Rs knocked out after dismal showing at Tangerines

Steve McClaren says Queens Park Rangers’ 2-0 defeat at Sky Bet League One side Blackpool in the Carabao Cup third round was an ‘eye-opener’ for some of his players.

QPR made nine changes and it showed, with little coherence in attack or defence against a well-drilled Tangerines side.

The Bloomfield Road outfit took the lead just before the half-hour mark as Armand Gnanduillet converted Ben Heneghan’s knock-down, while the latter and Jay Spearing went close to a second.

The west Londoners were reduced to 10 men when Jordan Cousins was shown a second yellow card after the break and Spearing wrapped it up late on with a thunderous strike.

And Rs boss McClaren was livid at full-time, insisting many of his squad players did not take their chance.

“We have got talent, but you need other ingredients to win and we did not have that,” he said.

“There are people with their eye on the first team, but that was an eye-opener for everyone tonight.

“Blackpool were different. We made nine changes and gave the players the opportunity to play, but they could not cope with the physicality of Blackpool.

“I was frustrated with what I was seeing. The senior players were frustrated with what was going on.

“It was a frustrating night for everybody and it was an eye-opener for quite a few of our players.”

Blackpool manager Terry McPhillips, meanwhile, was delighted to see his team claim the scalp of the Sky Bet Championship outfit.

“The lads were brilliant. We made five changes and they were all brilliant. It just shows you the competition for places,” he said.

“They’re a massive club in the Championship, but we can only count on ourselves and I thought we were superb. We outplayed them.

“It would have been nice if we’d got that second goal a little bit earlier. I thought to a man we were brilliant.”

“We’ve kept another clean sheet against a team which has made a lot of changes as well but has a lot of good players who have gone for big money in the past.”