Ian Holloway admitted his Queens Park Rangers side were not good enough as they succumbed 3-0 to a rampant Middlesbrough at Loftus Road, on Saturday.

Rangers came into the match having won their last two in the Championship but were no match for Tony Pulis’ visiting Teessiders.

Daniel Ayala gave Boro the lead in the first half, with George Friend firing in from distance to double his side’s lead before the break with his first goal in two years.

Adama Traore completed the victory with five minutes of normal time remaining, and Holloway knew his side needed to give more if they were to beat a team managed by Pulis.

“We were a bit short of them,” he admitted.

“We’ve been defending corners pretty well lately, but Tony Pulis’ teams probably do them better than any other. Conceding the first goal from a corner knocked the stuffing out of us.

“Then the second goal was a joke from my point of view. The full-back smacked it in from that far, no-one getting in the way of it.

“That wasn’t us, we didn’t move across, we didn’t get there, we didn’t press. I think we should have done better.

“The ball flew in the net and, from that moment on, it was always going to be tough.

“We huffed and we puffed, but against Tony’s side, you don’t want to be two goals down, you really don’t.”

Rangers are now back down to 16th in the division and things get no easier for them with a trip to Bristol City next on the horizon.

And the manager must hope his side put in a better showing against the high-flyers than they could muster at home.

“I felt good about us this week – I felt that we were going to play,” he said. “You could see that for the first 15 or 20 minutes. The pressing was good – we closed, we caused them problems, we won it off their midfield.

“Tony [Pulis] was moaning at his team that they weren’t hitting the areas that he wanted them to hit.

“Then, unfortunately, we let a goal in. That knocked the stuffing out of us and we never quite recovered.”