QPR count cost of poor defence

QPR manager Neil Warnock was disappointed to see three defensive errors cost his side dearly in their 3-2 defeat by Manchester City.

The home side led at Loftus Road through a Jay Bothroyd goal, but allowed Roberto Mancini’s men to overturn the deficit with strikes from Edin Dzeko and David Silva.

QPR were level when Bothroyd’s header deflected in off Heidar Helguson, but just minutes later Yaya Toure headed home the winner, leaving Warnock feeling as though his side’s performance had been undermined by mistakes.

“The result is diabolical, but we have to look at the performance as well,” Warnock said. “It’s a cruel game sometimes, and you don’t get what you deserve.”

“As well as we played, we made three errors in 93 minutes against the best team in England – and probably the world at the minute – and got punished every time.”

“It’s disappointing, because we had enough chances and I’m really pleased with the lads, apart from the defending for the goals, which was disappointing.”

“I think the performance today surprised a few people. We are improving, and we think we can get even better than that.”

City assistant coach David Platt praised the Premier League leaders’ resilience, but also added that he was impressed by their opponents’ tactics.

“We knew it was going to be tough,” Platt told reporters.

“We thought we’d be able to withstand it for the first 20 minutes and then get our passing game going, but they stopped us from doing that and the game became a little too end-to-end.”

“We always looked dangerous when we had the ball down the sides of them, but for the first 25 minutes we didn’t utilize the space they left us well enough. We played in front of them.”

“You’ve got to give credit for the offensive way Neil Warnock set out his team, with two attacking full-backs and two centre-forwards. We didn’t expect that.”

But it was the gritty manner in which City claimed the three points that pleased Platt most.

“I think that’s the first game this season we’ve had to really dig out,” he added.

“Even in the tighter games, we’ve still looked like we were going to score goals. We’ve not necessarily put teams to the sword, but we haven’t looked like we were going to concede.”