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Trivia
- Celtic's World Cup players were still missing from this game , as they had been given extra time off to rest.
Review
It was QPR who grabbed first blood after just nine minutes when Andy Thomson's clever backheel put in Kevin Gallen – who slotted in from six yards.
Celtic were level within five minutes when a corner was cleared to the edge of the box and Colin Healy drove the ball into the bottom corner.
Celtic wingers Steve Guppy and Didier Agathe were causing havoc down the flanks and it looked only a matter of time before they were in front, and they gained that advantage in the 26th minute when John Hartson got down the left to cross and Chris Sutton picked up the loose ball to curl superbly into the top corner.
On 33 minutes it was 3-1 as the strikers combined again. This time Hartson was the beneficiary after playing a one-two with Sutton before slipping the ball past Nick Culkin and into the corner.
Within four minutes of the 2nd half, Karl Connolly crossed from the left and the unmarked Oliver Burgess, playing his first game since suffering a cruciate ligament injury last October, headed home.
However once again that merely spurred Celtic into retaliation as Bobby Petta won a free-kick just outside the box and Shaun Maloney thumped the ball in off the underside of the bar.
Back came QPR again when Lyndon Duncan's cross was tapped in by Mamady Sidibi to make it 4-3 with Jonathan Gould in the Celtic goal stranded.
David Fernandez made it 5-3 with a simple tap-in after QPR's Danny Murphy had put a free-kick straight into the back of a Celtic player and a minute later Mohamed Sylla played a superb one-two with Fernandez to give him a simple tap-in to make it 6-3.
And with five minutes to go they made it 7-3 when Fernandez grabbed his second goal, heading home Sylla's inch-perfect right-wing cross.
Teams
QPR:-
Culkin (Digby 46), Forbes (Duncan 46), ****** (Carlisle 46), Palmer (Panayi 46), Padula (Murphy 46), Langley (Burgess 46), Rose (Palmer 67), Bircham (Goodridge 67), Thomson (Sidibe 46), Gallen (Pascual 46)
Goals:- Gallen 10, Duncan 50, Sidibe 69.
Celtic:-
Douglas (Gould 46) , Balde (McNamara 65) , Guppy (Petta 46) , Thompson (Boyd 65) , Petrov , Lambert , Agathe (Sylla 65) , Hartson (David 65) , Maloney , Sutton (Lynch 65) , Healy (Smith 65)
Goals:- Healy 14, Sutton 27, Hartson 34, Maloney 52, Fernandez 73, Sylla 74, Fernandez 86.
Att:- 15,556
Ref:- S G Tomlin.
Articles
Pictures
QPR 3 Celtic 7
Sporting Life
If QPR's Division Two season is half as exciting as this pre-season friendly against Scottish champions Celtic, the Loftus Road fans are in for a real treat.
Many condemn friendly matches with their endless substitutions as a complete waste of time but despite the teams making 19 changes between them during the match there were no complaints from the 15,000 plus crowd who basked in the sunshine and saw 10 goals and some full bloodied tackling.
It was QPR who grabbed first blood after just nine minutes when Andy Thomson's clever backheel put in Kevin Gallen – who slotted in from six yards.
But classy Celtic were level within five minutes when a corner was cleared to the edge of the box and Colin Healy drove the ball into the bottom corner.
Celtic wingers Steve Guppy and Didier Agathe were causing havoc down the flanks and it looked only a matter of time before they were in front.
And the Scottish champions gained the advantage in the 26th minute when John Hartson got down the left to cross and Chris Sutton picked up the loose ball to curl superbly into the top corner.
On 33 minutes it was 3-1 as the strikers combined again. This time Hartson was the beneficiary after playing a one-two with Sutton before slipping the ball past Nick Culkin and into the corner.
QPR changed all but two of their players at the break and it seemed to have the desired effect as they pulled a goal back within four minutes of the restart.
Karl Connolly crossed from the left and the unmarked Oliver Burgess, playing his first game since suffering a cruciate ligament injury last October, headed home.
However once again that merely spurred Celtic into retaliation as Bobby Petta won a free-kick just outside the box and Shaun Maloney thumped the ball in off the underside of the bar.
Back came QPR again when Lyndon Duncan's cross was tapped in by Mamady Sidibi to make it 4-3 with Jonathan Gould in the Celtic goal stranded.
But the Scots moved up a gear with the introduction of six more substitutes.
David Fernandez made it 5-3 with a simple tap-in after QPR's Danny Murphy had put a free-kick straight into the back of a Celtic player and a minute later Mohamed Sylla played a superb one-two with Fernandez to give him a simple tap-in to make it 6-3.
QPR kept battling to the end but the gulf in class between the sides, with Celtic's World Cup players still missing, was immense.
And with five minutes to go they made it 7-3 when Fernandez grabbed his second goal, heading home Sylla's inch-perfect right-wing cross.