MARTI Cifuentes hailed the impact of Queens Park Rangers supporters in their side’s 2-0 London derby victory over Millwall at Loftus Road on Saturday.
Ilias Chair put the hosts ahead in the 27th minute before Sinclair Armstrong sealed the win five minutes from time as the R’s moved to within three points of safety.
It was a first win in nine games in all competitions, with six defeats in that run including at the Lions’ Den on Boxing Day.
The majority of the attendance of 17,184 went home with the bragging rights.
“I am very happy for the guys, to win the game was exactly what we were looking for after the last few results,” Cifuentes said. “The small margins prevented us in recent weeks but definitely to win in a game like this, it is massive for us and our supporters.
“I think we deserved the victory, we didn’t concede many chances, we created enough to score the goals that we did, and I am very pleased for the connection with the supporters as they were very important for the 90 minutes.
“In this moment of the season where things are starting to get a bit tighter, this is what we would expect, especially early on in the game.
“There was a lot of unforced mistakes, we couldn’t keep the ball on the ground and combine in the way that we wanted to, but I think that the goal gave us the calm that we were looking for and since then I thought we performed at a good level.”
QPR had twelve attempts at goal with five of them on target and restricted Joe Edwards’ side to just two attempts and one on target, Reggie Cannon clearing off the line after Billy Mitchell’s shot had deflected past goalkeeper Asmir Begovic.
Cifuentes added: “Once again I will praise the team. When Millwall were pushing in the last minutes, we didn’t concede and defended the set-pieces well against a team who have been really strong in that area this year, so full credit to the guys.
“Our job is to provide the players with the situations and we created them today. Since I arrived, the amount of chances we have created has been very low and we have looked to work in the final third.
“We are very happy but we have a massive task ahead of us. It won’t be easy and we need to keep improving in many areas.”
Edwards made no excuses for his side, who after five Championship games unbeaten have lost their last two.
Edwards said: “We didn’t get anything out of the game today because we didn’t deserve to. We’re better than that and I’m gutted for all the fans that travelled.
“It’s a situation where they’re under pressure, so you know if you can really step onto them early you can force that anxiety out of them a bit and I thought we settled into the game quickly.
“But then after five to ten minutes without creating anything, we fell into a bit of lull, lost our clarity and started having a lot of the ball at the back without asking questions at the top end of the pitch.
“It looked a bit predictable for us whereas, when it was going in around Armstrong and [Lyndon] Dykes, they were pinning us and allowing people to feed off scraps and I think that was the difference at either end of the pitch.”
