Queens Park Rangers boss Mark Hughes has said that Samba Diakite's sending-off was too much to recover from following the club's 1-0 defeat to Fulham.

Diakite, who was making his debut for the London outfit, was dimissed with half an hour gone after picking up his second booking of the game to reduce the hosts to ten men.

"We're making our situation more difficult than it needs to me," Hughes told Sky Sports News. "We've lost another man to a sending-off in the first half and it's difficult to win Premier League games when that happens.

"We were 1-0 down at that point so to remain in the game we had to keep our shape and I felt we did that in the second half.

"We had a real go, created chances and might have got back on level terms, but we couldn't recover."

Following the defeat, QPR remain one place outside the relagation places on goal difference.