MARTI Cifuentes believes the first half goals from Sinclair Armstrong and Lyndon Dykes which put QPR 2-0 up against Bournemouth offers hope QPR can fire their way out of trouble.
Armstrong picked up possession just inside Bournemouth’s half five minutes before the interval, burst forward into the box and beat Mark Travers with an angled finish.
Dykes’ deflected attempt doubled the advantage two minutes later to seemingly leave the Hoops in complete control at the break.
But Marcus Tavernier pulled one back for the Cherries three minutes after the restart, also with the help of a deflection.
Asmir Begovic produced an excellent double save to deny Luis Sinisterra and then Tavernier, although the keeper probably should have done better when Keiffer Moore headed home from the resulting corner to make it 2-2.
Justin Kluivert tapped the Premier League side in front for the first time in the game on 69 minutes to complete an impressive turnaround with what proved to be the winning goal.
For QPR it means the sole focus for the rest of the season will be a relegation battle to stay in the Championship.
And although it was another disappointing day for Cifuentes, who is now without a win in seven after a promising start to his managerial reign, he at least took some positives from the attacking displays of Armstrong and Dykes.
The Spaniard told QPR TV: “We need everybody together scoring goals – our strikers, our forwards more than anyone else.
“But I’m pleased today about the first half because we understood that it was about (with) the way we play, we need someone to stretch.
“We need players that are eager to tackle the space behind the defensive line.
“It was something that we missed against Millwall and to some extent as well against Cardiff and today I think we did really well.”
Cifuentes added: “We need to keep being this team that if some team wants to press us high they are going to struggle to defend balls in behind because we’ve got the pace of either Armstrong or the speed maybe of Dykes, so actually we’ve got this pace in the team.
“It is about understanding how to use it in the right way because it is not just about kicking balls from behind, it is about attracting the opposition.
“If they don’t get attracted then you have the tools and capacity to play through them, so it is about finding this balance.”
QPR were again without injured key duo Ilias Chair and Chris Willock for the Cherries defeat and there was another unwanted headache when Same Field was forced off 10 minutes from time.
Asked how serious that could potentially be, Cifuentes explained it was too early to say.
“I didn’t discuss yet with the medical team,” said the boss.
“It just seemed like it was a knock on his back.
“We didn’t want to risk it because January will be extremely important for our targets at the end of the season.”
And there is no denying Cifuentes’ point that this month will be a vital month in QPR’s bid to stay up.
First up are Watford on Sunday at Loftus Road before Millwall and Huddersfield follow in quick succession.
He added: “We have three massive games here at home where we need everybody available.
“We need important players that were missing in the last game like Ilias, like Chrissy, like Steve (Cook), like (Jack) Colback – we have been missing him as well for a long time, so we need everybody ready to contribute in this very important part of the season.
“We are going to try our best to focus in the pitch to try to get the best of all the players and make sure that we can compete at a good level in the next month.”
