Parkinson laments Little dismissal at QPR

Bolton manager Phil Parkinson labelled the officials “weak” following his team’s 2-0 defeat against QPR at Loftus Road, where Mark Little was sent off.

Wanderers defender Little was shown a straight red card by referee Scott Duncan following a challenge on Massimo Luongo nine minutes into the second half.

The visitors battled hard but Joel Lynch nodded in from close range on 72 minutes and Matt Smith’s injury-time header sealed Rangers’ win.

Parkinson felt Duncan had been influenced by the home crowd and QPR manager Ian Holloway.

“Mark’s (feet) left the ground and he’s given the ref a decision to make,” Parkinson said.

“Away from home, when you’ve got the weak officials we had today, it was always going to end up in a red.

“I can see why he’s given that one, but I thought the all-round performance of all four officials was very poor.

“Loftus Road is a tight ground, the crowd are on top of you and Ian Holloway’s jumping up and down appealing for everything and having a go at the ref at half-time.

“At half-time, Ian was waiting for the ref. I said to the ref: ‘Don’t get influenced by that’ and I thought he was.

“You need strong officials and we didn’t have them today.  I think if that had been a QPR player it would have been a yellow card.

“Sometimes you say a ref’s a ‘homer’ and every decision goes for the home team. It certainly was that today.”

Holloway, whose team are now 11 points clear of the relegation zone, insisted: “We were all screaming and shouting at the referee today. They were, we were.

“It’s not easy being a ref. I’m glad I’m not one. I tried it in training the other week and I was absolutely useless. You’ve got to run with whatever they do.”

Holloway praised Smith, who has recently been given extra training in order to improve his fitness.

The target man missed a number of chances before eventually finding the net.

The Rangers boss said: “Even Ruud van Nistelrooy needed four chances to take one.

“I’m delighted with Matt because I’ve been working him – we’re bringing him in earlier than everyone else.

“We feel he can get a lot fitter than he has been before. He’s feeling the benefit of it.

“We were professional today and we did what we needed to do. I’m delighted with that.

“Even though we didn’t get what we deserved in the first half, we still kept going and we looked dangerous.

“Hopefully our fans will go away feeling happy and feeling that actually that wasn’t bad.

“The performance today I thought merited a pat on the back for my lads because I thought they were professional.”