MARTI Cifuentes warned his side they can’t feel sorry for themselves after their 2-0 defeat to Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park at the weekend as they face a quick turnaround before hosting Hull City on Tuesday evening.
The R’s were goalless against Rovers heading into half-time before Jonathan Varane was sent off for a late challenge on Danny Batth two minutes into added-time.
Blackburn hit a quick-fire double after the break when captain Lewis Travis scored in the 53rd minute and Batth added a second ten minutes later.
Paul Smyth had earlier missed a chance to open the scoring for the visitors, who lie seventeenth in the Championship with seven points from seven games after their second league defeat of the season.
“It was one of those days,” the Cifuentes said on QPR’s website. “I thought we actually started quite well and had a clear chance from Smythy.
“Then we received the red card which is a game-changer. We tried to adjust things at half-time, we knew the second half would be about showing resilience and waiting for our opportunity to get some chances.
“It’s true Blackburn had a good chance just before they scored, but their first goal is because of a deflection. Then the second is a set-piece from which we should usually never concede.
“Credit to the boys, though, because they never gave up.”
Cifuentes added: “Obviously it’s very disappointing and to get a red card just before half-time is really bad timing.
“It’s very frustrating because of the timing and because there was no need. Unfortunately, Jonathan made the wrong decision.”
It was QPR’s first league defeat since the opening day.
“It’s very disappointing but we need to move on and think about Tuesday,” Cifuentes said.
“We have things to improve on and we need to make sure we put in a strong performance against Hull.
“Good teams always react after a defeat. Now we need to show what we are made of.
“We still need to improve a lot. We’re missing a few players and we’ve got a lot of new players who are trying to gel, but we can’t feel sorry for ourselves – we need to accept the reality that we need to be better.”
