Warnock hails captain Barton

Neil Warnock paid tribute to the performances of all his debutants after Joey Barton captained QPR to a 0-0 draw against Newcastle on Monday.

Barton was handed the armband for the visit of his former club to Loftus Road and repaid the manager's faith in him with an all-action display.

Warnock was delighted with the way the midfielder handled himself and believes he will go on to be an excellent leader for QPR.

"In the circumstances people might have thought he would get carried away, but I said to him before the game just to play the game and not the occasion, and I thought he did tonight," Warnock told Sky Sports.

"I thought he epitomised why he was captain, and I think Adel (Taarabt) understood that."

Warnock also had words of praise for fellow newcomers Luke Young, Anton Ferdinand and Armand Traore, while Shaun Wright-Phillips was particularly impressive.

"I have watched him over the last few years and I am hoping to bring the best out of him," Warnock said of the former Manchester City winger.

Warnock insisted he was satisfied with the result as well as the performance, especially after making so many changes to his team.

"I am delighted really, not just the point but the way we played," he explained.

"It is difficult to get five or six players in 10 days and to see them perform like that, they have fitted in really well.

"The lads that have come in have done what I expected them to.

"I have waited 30 years for an exciting team and, tonight, we gave it our best shot but it was entertaining."

Barton took a lot of positives out of his team's performance and believes the players can be happy with what they produced.

"A clean sheet in football is different class, especially considering we had six new players on the pitch," he said on Sky Sports 1.

"We should probably have won the game, but if we keep playing like that we'll win games.

"We've only been together a few days but good players don't take that long to bond and we'll only get better."

Wright-Phillips added: "I think at times we were just inches and yards away from scoring, but we have to look at the positives.

"It's the first game we've played together and we did really well, and defended superbly.

"As long as we keep playing like that, the better we get to know each other, I think we'll get goals in the games to come."