QPR boss Marti Cifuentes insists he is “very confident” he will lead the club away from trouble in the Championship despite their winless run continuing with a goalless draw against Bristol City at Loftus Road.
City defended well in their first match under Liam Manning following his recent arrival from Oxford as successor to Nigel Pearson.
Cifuentes can take some encouragement from his team’s display in his first home game at the helm.
But the west London side have now gone 11 matches without a win, continue to struggle to create clear-cut chances and remain one off the bottom of the table, having won only once at home in more than a year.
Cifuentes has employed a radically different style of play to the route-one tactics of his predecessor Gareth Ainsworth, who presided over six consecutive defeats prior to his recent sacking.
QPR have returned to a passing style and Cifuentes is convinced that will pay off.
Cifuentes said: “There are mixed feelings. Unfortunately we couldn’t deliver the victory. It was not the result we wanted but I am looking forward to building the togetherness I saw today. I think we can be really strong in the future.
“Despite the result, my job is to make sure that we start to win games. I do think it’s a step in the right direction.
“I see a stable team and one that is striving to have a clear identity – how they want to play from the back and have the courage to pass the ball.
“The identity of the team is starting to show. I feel we are taking steps but we have to be critical and say it hasn’t been enough to win games.
“Over time I’m very confident that this style of play can give us the results we’re looking for,” said the Spaniard.
“I do think that we have the tools inside the squad to play the football we want to and I’m very confident that this will give us the results we want.”
Meanwhile, Manning also saw reasons to feel optimistic after seeing the Robins make a solid start to his reign.
“There was some really positive stuff,” Manning said.
“We’ve worked on our shape out of possession and we saw that come out. There were a lot of positives with the out-of-possession stuff.
“We didn’t concede a shot on target, so when you look from the defensive side of it there were a lot of good things.
“In possession, we know that can improve. But we finished the stronger side in the last 20 minutes and got in some terrific areas.
“It’s been a whirlwind week but I have to give the players a huge amount of credit for how they’ve adapted to the work we’ve asked them to do.
“A pleasing aspect is the clean sheet and also the behaviours you saw – there were people there who maxed out and were running on empty at the end.
“If we want to be the best team that we can be, then that’s going to be important.”
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