Onuoha takes the positives from draw with the Toffees

Nedum Onuoha believes QPR’s hard-earned point against Everton on Saturday can launch them into their daunting Premier League run-in.

Rangers stopped the rot of three consecutive league defeats as Bobby Zamora’s header cancelled out a strike from Royston Drenthe to lift Mark Hughes’s men above Wolves to 16th in the table.

The Rs travel to Bolton this weekend and also face Liverpool, Arsenal and Sunderland before March is out, and defender Onuoha believes Hughes is beginning to get the best from his squad at the perfect time.

“We have to see it as a point gained. When you’re down there and you don’t have that many points you have to accept it, and hopefully this can be the springboard for the final games of the season,” said Onouha.

“There were certain things in previous defeats which we did badly. The positives [against Fulham] were that we didn’t make too many mistakes at the wrong times. There are positives going into the next game, everybody knows Everton do well in the second half of the season so it was a good point for us.”

Onuoha played under Hughes at Manchester City from 2008-2009, and he believes the manager who took City into the quarter-finals of the 2009 Uefa Cup is a better boss now than he was then.

“I think in football you have to get better otherwise people just trample all over you,” added Onuoha. “You have to improve continuously and I think he has definitely done that.

“He has got some methods which he has used at every club he has been at. I played under him for 18 months, but playing under him again, he’s different to the way he used to be. We are feeling stronger because we’re taking on board more of what he’s saying.”

Onuoha also praised the impact of Zamora, who grabbed his second goal in a Hoops shirt since his January move from Fulham and has increased Rangers’ options up front.

“He has made a real impact, he’s a good target man. Rob Hulse and Jay Bothroyd are the other two players you would probably call target men, but they haven’t really played as a consequence of Bobby doing well,” he said.

“But any of those three, I think they do give us an option because it takes a bit of pressure off the side when we have our backs to the wall.”

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