Mark Hughes insisted that it remains only a matter of time before QPR begin to pull away from the foot of the Premier League table but the pressure on the Rangers manager shows no sign of abating. The Hoops remain anchored to the bottom after Everton extended the west Londoners' winless start to the season to eight games. A Júlio César own-goal cancelled out Junior Hoilett's early strike and, although the visitors were reduced to 10 men for the final half-hour, Rangers could not find a winner.

For Hughes's side this was only a third point of the season but, with almost a quarter of the campaign gone he remains convinced it is just a blip. "We know we can compete in this league and we've shown it against the top sides," he said. "We're having a frustrating period but every club has one. We're having ours now and once we're through it that'll be the end of it."

His opposite number concurred that time would prove a healer. "They've got good players," said the Everton manager, David Moyes. "After staying up they've brought in an awful lot of new players and they needed the turnaround to make sure they were all right. It just takes a bit of time."

More importantly Hughes again received backing from his chairman, Tony Fernandes, who took to Twitter to tell those making negative comments after the game that they were "wasting time and energy" and that the club needs "time and stability".

With Everton fourth, Hughes could point to the fact that his side have been handed an unenviable opening fixture list, with injuries, another mitigating factor, again forcing a defensive rejig. The frustration is compounded by the fact that they are not always playing badly. In the second half in particular they forced Everton back and the visitors were grateful for some fine goalkeeping from Tim Howard and equally adept defending from Phil Jagielka.

In the main, though, it was a scrappy affair. Adel Taarabt, predictably, was in gloves but he might have been better off with a cagoule. The watery conditions had plenty of players struggling to stay vertical and at times it seemed as if this was a game being played on an ice rink for which only Esteban Granero, the most technically accomplished in midfield by a distance, had remembered to bring his skates.

Nevertheless the afternoon could hardly have got off to a better start for Hughes and his team. Little over a minute was on the clock when José Bosingwa hooked a Leighton Baines corner narrowly wide of his own goal. From the resultant set-piece César punched clear and Hoilett outmuscled Phil Neville to win the loose ball inside his own half. From there the Canada international raced forward with defenders backpedalling and, having seemingly held on to the ball for a second too long, watched as his shot clipped the heels of Baines and flew past the stranded Tim Howard. Only 118 seconds had elapsed.

César's only other important action in the opening half-hour was to push away Nikica Jelavic's curling low free-kick, while at the other end Ryan Nelsen might have doubled the advantage from close range. The QPR keeper, though, could do little about Everton's equaliser even if he will be credited with it. Steven Pienaar's free-kick was headed thunderously against the inside of a post by Sylvain Distin and the ball bobbled back over the line courtesy of a rebound off the Brazilian's back.

That sparked 60 seconds of madness to match those in the opening exchanges. Jelavic tumbled in the box under Stéphane Mbia's challenge to bring Moyes to the edge of his technical area screaming for a penalty. The referee, Jon Moss, turned those appeals down but, from the corner that followed the attack, Jagielka planted a header against the bar.

The odds were tipped in the home side's favour on the hour when Pienaar was sent off after two yellow cards in the space of 10 minutes, the first after the South African hammered into Hoilett, the second issued, rather more dubiously, for a trip on Bosingwa. Certainly the contact was far less substantial than that of Seamus Coleman's boot on Hoilett in the Everton penalty area with 10 minutes to go.

They were decisions to enrage both managers. "It was very, very harsh to give someone a red card for that," said Moyes. "Incredible." Hughes was equally unimpressed with the failure of Moss to award a potentially game-winning spot-kick. "It was a stonewall penalty," he said. The referee is only four metres away – why he didn't given I don't know."

Either side of the red card both Howard and César had made fine stops, with the QPR keeper first denying Jagielka from point-blank range. His counterpart at the other end produced two excellent saves to keep out Hoilett efforts from the edge of the box and, at the death, Jagielka was on hand once more to deny Park Ji-sung.

Man of the match Phil Jagielka (Everton)