THE LAST LAUGH GOES TO OLLIE!
Wszolek leaves it late to lift QPR
IAN Holloway will not be getting sacked in the morning, so let the singing cease.
Extrovert Holloway conducted the Wolves crowd at one point, even applauded them, as they goaded him about losing his job if this game turned into a seventh straight defeat.
That would have been QPR’s worst run in 20 years but Ollie had the last laugh.
Polish winger Pawel Wszolek made one goal and then got the winner three minutes from time as Wolves’ rampaging run, laden with goals, came to a shock end.
Wolves boss Paul Lambert said this was the best his team had played in his short reign and that made Holloway’s grin even bigger.
“I’m going to celebrate with a nice glass of wine with my wife Kim who isn’t very well,” said Holloway.
“She couldn’t make it (to the game) but I’ve already spoken to her and I put that priority above everything else because how tough is it when everyone is examining what you are doing now, not what you’ve done before? But that is life and I’m used to it.
“The Wolves fans? It doesn’t bother me. How can it bother me? I’m just a sh*t Gary Neville apparently! It is quite funny, isn’t it?
“Luckily I can laugh at myself. People might think it might bother me. It doesn’t bother me at all.
“At the end of the day, when you love football like I do, that is what I’ve missed, the banter.”
Standing as closely as he could to the touchline, Holloway tried to conduct his team into some kind of form as Wolves were slow to take advanand tage of QPR’s problems. But Wolves still ought to have been well in front before half-time.
There was a shot by Nouha Dicko that was deflected away by Grant Hall and goalkeeper Alex Smithies’ leg ended Bright Enobakhare’s chance of the first league goal of his career.
Given the way Wolves have been scoring goals – 12 in five games going into this – QPR and Holloway were happy enough to have survived the half unscathed.
Seven minutes into the second half and Holloway couldn’t believe his eyes. Christmas had come late. Wszolek got away in a break with Wolves slow to respond to the danger, his pass was turned in right footed by Idrissa Sylla. Surprise, surprise Sylla might have said.
Yeni Ngbakoto put another chance over five minutes laterand that was important because Wolves were back in the game by the 62nd minute.
Helder Costa hadn’t got in a decent cross for most of the game, but this time he did, low and hard from the right, and Dave Edwards ran onto it for his sixth goal in nine games.
But for all their domination there was not a lot of danger in what Wolves were doing, although Lambert protested.
“I thought we were brilliant. It’s as good as we’ ve played in my time here. We dominated the game, I couldn’t ask for anymore. We just lacked that finishing touch,” he said.
“You could have taken Carl Ikeme’s goal away in that second half. It was just that little finishing touch that has been missing recently.”
But QPR’s winning moment came when Wszolek showed the kind of fighting spirit Holloway’s going to need to keep the club from danger. He refused to give up at the end of a powerful run, Richard Stearman did not clear, and Wszolek jabbed home the winner.