Dieng: Late save was important as goal

History-maker Seny Dieng said a late double save to earn QPR a point at Sunderland was a bigger moment than his stunning injury-time equaliser.

Dieng rose highest to power home Ilias Chair’s pinpoint delivery in injury time to become the first Rangers goalkeeper ever to get his name on the scoresheet – and stun the home crowd at the Stadium of Light.

“I had to go up,” Dieng said.

“We got a corner and I thought: ‘If not now, then when?’.

“I went up hoping to affect it somehow. It was a nice cross and I got my head on it with a nice connection. It was a good moment.”

After his heroics in the Sunderland box he then returned to his day job and pulled off two remarkable stops to first deny Ross Stewart and then, in combination with Rob Dickie, the follow-up from Eliott Embleton that crashed off the crossbar and away to safety.

The save secured a hard-earned point for Rangers and Dieng said his goal would have left him with a hollow feeling had Sunderland pinched the three points deep after the visitors had fought back.

“That was a great feeling too, but as the game still goes on you have to keep your focus and if the ball had gone in my goal would have been quickly forgotten,” he said.

“But in the second half we showed great character and I think we deserved to get the draw.

“I don’t practice heading in training, I only ever use my hands so it was a nice feeling at the end to get something from the game.”

It was not the first time Dieng has scored. In 2017, during a loan spell with non-League Whitehawk, he scored in a similar fashion but in a losing cause against Chichester.

As a youth the Swiss-born Senegal international played as a striker or midfielder and said those old skills in front of goal served him well, but admitted he had no idea how to celebrate when the ball hit the net.

“I didn’t know what to do, and then all the players were all over me,” he said.