Queens Park Rangers 1 - 2 West Ham United: Vaz Te wins it for West Ham as QPR’s poor start deepens

The £11million summer acquisition headed home his first goal for the Hammers after just three minutes and began what was mostly an uncomfortable evening for the home support at Loftus Road.

QPR looked devoid of ideas from the outset and were on the backfoot throughout a first half in which Ricardo Vaz Te acrobatically doubled the visitors’ advantage.

Adel Taarabt clawed a goal back for QPR with a superb long-range effort moments after his second-half introduction, but any comeback was thwarted when fellow substitute Samba Diakite was sent off after collecting two bookings in the 20 minutes he was on the field.

Referee Mark Clattenburg handed out 11 bookings in all and eight of those went to players in claret and blue, who will be fined for indiscipline but held out for three valuable Premier League points at the expense of rock-bottom QPR, whose manager Mark Hughes said: Hughes said: “We were very poor, certainly first half where we were second to every ball, didn’t really get anywhere near the level that we need to get near to get positive results in the Premier League.

“First half we were just off the pace for whatever reason. Second half we made a better fist of it. In fact when Adel scored a great goal that got us a little bit of momentum and at that point I could see us getting a second goal.”

West Ham skipper Kevin Nolan said: “Tonight we proved we are tough to beat and we have quality.”

QPR: Julio Cesar, Hill, Nelsen, Mbia, Onuoha (Hoilett 84), Wright-Phillips (Taarabt 56), Granero, Faurlin,Park (Diakite 55), Zamora, Cisse. Subs Not Used: Green, Mackie, Ephraim, Ehmer.

West Ham: Jaaskelainen, Demel, Reid (Tomkins 23), Collins, O’Brien (McCartney 35), Noble, Diame, Vaz Te, Nolan, Jarvis, Cole (Carroll 72). Subs Not Used: Henderson,Maiga, Benayoun, O’Neil.

Referee: M Clattenburg.

Attendance: 17,363