Mark Warburton accepted the jeers of Queens Park Rangers fans as his side crashed to a demoralising defeat at home to relegation-threatened Peterborough United.
The loss — their fourth in five games — pushed them further away from the Sky Bet Championship play-off positions, in an increasingly tight race. At the other end of the table, it lifted Peterborough off the bottom.
Supporters loudly booed the substitution of the QPR goalscorer Luke Amos before the hour mark, and then again on the full-time whistle.
A clearly frustrated Warburton was sympathetic to the negative reaction and wanted it to be a motivation for his players. “Those boos should hurt, they should hurt every single player and every staff member,” the QPR manager said. “I’m sure it does, but if it doesn’t, then we are screwed.
“They care passionately and it will hurt beyond belief. But the punters are right to boo. I didn’t recognise us in the second half. I said to the players after, it goes all the way down, every player, every staff member, including me. I can’t just say it was a bad day at the office. We had them at Barnsley and Millwall too.”
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It looked as though it would be a good afternoon for QPR after nine minutes, when Amos dispossessed Jack Taylor on the halfway line.
His powerful run forward found enough space between a retreating Peterborough defence and he curled home his fourth goal of the season, from outside the area. There almost seemed an inevitability that the hosts would get a second goal, after Andre Gray saw his header come off the post six minutes before the interval.
Yet Peterborough stunned them a minute later with an unexpected equaliser. Keiren Westwood could only parry a Jack Marriott cross, and Jonson Clarke-Harris delivered a piledriver of a shot on the rebound.
Peterborough looked nothing like a side that had not won a league game this calendar year and took all three points in a two-minute spell after the interval. Clarke-Harris delivered from the penalty spot eight minutes after the restart, after Jimmy Dunne upended Joe Ward. Marriott then added a third with a superb cut inside from the touchline, working his way into the area and finishing off with a strike into the top corner.
Peterborough are now off the bottom, and their manager, Grant McCann, said that recent games had proved his side could get a victory.
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He said: “It was a good win, but I have seen it coming over the past four games. We should have won at Bournemouth, we had good chances to win against Stoke, we should have beaten Swansea, and today we showed more robustness to get the three points. This gives the lads a lot of confidence going into the international break and I can finally look forward to doing some work with them on the training ground, because it has been relentless.”
QPR (3-4-2-1): K Westwood — J Dunne, R Dickie, D Sanderson — A Adomah, S Field, A Dozzell (J Hendrick 57), S McCallum — L Amos (C Austin 57), I Chair — A Gray (G Thomas 57). Booked Field.
Peterborough (3-4-3): D Cornell — J Knight, R Edwards, F Kent — J Ward, J Taylor (J Fuchs 70), O Norburn, B Mumba (H Burrows 46) — S Szmodics, J Clarke-Harris (J Taylor 90), J Marriott (K Poku 76). Booked Mumba, Marriott, Norburn.
Referee D Webb.
