Fulham 3-2 QPR

            

  Last season QPR suffered an embarrassing 6-0 defeat at Craven Cottage and it looked like there could be a similar scoreline after a dominant first-half display by the hosts,The hosts started brightest and, after early warning shots from Riise and Damien Duff, Samba thought he had thwarted Berbatov with a decent tackle inside the box.Marquee January signing Christopher Samba gifted the Cottagers their first two goals, bringing down Ashkan Dejagah to allow Dimitar Berbatov to net an eighth-minute penalty.However, the Rs defender had not accounted for Dejagah latching onto the loose ball and his late challenge on the winger saw referee Lee Probert point to the spot.Things got worse soon after when Samba lost possession of the ball on the edge of his own box, allowing Berbatov to coolly slot home past Julio Cesar.Berbatov stepped up to take the resulting penalty and nonchalantly sent Cesar the wrong way to give Fulham an eighth-minute advantage.Chants of "going down" echoed around Craven Cottage when Clint Hill put a John Arne Riise cross into his goal, but QPR rallied and launched the unlikeliest of comebacks.Stephane Mbia had to be alert to stop Bryan Ruiz grabbing a quickfire second, before Hill received an early booking for a poor challenge on Giorgos Karagounis.Adel Taarabt, who stormed out at half-time of last season's Craven Cottage encounter, reduced the deficit on the stroke of half-time before Loic Remy netted moments after seeing a penalty saved by Mark Schwarzer.Samba was caught out by the evergreen Duff, whose hassling saw the ball end up at Berbatov's feet, allowing him to burst into the box before finishing with aplomb.The veteran Australian had to be at his best for the rest of the match and, despite Steve Sidwell's late sending off, Fulham held on, condemning QPR to a potentially season-defining defeat.