Warburton: QPR were too soft in derby defeat

Mark Warburton accused his QPR side of showing Fulham too much respect after a second-half collapse saw them go down 4-1 at Craven Cottage.

Lyndon Dykes’ equaliser saw Rangers enjoy their best spell of the game, having been on the back foot for much of the first half.


However, two goals in four minutes put the match out of their reach before Jordy de Wijs deflected an Antonee Robinson shot past Seny Dieng deep into injury time.

“I thought there was a bit of softness about us in the first half, the basics of duels we didn’t do well enough,” Rangers boss Warburton said.

“You can play all the nice football you like, but you have to do the basics right.

“In the first half that was summed up by the goal. Mitrovic is a talented forward but he has time to bring it down in the box and finish. That can’t happen.

“Seny then made a very good save and we could have been two down.

“We wanted an aggressive change at half-time and Lyndon came on and scored a good goal and I thought we were in the ascendancy and could have taken that position forward and maximised it.

“But we have to recognise, we can’t be soft, can’t give away a goal of that nature for the second.

“People say that was an outstanding header, but we had three versus one in the box.

“That can’t happen. It changed the momentum of the match. It was a really poor third goal and the fourth is a deflection which can happen.

“But I felt we had a softness about us in periods of the game, which is unlike us.

“When we are good we have to take the plaudits but today there were too many basic errors.”

Warburton defended the decision not to start with Dykes, who scored the winner for Scotland in midweek against the Faroe Islands.

Rangers looked much better following his introduction in place of the struggling Dom Ball at half-time.

“Dom was a tactical move – he was on a yellow card and Stefan (Johansen) got a late one and we wanted to be  more on the front foot,” Warburton said.

“Lyndon has two massive games this week – two 90-minute performances – and you have to look after these players.

“We have seven games in 21 days. I need to make sure I use the players as well as I can.

“It’s easy to say I should have played him for an hour and brought him off. He came on and did a good job but we didn’t maximise it when it was 1-1.”