When you think things can’t possibly get any worse you can pretty much always rely on Rangers to prove you wrong. Rangers fell to their fourth home defeat out of four games this season, their third in the league. We have yet to score a league goal at home and to be honest; don’t look like we will be changing that in the foreseeable future. 

Gregory stunned the whole crowd by incredibly picking almost the same side as had performed so abysmally for 80 minutes at Leicester. Mind you, he thought we played well so maybe that says all you need to know. Camp was in goal behind Rehman, Cullip, Stewart and Barker. Moore, Bolder, Leigertwood and Rowlands were in midfield with Nardiello coming in to partner Blackstock up front. 

The signs looked fairly promising in the opening exchanges as Rangers seemed to be far more confident on the ball than they did on Saturday. After Halmosi curled a free kick wide with Camp scrambling across his goal Rangers went on the attack and Nardiello should have done better after being set up by Blackstock. 

Rehman seemed to be getting some joy down the right; he was providing far more of a threat than Moore in front of him who was typically anonymous. Rehman sent a good ball into the box and Nardiello got up at the back stick and looped a header over McCormick only to see the ball bounce off the top of the bar. 

The promising start from both sides petered out somewhat in the middle of the half but as half time approached Akos Buzsaky curled a beautiful free kick inches past the upright with Camp well beaten. At the other end McCormick was sold woefully short by a back pass and Moore almost nipped in to score. The Plymouth custodian did well to get off his line to snuff out the danger. 

There was certainly something to build on as the teams went in for the break but that all went to pot five minutes into the second half as Rangers conceded a shocker. A ball from right to left found Hungarian winger Peter Halmosi and as he turned Rehman, the makeshift right back fell over. Halmosi now had the goal in his sights and made no mistake as he despatched a fine right footed strike into the far corner. 

You could see the confidence drain out of the Rangers players and you just knew that the game was up. It is a sad indictment on the state we find ourselves in that conceding one goal at home is enough to mean that we have precious little chance of getting a point let alone a win. 

It took the players a while to shake themselves out of their malaise but soon Nardiello tried to evade the attentions of Dutch defender Marcel Seip on the edge of the box only to be hauled down. Seip was rightly booked and Rowlands stepped up to crash the free kick into the crossbar.  

Gregory made a double change with Bignot and Ephraim coming on to replace Rehman and Moore. Within three minutes Plymouth had doubled their lead when the age old problem of Bignot’s height was exposed. A ball from the right was aimed over his head and Halmosi towered over him to head the ball back into the middle where David Norris was on hand to fire home. 

At the other end Nardiello was repeatedly falling foul of a trigger happy linesman as he tried to play on the shoulder of the last defender. When he did finally get into the box he could only lash his shot into the stand. He soon made way for Sahar as Gregory rolled the last of his dice. 

Buzsaky shot wide for the visitors before Sahar missed a great chance when the Plymouth defence allowed a ball to bounce in the box but the teenage Israeli could only fire over from fifteen yards. Blackstock then headed straight at McCormick to force the keeper into his first meaningful action of the half. 

Rangers should have had a penalty when Ephraim surged into the box, nicked the ball past a defender and was blatantly taken out. Referee Marriner who had been below average for both sides all night wasn’t interested. Truth be told he probably wanted this to be over as quickly as the rest of us and couldn’t afford the extra couple of minutes it might have taken up. 

At the end of the game you couldn’t help but wonder what Bernie and Flavio had made of it from the directors box. If Bernie was lucky he won’t have been able to see over the rail for most of it or he may be asking Flavio exactly what he has gotten him into!  

The clock must surely be ticking for Gregory now. This team is showing no signs of improvement, there is a dire lack of creativity in midfield and there seems little prospect of us even scoring a goal or two in the near future. Last week it was said that Gregory had games rather than months to prove himself; I wonder whether that might have been reduced to game now. 

He stuck with a side that only he thought played well on Saturday, I am not sure there is much goodwill left amongst the Loftus Road faithful and being the fairly fickle bunch we are there may be calls for action if the expected humping by Watford occurs this Saturday.  

I can’t for one minute begin to imagine how bad Sheffield Wednesday must be to find themselves lower than this retched bunch in the league. But what to do? The only way out of this is to open the cheque book and get some high quality loan players in. From what I can see we could use a couple of full backs, a winger, a creative central midfielder and a big unit to go up top. Piece of piss… 

Man of the Match – Danny Cullip. The man that should be skipper was solid against a wily and physical front two for Plymouth. There is no doubt that we look better with him in the side, shame he can’t play wide!

simon@qprnet.com