Three goals were scored in stoppage time – including Steven Caulker’s 95th winner – as Liverpool came away from Loftus Road with a dramatic 3-2 win over Queens Park Rangers in a Premier League match on Sunday.

The result lifts Liverpool to fifth spot on the league table with 13 points while QPR remains bottom of the league after being condemned to a fourth defeat in its last five matches.

Harry Redknapp and his QPR players would look back on this match and wonder how it was not them that came away with the three points, which would have taken the Londoners off the foot of the table.

A combination of the woodwork and Liverpool goalkeeper Simon Mignolet ensured it took the Royals all of 87 minutes before finding the net, but in vain as it turned out.

Charlie Austin was first to threaten for QPR, seeing a poked blocked back to his path by Mignolet but the striker couldn’t keep his composure and only found the sidenetting with the rebound.

Leroy Fer then should have put QPR ahead in the 28th minute when a Bobby Zamora ball across goal found him eight yards out, only for the Dutchman to crash his effort off the crossbar with Mignolet well beaten.

Fer was denied again by the crossbar five minutes later after being picked out again by a Zamora ball in, with Austin’s effort in the rebound cleared off the line by Glen Johnson as Liverpool somehow went into the break level with their hosts.

Mignolet had to be alert to keep out a drilled effort from Sandro two minutes into the second half, while Mario Balotelli blazed over from close range when a loose ball fell to him just after the hour mark.

Balotelli’s blushes were spared minutes later when Richard Dunne put Liverpool ahead with an own-goal just after the hour mark, his 10th in the Premier League which makes him the highest scorer of own-goals in the league’s history.

Austin was denied again by Mignolet soon after while Armand Traore also had a goal-bound header kept out by the Liverpool goalkeeper as QPR searched for a way back into the match.

That inevitably came through substitute Eduardo Vargas who equalised for QPR in the 87th minute when he turned in a cross from Austin, but Philippe Coutinho restored Liverpool’s lead on the dot of 90 off a counterattack with the help of a deflection.

The Brazilian midfielder could have been forgiven for thinking he had won it for the Reds, but Vargas scrambled in a 92nd minute equaliser for QPR as the match was destined for a draw.

There would be more drama however as, after Balotelli squandered a good scoring chance, a Raheem Sterling ball in towards the Italian was turned in by Caulker in the 95th minute to win it for the Reds.