Queens Park Rangers 0

Argyle 0

ARGYLE failed to end their season in their penultimate game, although they gave their all in pursuit of Championship safety.

If Norwich City beat Reading on Monday night, then the Pilgrims will go into next Sunday's Home Park game against Barnsley - also not free from the drop - with their league status still uncertain.

However, a point would be enough to make them safe, and, in the final analysis, they might not need that, depending on final-day results elsewhere.

The Pilgrims created chance after chance at Loftus Road, especially in the first half, and, although none of them were easy to convert, on another day, they would have been two or three goals to the good at half-time.

Argyle manager Paul Sturrock sent out an identical starting 11 for the fourth successive game, ostensibly the same side that had beaten Blackpool and Coventry, drawn at Birmingham, and lost at home to Doncaster seven days earlier.

However, there are those who witnessed the 3-0 home capitulation against the Yorkshiremen who would swear blind they were watching a totally different line-up to the previous three matches, even though the names remained the same.

It was a chance for the favoured to gain redemption, and they seized it eagerly.

Rangers, safe from the threat of relegation and way off the play-offs - given their backing, a season arguably poorer than the Pilgrims' - made three changes to the team that had begun the previous weekend's 1-0 defeat at Wolves: defender Mikele Leigertwood, midfielder Liam Miller and Patrick Agyemang returning at the expense of Peter Ramage, Jordi López and Rowan Vine.

The Hoops came into the game on the back of an impressive five-match unbeaten home run (victories over Sheffield Wednesday, Bristol City and Swansea; draws with Crystal Palace and Sheffield United) but had failed to win any of the five games at Loftus Road prior to that.

Argyle so nearly got the start they, and their nervous supporters on the upper tier of the School End stand, needed.

Within two minutes, Jamie Mackie's persistence in chasing a channel-ball from Carl Fletcher saw the ball break nicely for Paul Gallagher on the edge of the penalty area. Gallagher's shot was saved by goalkeeper Radek Cerny, who spilled the ball, but not quite far enough in front of him for the lurking Ashley Barnes to profit.

Argyle buzzed through the early stages, and individuals that, a week earlier, had looked as stale as Christmas cake were performing as brightly as the West London sunshine.

A second chance came their way as Rangers' defence failed to deal with another incursion down the right and the ball sat up nicely for Gallagher, whose deft dipping volley was a couple of feet too high.

An even better opportunity was spurned in the 17th minute, when Gallagher unpicked the QPR defence with a logarithmically precise pass that allowed Mackie to fire an equally measured pass across Cerny.

The ball found its way to the far post, where Karl Duguid had read the play exactly to arrive at the right time, but at the wrong angle, and the skipper could not quite force the ball in with a necessary first-time shot from a tight position.

Rangers looked like a side already mentally attending their post-match end-of-season player-of-the-year awards night, and Argyle took advantage at will without making their superiority tell in the only way that really counts.

Still, the Pilgrims occasionally had to be wary of the Londoners, especially given Argyle's woeful record when conceding first, and a right-wing cross from Wayne Routledge was inches away from finding Agyemang's head in front of goal.

A fourth decent scoring chance came Argyle's way after Cerny injudiciously elected to come for a cross by Alan Judge and flapped the ball into the path of Barnes, who, through a combination of surprise and the ball arriving at the wrong height, could not wrap his foot around it.

For all their admirable endeavour, the Pilgrims remained vulnerable at 0-0, and the fragility of their position was demonstrated shortly before the break when Leigertwood skipped merrily through the midfield to the Argyle penalty area, all the time looking to shift the ball on to his trusty right foot, before being squeezed out by a combination of Marcel Seip and David Gray.

The Pilgrims needed to start the second half as they had played most of the first - a failure to do just that in their previous away game had cost them two points - and the Green Army did their best to keep the tempo torrid.

However, Rangers' patient football dominated the opening stages of the second period, often taking them within range of the Argyle goal, but never with too much menace.

Argyle, on the other hand, carved out another glorious half-chance, Barnes nodding on a Gray throw-in for Gallagher to hook a volley just wide of Cerny's right-hand post.

The game settled into a midfield duel which occupied the Pilgrims' playmakers so much that they were unable to exert the same influence that had served them so well in the opening half.

With Barnsley winning, Forest having played, and Norwich unoccupied, the Pilgrims were very much on their own, and it felt like it.

Chances became fewer at either end, although Rangers, who quickly brought on all three substitutes for a run-out, worked themselves into decent positions.

A fallow period for Argyle ended with Gallagher firing a free-kick narrowly over, the ball's drift away somehow a metaphor for the Pilgrims' own falling away.

They rebounded to nearly secure their safety when Mackie fired off a shot that Cerny spilt but Barnes was denied from sweeping in the loose by the toe of Rangers' defender Kaspars Gorkss.

That spurred a little revival which saw Gallagher curl a shot over the crossbar after being sublimely played in by Fletcher.

In injury-time, a break by Mackie saw the ball end up at the feet of Gallagher, who again fired over.

Right at the death, Mackie broke through again, but wasted himself so much in the run that he could not fire a shot off that could trouble Cerny.

Come on you Royals.

Queens Park Rangers (4-4-2): 24 Radek Cerny; 6 Mikele Leigertwood, 13 Kaspars Gorkss, 3 Damion Stewart, 16 Matthew Connolly; 7 Wayne Routledge, 18 Liam Miller (15 Peter Ramage 62), 4 Gavin Mahon (capt), 17 Lee Cook (19 Angelo Balanta 57); 11 Patrick Agyemang (32 Antonio German 66), 27 Heidar Helguson. Substitutes (not used): 2 Damien Delaney, 5 Fitz Hall.

Argyle (4-4-2): 1 Romain Larrieu; 33 David Gray, 19 Marcel Seip, 15 Chris Barker, 18 Gary Sawyer; 23 Alan Judge, 28 Carl Fletcher, 2 Karl Duguid (capt), 11 Paul Gallagher; 24 Ashley Barnes (14 Rory Fallon 84), 25 Jamie Mackie. Substitutes (not used): 5 Krisztián Timár, 6 Chris Clark, 27 Lloyd Saxton (gk), 37 Rudi Douala.

Booked: Judge 90, Fletcher 90.

Referee:Nigel Miller (County Durham).

Attendance:14,779 (1,600 away est.).