Marti Cifuentes says QPR star was 'a bit angry' with him after Derby County rout

Marti Cifuentes admits a QPR player was a little unhappy with him after Friday night’s statement win over strugglers Derby County. The Hoops moved into the top-half with a comfortable home win, putting four past the Rams to spoil John Eustace’s first game in charge.

Eustace was a surprise appointment for the Rams, not because of his quality, but because of the fact he was willing to dump a Blackburn Rovers side in the playoffs to take over a team in the thick of the relegation battle.

QPR have been in mixed form of late, but they got their top-half push back on track by putting the Rams to the sword, with Ilias Chair scoring twice, while Koki Saito and Ronnie Edwards were also on target. After the game, Hoops boss Cifuentes admitted that Chair was a little unhappy to not get the chance to score a hat-trick, with the winger getting substituted in the second half.

“I’m pleased that today he scored the two goals – he’s a bit angry with me because he wanted the hat-trick and I subbed him,” Cifuentes said, perhaps partly in jest, to West London Sport. “He’s a fantastic player and it’s sad that we missed him for such a long time in the beginning of the season.

“Happy that he’s back and happy that he’s doing well. And it’s not only him – all the players are performing at a really high level.”

Chair recently made it clear to Cifuentes that he wants to be a big part of his project, and speaking to that, the Hoops boss said: “It’s a combination of things. First of all, we felt that, coming back from injury, playing more central it’s different kind of situations for him.

“Second, I think Koki has been doing really well on the left and the relations that Koki together with Ken (Paal) and Illy have on this left side, they’ve built something very trusting for us. I think he (Chair) has been doing really well assisting, creating situations for other players. I always say that coaching is about trying to find solutions for the puzzle and making the puzzle work.”

Eustace on bruising start

New Rams boss Eustace was shown just how big a task he has on his hands. He said after the game: “I think we started the game really well, but they scored a great goal and it just knocked the wind out of our sails. Coming in, we've been on a bad run, and looking at the group we can see we're lacking a bit of confidence, but there's still positives to take out of the game. The way the lads kept going there at the end was pleasing, but we've got a lot of hard work on the training pitch now.

“We've got a free week and the hard work will start on Monday. I've got to look at the players. There's two or three players who haven't had much of a pre-season and that's their third game in six days. So it's important we get them ready for the week ahead. The positives were just the way the lads kept going. Their attitude is very good, but from now we've just got to work on that training pitch. Everyone's looking forward to to getting into the group on Monday, and then we've got 13 big games coming up.

“I wanted to see a good, positive performance tonight. We didn't get it, but we'll start Monday and get right around the group and the boys will have a good week's training going into the next game. We're in a relegation fight, everyone can see that, and we've got to make sure that mentally we're ready for that fight. We've got to take each game as it comes, so next Saturday's game is the biggest game of the season. The Derby fans are magnificent, so I'm expecting 30,000 there next week and they'll be right behind the boys.”