Queens Park Rangers 1-1 Swansea City: Dykes heads late equaliser for hosts

Managers under pressure: Michael Duff and Gareth Ainsworth are both in need of wins

Lyndon Dykes' injury-time equaliser for Queens Park Rangers condemned Swansea City to their worst start to a league season for 32 years.

Swans boss Michael Duff thought Josh Ginnelly's early deflected goal was the stroke of luck his team so desperately needed after six games without a win.

However, the hosts dominated the second half before substitute Dykes headed in Ilias Chair's cross in the third minute of stoppage time to salvage a draw.

Swansea finished with 10 men after striker Ollie Cooper was shown two yellow cards in the space of a minute in added time.

The draw lifts QPR to 17th and offers under-fire boss Gareth Ainsworth some breathing space, despite claiming just five wins in 21 games in charge.

There will be some encouragement from the way his side dominated the second half and deserved their point - at the very least.

Anniversary blues

The result saw Swansea drop into the relegation zone on the 10th anniversary of one of the most significant results in the club's history. They have three points from seven games.

Few who watched Michael Laudrup's League Cup champions win 3-0 at Valencia in the Europa League on 19 September, 2013, could have imagined Swansea would be in this predicament.

Duff made five changes to the side beaten by arch rivals Cardiff in the south Wales derby on Saturday, including a debut for England Under-20 defender Bashir Humphreys, on loan from Chelsea.

It was one of those new faces - accompanied by a slice of luck - who opened the scoring after just seven minutes.

QPR goalkeeper Asmir Begovic denied Jamal Lowe, but his save deflected off the on-rushing Ginnelly for his first Swans league goal.

The midfielder knew little about it, but Swansea will have cared little for style given their miserable form.

Rangers had fared little better than their visitors with just two wins from six league games, and just one victory at Loftus Road since last October.

They steadily recovered from the early blow and should have been level before half-time when Sinclair Armstrong beat the offside line only to balloon his effort over the bar.

Ainsworth fired up his players during the break as Paul Smyth and Chair twice combined to go close early in the second half.

Swansea's Wales defender Ben Cabango was in fine form during a frenetic second half.

However the visitors' were left heartbroken during the eight chaotic minutes of added time.

Dykes beat Cabango to yet another quality delivery from Chair to level the scores.

In contrast, Swansea's own replacement striker - Cooper - was first booked for a needless foul on Charlie Kelman before seeing red just a minute later for a nasty challenge on Dykes.

QPR manager Gareth Ainsworth told BBC London:

"We've had some bad feelings around this place recently but things are slowly starting to turn around.

"The work rate and endeavour from the players - and the fans - was amazing and there was only one team in it. If we had another five minutes we would have won 2-1.

"I'm proud of the boys and a lot of the work we've done around fitness and conditioning is starting to pay off."

Swansea manager Michael Duff told BBC Wales Sport:

"We defended really well all game, even with a lot of late pressure, and I thought we had seen it out, so to concede so late is a bitter pill to swallow.

"We showed in the first half the way we want to play. We moved the ball around and showed some real energy and togetherness.

"But you could see there was some anxiety towards the end and that's natural because the players are only human and they know we haven't won yet this season."