After a week of promise City crash horrifically to a gutless defeat at table propping QPR.

Two far post headers earned the new QPR regime all three points against a collective of Tigers deadbeats who were at their most gutless and unimaginative all season.

So, back to the foot of the Championship again. All that good work against at Leicester and in front of the dreaded Sky lenses against Wednesday ruined. Or soiled badly, if we're being kinder. But City don't deserve kindness after the display at Loftus Road. It was awful. Nasty. Embarrassing.

I'm all for grinding out results away from home, especially now we've accepted we're precariously placed and need to spend the rest of the season taking points at the KC and scrapping unprettily for all we can get when travelling. But such a golden opportunity to get a third straight League win was lost in west London and has caused rightful anger.

Look at how QPR came into the game. They have a new manager. He had thus far taken two training sessions. He chose to do some unattractively cocksure punditry on the Scunts defeat in the Carling Cup to Villa in midweek rather than swot up on his newly-inherited players. He's out of practice, having not had a job in management for pushing four years. He didn't know a thing about City, our players or our tactics, prior to electing an XI to face them. And he is John Gregory. All factors which should have taken the result City's way.

But he won, and Phil Parkinson very much lost. And although we're still at the stage where Saturday matches are ending in daylight, it does no harm to be a tad worried.

Dressed in black at a venue with an atmosphere suitably funereal were:

Myhill
Mills Turner Collins Dawson
Fagan Ashbee Livermore France
Bridges Parkin

No Ricketts, whose smithereened cheekbone we knew about, but at least it meant we could now boast a former World Cup full back playing his natural position in our humble ranks, and although he is one of football's on-pitch git figures and I'd not approve if my sister married him, Mills is now officially a Hero.

I don't have a sister, by the way. But the issue with Mills is that he is easy to hate in opposition and quickly adorable when fighting your cause. Think Robbie Savage without the syrup. Mouthy, instructional, inventive and very tough, it became apparent, even under the restrictive and inelegant umbrella of bottom-of-the-Championship football, that he was still in a class above. I suspect he's still better than all those runny-nosed wannabes who seek Gary Neville's gleaming crown - Luke Young? Glen Johnson? That kid Hunt at Bolton? I'll stick with Mills. Mark Lynch seems a long time ago now. If we want Scott Wiseman to develop into the proper right back some of us hope and believe he could become, he'd be better off coming home from Rotherham and being told to watch Mills on the job.

And also Ashbee and Livermore had passed their fitness tests. Brilliant, thought I. The bailiffs are intact. The crux of our strong, masterful, methodical destruction of the more creative elements of opposing teams remained. They would maintain their policy of shutting out, harassing, surreptitiously tugging back and generally browning off anyone in the SuperHoops team who had held the key to the provisions cupboard.

Wrong. So wrong. An early sign of things to come for our supposedly portcullis-like midfield came when Livermore tried to pass his way out of his own six-yard box after a dangerous sprint and cross from Blackstock, and instead presented a chance on a plate and with serviette and cruet for Rowlands, who got enough muscle behind the shot to force Myhill into a stretching palm away.

Things declined for Livermore further for the rest of the half. Because he is quite possibly the most unspectacularly effective player City have had since Lee Warren, it's easy to get on his back when things go wrong. One lamebrained fat bloke with a red complexion sat behind me insisted he was the worst player City had ever had to anyone who cared to listen, and while that assessment was both wrong and cretinous, there were periods when Livermore could only do the bad, concluding numerous times in that familiar routine of player loses ball, player chases bloke who nicked ball, player fouls bloke who nicked ball in the least subtle manner possible. Livermore did that umpteen times. Alongside him, Ashbee did lots of watching and yelling, but the pair of them were instinctively so drawn back that City's full backs had no outlets from deep positions, and so kept lumping it for Bridges (who was poor) and Parkin (who was better, but well marshalled by the equally meatheaded Zesh Rehman) with barely a bounce going City's way before Rangers regrouped and began again.

It was an awful first half for the purist - indeed, any people who go to watch QPR, especially now a QPR side managed by John Gregory, for purity reasons are clearly impure themselves. Crosses flew in, nobody could reach them. Simple slide-rule or square balls fell too far ahead or behind their targets. Nobody in this game could do that straightforward move of receiving the ball from a throw-in an immediately touching it back to the taker to put a ball in. That makes supporters laugh when done by the opposition. City fans were not laughing.

So, Rangers come forward again. Cook bodyswerves expertly away from Livermore to put a fantastic low cross in which neither Blackstock or Jones (the striking version, not the portly Welshman in goal) could find it in their courage threshold to dive for.

City then finally have a sniff when Rangers are caught too far forward and Fagan is set free through the middle. Now, as it's Fagan, I'm naturally hoping he doesn't shoot. He doesn't. He finds Parkin to his right with a decent sight of goal but, in a manner befitting a striker playing in a team schooled to defend, he tries to play a square ball instead of putting a boot through it, and there's nobody to collect. There's a lot of fierce responses from a raging City crowd, cooped up in the sheer upper tier at the opposite end in a seating arrangement so tightly constructed it's as if the architect forgot that people have knees.

Ashbee wins a tackle deep, Bridges collects and slips a promising ball through to France, only for keeper Jones to win the chase from inside his 'D'. Rangers maintain some late possession but the only thing touching the nets are those towels the keepers bring out with them. The half time whistle was nothing but a boon.

As I waited patiently in the concourse for my nuked beef 'n' onion pie to cool down (the last mouthful went down at about 4.40pm, in the end) I met an old school friend, now a London-based millionaire (an exception rather than the rule when it comes to the alumni of South Holderness, trust me) and former player with the Southern Supporters team.

Upon my request for his opinion on the game, he shook his head, drew lightly on his cigar and asked how my wedding went.

Sometimes words aren't necessary, really.

So, the second half. Rangers make a substitution, whereas despite the chronic impotence in our attack and midfield, no such alterations are forthcoming from Mr Parkinson. Not once do I recall the City faithful asking for a wave. If he ever had a honeymoon period, it's now well and truly expired and his passport is close to confiscation. He needs to prove he really is this huge coaching, tactical and motivational brain on two legs because the argument about potential is starting to grate, especially after a long, expensive trip to west London which involves walking through the ghastly Shepherds Bush market because half the underground is shut, and all to watch this sort of guff.

City put on some early pressure. Parkin tests Jones with a header; Dawson whips in the corner which Turner heads goalwards but a taffy hand does its bit. Mills shows exquisite calmness and vision to squeeze a wide pass through two markers to send Fagan streaking down the flank, but the cross is cut out. City seem interested, a bit. Then as the hour mark ticks through, Rangers score.

It was a clever goal from their point of view but positionally City's two centre backs in Turner and Collins were trapped by the late run of strikey Jones, timing his dart between the two to perfection to divert Blackstock's looping header from a Rowlands free kick past a scrambling Myhill.

Not only had we gone behind, not only had the Rangers fans suddenly demonstrated that more than seventeen of them in one tiny far corner were capable of singing a song, not only had Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag come on to celebrate the goal (a track which is 24 years old but no sod knew it until the trend for music after goals started) but some numbskull also had a horn. A horn. Kill me now.

A quick following of the senses to the general direction of the tooting noise uncovered a man in the upper tier of the stand to our left (a stand sponsored by Sellotape, no less - makes one grateful for Ideal Standard after all) who not only brandished this bugle-type irritant instrument, but he also sported a moustache and a sombrero. I bet his family are so proud.

As soon as the goal went in, defeat was inevitable. City had proven beyond doubt that they had no impetus to create and feel any positive vibes about a match against a team who are just as bad. Had this been any sort of proper football team in this division - Cardiff, Preston, Southampton - we'd have been three down by the hour, not one. And the fact that we had no reply, nor any inclination to reply, against a team themselves so on their knees, was something any right-thinking fan - one who cares properly and doesn't jerk the knee as soon as a pass goes awry - would be entitled to air a protest about.

Half an hour to go, only one down, against the team who were bottom before us. And nothing happened. Gregory, who spent the entire game out of his technical area (admittedly the smallest-looking technical area in football anywhere) without having his cards marked by the fourth official, shored up his midfield instantly by introducing the experience of freckled sourpuss Lomas - making the redundancy of Ashbee and Livermore even more plain - while we introduced Yeates for France and withdrew the bypassed Bridges in favour of the grit of Forster.

Livermore's horror show in mistimed tackling finally earned him an overdue booking prior to his own withdrawal for Marney. Marney's fine, I'm sure he'll come good, but a team so lacking in belief and someone to probe, probe and probe again from between centre circle and penalty area is demanding John Welsh. I wish the manager would tell us why he won't pick him. Trouble is, we don't seem to have anyone willing to ask.

Yeates, as if to tell us he is a proper winger, tries to beat one man too many down the left when a bespaced Forster is bellowing for a pass to the near post, but gets the consolation of a corner for the striker's frustrated berating. The kick lands on a Rangers head and goes back out. The second one achieves even less.

All that City now have to keep wearied eyes occupied is the genuine entertainment value of watching Mills try to run the game. Unafraid of refs, and certainly not remotely bothered by opponents, the full back chips away, verbally in the main, at anyone within earshot and his booking for gobbiness is greeted with cheers from the home fans, who find some unflattering chants of no originality to put his way.

I like the Mills Factor. He has no axe to grind with QPR - the only London club he ever graced was Charlton, and that was when nobody really knew who he was - but football has an axe to grind with Mills. And he's ours now. Not for long, maybe, but his nous might yet prove crucial if we're ever going to claw some proper points and move away from the hellhole that is bottom spot. I think of what Dennis Wise did for Coventry last year when I see Mills tossing out insults or pushing wingers out of the road prior to a throw-in. Somebody might chuck a bottle at him soon, but at least this time it won't be a Hull moron who does it.

Rangers get a second ten minutes from the end when Cook finds a surplus metre around Mills and floats a delightful outswinger on to Blackstock's head, and Myhill was in no position to get any fingers to it. Gregory, purely for the cameras, does the touchline run of jubilation as the ball nestles in the net, and even then receives no admonishment over straying from the technical zone. With the last action, Forster manages to head a Collins cross narrowly wide, summing up City's profligacy all in one, although Forster's facility to hit the right position for the floated ball was at least mildly notable.

But for City as a whole the second goal didn't really matter - indeed, it at least took away the forlorn hope that City might huff and puff a bit more and appear to at least care about equalising when it was distressingly stark that they had no real idea what to do about it. At the final whistle we got the inevitable confirmation that Leeds - also under managerial upheaval - had won, so the Tigers were underneath it all again, with Peter Taylor coming back to the KC next week, complete with Leon Cort in defence and Stuart Green carrying Shefki Kuqi's boots for him. Generous applause all round prior to the match, one hopes; the likelihood of appreciative applause afterwards requires a lot of circumspection.

If you want positives from this game, you'd better read a QPR fansite somewhere as, the Mills sideshow aside, there weren't any to speak of from the City angle (although Forster looked hungry when he came on, and must be ready to start games again) and, unlike the defeats at Birmingham and West Brom, we got precisely what we deserved. It was especially big and especially fat.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Mills, Turner, Collins, Dawson; Fagan, Livermore, Ashbee, France; Parkin, Bridges.  Subs: Yeates (for France, 67), Forster (for Bridges, 67), Marney (for Livermore, 75), Thelwell, Duke.

Goals: None

Booked: Collins, Mills, Livermore

Sent Off: None

QUEENS PARK RANGERS: P Jones, Bignot, Rehman, Stewart, Rose, Rowlands, Bircham, Bailey, Cook, R Jones, Blackstock.  Subs: Kanyuka (for Rose, 45), Ward (for Bircham, 64), Lomas (for Bailey, 64), Baidoo, Royce.

Goals: R Jones 60; Blackstock 80

Booked: P Jones, R Jones, Rehman

Sent Off: None

REFEREE: D Deadman

ATTENDANCE: 11,381