Harry Redknapp hailed Queens Park Rangers' 'fantastic spirit' and felt his team could have picked up a positive result after losing 1-0 at home to Arsenal.
Theo Walcott scored the fastest goal of the Premier League season after just 20 seconds and that proved to be enough to settle a closely-fought London derby.
The match was QPR's first since relegation to the Championship was confirmed last weekend and that was followed by suggestions the squad lacked the right mentality to stay in the top flight.
However, Redknapp felt there was nothing wrong with his players' attitude against Arsenal and praised the way his side responded to conceding such an early goal.
"I felt to go a goal down within a minute, we showed fantastic spirit," Redknapp told ESPN. "We hung in there and we could have gone under after conceding a goal in a minute.
"After that I felt we were every bit as good as them and could easily have got a result. I thought it was an excellent performance and the spirit was first class.
"What more could we have done? We conceded an early goal against a team that has gone to Bayern Munich and won this year.
"We could have easily dropped our heads, but we kept going and defended for our lives.
"We worked their goalkeeper, Andros Townsend gave them all kinds of problems, so credit where credit's due.
"It's easy to jump on the bandwagon and say there is a lack of spirit, but anybody who thinks there was doesn't understand football.
"It was a ghastly goal to give away, but after that we were good. Their keeper has made a great save late on and I felt we were always in the game."
