Sheffield Wednesday 1 Queens Park Rangers 1: Owls pay high price for sloppiness in roller-coaster ending

As it faced up to a fourth consecutive game without a goal, Hillsborough had gone flat when the electronic board went up to indicate a minimum of five added minutes. But a stoppage-time goal from Barry Bannan three minutes later had the old place rocking again.

It only made the ugliest, scrappiest equaliser you are likely to see even harder to take.

A late corner turned into the mother of goalmouth scrambles before finally QPR substitute Alfie Lloyd poked the ball in.

Sheffield Wednesday's scoreless losing run is over but they could scarcely have felt more miserable as the final whistle blew seconds later.

That they only had themselves to blame thanks to their profligate finishing only made it worse.

For 35 first-half minute a much-changed home team played exactly the sort of football manager Danny Rohl wants from them, except for the fact they could not hit a cow's proverbial with a banjo.

And on the back of a month without a goal, that was a big but.

So intense, so bright in their football at that point, Wednesday fizzled out. QPR started to see more of the ball and made the better chances.

With the Kop more sparsely populated than in the previous two games – 26,283 was still a good turnout – their was a flatness to Hillsborough as the game went on, even with Rohl continuing to shuffle his pack in search of an answer.

Then everything went berserk and at the end of it we were back where we started – all square.

Handing first league stats of the season to Liam Palmer, Marvin Johnson, Olak Kobacki and Akin Famewo and changing formation to 3-4-3 showed Rohl's unhappiness with three straight, scoreless defeats which sapped all the feel-good factor of the opening week, and his new-look team responded as he would have wanted them to.

The game was only two minutes old when Josh Windass was whipping a cross over from the right which Ike Ugbo could not quite get on the end of.

Windass was at his bright best, buzzing around from a starting position on the right of a narrow three – except when it came to finishing.

Paul Nardi's only save of the first half came when Kobacki powered down the left and curled a shot after 13 minutes. Despite barely having a sniff for the first 45 minutes, QPR still matched that, not that Michael Frey's flicked header gave James Beadle too much cause for concern. Kenneth Paal's fiercely driven 30-yard shot just wide was more worrying.

But generally it was about chance after chance at the Kop end the hosts were attacking.

Ugbo lifted Yan Valery's ball over Nardi as he rushed out, but he cleared the bar too.

Windass had a shot blocked but reacted with a lovely ball which curled just in front of Ugbo and Kobacki.

When Johnson played a lovely pass into him after 27 minutes, Windass ballooned his effort. He chested a volleyed cross from the wing-back down well minutes later but could not keep his own volley down.

Bannan's off-balance shot from a Windass lay-off was arguably worse, though Shea Charles' from similar range to finish the half rivalled it.

But by then Wednesday's spark had dulled.

Despite being sent out earlier, they began the second half sloppily.

A lack of communication as Michael Ihiekwe chased towards his own goal saw him give the ball back under next to no pressure, Akin Famewo was easily beaten after jumping into a tackle. Johnsonn gave the ball away for no good reason but luckily for him, Michael Frey failed to give the counter-attack a finish, his header suggesting a striker in two minds, managing neither a goal nor an assist.

QPR took encouragement from the malaise, and from half-time substitute Paul Smyth's shot just over. Beadle had to punch to stop Karamoko Dembele's corner going in direct.

Koki Saito curled a shot wide from close where Kobacki had drawn the early and did not fully get hold of a shot from outside the area or quite get it on target.

Michael Smith's introduction from the bench looked decisive when he knocked a cross from fellow substitute Pol Valentin behind Bannan but the captain and talisman volleyed in regrdless.

Hillsborough celebrated it like a winner because with only a couple of minutes left, that is what it ought to have been.

But in the time added to the time added on for Bannan's celebrations, Lloyd put an almighty pin in the balloon as the Owls resolutely failed to clear their lines and paid a whacking great price.

Sheffield Wednesday: Beadle; Palmer, Ihiekwe, Famewo (Bernard 73); Valery (Valentín 73), S Charles, Bannan, Johnson (M Lowe 89); Windass, Ugbo (Smith 73), Kobacki (Musaba 64).

Unused substitutes: Ingelsson, Paterson, Gassama, P Charles.

Queens Park Rangers: Nardi; Santos, Dunne, Cook, Paal; Field (Smyth HT), Colback; Dembele (Lloyd 90), Andersen (Saito 72), Madsen (Varane 83); Frey (Celar 72).

Unused substitutes: Walsh, Dixon-Bonner, Ashby, Morgan.

Referee: O Langford (West Midlands).