Hughes praises FA, Ferdinand

QPR manager Mark Hughes has backed the FA’s decision to abandon the traditional pre-match handshake routine at Loftus Road.

Hughes said allowing the players to run straight out in Saturday’s FA Cup tie against Chelsea was the best solution.

“It was absolutely the correct decision,” Hughes said after the match.

“There was so much tension in such a brief moment in time that it clouded the issue, which today was surely the FA Cup tie we’re all involved in.”

“The fact that we took the whole issue out of the equation was exactly the right thing to do.”

“Chelsea had their views and I’m pleased we all came to the same decision.”

The drama surrounding the pre-game ritual concerned the speculation over the relationship between John Terry and Anton Ferdinand, but Hughes preferred to praise his centre-back for his.

“Anton has conducted himself really well,” Hughes said, despite QPR’s exit from the competition in a 1-0 defeat.

“Not only this week but for a number of weeks. He was excellent in the game as well.”

“It was a difficult situation for him because the focus seemed to be on Anton which was understandable given what happened in the last 48 hours.”

“For him to come through that shows great credit. He put in a really good performance.”

Hughes also praised his side’s performance in defeat in a game of far fewer talking points than the controversies surrounding the build up.

“We’re disappointed because we worked exceptionally hard in terms of discipline and making sure we had a good defensive shape,” Hughes said.

“We worked hard this week on making sure we had a good platform so we could go in the opposite direction and create chances at the other end.”

“Defensively our discipline of tracking runners and blocking balls through to their front-men was excellent.”

Hughes’ plan was foiled by referee Mike Dean who adjudged Clint Hill’s push on Daniel Sturridge enough to award a penalty which Juan Mata converted.

“I think Mike Dean will be a little bit disappointed when he sees what decision he’s given,” Hughes said.

“He said to Paddy Kenny that he had to give the penalty because the lad (Sturridge) was going to head the ball in, which wasn’t my take on it to be perfectly honest.”

“I just felt Sturridge went down a little bit easily and unfortunately for us he’s given the penalty which at that point was probably one of our better periods in the game.”

“We’re disappointed that we haven’t got any reward, albeit we probably didn’t do enough to win but we could have very easily got a draw out of the game.”