August 1 2004

Kit Symons

Assistant boss Kit Symons was taking positives from the Eagles' 3-0 pre-season defeat at Championship side QPR.

Rangers dominated throughout and sealed the win with goals from Tony Thorpe, Paul Furlong and Kevin Gallen.

Manager Iain Dowie was unavailable to speak to the Press afterward but Symons said: "I'd much rather to get that performance out the way now in pre-season than away to Norwich on the first game of the season. Onwards and upwards as they say.

"We're still doing double training sessions but that's no excuse - we were poor and QPR were excellent.

"We've got a lot of work to do so maybe it was a good kick up the backside a fortnight before the start of the season. We didn't do ourselves justice and I'm sure there will be a lot of hard work in training this week.

"It was a below par performance but I was very impressed with QPR, who had good players and were a well-organised, good outfit. We're very disappointed. We didn't perform what we're capable of doing but full credit to QPR."

Regarding strong claims for an Andy Johnson penalty when the scores were locked at 0-0, Symons said: "The referee admitted he made a mistake afterwards but it was too late then. But you get some decisions and not others."

QPR boss Ian Holloway added: "It was a blatant penalty and that would have changed the complexion of the game.

"I think the Palace players are still elated from what they achieved last season and maybe some of them were still giving themselves a pat on the back. I don't think they were firing on all cylinders."

QPR v Palace photos