Joey Barton says QPR need to earn the right to stay in the Premier League

QPR captain stunned Rangers didn’t take anything from Sunday’s game against Everton

QPR remain four points adrift of safety with eight games remaining

JOEY Barton says he and his team-mates were left scratching their heads after Sunday’s defeat to Everton, trying to work out how they failed to take anything from the game.





Seamus Coleman had given the Toffees the lead at half-time before substitute Eduardo Vargas levelled for Rangers.





As the R’s went in search of a winner, Aaron Lennon sealed all three points for the visitors at Loftus Road.





“We had a de-brief in the dressing room afterwards and we were scratching our heads, wondering how we lost the game,” Barton told www.qpr.co.uk





“We knew they were getting off a plane from their Europa League fixture on Thursday so we intended to play the game at a high tempo, and I thought the lads implemented the gameplan really well.





“Looking around the dressing room afterwards, I couldn’t fault any of us. Everybody put a shift in, everybody turned up, no-one hid. When you’re fighting at the bottom of the table, usually you’ll find there’s one or two players who will go hiding but we didn’t have that yesterday.









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“If we’d have drawn the game we would have come off the pitch disappointed, so to lose it is a real kick in the teeth.





“I think anybody who saw the game would understand that we were the better side, there’s no question about it, but we haven’t got any points to show for it.”





The result leaves Rangers four points adrift of safety with eight games remaining, and while Barton bemoaned the R’s lack of luck, he also conceded that at this stage of the season you can’t be blaming a luck of fortune for your league position.





“Things tend to go your way more when you are at the top of the table, and when you are fighting towards the bottom of it things tend to go against you, and you don’t seem to get the rub of the green as much,” he said.





“But the league table doesn’t lie. After 30 games, you are where you deserve to be. You can’t always complain about luck.





“It’s a very unforgiving league and you have to earn the right to stay in it. On current projections, we’re not going to do that.





“But there are still eight games to go and we play a lot of teams in and around us. We still believe we can do it, and we’ve got to go out and prove that now.”





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