QPR continued their march up the Championship table under Marti Cifuentes as Michael Frey announced his return to the side after injury with a goal in a 3-1 win over Watford at Loftus Road.

The former Schalke and Fenerbahce forward had been out since mid-October with a calf injury but made an emphatic comeback on his first start in more than two months with a goal to give his side the lead after only five minutes.

After a poor start to the season QPR have now lost just one of their last 10 to pull comfortably clear of the relegation places, and they increased their lead against play-off chasing Watford when Jimmy Dunne took advantage of non-existent marking to head a second before half-time.

Kwadwo Baah struck to briefly restore the visitors’ prospects early in the second half, but less than 60 seconds later Cifuentes’ side picked them off again, Sam Field nodding in Paul Smyth’s cross to seal a deserved victory in west London.

Watford were guilty of slack defending for QPR’s opener. A quick free-kick was threaded by Kenneth Paal into the left channel where Kieran Morgan had been given an acre in which to advance with the ball. He ran it into the box and cut it back to where Frey was waiting six yards out to sweep home his fifth league goal of the season.

Watford boss Tom Cleverley was visibly unhappy with the decision to award the free-kick against his team. Frey and Ryan Porteous had seemingly held onto one another before the decision was given in QPR’s favour, though the room given to Morgan to streak clear and set up the goal ought to have been of greater concern for the visiting manager.

And there was more cause for ire in the away dugout with the marking that led to Rangers’ second. Ilias Chair cut onto his right foot and lofted a cross into the six-yard box where both Frey and Dunne were waiting seemingly unnoticed by Watford’s defenders.

Frey leapt for it, but the ball sailed over him and landed on the head of Dunne who nodded it wide of goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann into the corner.

Smyth spurned a golden chance to kill off the game early in the second half, blazing high and wide as the ball broke fortuitously to him inside the box.

And he was made to rue his profligacy minutes later when Watford halved the deficit. Giorgi Chakvetadze carried the ball on a driving cross-field run before sliding it wide to Baah who beat goalkeeper Paul Nardi via a deflection.

Watford were back in the match for under a minute. The game had barely restarted when Smyth collected the ball wide on the right and stood up a cross that was headed powerfully home by Field to restore Rangers’ two-goal advantage.