‘Wszolek and Co fired up by my rant’

FULHAM should have been celebrating shattering a 139-year club record.

Instead the party mood fell flat at Craven Cottage after the in-form home side pressed the self-destruct button to gift QPR a point.

It could prove to be a pivotal moment in the automatic promotion race too – in which case QPR boss Ian Holloway’s half-time “rant” could prove even more influential than he thought.

Rangers had stunned highflyers Aston Villa 3-1 in their last away game and Holloway said: “I needed to have a rant at half-time to get my players closer to people. I had a right go. But I believe in my team and what we’re doing.

“I’m disappointed we haven’t got all three points here as well.

“We showed great character but we need to be more clinical and not show teams more respect.”

Fulham’s Class of 2018 – who made history by extending their unbeaten run to 16 games –were coasting, following strikes from Tom Cairney and Lucas Piazon. But then Massimo Luongo seized on a lack of concentration just before the break, and Pawel Wszolek bagged a deserved equaliser late on, as Fulham diced with danger once too often.

It left the home side kicking themselves for failing to make inroads on the top two, and Slavisa Jokanovic admitted breaking the club’s unbeaten record counted for nothing.

The Fulham boss said: “I’m not here to fight for some records, I’m here to win games. And we didn’t win, so I can’t be satisfied.

“It’s simple – we weren’t strong enough to win the game. We didn’t find our best performance and we were sloppy with the ball.

“And there was an unfortunate mistake with them scoring the second goal, which they deserved as they had previously had some half-chances.” Fulham’s ‘possession’ game can be fraught with danger and the Serbian added: “We won’t try and change our style. We just made many mistakes. “Sometimes you don’t find your best performance and you lose points. “After nine successive victories at home, we didn’t win here. We have to be ready to fight in our next game.” Second-placed Cardiff, who face Derby today, were the big winners here. The Welsh side have been looking over their shoulders and would have feared the worst FULHAM QPR 5 ............ Shots on Target ......... 6 4 ........... Shots off Target ......... 2 2 ............. Blocked Shots .......... 5 8 ................... Corners ................ 2 8 ...................... Fouls .................. 13 2 ................... Offsides ................ 6 2 ............... Yellow Cards ............ 3 0 ................. Red Cards .............. 0 86.3 .. Passing Success %. 74.4 15 ................... Tackles ................ 14 60.0 ...... Tackles Won % ...... 71.4 66 ........... Possession % ......... 34 48.4 ..... Territorial Adv% .... 51.6 644 .......... Total Passes ......... 313 17 ............. Total Crosses ......... 26 74.2 ....... 1st Half Poss % ..... 25.8 56.4 ..... 2nd Half Poss % .... 43.6 again when Fulham cruised into a commanding lead.

The hosts had laid siege before Cairney’s 32nd-minute opener. QPR gifted possession and the visitors backed off and invited Cairney to curl home from 20 yards.

It looked game-over when Piazon struck in the 45th minute. Ryan Fredericks, who had just driven wide, used his blistering pace to cross for Ryan Sessegnon to tee up the Brazilian to drive home.

But QPR were thrown a lifeline by Luongo’s strike seconds before the half-time whistle. Luke Freeman drifted a free-kick in and Matt Smith headed back for Luongo to take a touch and drive home.

From there it was a different game, with Fulham now finding themselves camped in their own half.

QPR striker Smith had twice threatened and sub Paul Smyth also wasted a clear opening.

So it came as no shock to see Wszolek score after seizing on Denis Odoi’s blunder of dallying on the ball. The Pole slotted home with nine minutes left to leave derby honours even.