QPR boss Iain Dowie said beforehand that he was beginning “to like the smell of his team’s dressing room”. But the air in there would have been bluer than Gordon Ramsay’s kitchen after Rangers became the first club to lose a home league match to Derby for 18 months. After a promising start to the season it was a second successive league defeat for QPR.

Fans of both sides were more worried by the nasty smell of profiteering, Derby fans preventing Rangers from putting a £10 increase on their seats after an appeal to the league. And though QPR are now in money terms the Manchester City of the C h a m p i o n s h i p , t h e i r supporters are not keen to pay Eastlands prices, protesting outside against match banding that raises tickets to £50 for some matches.

Derby manager Paul Jewell would happily have paid 100 times that for his dugout seat if you had told him before kick-off that he would claim his first away bonus since taking over last November. Thanks to late goals from Martin Albrechtsen and substitute Emmanuel Villa, the laughing stocks of last year’s Premier League are now having a quiet chuckle.

“We’re making progress,” said Jewell, after four games without defeat. QPR had won all their previous four games at home but struggled to find any cohesion. Dowie admitted: “We never passed the ball with any fluency and that is something we normally pride ourselves on. But I could sense the players’ disappointment afterwards and that’s a good thing.”

Star man:Paul Green (Derby)

Referee:A Taylor

Attendance:14,311

QPR:Cerny 6, Connolly 6, Stewart 7, Hall 6, Delaney 6, Mahon 7 (Leigertwood 70min), Parejo 6, Rowlands 5, Ledesma 7 (Agyemang 76min), Buz-saky 6, Blackstock 6

DERBY:Carroll 6, Connolly 6, Leacock 6, Albrechtsen 6, Stewart 7, Barazite 6 (Davies 83min), Green 8, Addison 7, Pearson 7, Ellington 6 (Villa 75min), Hulse 6