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Barton warms to Hughes' way

Queens Park Rangers 3 Wigan 1

Nick Szczepanik
Monday 23 January 2012 01:00 GMT
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Akos Buzsaky (left) is congratulated after scoring QPR’s second
Akos Buzsaky (left) is congratulated after scoring QPR’s second

Soon – and that time may already have come – the first question anyone asks about Queen's Park Rangers matches will be: what did Joey Barton think?

After the QPR captain's barbed tweets in the direction of Neil Warnock, the previous manager, in the run-up to Saturday's match, Warnock's successor, Mark Hughes, might have been braced for something similar if the result had gone against them. In the event, @Joey7Barton's reaction to a victory that lifted the club out of the bottom three of the Premier League was a succinct: "Great win and performance by the boys today. Some great goals scored by both sides. Massive 3 pts for us."

On this evidence, albeit against the division's bottom club, Hughes has already begun to impose organisation and discipline on a team that looked to be losing their way under Warnock, and can relax about Barton's excursions into the twittersphere.

"Maybe he had a little bit of frustration because he felt maybe it wasn't going as well as he hoped," Hughes said. "But we are here to help him and every one of the players to remain in the Premier League. I think they just needed a little bit of game plan and structure to their work. We've got a good base and if we keep that going then with more quality having an impact in key games we can stay up."

Extra quality against Wigan came from Akos Buzsaky, who had barely played under Warnock but has grabbed a chance offered by a season-ending injury to Alejandro Faurlin. In only his fourth league start of the season, the Hungarian peppered Ali al-Habsi's goal with shots, the best a whipped free-kick for QPR's second goal.

"It's unfortunate that Ali had the injury but we needed someone to fill his position and I've always been available and wanted to play," he said. "Now I've got my chance and I want to take it. If you see the players we have in the dressing room, we shouldn't talk about survival. We should be comfortable in mid-table like how we started the season."

Wigan can only dream of mid-table, but their experience of life at the bottom in recent seasons could still see them beat the drop. "We have done it before," Roberto Martinez, the Wigan manager, said. "It is important that we use the January window. We need to make sure that we help the players to be stronger and to be brave for the next 16 games but I have a huge belief in the talent and the players we have in the squad."

The Way I See It, page 24

Match details

QPR: KENNY 6/10; YOUNG 6; FERDINAND 6; HALL 6; HILL 6; MACKIE 6; BARTON 7; BUZSAKY 8; WRIGHT-PHILLIPS 5; HELGUSON 6; CAMPBELL 5

Wigan: AL HABSI 8; FIGUEROA 6; CALDWELL 6; WATSON 7; GOHOURI 6; BOYCE 6; MOSES 7 ; McARTHUR 5; McCARTHY 5; GOMEZ 5; RODALLEGA 6

Scorers: QPR Helguson 33 pen, Buzsaky 45, Smith 81. Wigan Rodallega 66. Substitutes: QPR Smith 6 (Campbell, h-t), Derry (Buzsaky, 83). Wigan Sammon 6 (McArthur, h-t), Crusat 5 (Gomez, 61), Stam 5 (Boyce, 69). Booked: QPR Barton, Young. Wigan McCarthy, Gohouri. Man of the match Buzsaky. Match rating 7/10.

Possession: QPR 53% Wigan 47%.

Attempts on target: QPR 8 Wigan 4.

Referee J Moss (W Yorkshire).

Attendance 16,002.

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