Marti Cifuentes: QPR must improve points total to stay in the Championship
QPR head coach Marti Cifuentes is adamant that the club’s current points total will not be enough to avoid relegation from the Championship this season.
Following an impressive upturn in form since Cifuentes took charge of Rangers in October, the west London club are 19th in the league table on 47 points.
However, following last weekend’s heavy 3-0 defeat to Hull City, they are only three points clear of the relegation zone with just three games left to play.
“What I know is that to achieve our target [of survival], 47 points will not be enough,” said Cifuentes ahead of Saturday’s game against Preston at Loftus Road.
“I am convinced about that. Whatever happens [with other teams] I don’t care so much because I know that we need to win football games.
“The players know the best way to approach a game is to focus on the things you can control and the things you can affect.”
“In that sense, the only thing we can influence is our performance. To make sure that we have a good game plan, that we perform well individually, that we are good at scoring our chances, that we are good defending set-pieces.
“These are the things we can try to control in a game as complex as football is.”
The loss last time out means that QPR have now won just two of their last eight games following an upturn in form at the start of 2024.
Despite rotating heavily throughout a run five games in 16 days following the March international break, Cifuentes does not believe making wholesale tactical changes is the best way to approach the final weeks of the campaign.
“I’ve been trusting the guys, they are the guys that have taken us out of the relegation zone,” he explained.
“It would be a mistake now because of one bad result [at Hull] – not bad performance – to think that we need to change eleven players, change the coach or whatever it is. Not at all.
“We need to keep doing what we have been doing.
“Another good example is [the 1-1 draw against] Plymouth. We could have won that game by a big margin of goals by having more accuracy, but once again, in football, what matters the most is the goals you score and concede.
“We need to get better in this area, that’s how it is.”
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