QPR turned in their worst performance as a John Gregory team and succumbed to an embarrassing 3-0 defeat against Crystal Palace.

Before QPR secured a deserved 1-0 win over the league leaders live on Sky Sports a smiling John Gregory told the television cameras that when he'd first arrived at the club a number of people were "finding comfort on the treatment table."

For me Southampton's slow and painful demise from the top division was perfectly summed up by the attitude of James Beattie who sat at the back of the stand watching over a manager whenever he was under pressure only to suddenly declare himself fit and start the first game under the new gaffer. There was certainly a touch of the Beatties about some of the miraculous recoveries made by our squad when Gregory took over.

At the time he said they'd soon slip back into their old ways - and how right he was. Rangers travelled to Selhurst Park yesterday with Bircham missing, despite Prav saying he'd be ready four weeks ago, Lomas out, for reasons not deemed worthy of a mention on the official site or QPR World. Ainsworth and Cook are now both injured, Shimmin and Hislop are permanently injured - there's more people in our treatment room than there will be in our ground for the FA Cup match with Luton.

Gregory's solution was to select a side without a central midfielder, despite the awesome displays from Stefan Bailey in our last two away games. He also included four strikers, with Ray Jones completing a set of out of position players down the left side - and people say Cook would be no great loss. That's without even mentioning the division's most horrific back four who had one of their more eccentric days at the office.

Palace have been on an upward curve since a QPR team with two wingers, two strikers and a defensive central midfielder beat them 4-2 a month ago. They'd taken five points from three matches before QPR came calling and paired Dougie Freedman and Shefki Kuqi in attack against the travelling circus.

A big reason for the upturn in form for Palace has been the signing of giant keeper Iain Turner from Everton. Peter Taylor spent the thick end of a million pounds on Scott Flinders from Barnsley over the summer but you only have to look at his rabbit in headlights impression when Lee Cook dipped the ball over his head for Jimmy Smith's second goal a month ago to see things weren't quite working out for him.

Turner has been a revelation in south London by all accounts but he looked just as nervous as Flinders had done against Rangers in the opening stages. After five minutes a long cross field ball from Rehman was fumbled by Turner under pressure from Nygaard. The ball fell to Rowlands who calmly carried possession out of the mêlée and towards the open goal. Rowlands took his time, in fact he took far too much time, and then he seemed to freeze and ultimately he prodded a weak effort towards goal with the outside of his right foot from eight yards out and Butterfield was able to block it away.

He made a better job of things five minutes later but still failed to break the deadlock. This time Marc Nygaard won the ball back on halfway and turned into space well before carrying the ball to the edge of the box and laying it into space ahead of Rowlands. Palace couldn't get across to make a block in time and Rowlands was able to hit a first time right footed effort across Turner but the ball flew just past the post.

In between these two efforts Tom Soares, a scorer at Loftus Road in the previous match, hit a powerful drive which was blocked away by Damion Stewart.

The first goal came, courtesy of terrible defending, thirteen minutes into the game. Turner launched a standard long ball down the field and for whatever reason Stewart was outside left of Kuqi when he needed to be inside right. He couldn't have been more the wrong side of his man if he'd tried. Kuqi trundled into the penalty area and squared it for a similarly unmarked Dougie Freedman to calmly flick the opening goal past Simon Royce.

There's nobody to blame for this goal except the two centre halves - a simple long ball from the goalkeeper was all it needed for the pair of them to be completely carved apart. To say this was schoolboy defending would be an insult to junior teams the world over.

Rangers should have been level within five minutes. Ray Jones produced the only half decent cross that came from the left flank all afternoon, Dexter Blackstock headed the ball back across the face of goal and with the keeper totally out of the equation Marc Nygaard contrived to miss the ball completely and then Martin Rowlands hammered high and wide of another open net.

Within moments Smith turned on the edge of the box and sent a low shot in which Turner tipped agonisingly out of Nygaard's reach.

The small QPR following in the side stand could hardly believe what they were seeing. Luckily in the absence of Cook they wouldn't have to see it any more as Rangers struggled to create a chance of note for the rest of the match. On seven separate occasions Jimmy Smith attempted a cross only to hit the first man square in the chest/face/thigh - seven times! This included a number of poor corners.

He looked like the inexperienced boy that he is. Alongside him Kevin Gallen looked like a player many, many years older than he really is. Neither of them had any positive impact on the game, constantly gifted possession to Palace and mostly could only watch as the home side ripped between them and broke down the field. The situation clearly frustrated Gallen who was booked for a crude challenge in the first half, warned after a show of dissent and then would surely have been sent off in the second for a cynical shirt pull had he not let go at the crucial moment and allowed an advantage.

Rangers are of course missing Bircham, so why not put Bailey in? The guy was a revelation at Cardiff and Luton and played one poor game against Coventry. We can't rely on Bircham and Lomas to be fit for any length of time, and we certainly can't go in without a defensive central midfielder when neither of them are fit.

Soares hit a shot wide and Watson sent a dipping effort a foot over the bar with Royce beaten as Palace started to turn the screw. On the half hour another simple long ball, this time from Kuqi on halfway cut Rehman and Stewart apart again and Freedman raced through on goal. Luckily Stewart got back and made an excellent last ditch tackle to cover up his terrible positioning again.

Two minutes later Kuqi and Freedman annihilated the R's defence again and the lead was doubled. Another simple long ball forward from Butterfield flew towards Freedman. Stewart was the wrong side of his man again and attempted to cut the ball out without success. Freedman raced away towards goal with Rehman neither going to him nor covering Kuqi who was up in support. The lack of opposition meant Freedman could calmly play his partner in and to cap it all Kuqi's poorly struck shot squirmed in between Royce's legs and into the net.

You're unlikely to see defending of this calibre from a professional football team anywhere in the world and such a consistent basis. On Saturday they weren't capable of dealing with anything - long balls, short balls, crosses, quick counter attacks, everything was causing them a problem. It cost the QPR fans £30 apiece to watch it as well.

Palace were forced into a change just before the break when Butterfield picked up a knock and Matt Lawrence was introduced to the game.

The second half started with another injury. Shefki Kuqi trundled calmly through the rickety Rangers offside trap again and was tackled by Royce who struggled o make it back to his goal afterwards and required treatment on the field. A short time later Watson blazed a great chance over the bar after more hard work from Kuqi and then when the giant Fin saw a one on one chance blocked by the keeper McAnuff fired high into the home end with the goal at his mercy.

Whatever Gregory said at half time it had worse than no effect, it only made things worse. QPR were embarrassing in the second period and managed to create one half chance in the whole 45 minutes. Jimmy Smith seized on a through ball from Ray Jones but Turner was on him immediately and he made a routine block.

QPR did their bit for entertainment in the final twenty minutes by giving the quickest player on the field as much freedom as possible - Jobi McAnuff couldn't oblige with a goal but did go close with drive from wide in the penalty area which crashed into the side netting. Michael Mancienne, the only Rangers player to come out with even a little credit, produced a goal saving clearance under his cross bar as Palace continued to press.

In the 73rd minute Kuqi missed a sitter when Soares cut the ball back to him six yards out. Gregory responded by introducing Ward and Furlong for Blackstock and Nygaard to absolutely no effect.

As time ticked down Kevin Gallen attempted to chest a ball down under no pressure and somehow got enough purchase on it to propel the ball ten yards forward straight to McAnuff. He handed possession to Watson whose simple ball through to Soares found the Moscow State boys arms up and like a dog's hind leg . Soares squared it to Clinton Morrison who swept home a third. He'd only been on the pitch for four minutes before taking advantage of the registered charity that is Queens Park Rangers - this time a combination of the back four's miserable offside trap and Kevin Gallen's carelessness in possession cost Rangers the goal.

Quite frankly this was about as poor as it gets. There were so many problems it's hard to know where to begin. Stewart has shown of late that he has real potential, he's got pace and power in the air - in my opinion this guy could go on to be a real star. Yesterday however he was dreadful, consistently the wrong side of his man and heavily responsible for two of the goals. As for chuckles next to him, well a fifth booking means that both him and the long suffering supporters get a much needed break next week.

It was depressing on Wednesday night watching an excellent Derby County side led to victory against Ipswich by the imperious Dean Leacock - bought from the same club, at the same time for the same price as Rehman. The people that mattered at the time felt Leacock was a little light weight allegedly - I despair.

The key to the win over Palace and away successes that followed were star performances from defensive midfielders - crusty old Lomas will never have a game like he did against Palace last time again, Bailey won man of the match in both the away games, and yet yesterday we went without one. Smith is struggling at the moment and isn't scoring the goals to paper over the cracks any more, and it was very sad watching Kevin Gallen lumbering around like a man twice his age.

The chances missed by Rowlands and Nygaard were embarrassing. Blackstock can perhaps be excused for a decent work rate, Mancienne was half decent.

With two suspensions and hopefully some of that little lot in Prav's gang back next week changes will have to be made and hopefully improvements will follow.

Welcome back to square one.

Palace: Turner 7, Granville 7, Ward 8, Hudson 7, McAnuff 8, Freedman 8 (Morrison 81, 8), Watson 8, Hughes 7 (Green 88, -), Soares 8, Butterfield 7 (Lawrence 42, 7), Kuqi 9
Subs: Flinders, Kennedy
Scorers: Freedman 12, Kuqi 30, Morrison 85

QPR: Royce 4, Bignot 5, Rehman 3, Stewart 3, Mancienne 6, Rowlands 4, Smith 4, Blackstock 6 (Furlong 75, 5), Gallen 4, Nygaard 5 (Ward 75, 5), Jones 6
Subs: Cole, Bailey, Milanese
Bookings: Gallen, Rehman

QPR Star Man - Michael Mancienne 6 - Defended by himself for most of the game and can at least hold his head up and say he did his job. With Royce having one of those days behind him and the other three defenders doing their bit for British comedy it was always an uphill battle for him.

Referee: M Dean 8 - Nothing to referee really but allowed the game to flow, used the cards sensibly and didn't get too much wrong. Certainly one of his better displays of late.

Attendance: 17,017 (1,159)

Photo: Action Images

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