Ilias Chair's Brace Leads QPR to 3-1 Victory at Portsmouth
Ilias Chair struck twice as QPR ripped up the script at Fratton Park, overturning an early deficit to beat Portsmouth 3-1 and end a 26-year wait for a league win on the south coast.
Pompey fly out of the blocks
Under a clear sky and in front of a near 21,000 sell-out, Portsmouth came out as if they meant to end this one by half-time.
Adrian Segecic’s early corner found Conor Shaughnessy, whose header flew wide, a first warning. Luke Brooke-Smith, one of the summer arrivals, then stepped in from distance and let fly from 25 yards, his fierce drive swallowed by debutant goalkeeper Pierce Charles.
The pattern was set. QPR’s new keeper and a back line still feeling their way in were under siege.
Portsmouth’s pressure brought the goal it threatened in the 15th minute. Terry Devlin, collecting the ball fully 30 yards out, shaped his body and bent a stunning curler into the corner of Charles’ net. The Northern Ireland international didn’t need a second invitation; Fratton Park roared, and the lead felt entirely deserved.
QPR had barely laid a glove on the hosts. Their first real opening had come three minutes earlier, when Pompey failed to clear a corner and Ilias Chair’s effort was blocked on the line by Ebou Adams. It looked like a rare break rather than a sign of things to come.
Julien Stephan’s afternoon worsened when Boy Kemper, handed a league debut, limped off after just 20 minutes. Around him, Portsmouth were enjoying themselves. Abu Kamara, the £2.5m signing trusted from the start, almost slid in at the far post on Zak Swanson’s teasing cross. Segecic, buzzing between the lines, latched on to Colby Bishop’s clever flick and whipped in a delivery that Brooke-Smith failed to connect with cleanly.
When Kamara slipped Segecic through again, only Jake Clarke-Salter’s pressure forced the shot wide. QPR were hanging on.
Chair turns the game on its head
Then, from nowhere, the match flipped.
Twelve minutes before half-time, against the run of play, QPR levelled. Harvey Vale found space on the left and whipped in a low cross. Chair, inexplicably unmarked in the six-yard box, darted in and toe-poked home from point-blank range. Fratton Park fell quiet. The team that had dominated suddenly looked rattled.
The equaliser drained Pompey. Their crisp passing blurred, their decision-making frayed. QPR sensed it.
Seven minutes later, the away end erupted again. Koki Saito picked up the ball just inside the area and let fly. His shot was going on target anyway, but two deflections – first off Devlin, then Rocco Shein – completely wrong-footed goalkeeper Nicolas Schmid. The ball rolled into the opposite corner. From 1-0 down and second best, Rangers led 2-1.
Portsmouth, so sharp in the opening half-hour, were now chasing shadows. The composure Stephan had demanded from his players began to show. They moved the ball with more purpose, squeezed higher, and punished more sloppy defending in first-half stoppage time.
Amadou Mbengue surged down the right and stood up a cross. Once again, Chair had drifted into space in the box. Once again, Pompey failed to track him. The finish was simple, the impact anything but. Chair swept in his second of the afternoon to make it 3-1 before the interval, leaving the home crowd stunned and John Mousinho staring at a collapse that had unfolded in 15 brutal minutes.
Missed chances and controlled chaos
Pompey needed an early lifeline after the break and QPR almost handed it to them.
Ten minutes into the second half, Charles gifted Kamara the chance he craved. A loose pass from the keeper went straight to the forward, who suddenly found himself facing a half-open goal. Instead of burying it, Kamara shot tamely back at Charles. It felt like a turning point that never turned.
QPR, stung by that scare, tightened up. Chair, running the game between the lines, almost completed a dream opening day with a hat-trick, denied only by Schmid’s sharp save with his legs at the near post.
Mousinho threw on Josh Murphy to chase a way back. The winger provided urgency, flashing one effort into the side netting and twice drilling dangerous balls across the face of goal. None of them found a finishing touch. For all their territory, Portsmouth never truly looked like mounting the kind of sustained onslaught that had opened the match.
Stephan’s side, by contrast, managed the contest with the control their head coach had demanded. The first half-hour of the second period passed with QPR largely in command, picking their moments to break and keeping Pompey at arm’s length. The only regret for the visitors was their failure to add a fourth when chances appeared.
Managers’ verdicts
Mousinho did not sugar-coat what he had seen.
His team, he said, had been “in complete control for the first 25 minutes” and fully merited their lead, only to “fall apart” once they scored. The equaliser, in his view, “drained the energy” from Portsmouth, who then “started making poor decisions” and “stopped dominating the game”. There were opportunities after the break, but too many chances given away and, ultimately, “too much to do”.
On the opposite bench, Stephan cut a satisfied, if not entirely content, figure.
He praised the way his players handled a “very intense atmosphere” and acknowledged Portsmouth’s blistering start, but pointed to the calmness that underpinned QPR’s response. They “stuck to the plan”, took their “good first goal”, and were “efficient on the second and the third”. He highlighted how well his side controlled the opening half-hour of the second half and admitted only one frustration: not killing the game with a fourth when the chances came.
Even so, he insisted, the overall picture was positive.
A statement win on the south coast
For QPR, this was more than just three points. It was a comeback forged under pressure, delivered by a playmaker in Chair who dictated the game and finished his chances with ruthless simplicity. It was also a landmark – a first league win at Fratton Park since May 2000, a hoodoo finally broken.
For Portsmouth, the opening roar turned into a sobering reminder of how quickly control can evaporate in the Championship. The intensity was there. The quality, at times, too. But can they keep their foot down when the first punch lands back?
