Queens Park Rangers 2-2 Manchester City

Martin Demichelis of Manchester CIty, under pressure from Bobby Zamora heads into his own net to put QPR ahead. 

Manuel Pellegrini had taken on a rather haunted look by the end of this chaotic contest, his Manchester City side relieved to have emerged with a draw even if their title defence is starting to feel flimsy. The champions should be dominating against teams whose aspirations are limited to survival. Yet Queens Park Rangers had been the more coherent team here, the visitors’ over-reliance upon Sergio Agüero’s brilliance to bail them out all too obvious.

Denied the injured Vincent Kompany at the heart of their defence, City only offered flashes of authority, courtesy of their Argentina forward, and were scorched by QPR’s energy and aggression at times. The hosts will not stay long below the cut-off on this evidence. Whether City, so frenetic and shapeless in their approach at times, have enough to claw back the eight point deficit from Chelsea, not to mention the four by which they trail Southampton, remains to be seen. A solitary win in six matches in all competitions is a grim statistic, and they did not merit a second success here.

The sense of gloom engulfing Manchester City merely deepens. Their title defence was left feeling as flimsy as their spluttering Champions League campaign.

A month ago this might have felt a lost cause from the start for the hosts, anchored as they were out of reach beneath the cut-off with City apparently finding their rhythm at the other end of the table, but the scars that had been inflicted upon the champions over the weeks since were all too evident. Their authoritative start, Agüero and Samir Nasri twice darting beyond the home side’s back-line, had suggested a thrashing but was quickly proved a deception. As soon as QPR muscled their way into the contest, and exploited the pace down their right flank in particular, City disintegrated as a defensive force. An Agüero goal that might have been ruled out for offside or handball ensured they had recovered parity by the interval, but City had suffered considerable jitters by then, with Joe Hart’s duel with Charlie Austin the game’s main feature.

The striker’s sixth Premier League goal of the term, converted across Hart and into the far corner after Mauricio Isla’s impressive dribble and clever pass, had thrust the home side ahead amid a frenzy of opportunities. In truth, Austin might have retired at the interval with more plunder to his name, Hart denying him twice more with wonderful instinctive saves as his centre-halves shrunk in the face of the onslaught. Indeed, the home players departed at the break still complaining that the forward had seen two conversions rightly disallowed within 15 seconds of confusion, the first for offside as he headed in Eduardo Vargas’ cross and the second courtesy of a minutiae of the laws of the game.

Hart had appeared in two minds as he took the resultant free-kick inside the penalty area, the goalkeeper still considering a pass to Gaël Clichy to his left, and his left foot touched the ball forward before his right swung through to send it squirting straight at Austin 20 yards out. The striker’s finish was belted inside the goalkeeper’s near-post, his celebrations manic in front of the away fans, only for Mike Dean, alerted by his assistant, to rule it out as the goalkeeper’s first touch had not taken the ball directly out of the penalty area. A quirk of Law 13, that the ball is not considered to be “in play” until it leaves the box, had come to the visitors’ rescue.

Austin’s legitimate opener had been pilfered while City were still gasping, though they did at least make their own attacking power felt just after the half-hour. Their equaliser was controversial itself. Eliaquim Mangala’s punt down field was collected by Agüero, who appeared to have started his run from a marginally offside position, with the Argentinian, confronted by Richard Dunne and Steven Caulker, flicking inside with his second touch and on to his right arm. The ball fell kindly for him to convert a 12th league goal in 13 games left-footed, with Rob Green’s protests waved away. Rangers could feel aggrieved.

Life was made more testing thereafter by the departure of the injured Sandro, even if the Brazilian’s replacement, Joey Barton, was energetic and measured with his distribution. His pass down the left liberated Austin yet again, with Fernando doing well to cut out the striker’s centre before it arrived at Bobby Zamora’s feet in the six-yard box. There was a thrill to QPR’s attacking play, the wide-eyed enthusiasm typified by Vargas’ volley from a Dunne centre which was diverted just wide of the post off Caulker’s lunge. This was a display from which to draw huge heart for the relegation scrap ahead.

Not that they were watertight at the back. Jesús Navas had fizzed threatening centres across the six-yard box, with Touré following suit, as the visitors attempted to wrest back a level of control. Isla summoned one fine tackle to thwart Agüero, the striker a menacing presence on Dunne’s shoulder, though the manager Manuel Pellegrini’s aspirations for an Edin Dzeko cameo to transform the occasion came unstuck after only four minutes. The Bosnian limped away to be replaced by Frank Lampard as City sought some composure.

It was swiftly denied them. When Barton and Vargas combined to send Austin down the right, the forward’s cross was inadvertently nodded into his own net by Martín Demichelis as he struggled to hold off the diving Zamora.

Thereafter, the urgency was all Manchester City’s with Caulker forced to scramble James Milner’s header from the goal-line and the hosts dropping deeper in the own anxiety. They were duly rewarded when Touré’s pass was controlled by Agüero again seven minutes from time, the striker taking it round goalkeeper Green to slot home and spare his side’s blushes.