Cardiff City vs Queens Park Rangers. Sky Bet Championship.
Cardiff City StadiumAttendance21,387.
Report and highlights from the Sky Bet Championship clash at the Cardiff City Stadium
Wednesday 2 October 2019 23:23, UK
Cardiff extended their unbeaten run to seven Sky Bet Championship games with a 3-0 home victory over QPR.
Sean Morrison and Marlon Pack both opened their accounts for the season before half-time, the latter's first goal since his summer move from Bristol City.
Substitute Callum Paterson sealed the Bluebirds' win with a sweet strike after 72 minutes.
Neil Warnock's side have struggled to find the winning consistency - with four draws in their previous six matches - that underpinned their Championship promotion campaign two years ago.
But Cardiff are slowly building momentum and now lie within two points of the play-off positions.
This win moved them into the top half of the Championship table and above QPR, who were the architects of their own misfortune with careless finishing betraying tidy approach play time and again.
Rangers had won four of their previous five away games and came close to taking the lead within five minutes after making a bright start in more ways than one.
Ilias Chair found Bright Osayi-Samuel with a wonderful cross-field pass and the wideman evaded the attention of Joe Bennett to force a save from the alert Alex Smithies.
But Cardiff were ahead after 11 minutes as their customary usual set-piece danger paid dividends.
Lee Tomlin floated a free-kick to the far post where Aden Flint rose above his marker and nodded down for Morrison to score his first goal since April.
Rangers responded well to that setback, with the unmarked Angel Rangel failing to make contact with a cross from fellow full-back Ryan Manning and Dominic Ball firing over from 25 yards.
Tomlin drove just wide as Cardiff manufactured a rare shooting opportunity, but Rangers were almost level as Eberechi Eze's 20-yard curler bounced back off an upright.
Smithies held Chair's low shot as Rangers continued to press but Cardiff doubled their lead in first-half stoppage time.
Rangers switched off at a corner and the unmarked Pack had the simplest tasks of tapping home Gavin Whyte's cross from a few yards out.
Cardiff led 2-0, despite having just 28 per cent possession in the first half, and nearly added a third straight after the break.
Robert Glatzel climbed to meet Whyte's centre, but the ball was just too high for him and the German striker headed over.
Manning curled a free-kick into the side netting and went even closer as the Cardiff woodwork was struck for the second time, with Josh Scowen sending the rebound wide.
The game was put beyond Rangers when Pack and Leandro Bacuna combined and Paterson, who had only been on the pitch seven minutes, swept his volley into the ground and into the corner of the net.
Neil Warnock: "I think fans want to see goalkeepers making saves, crosses coming in, oohs and aahs. That's my kind of football. If you said would I rather pass it around, have fantastic players, and lose 3-0 every week then no I wouldn't, no.
"We knew they would have a lot of possession, but I thought we were well organised and disciplined."
Mark Warburton: "It's very frustrating. We went one-down but I thought we played very well. We hit the post and created chances but then we had a sucker punch and you feel like you're having your pocket picked just before half-time.
"At 2-0 I felt if we scored the next goal we were in this - and we controlled the second half. We looked good, hit the post and had three massive chances that you've got to put the ball in the back of the net. But if you don't get your rewards you pay the price. It felt like a smash and grab."
