MARK Hughes admits QPR gave themselves a mountain to climb in this afternoon's derby demolition by Chelsea. Rangers were shell-shocked by Daniel Sturridge's opener after just 48 seconds and were four down at the break at Stamford Bridge. Things got even worse as their west London rivals added another two after the interval before Djibril Cisse scored a late consolation. And Hughes admits Rangers were made to pay for a slow start as Chelsea inflicted a heavy 6-1 defeat to deal a real blow to their survival hopes. "We lost three or four goals in 20 minutes and there is no coming back from that,” admitted Hughes afterwards. “In fairness, we tried to have a go but that ended up compromising ourselves because we were committing people forward and they were just picking us off very easily. That was the story of the day. "Credit to Chelsea, they were excellent on the day and were too good for us. We have got to move on from this, we have got a huge game next weekend, and it certainly wasn't our day today." Rangers are only above the drop zone on goal difference, and Hughes admitted it was damage limitation after an awful first-half showing in SW6. "That [goal difference] was something we were mindful of," added the Welshman. "Second half we have conceded again, but we have got one back. From that point of view we were very mindful of that and were trying to protect that."
“In fairness, we tried to have a go but that ended up compromising ourselves because we were committing people forward and they were just picking us off very easily. That was the story of the day.'' "That [goal difference] was something we were mindful of," added the Welshman. [video=youtube;rXp96Um-TAs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXp96Um-TAs[/video]
Terrible sleep last night, woke up this morning wishing it was just a nightmare. Still trying to figure out how on earth we managed to put in a performance like that in one of our most important games in the past decade. A local derby....our backs to the wall....and we rolled over. I challenge someone (anyone?) at the club to explain this to the fans as Sparky's words are not enough. If this is how we intend to approach a relegation fight, then come clean. We may as well throw in the towel now and put us all out of our misery.
Wrong game plan. Should've planned to protect the goal difference by parking the bus with Cisse the lone striker.
