Injury-time goal denies QPR win at Deepdale

Preston 1 QPR 1

An injury-time equaliser denied QPR a third consecutive victory – and what would have been the club’s first win at Deepdale since 1980.

Seb Polter, left unmarked at the far post, headed home Alejandro Faurlin’s fifth-minute corner – the German striker’s seventh goal of the season.

It looked like being enough to give Rangers the points, but Eoin Doyle headed in Greg Cunningham’s cross to snatch a draw for Preston.

Rangers dominated the first half and after putting them ahead, Polter almost forced a second goal when he beat shaky keeper Anders Lindegaard in the air to get his head to Karl Henry’s hanging cross, but the loose ball fell kindly for North End.

And Polter was in the thick of the action again went he went close following a second-half cross from the excellent Junior Hoilett.

Preston were fortunate not to be reduced to 10 men after Tom Clarke somehow escaped with only a yellow card for pulling Tjaronn Chery back when the Dutch midfielder would otherwise have been through on goal with eight minutes remaining.

Chery then fired just wide with a free-kick and, when he did eventually get through on goal, he shot straight at Lindegaard.

That miss – and the decision not to dismiss Clarke – proved to be costly for QPR.

As they wilted in the final stages, Doyle equalised and would then have put Preston ahead had keeper Alex Smithies not kept out his header from Paul Gallagher’s cross.