Bobby Zamora admits he was surprised to be handed the captain’s armband ahead of the Rs’ 3-2 defeat at home to Liverpool.

Last season Zamora was sent to train with the QPR Under-21 development team and his time at the club appeared to be heading to an end.

Rejuvenated by Steve Gallen, Zamora returned to the first team picture and after impressing towards the end of the season he scored the goal to secure Rangers’ promotion to the Premier League in May, which resulted a new one- year deal.

He said: “I was surprised. With Richard Dunne in the team, he has captained Ireland a few times, but I was pleased to get the armband.

“The kit man just said ‘you’re the captain’ and I just sort of chuckled.

“Obviously it would have been lovely for myself to have come away with three points with a good win. It wasn’t to be, but I was very honoured to wear the armband.”

Zamora started alongside Charlie Austin and caused problems for Liverpool until be was replaced by Eduardo Vargas on 79 minutes.

He said: “I haven’t started for a long time. I was pleased to start and pleased to put in a good performance.

“Once you miss one or two good chances you think to yourself, ‘is it not going to be our day?’.

“But we came back well, it was just naivety and silly mistakes from us that cost us the game.”

The 33-year-old is confident the Rs will avoid relegation this season after experiencing life in the division below.

He said: “I don’t think we will [go down]. We’ve got a good set of players, good togetherness and if we perform like we did against Liverpool week in, week out I think the results will come.

“I played in the Championship and you really miss the Premier League.

“It is 10,000 times bigger than the Championship. It is the best league in the world, so everybody wants to play in it.”