Hall too much for Ollie to take
QPR boss Ian Holloway spent almost an hour camped outside referee Andy Hall's changing-room after two diabolical decisions contributed to his side's Carling Cup exit at Northampton on Tuesday, writes Ben Kosky.
Rangers crashed out of the competition at the first hurdle as they went down 3-0 to the League Two side - a re-run of their cup exit at the same stage four years ago.
Holloway was fuming after Hall - who sent off two Rangers players in a crucial promotion clash against Crewe in 2003 - showed the red card to defender Ian Evatt just before half-time and then awarded Northampton a highly dubious penalty late in the game.
Clasping his laptop computer, which contained detailed analysis of the game, Holloway waited to see the match official for a long time after the final whistle, apparently without success.
QPR skipper Kevin Gallen said afterwards: "It's never nice to lose a game, but especially not in that way. I really do believe that, with 11 v 11, we would have come back and got a result, but the sending-off before half-time absolutely killed us.
"If I could say what I thought off the record, it'd be very colourful. These decisions make a big difference in matches and at the moment they're going against us. I'm sure it'll turn, but we've also got to stop conceding silly goals."
Leaving aside Hall's poor refereeing, Rangers, with five changes from the team that had lost at Coventry three days earlier, struggled to find rhythm and gave the ball away far too frequently.
One of the new faces, Ugo Ukah, seemed to lose his bearings as he tried to defend a long clearance in the 19th minute and the ball bounced off his back, falling perfectly for Andy Kirk to lob the advancing Simon Royce.
It wasn't until late in the first half that the Rs mustered a shot on goal as Adam Miller's corner picked out Mauro Milanese, whose header was cleared off the line and then, in a goalmouth scramble, both Gallen and Stefan Moore narrowly failed to force the ball home.
But, when Kirk chased another through ball and Evatt brought him down for a free-kick, Hall reached straight for the red card - even though Ukah seemed to be covering his defensive partner, thereby negating a scoring opportunity.
Rangers regrouped after the break in a 4-3-2 formation, but were unable to cut out a cross from the right and Scott McGleish dispatched a clinical overhead kick past Royce to make it 2-0 just after the hour.
The rest of the game was largely academic, apart from the question of whether Cobblers' substitute Eric Sabin could add to his former club's misery.
The French striker went close by hitting the post, but the final indignity came in added time when he crumpled to the ground under a minimal challenge from Marcus Bignot and got up to score the spot-kick himself.
Rangers will be hoping they have seen the back of Northampton - and Mr Hall - for quite some time.
QPR: Royce; Ukah, Shimmin, Evatt, Milanese; Miller, Bean, Bircham (Baidoo, 59), Brown (Bignot, 45); GALLEN*, Moore.
Read all the latest QPR news in the Times every Wednesday ben.kosky@archant.co.uk
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