Gareth Ainsworth’s second spell in caretaker charge at QPR started with a 1-0 defeat at Burnley. Chris Eagles deflected in a header from Clarke Carlisle with his arm to seal the victory for the play off chasing hosts.

“This is a proper football town,” said Burnley manager Owen Coyle prior to kick off. It certainly didn’t feel like it on our last visit for an FA Cup replay played in front of one man and his dog on an icy night in January. QPR were the better team that night despite a defeat – things were different in this fourth meeting between the two sides though. In the stands, in the dugouts and on the pitch – those unfortunate enough to have attended both games would scarcely have been able to believe these were the same teams.

There was no queue at the Burnley branch of Gala Bingo on Saturday, the town’s historic football club was the only place to be and there was hardly a spare seat to be had in the home stands. Deserted and desolate three months ago, Turf Moor looked resplendent in the spring sunshine on Saturday as The Clarets just about did enough to see off crisis club QPR. At one end of the ground 200 QPR fans huddled together in the dark, dank Bob Lord Stand. The contrasts were stark wherever you looked.

Burnley, a well managed team and well run club, opened up a seven point gap between them and the team in seventh to all but guarantee a shot at the end of season play off lottery. Founder members of the football league and hoping to return to the top flight for the first time since 1976. QPR, a Premiership team as recently as 1996, looked like a team going through the motions here, with nothing to play for and turmoil behind the scenes. A farcical club increasingly the subject of ridicule by the footballing world. “We used to laugh with QPR,” one columnist wrote, “now we just laugh at them.” Quite.

You know things are bad when even Gareth Ainsworth struggles to raise himself from the bench more than once in each half to deliver instructions. I can scarcely recall a more reluctant looking caretaker manager.

Ainsworth’s first team selection since retaking charge showed a change in personnel and formation. Rowan Vine came in for his first start in more than a year after a twenty minute cameo against Crystal Palace last weekend. Liam Miller dropped out altogether and sat with Angelo Balanta in the padded seats behind the goal that QPR defended in the first half. Vine partnered Sam Di Carmine in attack with Taarabt and Wayne Routledge wide. Ephraim and Leigertwood partnered each other in the centre of the park – the latter was the star man here in the cup replay, and the worst player on the pitch on Saturday to further highlight his inconsistency. Connolly and Gorkss played in the middle of the defence in front of Cerny with Ramage and Delaney the full backs.

With Cook, Alberti, Mahon and Lopez all in reserve the substitutes bench had a midfield heavy look and further emphasises the lack of attack options available at Loftus Road.

For Burnley Chris Eagles was able to shake off a knock and start, Martin Paterson was not and their top scorer began on the bench. Jay Rodriquez, scorer of the last, gasp winner in the FA Cup meeting, made his full debut in attack.

The game started in very lively fashion with fine efforts on goal at both ends inside the first five minutes. Wade Elliott was first to try his luck, smashing the ball wide of the post with Cerny down quickly to cover the shot. Then at the far end Rowan Vine gave supporters a taste of what they have been missing with a neat one two with Ephraim on the edge of the penalty area followed by a low drive that Burnley keeper Jensen did magnificently to tip onto the base of the post. A linesman’s flag would have ruled the goal out had it been scored but that didn’t stop both sets of supporters giving the players involved a deserved round of applause for both the attacking move and save. Jensen has been a really tough opponent for QPR this season despite our fans’ jibes about his weight and is surely a leading contender for the goal keeping spot in the Championship team of the season.

Vine went close with a header too, narrowly missing the target after an eye catching break through the QPR midfield from first Ephraim and ultimately Routledge who swung over a dangerous cross. Burnley were the better team but far from rolling over and dying as many, myself included, had expected QPR did at least have a little bit of something about them and were giving nearly as good as they got.

In between those two chances Burnley forced a number of free kicks and corners with Chris Eagles incurring the wrath of the away fans with a series of theatrical falls around the penalty box. Jay Rodriguez, a QPR heartbreaker once already this year, headed one of the resulting set pieces over the top while Clarke Carlisle did likewise. When Eagles tried his luck with a dive in the penalty area it was rightly waved away by referee Mark Haywood but no yellow card was shown when it really should have been.

Eagles picked himself up to show the more admirable parts of his game with a tremendous piece of skill tight to the touchline that carried him past Delaney and into the penalty area where he unloaded a shot wide of the post. He is the division’s outstanding midfield talent without a doubt for me, but Eagles certainly has issues with staying on his feet.

The first, and as it turned out only, yellow card of the game in fact went to Burnley defender Christian Kalvenes who crudely upended Routledge after the winger had turned him and set off with a run into the channels. That was a cynical one and thoroughly deserved its punishment.

Rodriqguez headed straight at Cerny on the half hour before QPR almost mastered their own downfall with a succession of loose passes deep in their own half after a weak throw out by the goalkeeper. Veteran Graham Alexander saw a chance to swoop and he cracked a low shot at goal from the edge of the area that Cerny did well to turn round the post for a corner. Matt Connolly led the inquest among the QPR players that seemed to still be going on as Elliott took the corner and Steven Caldwell headed over the top. Burnley’s threat in the air at set pieces was probing difficult for Rangers to cope with though – a warning of things to come.

In the final five minutes of the half Burnley went close to opening the scoring twice more. First a free kick from Blake after a foul by Leigertwood on Eagles beat the wall but was punched out of the top corner by Cerny who had read the striker’s intentions. Then right on the stroke of half time Jay Rodriquez beat the offside trap and bore down on goal but Matt Connolly swept in with a wonderful tackle that sent the ball cleanly out for a corner and kept the deadlock in place while the oranges were distributed.

Burnley had looked most dangerous in the first half when delivering set pieces from wide areas. While QPR have struggled to find one player capable of doing anything other than boot the ball straight at the nearest defender in dead ball situations this year Burnley have a plethora of players able to cause problems from free kicks and corners. Eagles, Elliott and Blake are all consistently good and they picked up where they left off inside the first sixty seconds of the second half when a corner by Blake was headed firmly against the post by Chris McCann.

If it was inevitable that QPR would lose this game after the week they have had then it was equally sure that the decisive goal would come from a set piece. Sure enough, four minutes into the second half, Rangers fell behind to a goal that was both poor defensively and highly controversial. A corner by Blake was met powerfully by Clarke Carlisle up from the back, eight yards out dead centre of the goal, and the ball was deflected past Radek Cerny by Chris Eagles with his arm from all of a foot away from the goal. One Devon White would have been proud of. Cerny was incandescent and chased referee Mark Haywood down the pitch to protest against the award of the goal to no avail. How ironic that Haywood says in his profile on refworld.com that he’d like to be seen as “a safe pair of hands”.

It could easily have been two nil from the same source within ten minutes. A cross from Eagles that made a late dip towards the cross bar required tipping over by Cerny and the hosts thought they’d scored from the resulting corner but this time Carlisle’s header found Hogan Ephraim on the goal line rather than Eagles and Rangers were able to smuggle the ball away. Sadly for QPR fans still bitter about Clarke Carlisle's departure from Loftus Road, subsequent return to Watford and his taunting of us at Vicarage Road he was the outstanding player on the field on Saturday.

In response Ainsworth sent on Lee Cook instead of Sam Di Carmine. The Italian had a dire game against Palace but was better here – holding the ball up and bringing others into play with greater effect and managing to stay on his feet for more than two minutes at a time. Still, I posed more of a goal threat sitting at the back of the away end so it was no surprise to see him removed. Cook immediately involved himself in a neat move around the edge of the penalty area that ended with Damien Delaney dragging a shot wide of the far post from the edge of the area – for one moment from where we were sitting it looked destined for the back of the net but it wasn’t to be.

Vine headed wide from a Cook cross as QPR enjoyed the ten minutes of pressure all teams get in a match but the R’s failed to make the pressure, and the nerves among the home team and fans, count for anything tangible and play was soon flowing back down to the far end.

Ainsworth sent on Jordi Lopez in place of Ephraim who had not been able to combine with Taarabt with anywhere near the same effectiveness as he had been doing in a 4-5-1 formation. Lopez sent our ball retention through the roof but the cutting edge was missing again and he let his frustration get the better of him before the end when he spurned a chance to deliver a ball into the area from a free kick and instead hit a tame shot from the best part of forty yards that Jensen was probably insulted by as he picked it up by the base of the post.

Rowan Vine, clearly knackered, went off for Alberti with five minutes remaining leaving Rangers without a recognised striker on the pitch and with that in mind it was no surprise that the R’s struggled to pose a goal threat in the five minutes of normal time and three of stoppage that remained. Alberti had a nightmare eight minutes during which he managed to concede possession poorly several times, Mikele Leigertwood fared little better over the full ninety.

Burnley sent on Gudjohnson, McDonald and Paterson in the final ten minutes but these seemed to be decisions more with the clock in mind than anything particularly tactical.

The final whistle brought raucous celebrations in the home stands as you would expect but despite this outpouring, and plenty of finger nail chewing during the 90 minutes, this was never going to be anything other than a Burnley win. It’s hard to really fault the QPR players who didn’t roll over and die a la Watford before Christmas when many would have forgiven them for doing so. They went through the motions to some extent but rather than effort, commitment or application the problem here was the same problem we’ve had all season – we pose no goal threat whatsoever.

Quite a few of the players headed straight for the tunnel, others lingered to acknowledge the travelling support with Lee Cook pointing to the badge as a sign of solidarity. A badge that has for many come to symbolise the farce that QPR has become over the last 18 months. Our beleaguered team is back in action tomorrow afternoon at Loftus Road and the reaction of the crowd to any board members that attend will be very interesting indeed. More interesting than watching a team that has failed to score on 21 occasions already this season with four games still to play that’s for sure.

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Burnley: Jensen 7, Williams 6, Carlisle 8, Caldwell 7, Kalvenes 6, Elliott 7, Alexander 7, McCann 7, Blake 7 (Gudjonsson 79, -), Eagles 7 (McDonald 89, -), Rodriguez 7 (Paterson 86, -)
Subs Not Used: Penny, Duff
Booked: Kalvenes (foul)
Goals: Eagles 49 (assisted Carlisle)

QPR: Cerny 7, Ramage 6, Gorkss 7, Connolly 7, Delaney 6, Routledge 6, Leigertwood 4, Ephraim 6 (Lopez 71, 6), Taarabt 6, Di Carmine 6 (Cook 54, 6), Vine 6 (Alberti 84, -)
Subs Not Used: Mahon, Stewart

QPR Star Man – Radek Cerny 7 Important saves from Blake, Eagles, Rodriguez and others to keep the score down, unlucky to be beaten by a goal that should have been disallowed in my opinion.

Referee: Mark Haywood (W Yorkshire) 5 Got the big decision wrong for me, the goal should have been disallowed. Also fell for quite a bit of Eagles’ play acting in the first half and should have booked him for diving after waving away his theatrical penalty appeal.

Attendance: 15,058 (200 QPR approx) Plenty of noise from the home fans for the first hour or so before they seemed to get very nervous. QPR took just as few fans up for this one as they had for the midweek cup replay and the away end was almost completely silent for the entire match. It was like everybody was resigned to our fate.

Photo: Action Images

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