It's not been a great week for Rangers. Two home defeats have seen us slip back into the bottom six and off the pitch and incident at Earls Court tube station has seen one youth team player in hospital with serious injuries and three others arrested. John Gregory will have been looking forward to getting back to the football but he wasn't helped as Lee Cook joined the injury list and was missing for the trip across London to Crystal Palace, a team we haven't beaten at Selhurst since 1989.

Cook's absence meant a reshuffle to the team. Kevin Gallen dropped back into central midfield with Rowlands on the right and Ray Jones replaced Cook on the left. Nick Ward also missed out as Nygaard started up front with Blackstock. The QPR fans were housed in the Arthur Waite stand as ever, where for £30 you get a restricted view of the pitch and at least a 20-minute wait for any food and drink which explains why we rarely sell out for this fixture.

Rangers started the game well against a nervous looking Palace side. Rowlands should have given us the lead after just two minutes when a ball into the box was aimed at Nygaard and the keeper dropped the ball at Rowlands feet, the Rangers winger took it round the keeper and took an age to get his shot away and by the time he did Palace had got a defender on the line to block it.

Rowlands was a little unlucky soon after Nygaard found him on the right and he beat his man to cut inside but shot wide of the far post. It was an encouraging start from Rangers, Kevin Gallen was looking good in his midfield role passing the ball well and dictating the pace of the game whilst out wide Jones and Rowlands were causing problems. Jimmy Smith fired wide from the edge of the box as we looked for the opening goal but then with their first attack Palace took the lead.

Once again it was shoddy defending to gift Palace the lead. Shefki Kuqui, a striker who had looked embarrassingly bad a month ago at Loftus Road chased a ball over the top and easily held off the challenge of Stewart to curt the ball back for the unmarked Freedman to roll it into the bottom corner. A simple goal and one we really should have prevented.

Rangers bounced straight back and missed an absolute sitter to draw level. Blackstock rolled a low cross along the six yard box, Nygaard must have been just a yard out with an open goal but somehow managed to put it wide. It was a terrible miss by Nygaard and his afternoon didn't get much better. He was put clean through by Gallen but didn't seem to fancy the challenge against he keeper who came sprinting out and slid in to beat Nygaard to the ball.

He then missed another glorious chance as Smith fired in a shot from the edge of the box which was low and to the keepers right, Nygaard followed it up and had the chance to just get a foot on it and turn it in but he let it go and the ball whistled wide of the post. He was starting to get a bit of stick from the Rangers fans and the call for Furlong to come on started early.

Rangers were well in the game though and in truth had been the better side but after half an hour we were 2-0 down and it was just about game over. Freedman got away from his man and squared t for Kuqui who was unmarked and put the ball through Royce's legs. Royce really should have saved it and his recent performances have been a little disappointing.

There were no more goals before half time as we pushed to get one back but the home side were growing in confidence and without playing well they found themselves 2-0 up at half time.

We needed a response in the second half but most fans could tell it wasn't going to come with the relaxed way the players walked out for the second half, we looked a beaten side and that was very worrying.

The second half was very different to the first with Rangers not really turning up. We had plenty of possession mainly through Gallen but his options were usually limited and with Smith pretty anonymous we didn't really look like scoring.

Palace had plenty of chances of kill the game off. Kuqi was causing all sorts of problems as we failed to deal with balls over the top, one of his chances as he ran clear of the defence saw Royce run out and throw himself into the tackle and ended up hurt. After treatment Royce was ok and made a good save to keep the score down as Kuqi again went close and Royce's parry fell to McAnuff who fired over the bar when he should have scored. McAnuff hit the side netting soon after before Watson also fired over the bar.

Rangers made two changes as Furlong and Ward replaced Blackstock and Nygaard but it made little difference and Palace grabbed a late third goal to keep the home fans happy. Gallen gave the ball away in midfield and a ball wide to Tom Soares saw three Palace players look well offside but for once the flag stayed down and a ball to the far post found Morrison to keep up his good record against us and made it 3-0. Although the goal was offside not many fans bothered to complain too much and the away end was almost empty by the end of the game.

This was a very disappointing performance from Rangers, and the third poor performance and result in a week. The defeat sees us drop back into relegation trouble and we're beginning to look as low on confidence as we did before Gregory took over which is not a great sign.

Royce will hold his hands up and take the blame for the second goal, which he should have kept out but again his back four didn't help him. Mancienne had a decent game at right back but again Rehmann and

Stewart made it far too easy for the forwards and Bignot was well below his best. A fifth yellow card of the season for Rehmann will mean a one match ban so it will be interesting to see how we perform without Rehmann in the back four.

Gallen had a decent game in midfield and was my man of the match but that doesn't say much to be honest as looked the best of a very bad bunch. Smith was very poor again and offered next to nothing whilst Rowlands hasn't looked right since he returned from injury. Jones worked hard on the left but that's not his best position whilst Nygaard was again poor up front and I found it strange that Jones wasn't the one partnering Blackstock.

Rangers badly need Cook, Lomas and Bircham to return from injury sooner rather than later but I found it odd that Bailey didn't start to the game as we lacked a ball winner in midfield and were a little to weak in that area.

So a very poor week for Rangers and a tough away trip to Stoke next week will see us on the brink of the bottom three again. All is not lost though and the Christmas period looks a crucial one for Rangers with home games against Barnsley and Colchester now very important to how our season is going to go.

Man of the Match: Kevin Gallen

Players Ratings: Royce 5, Mancienne 7, Bignot 6, Stewart 6, Rehmann 5, Rowlands 5, Gallen 7, Smith 5, Jones 6, Nygaard 5 (Ward 6), Blackstock 6 (Furlong 6)