QPR were beaten 3-1 by Conference title favourites Luton Town at Kenilworth Road on Friday night as the pre-season campaign drew to a close.

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The night had started well for Rangers when new signing DJ Campbell opened his account after just 29 seconds, finishing tidily after the ball fell to him in the penalty area. However when Neil Warnock made nine changes to what did have the feel of a starting 11 at half time he saw his reserves ship three goals and surrender to a poor defeat. Matthew Barnes-Homer, Amari Morgan-Smith and Adam Watkins all scored for the home side, the second goal coming when Radek Cerny thumped Bradley Orr’s back pass against the back of the onrushing Luton player Tony Roberts style.

LFW thought better of making the trip to one of the country’s worst grounds in one of the country’s most depressing places but a full match report has been published on friend of the site Tony Gibson’s excellent Lofty Heights blog which you can read by clicking here.

After the game Neil Warnock insisted (you guessed it) that the game was exactly what his players needed a week before the start of the new Premiership season.

Warnock told the club’s official website: “We've had a great pre-season and I'm so delighted that we didn't get an injury. We've had a hectic five weeks and some strenuous training sessions over the past couple of days, but I thought we did okay. I was quite pleased with a lot of things in the first half, and there were one or two areas that you could see that we need to brush up on. It would have been easier to go and get a nice tippy-tappy fixture to finish off, but I knew it would be tough at Luton, like it was at Crawley on Tuesday night. It was just what we needed.

"We've got a good bunch of players here, with a great team spirit. We're all really looking forward to what should be a cracking atmosphere against Bolton next Saturday. I think at this stage fitness is more important, make no mistake about that. People are writing us off, but I'd say do that at your peril. Ali Faurlin and DJ have been down with illness this week, but they both wanted to play. That says all you need to know about the attitude and desire of this squad. I'm so excited now, it's really beginning to sink in that we're just a week away from the start of the season."

Campbell had told Talksport before the game that he is looking to further his international ambitions by scoring Premiership goals for QPR this season. He said: “Every season I set myself a target. I set myself a target last year and got to it and, if I can better what I did last year, I will be over the moon. I’ve got ambitions with my national team, which hopefully one day I can achieve, and that was a big part of me coming back into the Premier League. There were a few clubs interested but QPR is my home club and the club I supported as a boy. It's where my family are from and area I know very well. When I found out they were interested, it was great to come home. I wanted to play in the Premiership and it's funny how a club like QPR comes up because it's the team I supported as a kid and my mum always said that one day you'll end up back there. Funnily enough it's happened and I'm delighted."

It was also revealed earlier in the day that Luton youth team prospect Charlie Smith has moved to QPR this summer. Luton are currently crying foul over the poaching of their best youth players by Peterborough and Brentford who have taken advantage of a rule that says once outside the Football League for more than two years clubs are not entitled to compensation for their youth teamers when they move. However the Hatters have said that QPR are playing fair and have made an initial offer to them for Smith.

Luton: Tyler, Gleeson (Watkins 64), Osano, Keane, Beckwith, Antwi (Asafu-Adjaye 64), Lawless (Lacey 90), Dance, O'Connor (Morgan-Smith 72), Crow (Barnes-Homer 64), Howells (Poku 90)

Subs: Elder, Pilkington

Goals: Barnes-Holmer (74), Morgan-Smith (83), Watkins (88)

QPR: Kenny (Cerny 46), Dyer (Doughty 72), Hill (Andrade 82), Derry (Ephraim 46), Hall (Orr 46), Gabbidon (Perone 46), Taarabt (Vaagan-Moen 46), Smith (Connolly 46), Campbell (Helguson 46) (Hewitt 82), Bothroyd (Agyemang 46), Faurlin (Buzsaky 46)

Goals: Campbell (1)

Earlier in the week QPR’s reserve side continued their hectic pre-season campaign wwith a 4-3 win at Conference South side Woking. Leon Clarke scored another two goals to continue his impressive summer so far (found his level at last) while there were also goals for Bruno Andrade and Troy Hewitt. Message board regular Real Loftus kindly submitted this match report.

Elsewhere defender Peter Ramage, who signed a one year contract extension at Loftus Road this summer, will spend the first month of the season at least on loan at Championship outfit Crystal Palace. Ramage is recovering from a serious knee injury that ruled him out for the whole of last season and is currently some way down the Loftus Road pecking order. He joins Palace on a one month deal along with Leicester defender Aleksander Tunchev and former R’s loanee Andrew Davies.

Palace boss Dougie Freedman, himself a former QPR player, told Palace’s official website: "These players bring experience to an area of the team where we need cover going into an important opening set of games and I see them as important additions to the players we already have available."

Doncaster manager Sean O’Driscoll said yesterday that Rowan Vine’s release from the club after a summer spent training with them was so Rovers could afford to sign Giles Barnes on loan from West Brom. Vine voiced his displeasure at the decision earlier in the week but O’Driscoll said: “Ideally we’d liked to have kept both of them. Giles can play in various positions and he’s got pace and power and he’s only 23. He’s six-foot plus and he ticks a lot of boxes.”

Off the field the Fulham Chronicle is the latest to attempt to shed some light on the Tony Fernandes takeover bid. The paper reports that Fernandes has bought a 20% stake in Rangers for £15m. Neil Warnock said: “I met Tony in Italy, and he is a very nice chap. Me, Flavio and Tony all had a positive chat after the match last Saturday. We've already spoken about possible targets and he is a very positive man.”

And finally, The Diary always attempts to finish on a bit of a lighter note and how about this one – Fitz Hall has been called up for international duty by Barbados. The injury prone centre half, who blames his chronic hamstring and groin problems on spending so much time commuting to training will now endure a long haul flight to the Caribbean for two matches at the beginning of September. Barbados play Guyana away on Tuesday September 2, before hosting Trinidad & Tobago four days later.

Watch out for “Hall withdraws from Barbados squad due to injury” story coming to The Diary very soon.

Rumours

While the Joe Cole and Peter Crouch rumours continue to do the rounds, with Tony Fernandes’ £15m allegedly being made available to Neil Warnock, a more realistic story and target is possibly Chelsea left back Ryan Bertrand. Sky Sports reports that Rangers are lining up a season long loan deal for Bertrand who is an England Under 21 international and impressed previously on loan at Norwich and Reading in the Championship.

Former R’s

Goalkeeer Jake Cole has been speaking about his time with QPR and his hopes for the future after securing a move from Barnet to cash strapped League Two new boys Plymouth Argyle this summer. In a wide ranging interview with the Plymouth Herald Cole said: "I joined QPR aged nine, so I was there for 14 years – a long time – and I sat on the bench about 140-odd times, mainly in the Championship. It was quite a long period for me without games, although I went out on loan a few times. I'm a QPR supporter, and my family are all local to there, so I really enjoyed being at the club, but I didn't play much. Getting games under my belt was what I really wanted because when you train hard every week you want something at the end of it. When I was called upon I felt I played well. It's a matter of being professional and doing things right – living right, eating right and training right. And that's what I did there.

"I sat on the bench quite a few times at Home Park when QPR came down. We had some good battles. I have seen crowds of 14,000 and 15,000 at Home Park so, hopefully, we can get back to those times and climb up the leagues.

“Plymouth is a great club and, hopefully, we can do well this season. You can't turn down opportunities like this. It's a great club, the manager is vastly experienced and everyone in the squad is blending nicely."

Cole’s former QPR team mate Richard Pacquette is currently on trial at Conference side Forest Green Rovers following his release from Eastbourne Borough at the end of last season. Pacquette played, but didn’t score, in Forest Green’s 3-0 pre-season win at Cirencester earlier this week.

And their former manager in W12 Ian Holloway got off to a winning start last night as his Blackpool side won 1-0 at Hull City in the opening Championship game of the season. Holloway appeared very downbeat when interviewed by the Sky team before the game and told The Daily Telegraph this week that this summer has been the worst of his life.

Holloway said: “It has been the worst few months of my life. Because we run the club properly and have gone back on to the wages the players were on before they were promoted, it has caused all sorts of uproar. Players have gone back to their Championship wages which were awful. While the chairman has offered some of them the same money as last season, that has not been good enough. Look how many clubs have bounced back up. Are we little Blackpool any more in other people’s eyes now we have got our parachute payments?

“It will be tougher - not least because we have a backlog of players who think they should be being paid a lot more than they are. But we have got to shake off our disappointment, buck up our ideas and get on with it. I have lost 35 goals out of that team,” added Holloway. “Yes, I have signed Kevin Phillips but he can’t score that many on his own. It would be hard enough to get up again with the same team as before. After all, we limped up in May 2010. I am trying to batten down the hatches because I am expecting a storm of expectation.”

Premiership Shorts

- Sunderland have had a bid accepted by Derry City for highly rated Northern Ireland winger James McClean. Peterborough had previously had two bids for the player rejected and he will now travel to Wearside for a medical on Monday.

- Man City have moved to back up their goalkeeping position following Shay Given’s departure to Aston Villa. Roberto Mancini has signed Costel Pantilimon from Romanian side Poli Timisoara for an undisclosed fee after he impressed against City in last season’s Europa League. The 24-year-old has 13 caps for Romania.

- Anderlecht have signed Milan Jovanovic from Liverpool but are currently clinging on to Romelu Lukaku who has stated he would only move to Chelsea if guaranteed first team involvement rather than an immediate loan move elsewhere.

- Worried about our defeat at Luton? Fear not, our opening day opponents Bolton lost on Friday night as well, 1-0 at home to Spanish side Levante. Next week we travel to Everton and they found themselves beaten 1-0 at home by another Spanish side Villarreal.

- Bolton, Wigan and Sunderland have all been given permission to discuss terms with Shaun Wright Phillips by Man City.

This season LFW will be splitting our match previews up into three sections over three days with even more detail and coverage than before and interviews with opposition supporters. Log on from Wednesday for all of that, and in the meantime follow @loftforwords on Twitter for regular bite sized bits of cynicism.

Photo: Action Images via Reuters