 73rd-minute goal. TWO goals from Jarrod Bowen proved too great an obstacle for Queens Park Rangers to overcome and lifted Hull out of the Championship bottom three.
The midfielder has never gone seven games without a goal in his young career and showed his versatility to ensure that Hull boss Nigel Adkins has now won at Loftus Road with four different teams.
Adkins said: “Jarrod hadn’t scored for a few weeks so I said to him before the game, ‘Just go out and enjoy a game of football’. You could see he did that today. He worked his socks off for the team. Scored a couple, could have scored a couple more, so I was really pleased.
“It was a really entertaining game but we’ve got a team that is so committed to the cause.
“The passion of the players is there for all to see and it has been for quite a while.”
Bowen sparked a manic first half which had goals, penalty shouts and chances galore.
There seemed no danger when Bowen collected the ball on the right until he cut inside and swept a low shot past Joe Lumley.
The Rangers keeper was beaten again midway through the half when Bowen swung over a corner and Markus Henriksen glanced it into the far corner.
That set in motion a crazy five minutes which ended with QPR’s overlapping Angel Rangel sliding the ball in from the right into the path of Pawel Wszolek, who slipped it under the advancing David Marshall.
The second half was quieter until Bowen collected a Kamil Grosicki pass and squeezed the ball home.
Luke Freeman gave QPR the faintest of hopes a minute from the end of injury time when he bundled the ball home from close range.
Rangers boss Steve McClaren said: “We’ve had three games like that this week. We certainly entertained the crowd, we just ran out of time today.
“I just said to the boys in the dressing room, ‘That’s only our second defeat in 10 games’, but we will get back to the basics in training.”