With six straight defeats for manager Steve McClaren’s Queens Park Rangers side, we made the tough trip to the Riverside Stadium to face off against promotion hopefuls Middlesbrough in today’s Championship fixture.
Clearly, the aim on the day was to at least bring our run of defeats to an end, but a somewhat unexpected victory would certainly boost spirits once again.
That, of course, cursed us once again and two minutes into the first half the hosts had a 1-0 advantage. 32 minutes into the game they had a 2-0 advantage.
A two goal game was all the travelling fans were treated to, so in many ways at least it didn’t get worse for those who took the trip up north and QPR were again poor and didn’t really threaten much across the 90 minutes, even though we actually had more possession in our favour and matched their efforts on goal.
Speaking to the BBC following the end of the game, McClaren said.
“We lost the game in the first 30 minutes to two errors. Against a very good Middlesbrough team, who have conceded the least goals in the Football League, it was going to be uphill. The lesson is we can’t start a game and within two minutes be one down. This is a tough week. Leeds on Tuesday – another top team and we have to keep fighting and show perseverance like we have been doing and get the first win of the year. The errors we are making can be rectified on the training field. We need to be back on there because you can’t do anything on the training ground when you play seven games in 21 days.”