Blackburn Roovers 3 - 2 Queen Park Rangers

Blackburn chose the visit of a revered guest to find an antidote to their Ewood Park vulnerability. While their capitulation against Arsenal seven days earlier exposed their defensive frailty, their charity this season began at home.

Before Mark Hughes's return, Rovers had lost nine of their 12 league fixtures on their own turf; a statistic in stark contrast to the Hughes blueprint for success during his successful four seasons in this east Lancashire enclave.

It took Hughes two seasons to lose that many matches on his own manor, and improvement will be crucial in Steve Kean's team's bid to beat the drop. Blackburn's first-half display – clinical and energetic – bore all the hallmarks of a Hughes side circa 2006. Unfortunately, in contrast, Queens Park Rangers' performance did not.

Their defence was breached three times in the opening 45 minutes and Blackburn led by three as a result. Yakubu Ayegbeni, returning after a three-game suspension, put them in front on the quarter-hour with his 13th Premier League goal of the season. Paul Robinson's raking long ball found its way into Yakubu's path from Steven Nzonzi's flick-on and a swivel of the hips left Anton Ferdinand in his wake, as the ball was transferred from left boot to right and beyond Paddy Kenny. "We've missed him and we're glad he's back," Kean said.

Midway through the half, French midfielder Nzonzi doubled the advantage. His surge from halfway created uncertainty in a retreating Rangers rearguard and, after feeding Junior Hoilett on the left, he loitered on the edge of the area to stroke in a delayed return pass.

However, against opponents that conceded seven at the Emirates in their last outing and without a clean sheet in any match for 10 months, QPR were always in the game and would have had a firmer foothold if Bobby Zamora's opportunistic hook over his own shoulder had gone the other side of an upright after Blackburn failed to clear a corner on the half-hour.

Confirmation that Zamora was to be defeated here for a second time this year – he was in the Fulham team who lost 3-1 to 10 men last month – was all-but delivered four minutes into first-half injury time when Yakubu headed Martin Olsson's free-kick across the box and Hoilett's drive from a diminishing angle struck Nedum Onuoha's ankles, looped over Kenny and went in off the underside of the bar.

"You can't give any Premier League team a three-goal head start," Hughes said. "The first 45 minutes were as poor as we've been since I've been in the door and arguably the poorest of any team I have been involved with, to be honest."

Things almost got worse seven minutes after the restart when Yakubu – a QPR target before the January window closed – cleared Kenny's leap but struck the underside of the crossbar with an audacious chip from 20 yards.

Djibril Cissé, one of the strikers they did manage to acquire, was serving a ban, so it was left to the QPR substitute Jamie Mackie, who broke his leg on his last visit to Ewood 13 months ago, to sharpen their attack. He turned in from inside the six-yard box to expose former Ranger Bradley Orr's 70th-minute defensive error, and then rifled in a beauty at the death to ensure that Blackburn were kept in the bottom three on goal difference.