Queens Park Rangers boss Mark Hughes has blamed his side's slow start for their 6-1 hammering at the hands of Chelsea this afternoon.

The Hoops were four-nil down within the opening half-an-an-hour as Daniel Sturridge and John Terry added to Fernando Torres's brace as Chelsea came flying out of the blocks.

Hughes feels that it was his side's inability to deal with this that caused the heavy defeat and has left them facing an uphill battle in their fight against the Premier League drop.

"You come to Chelsea, who are on a high after the events of midweek, and you have got to come out and start disappointing them initially and not give them any encouragement," Hughes told Sky Sports News.

"Unfortunately we were unable to do that. We lost three or four goals in 20 minutes and there is no coming back from that.

"In fairness, we tried to have a go but that ended up compromising ourselves because we were committing people forward and they were just picking us off very easily. That was the story of the day."

"We have given ourselves a mountain to climb," he added.

Rangers remain outside of the relegation zone on goal difference with two games left to play.