Malick Yalcouye ‘devastated’ by red card – Swansea boss Alan Sheehan

Swansea midfielder Malick Yalcouye was “devastated” by his red card in his side’s 1-0 defeat to QPR, according to his boss Alan Sheehan.

Yalcouye was dismissed in the 34th minute after squaring up with QPR defender Steve Cook, who hit the deck after the Brighton loanee leaned in with his forehead.

Swansea already trailed to Rumarn Burrell’s 18th-minute strike and were unable to find a way back into the game as their winless run in the Championship extended to three games.

Swans boss Sheehan said: “He’s devastated in there.

“Obviously we suffered from that. It changes the game. It makes it an uphill battle.

“I think you see a young 19-year-old lad up against a very, very experienced player and I think that’s the way it happened.

“Obviously Steve Cook and Malik came together, he’s been enticed, and he went down like he got hit by an absolute truck.

“I haven’t seen the incident totally, but I don’t think he’s headbutted (him), but I think both players at different instances have stuck their heads together and probably whoever has that momentum.

“But the reaction of jumping back. That’s an experienced player or doing what has to be done, really, and we’ve suffered from that tonight.

“But look, Malik is a young player. We have him on loan from Brighton and he’s a talent and we’ve suffered from that tonight, but I’m not going to throw anybody under the bus or anything.

“This is just a learning curve and he’ll get better for it.”

Sheehan was unhappy with the way his team started the contest.

He added: “We didn’t start the game well. You don’t get time to wake up in the Championship.

“They scored with one of their first opportunities, then I think we reacted, woke up a bit and then obviously the sending off happens and it’s an uphill battle.

“But we regrouped at half-time and made a few changes and I think there’s a lot of positives to take out of that second half in terms of playing for 60 minutes with 10 men and having opportunities near the end to salvage something.”

Burrell struck when he latched on to Isaac Hayden’s chipped cross to clip a volley past goalkeeper Lawrence Vigouroux.

QPR have lost just one of their last eight matches and sit eighth in the Championship table.

And manager Julien Stephan said: “I am very happy with the win and especially how we managed to control the second half without the ball.

“It was not perfect because it would be perfect if we scored the second or third goal.

“It’s just a question of efficiency – to kill the opponent – and we didn’t do that.

“It’s a good win for us. But in this kind of game you never know at the end what can happen when you stay at 1-0 the last five minutes.”