we can get used to this sort of pap from now on aswell Carlisle-Area Perspectives of QPR Game - Headline "United are bludgeoned by the power of money...Finance 4, Romance 0" - Carlisle News and Star/Jon Colman - United are bludgeoned by the power of money Finance 4, Romance 0. Don’t linger on this page if you’re leafing through the paper in search of an inspirational underdog story. Foot in: Danny Livesey, right, breaks down the move after QPR’s Samuel Di Carmine attempts to race down the touchline Last night Carlisle United were bludgeoned by the power of money and the sophisticated foreign talent it can bring whizzing through customs. These are sport’s starkest evenings, when a dream is exposed as a delusion just as soon as the rich people turn up, rattling their jewellery. Carlisle matched QPR for effort and enterprise for half this Carling Cup tie. Then the home side’s Argentine maestro found his glittering range, and the illusion went pop. Fact one: Emmanuel Ledesma, who lanced United with a brilliant second-half hat-trick, chose to move from Genoa to Loftus Road on loan, despite the overtures of several Italian Serie A clubs. Fact two: Daniel Perejo, the Spaniard who created Rangers’ first goal, has been borrowed from Real Madrid. And three: Samuel Di Carmine, the third foreign raider in Iain Dowie’s starting eleven last night, is the property of Fiorentina. Additional information: QPR’s owners are the billionaire Formula One chums Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone, on whose stupefying wealth and renown Dowie is building this shiny new team. Cuffing Carlisle in a second round cup tie registers as the smallest brushstroke on Briatore’s canvas, which he soon expects to be filled with the gaudy colours of Premier League and European football. No apologies for setting the scene with pound signs. QPR and Carlisle are a division apart but exist in different financial galaxies. The glorious gifts revealed by Ledesma don’t necessarily deserve to be pushed down the page by the sober realities of the balance sheet, but is there another context for what we saw last night? Fair enough: you should only be allowed to say all this if you can still appreciate the talent which QPR's new riches have provided. There’s no problem here in letting the ink of praise flow for Ledesma, whose three goals were individual entertainment packages that even the most dazed Cumbrian had to applaud. Reality intruded on this game the moment Damion Stewart beat Ben Williams to Parejo’s whipped corner and bashed home Rangers’ opener. From the 47th minute on, dramatic tension was replaced by Ledesma’s virtuoso performance. Minute 55: the 20-year-old Argentine accepts the ball with his back to the target, holds off Peter Murphy, spins into shooting space and whacks his first goal into the bottom right of Williams’ net. Minute 64: QPR push through the middle, Ledesma plays a cute one-two with Parejo, and fires the ball confidently past the diving goalkeeper. And minute 84: the coup de grace, as Colombian substitute Angelo Balanta deftly backheels the ball into Ledesma’s path, and the midfielder sprints forward and clips the ball over the onrushing Williams. How do you analyse this; how do you begin to criticise the likes of Murphy and Williams for failing to lay a glove on such brilliance? Answer: you don’t, unless you think Carlisle will be confronting players like Ledesma on a regular basis this season. The search to find a more damaging opponent for United’s defenders in League One will be long and futile. How deceptive that first half now seems. For John Ward’s reshuffled team were going toe-to-toe with their hosts until the interval and might even have claimed a lead, given some sharper finishing and a more observant referee. Amid an unconvincing flurry of QPR half-chances - the best of which saw Williams superbly tip wide Damien Delaney’s howitzer - the Blues appeared comfortable with the occasion. Gary Madine, who battled admirably against the towering Stewart all night, set up a far-post chance for Michael Bridges after 23 minutes, but the former Premier League man’s stooping header was blocked. Later, a United cross from the right saw the 18-year-old Madine clatter to the floor under a clumsy-looking Matthew Connolly challenge, but the plausible penalty claims were rejected by referee Keith Hill, who had already batted away Simon Hackney’s insistence that an earlier cross had connected with a QPR arm in the area. It was a frustrating end to a half notable for QPR’s attractive one-touch passing (which, at the time, seemed to be lacking the attacking focus of an old-fashioned number 9) and United’s defensive persistence and occasional forays led by the pace of Hackney and Cleveland Taylor on respective flanks. At Carlisle’s end, Lee Cook took unsuccessful aim and then Williams saved well from the roaming Ledesma. At the home end, Hackney scampered towards the area and fed Bridges to the left of goal, only for the striker to slice wastefully wide. At half-time, 8,021 spectators were discussing an even skirmish. Then the myth was dismantled. QPR, suddenly appearing more vibrant and focused, flew at United moments after the restart. Pereja wriggled free from Murphy then tore away from the Dubliner down the right. A touch too many from the Spaniard allowed Danny Livesey to intervene, but the resulting corner saw Williams leap from his line only to be beaten to the cross by Stewart. At this point, Ledesma assumed the stage. QPR’s football became quicker and slicker while Carlisle’s attacking influence evaporated, save for some wholehearted running from Taylor which drew more than one heavy challenge from Dowie’s defenders. Madine and Bridges, who had flickered with promise in the first half, now disappeared from view. There was a brief, late surge from United which twice took them close to a consolation goal, but on both occasions Jeff Smith was denied by Radek Cerny - the Czech ‘keeper turning behind Smith’s first sliding effort, then flying to his left to beat away the substitute’s curling free-kick. All that these token efforts achieved was to rouse Ledesma into a final, devastating eruption, the Argentine firing an injury-time rocket over Williams’ bar by millimetres, as if assembling a hat-trick for the ages wasn't enough. By then, Loftus Road cult status had long been conferred on the floppy-haired loanee, whose goals allowed Dowie to complete a personal treble of Carling Cup victories over United, after triumphs with Charlton and Coventry in the two preceding seasons. For what it’s worth, this was by far the most resounding of the three. What it’s worth, in fact, is a possible third round meeting with a Premier League big cheese, and, more importantly, another modest step in fame’s direction. That’s where QPR are heading, bobbing along a sea of cash. Carlisle, by cruel contrast, have rarely looked smaller.

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