Gary Waddock's second game in charge saw us travel across London to Crystal Palace. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make the game due to the ridiculous ticket price so instead I was sat at home listening to the game on BBC London.

Waddock made three changes to Saturdays winning side. Gareth Ainsworth and Marc Bircham were missing through illness and injury respectively. Paul Furlong also dropped to the bench as Waddock changed to a 4-1-4-1 formation.

Matthew Rose sat in front of the back four whilst Langley was back in central midfield and youngster Scott Donnelly made his debut on the right wing.

The tactical plan seemed to be to make life difficult for Palace and keep things tight but the plan was soon underdone after just three minutes.

A ball over the top saw Evatt once again flatfooted and caught out on the turn leaving Morrison able to get away and use his strength to hold off Evatt and then shoot past Jones for his annual goal against QPR. Slack defending by Evatt who was again showing just why Ian Holloway put him on the transfer list.

Palace were well on top and were attacking at will, as our defensive shape clearly wasn't working. Milanese was booked for a cynical pull back on Andrews who was giving the Italian a torrid time. At the other end Marc Nygaard shot just wide in a rare attack but it was all Palace and they soon made it 2-0.

The QPR back four were again at fault as Milanese and Evatt were all over the place to allow substitute Freedman to put the ball across to McAnuff and he beat Jones with his near post effort. 2-0 and those who had paid £30 for the privledge of watching this were beginning to regret that decision.

With the new system not working Gary Waddock decided to change things. Paul Furlong replaced Marcus Bignot before half time as we went back to a 4-4-2 with Matthew Rose switching to right back.

The change didn't have an immediate effect but we did create one chance as Langley fired wide after good work by Furlong. Palace continued to be on top though and at half time they were a little unlucky not to be further in front.

Rangers needed half time to reorganise and to their credit they came back out a different side in the second half. The change to 4-4-2 certainly helped as Lomas and Langley began dominating central midfield whilst Cook was now more of a threat on the left.

Rangers got back in the game on 55 minutes. Scott Donnelly was the creator as he did well on the right and put a lovely cross into the middle for Furlong to head past the keeper and grab his first goal since mid December.

Game on now and Rangers began to dominate and create chances. Marc Nygaard was within a whisker of an equaliser as Karalee saved well from him and Furlong headed another chance off target.

At the other end Palace continued to have chances on the break to kill the game off but they were looking more like they were happy to hang on rather than go for a third goal.

Shabazz Baidoo was brought on as we went to an ambitious 4-3-3 and the change almost worked as Baidoo twice went close before Kiraly pushed a Furlong header onto the bar with our best chance of the closing stages.

In the end it wasn't quite enough as for the second time this season we lose to Iain Dowie's men. Gary Waddock will be pleased with his side's second half performance but will perhaps be disappointed with how his change of tactics worked in the first half.

I don't know what it is with QPR managers, whoever is in charge seems to have a look at Rose in midfield at least once and it rarely works. Hopefully this will be a one off experiment and he can stay in the back four from now on.

Still this is only Waddock's second game in charge and he'll have learnt a lot from last night which has to be positive plus in the end we turned it round and went very close to gaining a deserved point against one of the favourites for promotion.

It was also good to see Scott Donnelly get a full debut and hopefully he will get more chanes before the end of the season.

Rangers now have a bit of a break before we travel to Sheffield United at the end of the month and hopefully the improved performances can continue in that game.

As I wasn't able to make the game a friend of mine kindly offered to write his own match report to go along with mine so here is what QPR fan Phil Barnett had to say about last nights game

After much thought decided to go along to Selhurst and part with £30 quid not too happy about that but better not write what I feel about it. I went for a beer in the alliance pub norwood junction was impressed to see a lot of faces from the Adelaide & British queen. When I arrived at the ground I was searched I asked if this was all included in the 30 quid parcel.

At the bar there, I was greeted by a twat with his baseball cap on back to front who had a false American accent and was duly charged 3 quid for a lager, no suprise there.

On with the match we got off to a bad start schoolboy defending led to there 1st goal scored by Morrison looked a shade offside to me, too cut a long story short we were terrible in the 1st half and fell further behind to a McAnuff goal again through losing midfield possession, quite embarrassing.

Forgot to mention the Palace keepers track bottoms the rs fans singing tracksuit from matalan it was bloody comical, & a fat palace fan bared his belly at us and did he regret it waves of songs he suffered i.e face of pukka pies no wonder he fucked off early.

On with the game well you wouldn't have believed the difference 2nd half we were excellent Cookie was like a Brazilian he ripped em to pieces, but for me Scott Donnelly was superb making his full debut it was his cross that found furlongs head for a well taken goal & it looked like we could nick it, nearly did as cooks header was turned on to the bar by kiraly alias baggy pants.

ok we lost but all credit to the 2nd half fight back in the words of the song things can only get better. waddo & Mac need to work on that defence, sure they will, must say we can learn a lot from that game as palace have a good defence & well marshalled at set pieces.

So its back to the training ground & I reckon we will be facing palace again next season anyway so let revenge be sweet.