Rayan Kolli came off the bench to score his first Championship goals of the season as Queens Park Rangers comfortably beat Sheffield Wednesday 3-0 in freezing conditions at Loftus Road.
Rumarn Burrell had given the hosts the lead with his 10th goal of the season before going off shortly after with a suspected hamstring injury.
Julien Stephan’s side struggled to kill the game off despite dominating the play and limiting their opponents to just three shots, until Kolli smashed the ball beyond Owls keeper Pierce Charles with nine minutes of normal time remaining.
The 20-year-old doubled his tally seven minutes later, taking advantage of some slack defending to wrap up the points for his side and end a run of three games without a win for the Rs.
With several EFL games called off due to frozen pitches around the country, including two in the Championship, the game went ahead in bitterly cold conditions in west London.
The Hoops were forced into a change before the match even kicked off, with Steve Cook replacing Liam Morrison in defence because of an apparent injury picked up in the warm-up.
And for much of the first half, the dangers of playing in such temperatures carried the biggest threat for the hosts – as the Owls failed to register a single shot.
QPR dominated from the start and after blazing over from close range, Jamaica international Burrell latched on to Nicolas Madsen’s through ball before beating Northern Ireland goalkeeper Charles at his near post for his first goal in seven appearances.
Minutes later Burrell went up for a cross but landed in a heap holding his hamstring and was replaced by Kolli on 20 minutes.
The hosts then lost midfielder Jonathan Varane after he was injured in a challenge with Sean Fusire as what should have been a routine win threatened to turn into a logistical nightmare for QPR boss Stephan.
The Owls were much-improved after the break and finally had their first shot in the 65th minute when Harry Amass blazed wide, before Charlie McNeill drew a save from the recalled Ben Hamer a minute later.
Kolli put two chances over the bar as the Hoops searched for the second goal.
And it was the 20-year-old substitute who eventually delivered, blasting the ball beyond Charles from the edge of the area to make it 2-0, and then latching on to Kieran Morgan’s header while the Wednesday defence was caught napping to bury his second of the game.
The result moves QPR up to ninth in the table and two points outside the play-off places with the 15:00 GMT kick-offs to come, while the Owls remain rooted at the bottom on -7 points.
Queens Park Rangers head coach Julien Stephan told BBC Radio London:
“It’s a good win. I said to the players at the end of the game that I now know exactly what it means to play four games in nine days and what it means to play over Christmas in England – and it’s a crazy period for the players, to be honest, both physically and mentally.
“They had a good first half and were very dominant in possession. And out of possession they didn’t concede any shot in the first half.
“They moved well collectively, even if the conditions were difficult to play good football they still succeeded in doing that.
“After the first half it was less good in possession, but we didn’t concede anything, and at the end they found a solution to score the second and third goals, so it was a good win.”
Sheffield Wednesday manager Henrik Pedersen told BBC Radio Sheffield:
“The boys gave everything today. We had a difficult beginning to the game where they were more dominant than us, and then we changed the formation after 20 minutes and then we got defensive control of the game and we were stronger on the ball.
“From the beginning of the second half, the boys played much more brave. On the ball they made many more brave movements behind the opponent and, until the 81st minute when they scored to make it 2-0, I thought it was a very equal game.
“Especially the second half, we can be proud because this is what we want to see more of. We want to see brave, young boys who want to play forward, who want to play with risk going forward.
“Today we had three senior players in the starting XI, but how the young guys are doing is much more than what we can expect from them.”
