Steve McClaren had some sympathy for Josh Scowen after QPR’s heavy defeat at home to Preston.

Rangers were beaten 4-1 at Loftus Road, where they conceded the opening goal after midfielder Scowen lost possession near the edge of his own penalty area.

But manager McClaren encourages his players to try to play out from the back and accepts that means mishaps can happen.

“It’s difficult. You want to play football and we’ve been doing that,” McClaren said.

“I have to say it’s the first time in a long time we’ve conceded a goal like that.

“It happens. If you want to try and build up from the back, that can happen. You’ve got to recover from that and we didn’t really.

“Overall it’s not that (Scowen’s mistake), it’s the team performance. We weren’t good enough.”

Rangers have been much improved since a dismal start to McClaren’s reign which included a 7-1 mauling at West Brom followed by a 3-0 home defeat against Bristol City.

However, their performance against Preston was at times reminiscent of those displays in August.

But McClaren remained philosophical, saying: “You always get that in a season, especially in the Championship. You get bad days at the office – and that was a bad day for us.

“This happens. It’s happened before. It will probably happen again. The best thing you can do is Monday to Friday get back to work on the training ground.

“It’s a wake-up call for us. It’s awful. The players are disappointed. We’ve let ourselves down and the supporters down, but on Monday we’re back to work.”







