Derry was dismissed inside the opening quarter of an hour at Old Trafford after being penalised for a foul on Ashley Young, who had been in an offside position from Wayne Rooney's initial pass.

Rooney scored the subsequent penalty and Paul Scholes netted a second goal on 68 minutes to leave QPR outside the Premier League relegation zone on goal difference.

Hughes felt his team's chances of securing a result at his former club were ruined by Derry's dismissal and he was also critical of Young's role in the red card shown to his captain.

Aggrieved

"I think everybody understood that, having seen it on numerous occasions, the boy is clearly offside initially," Hughes told Sky Sports.

"He has gone through and there is very minimal contact from Shaun Derry. The boy has gone over too readily and the ref has gone for that.

"He was very quick to blow for a penalty. In fairness, I think the kid was still rolling around and the penalty has already been given. He didn't really give his assistant time to put the flag up.

"Once he has pointed to the spot it's very difficult for the assistant to keep his flag up and try to over-rule him, so from that point on we're very aggrieved."

Veteran midfielder Derry is set to miss Wednesday's encounter with Swansea at Loftus Road, but Hughes will challenge the dismissal.

"Yes. We will appeal the red card," said Hughes.

"We need all hands on deck on Wednesday, plus Shaun has had a rest. He only played for 15 minutes."

Fantastic

The QPR boss added: "I have to say that I thought my players were fantastic today. I have seen many teams come here and absolutely capitulate under similar circumstances, but we weren't prepared to do that.

"My guys showed real discipline and real determination to make sure we didn't go under an avalanche of goals, which is vitally important.

"We've started the weekend in a position where we wanted to go into this game and try to be positive, but that opportunity has been taken away from us by the referee's decision.

"As the events of the weekend have unfolded, we've actually found ourselves better off, although bitterly disappointed with the events of today. From that point of view, it's a positive and surely the only one we can take."