QPR boss Cifuentes savours the moment as Championship safety is secured
Marti Cifuentes is not yet looking to the future after ensuring QPR will be playing in the Championship again next season.
A 4-0 win against Leeds United on Friday night ended the possibility of Rangers being relegated this season and extended an impressive recent run of form to just four defeats in the last 18 games.
Cifuentes has been solely focused on guiding the club to safety since replacing Gareth Ainsworth as head coach in late October, and he was keen to toast the achievement.
“I said when I came here that first of all when we could win games – unfortunately not every weekend – we should celebrate and enjoy it,” he said. “That is what I am going to do. Enjoy tonight’s victory because it means a lot.
“If you ask me about the future I think that there is going to be time to sit, to analyse and be humble.
“All of us today are very happy and it’s easy to get a bit carried away but there is a lot of work to be done in the future and there is a lot of things that we can do better.
“My target is to enjoy tonight and long-term I will think about from tomorrow.”
QPR were six points from safety upon Cifuentes arrival, having won just two of their first 14 games of the season.
The Spaniard had an immediate impact, losing just one of his first six matches in charge. However, a run of eight games without a win throughout December and January looked set to doom Rangers to League One.
The west Londoners reacted in the second part of the season though, picking up enough points to climb out of the relegation zone at the end of February and then remain above the dotted line since.
“When I came here I was maybe a bit crazy, thinking we could make the ‘Great Escape’ and we managed to do it,” said Cifuentes.
“I believed the players had more [to give] and they showed it, not only tonight.
“Tonight is a little bit of closing the circle, but over the last months we have been through difficult moments and the team was keeping the togetherness and belief that we could make it.
“Credit to them that we not only achieved it but achieved it in a certain way, through hard work, dedication and being honest on the pitch.”
MAIN PICTURE: PA
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