Joey Barton: Wonders what has happened to QPR's luck

Joey Barton is convinced QPR just need some luck on their travels to bring an end to their unwanted away defeats record.

QPR manager Harry Redknapp felt that his side deserved more from the game against Stoke after they dominated the second half, but lost 3-1. QPR manager Harry Redknapp felt that his side deserved more from the game against Stoke after they dominated the second half, but lost 3-1.

Harry Redknapp's men went down 3-1 at Stoke City on Saturday to make it 11 defeats from 11 Premier League matches this season.

But Barton was among the QPR to suffer in front of goal, with his long-range free-kick coming back off the crossbar with Stoke holding on grimly to a 2-1 advantage that was only padded by Jon Walters' hat-trick strike in added time.

Jinx

"You’ve seen the way we played today, it’s just not going our way it’s as simple as that," Barton said.

"There’s no miracle or course or anything like that. You start to begin thinking there is a jinx away from home but I don’t think it’s just this year it goes into the last tenure of Mark Hughes.

"QPR have been poor away from home, I don’t know what it is. The saving grace is that everyone around us has lost again today.

"People go on about the magical 40 point mark and that’s where you need to be to get safety and it isn’t. The reality is you just need to be better than three other teams and there are a lot of other teams in there scrapping away who are struggling.

"We’ve lost away from home but a lot of teams have lost at home today so we have to be positive. The level of performance out there - barring some individual errors which are always frustrating - you can the lads are committed, you can see the lads are trying.

"There is no hiding place, it’s just about pulling your socks up and getting on with it. Talking about it is obviously painful for us and people are going to keep talking about it until we do something about our away record but we just dust ourselves off and go again."

Fed up

Niko Kranjcar scored QPR's only goal, to bring the score back to 2-1, and he is of a similar opinion to Barton about QPR's plight.

"We believe in each other. We give each other everything every week when we come on to the pitch. We just have to keep going and see what it brings us," Kranjcar said.

"I’m fed up with it but it wasn’t to be again today but it was not due to a lack of will or lack of eagerness. We keep giving sloppy goals away which doesn’t give you a basis to build on and it’s always an uphill battle from then.

"But we have to keep going. I think results went our away – nobody really stepped away from us. We must now focus on our next game which is Southampton at home."