‘Lots of bits I really liked’ says boss

Ian Holloway felt his Queens Park Rangers side gave a good account of themselves in a 1-1 Championship draw with Sheffield Wednesday and was disappointed to leave Hillsborough with just the one point.

Buoyed by an impressive 2-0 opening-day win over Reading, while Wednesday lost 1-0 to Preston, Holloway’s men took the lead through Jamie Mackie, who was played in by Luke Freeman.

But Sam Winnall levelled early in the second half and Holloway said: “By the end of the game, the little spell they had just after half-time, where we could have wobbled, they caught us with a punch and they could have maybe had another couple, but we came through that and gave a good account of ourselves in the end.

“Thankfully I don’t see Jordan Rhodes miss headers like that very often, luckily for me, but my team didn’t deserve to lose.

“Did we do enough to win? Possibly not but that final ball on our breaks we had maybe 10 opportunities to put someone through and only one of them ended up being a clear chance.

“All I know is we’re improving, we’re learning and there were lots of bits I really liked. Obviously I’ll have to take one point instead of the three we wanted.”

Sheffield Wednesday head coach Carlos Carvalhal praised his side’s second-half performance adding: “It was a strange beginning. We miss two players and especially at the beginning of the season it created a negative impact to the team.

“The first half was divided. They scored one goal from their one chance and we had a few chances also. The second half was completely different. We started very well and this is our Sheffield Wednesday. We pressed Queens Park Rangers much more and moved the ball better.

“We started to create problems, we achieved the first goal, we nearly achieved the second goal with two clear situations, but after 30 minutes we decreased a little. This was where we needed extra energy from the bench, but we lost that opportunity.

“The Sheffield Wednesday in the second half was the Sheffield Wednesday of the past two seasons. In the second half I felt we deserved to win the game.”