Villas-Boas and Warnock offer disparate views of Foy’s role

Jose Bosingwa and Didier Drogba were both dismissed as Chelsea pressed the self-destruct button three times in the first half. David Luiz also conceded a needless penalty to gift the home side a first victory over their arch-rivals for more than 16 years and their first Barclays Premier League home win of the season.

Heidar Helguson dispatched the spot-kick before Foy controversially dismissed Bosingwa, who was judged to be last man when he later hauled down Shaun Wright-Phillips.

Drogba then gave Foy no choice but to brandish the red card for a second time with a two-footed challenge on Adel Taarabt.

Villas-Boas believes his players deserved credit for their spirit after playing for so long with nine men, but was furious with the referee’s display.

“I have to praise the players because they were amazing,” he said.

“For 45 minutes we played with nine men and that takes courage, it shows the strength and commitment of the squad.

“It’s the third time in a row where a referee has directly influenced the result for us and we’re not happy with this. In three games there have been blatant refereeing mistakes.

“I’m very disappointed with Chris’s performance. With nine players we kept our emotions very well. Chris and his team managed to play an emotional game and they conceded to the crowd and committed tremendous mistakes.”

QPR midfielder Shaun Derry was delighted to see his team get one over their local – and more illustrious – rivals.

“It was passionate, everything there should be about a derby,” said the former Leeds United and Sheffield United midfielder.

“I think we’ve put a few smiles on people’s faces, it means everything to us.

“The dynamics of the game changed massively (with the dismissals).

“They went from 11 to nine and sometimes things like that knock you off track, and there were times in the second half when it looked like they had 11 men and we had nine.

“But we don’t care. We’re 1-0 winners over our rivals and that means everything to the club.

“It’s a monkey off our back getting our first home win, but more importantly than that we beat Chelsea. It’s fantastic.”

Manager Neil Warnock added: “It was fantastic for the fans.

“You don’t get results like we did (yesterday) very often, not when playing a team with so much quality.

“But our boys did fantastically, we had a plan and it worked a treat. To get three points against Chelsea is like a dream.”

Warnock also disagreed with his Chelsea counterpart Villas-Boas over the performance of referee Foy.

“I don’t think the referee’s done much wrong,” he said.

“He made fewer mistakes than both teams and I was glad to have someone experienced like him in charge.

“We’ve worked hard for 18 months to get a result like this (at home) and it’s fantastic.

“Now we have to take that on board and get more results like that at home.”