Middlesbrough 1-2 Queens Park Rangers: 10-man Hoops hang on after keeper Seny Dieng's red card
- Published
Seny Dieng's dismissal was his first red card in English football
Defender Lee Wallace scored his first Championship goal as 10-man QPR clung on to beat Middlesbrough and leapfrog them in the table.
Wallace headed Rangers into a 2-0 lead inside 20 minutes just after Rob Dickie had rattled in a 30-yarder to open the scoring.
But Yannick Bolasie halved the deficit and Boro stepped up the pressure after Rangers had goalkeeper Seny Dieng sent off for bringing down Duncan Watmore.
Replacement keeper Joe Lumley denied George Saville with a superb close-range stop as the visitors held on for the victory.
Boro, who have now failed to win in their past five games, slip to 11th place, one behind their opponents.
After a quiet start, Rangers hit their hosts twice in the space of three minutes - the first of those when Lyndon Dykes laid the ball off for Dickie to rifle into the top corner from long range.
Dykes also supplied the assist for the visitors' second goal, retrieving a wayward cross and clipping the ball back in for Wallace to power his header beyond the helpless Jordan Archer.
Bolasie gave Boro a route back into the game in the 28th minute, though, nodding home after Neeskens Kebano had wriggled free on the right and delivered an enticing cross.
Bolasie should have levelled before half-time when Watmore set him up, but Dieng bravely foiled the on-loan winger at close range and also kept out a glancing header from Watmore soon afterwards.
The dangerous Watmore broke through QPR's back-line again soon after the restart and this time Dieng, racing out of his area, was shown the red card for felling the Boro forward.
However, Lumley - who came on for only his second appearance since September - flung out an arm to tip Saville's header behind and also denied Paddy McNair late on to preserve Rangers' win.
Middlesbrough manager Neil Warnock told BBC Radio Tees:
"It is tough when you give away goals like that. The first goal you can't do anything about, but the second goal Djed Spence is with the lad (Wallace) and lets him go and head it in.
"It's an absolute travesty and it just sums our frustration up. We scored a good goal and had two or three great chances and should have scored again.
"We've got lads that don't want to be here and I've got to make sure I weed it out and get rid of the ones I don't want and help the lads that do want to be here."
QPR boss Mark Warburton:
"If we can finish in the top 10 and finish strongly, which we have been doing, then I think it's a really good season for us."We'd like to keep our young players and keep building, but this league is relentless.
"Big teams will come down, there are big budgets around and some big clubs will come up as well."So it's about looking after your own shop, recruiting well in the summer, keeping your players, rest and relax and come back for a good pre-season and then see where that takes us."