Rangers boss Mick Harford cut a distraught figure after he saw his side reduced to nine men in their 1-0 defeat to Peterborough United.

Aaron McLean opened the scoring in the ninth minute, but the real turning point in the game arrived on 60 minutes, when R's skipper Mikele Leigertwood was shown a straight red card for his challenge on Posh's Tommy Rowe.

Peter Ramage was also dismissed with eight minutes remaining for a second-bookable offence.

Video evidence suggests that Leigertwood's sending off was particularly harsh, and after the game a disappointed Harford told www.qpr.co.uk: "The sending off came at a crucial time."

"At the moment we seem to be getting punished for our mistakes. We made one mistake in the first half and got punished for it.

"I said to the players at half time that we need to step up and create a few more chances. We needed to move the ball a little bit quicker.

"It was a case that we just needed to up the tempo and we could create the chances.

"I said to them that we're the team more likely to win this game."

Harford added: "Marcus Bent and Tamas Priskin did quite well and they linked-up well at times.

"I thought Lee Cook put some excellent deliveries into the box and maybe on another day we'd have had someone on the end of them.

"It all hinged on the sending off and from where I was standing it looked very harsh.

"You can tell that from the reaction of the opposition players and the crowd.

"Mikele is an honest player and that was a disappointing and key part of the game."