After a Boxing Day defeat to Millwall stretched QPR’s losing run to three matches, newly-appointed head coach Marti Cifuentes stressed that he was not sworn in to be the R’s “Messiah”, but taking a point home from Ipswich Town can arguably be described as a miracle.
Twenty places separate the two outfits in the Championship table at present, but QPR limited Ipswich to just 54% of the ball and a mere seven shots – while firing 10 at the other end of the field – to travel back to Loftus Road with an unexpected, but merited point.
Cifuentes did not cut an entirely satisfied figure in his post-game press conference, though, having felt that his side were denied two clear penalties on the evening as they remain below the dotted line in 22nd place, four points worse off than Huddersfield Town in the safety of 21st spot.
The hosting manager also took the time to highlight his side’s shortcomings in the final third, as failure to make the Portman Road nets bulge means that QPR have scored just one goal in their last five encounters and have gone scoreless in their last three Championship outings.
Even QPR’s solitary goal in that sequence proved meaningless in a 2-1 loss to Sheffield Wednesday, meaning that Cifuentes’s men also have an unsightly five-game winless run to show for their most recent efforts, and they won just three Championship games at Loftus Road in the whole of 2023.
However, two of those victories came after the November international break, and QPR fared better than upcoming foes Cardiff did against one of the two title favourites on Friday evening, where the Bluebirds became the latest victims of Premier League-bound Leicester.
The Foxes’ high pressing led to Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall finishing into the bottom corner in the first half, and only 10 minutes of the second half had been played before James Justin doubled the leaders’ advantage with a wonderful dipping strike from outside the area.
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There is no shame in losing to Enzo Maresca’s well-oiled machine, though, and Cardiff head coach Erol Bulut was still able to reflect on positive aspects of his side’s performance, even if their record now reads three defeats from their last five contests in the second tier.
The visitors’ inconsistency sees them lying in an unremarkable 14th place in the Championship standings, but they are incredibly still within touching distance of seventh-placed Sunderland and only have a five-point gap to make up to Hull City in the final playoff position.
However, the Bluebirds head to Loftus Road having been beaten in six of their last eight clashes with QPR in the Championship – including a 2-1 home beating in August – and each of their last five New Year’s Day fixtures have ended in a loss since they opened 2013 with success over Birmingham City
