QPR'S stand-in captain Matthew Rose saw his team plummet to second from bottom in the table on Tuesday and then returned to the dressing room to discover thieves had stolen £200 from his bag.

Rose, who was at fault for Birmingham's second goal in their 2-0 win at Loftus Road, found his night went from bad to worse when he discovered someone had made off with his kitbag, wallet and mobile phone.

The former Arsenal apprentice was in a state of shock when he borrowed a steward's mobile phone to report the theft to Shepherds Bush police station.

He told them what had been stolen and on Wednesday the Metropolitan police confirmed an incident took place.

It is believed Rose was the only victim of the changing room thief.

A police spokesman said: "We're in the process of looking into the reports and making our own enquiries."

At the time of going to press nobody was available for comment at QPR.

The incident compounded a bad night for Rangers who continue to struggle and slipped further towards the bottom of the Championship after the defeat against 10-man Birmingham.Bruno N'Gotty and Cameron Jerome both struck to send the visitors top and leave Rangers one place off the foot of the table.

Birmingham took advantage of some slack defending in the home defence to grab the lead in the 23rd minute through former French international N'Gotty.

The defender rose unchallenged to head past Paul Jones from Gary McSheffrey's inch-perfect free-kick.

Birmingham looked dangerous on the break and former QPR trainee DJ Campbell went close after 64 minutes., hitting the post.

Four minutes later Birmingham were down to 10 men. On-loan Arsenal striker Nicklas Bendtner received his marching orders for a second yellow card after appearing to raise an arm in the face of Rose.

Marc Nygaard, Ray Jones and Shabazz Baidoo all went close for Rangers before Jerome wrapped the game up for the visitors in the third minute of stoppage time.

Rose allowed Maik Taylor's long punt down field to bounce, Jerome outmuscled the Rangers defender before lobbing Paul Jones with a hooked effort from the corner of the penalty area.

Rangers boss Gary Waddock blamed Tuesday's defeat on two mistakes from his side.

He said: "I felt we dominated for good spells in the game. Everyone wrote us off before and I felt we put in a reasonable performance but two mistakes have cost us again."

Rangers travel to Colchester this Saturday before facing a trip to Port Vale in the Carling Cup second round on Tuesday evening.