Rotherham United: '˜We let down the badge,' says Millers captain Frecklington

The Championship’s bottom club were beaten 5-1 at Loftus Road, enduring a torrid second half as the home side ran in three unanswered goals.

“You feel like you’ve let the fans down, you feel like you’ve let the badge down, the club,” said Frecklington.

“You feel like you’re not good enough to play football, I suppose, when you lose a game like that. You feel embarrassed.”

The Millers, 24 points from safety with eight games to play, were spared relegation only because results elsewhere went their way. Their fate will be sealed when they return from the international break in April.

After a club-record 29th loss of the season, caretaker manager Paul Warne shared his captain’s view.

“My overall emotion is one of embarrassment really,” he admitted “I’m clapping the fans at the end. To be fair, most of them were pretty courteous to me. But if they were throwing stuff at me, I would understand why.

“In this league, some of our players are being outclassed. If you make one mistake in this league, the opposition score. Unfortunately, we are making a lot of errors.

“When I left on Friday morning, I didn’t expect to come here and have to score six to win. I need to tighten up at the back.

“In recent weeks, we haven’t been looking too bad at the back. But today was one of those days when a few of the players under-performed and it cost us big time.”

Semi Ajayi gifted QPR their second goal as Rotherham slipped 2-1 down early in the first half, the second time in eight days poor judgement from the loan centre-half has led to the opposition scoring.

“The second goal was an absolute calamity,” Warne said. “And there have been two of those in a week, so that’s disappointing.”

Rotherham were only a goal behind at half-time but conceded from the penalty spot just four minutes into the second half when central defender Aimed Belaid was ruled to have pushed Matt Smith.

Frecklington added: “We came out and believed we could get back into the game. On the balance of play in the first half - barring the two goals, which were down to mistakes - we were well and truly in the game.

“We said: ‘Come out for the second half, keep going, if it stays at 2-1 we’ve always got a chance of coming back.’ Whether it was a penalty or not, I’m not sure. It looked soft on the pitch. I’ve not seen it back. But you make the ref give a decision and it’s gone against us.

“We’re 3-1 down after half-time and it kind of kills all your momentum coming out for the second half.”

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