'Sad' - QPR boss admits abandoning principles against Leeds United at Elland Road as 'brave' Whites applauded
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The Spaniard said in as many words during the post-match press conference that his team's approach at Elland Road went against his principles of play. The West London club typically play an attacking, possession-based style, but did not operate expansively at Elland Road.
QPR were beaten 2-0 by Leeds on Saturday afternoon and remain in the Championship's bottom three after a run of 11 league games without a victory, having failed to register a shot on target during their most recent outing.
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Hide Ad"Leeds has been the better team in the game," Cifuentes said at full-time. "We tried to compete at the highest level we could according to the situation. We know they're a really good team, they can build very well with the two centre-halves and two midfielders dropping deep and full-backs really high and players in the pockets. We knew we needed nearly the perfect game out of possession.
"Sad for the guys, we're in a difficult trend. Fair play for them, a very good team."
This weekend's latest defeat, coupled with Portsmouth's triumph over Preston North End at Fratton Park, sees the R's drop to 24th in the standings.
"[It was] very difficult, it's not the kind of game I like and I coach in the past but that's perhaps our tool to compete in a game like today. We had a similar approach against Burnley. Today we had some sequences, they're very brave with how they defend, when we got into the situations where we could arrive to the last third we need this level of accuracy.
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Hide Ad"We had the first contact at two corners, a good chance for Sam but it goes over. When you don't capitalise, it's not a criticism for my guys, if you are not able to score then the game becomes very difficult," Cifuentes added.
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