![\"Harvey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/skysports-efl-championship_7026219.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHarvey Vale’s first goal for QPR gave them a 1-0 victory against early high-flyers Stoke at Loftus Road – the west London side’s third consecutive win.<\/p>\n
Both teams missed chances before Rangers made the all-important breakthrough in the 75th minute.<\/p>\n
The lively Koki Saito pulled the ball back from the right and Lewis Baker, in trying to clear the danger, inadvertently teed up Vale, who sent a precise left-footed strike into the far corner.<\/p>\n
Then, in stoppage time, Liam Morrison superbly prevented a Stoke equaliser by clearing Aaron Cresswell’s shot off the line after goalkeeper Paul Nardi had flapped at Sorba Thomas’ cross.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Image:
\n Harvey Vale celebrates after giving QPR the lead against Stoke City<\/p>\n
Julien Stephan’s side have responded emphatically to their 7-1 drubbing at Coventry last month.<\/p>\n
Their third straight win since that debacle was thoroughly deserved, with Stoke riding their luck before Vale eventually found the net.<\/p>\n
Rangers created a number of chances in the first half, the best of which fell to Vale after just four minutes.<\/p>\n
After Morrison had dispossessed Baker deep in the Stoke half, Richard Kone set up Vale but the former Chelsea man could only shoot tamely at Viktor Johansson.<\/p>\n
Keeper Johansson also kept out a strike from Saito before Kone fired wide of the near post after linking up nicely with Rumarn Burrell.<\/p>\n
![\"QPR\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/skysports-qpr-football_7026210.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Harvey Vale fires QPR in front against Stoke at Loftus Road.<\/p>\n
Kone then went close to giving Rangers the lead in spectacular fashion, sending a venomous left-footed shot narrowly wide of the far post after cutting in from the right-hand side.<\/p>\n
QPR kept up the pressure after the interval and Johansson kept out another shot from Saito, with Vale unable to bundle in the rebound.<\/p>\n
Rangers seemed to be on top but then had a lucky escape when Million Manhoef missed a sitter, heading over from four yards after being found unmarked by Thomas’ left-wing cross.<\/p>\n
It was an appalling miss and also Manhoef’s final touch of the match – he was substituted almost immediately afterwards.<\/p>\n
Stoke were quickly on the back foot again, with Kone heading over from Vale’s corner, Nicolas Madsen shooting over, and Johansson reacting quickly to save a left-footed effort from Vale.<\/p>\n
Burrell then missed an excellent opportunity to break the deadlock midway through the second half.<\/p>\n
Amadou Mbengue lifted the ball forward towards Kone, who perfectly played it in from the left towards his strike partner but Burrell was unable to find a way past Johansson.<\/p>\n
Vale, on the other hand, gave Johansson no chance with a thumping finish.<\/p>\n
The managers<\/p>\n
QPR’s Julien Stephan:<\/p>\n
“In the last 20 minutes I had a lot of hesitation and, to be honest, I imagined that Kaddie would enter the pitch for Harvey, yes. It was the plan.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to create something different with Kaddie one-v-one against the left-back.<\/p>\n
“But we didn’t change and in the last 15 minutes I felt the players were continuing to do well physically and to enter the pitch in these kind of games is not easy. So we chose to stay like this.<\/p>\n
“Sometimes you feel you have to change and sometimes you feel you don’t have to change.”<\/p>\n
Stoke’s Mark Robins:<\/p>\n
“A 1-0 defeat and it might be perceived as narrow but I didn’t think we were anywhere near our best.<\/p>\n
“I’ve got to make demands of people and I’ve got to see reactions and responses from individuals because that wasn’t reflective of anything we’ve been doing.<\/p>\n
“They’ve got to respond. It can’t be just doing it when you want to – you’ve got to do it when you don’t want to, when you feel really tired or below par, you have to give a performance.<\/p>\n
“I might be being too harsh but I want them to drive themselves. I’m not going to accept that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harvey Vale’s first goal for QPR gave them a 1-0 victory against early high-flyers Stoke at Loftus Road…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-157680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}