QPR Manager Cifuentes Emphasizes “Achieving” Over “Deserving” After Missed Chances

Marti Cifuentes, the manager of QPR, stated that football revolves around “achieving, not earning” following his team’s failure to convert numerous opportunities to secure a victory in their initial home match of the Championship season. On Saturday, during the Hoops’ 1-1 draw against Stoke, Slovenian forward Zan Celar failed to convert a penalty. This occurred after Tom Cannon had given the Potters the lead, and subsequently, Ben Gibson unintentionally scored an own goal. The R’s registered 23 shots, yet only five of these were on target, marking five consecutive games without a QPR player finding the net. Cifuentes communicated to BBC Radio London, stating, “Football is about achieving, not deserving but you could say that according to the amount of chances we deserved something else – but football is about quality.” He further elaborated, “In the first half we were very dominant and created a lot of situations, but one mistake and an amazing strike from Cannon gave them the lead.” Cifuentes added, “It was not easy mentally for the team to miss a penalty so at half-time it was important to pick up the players again and for us to show commitment, and I’m proud about the way we kept pushing.” He concluded his remarks by saying, “The second half was open because Stoke have quality players and it wasn’t easy to contain them, but if there was a team looking for the win in the last minutes of the game it was us.” With 11 points, the R’s continue to occupy the last position in the Championship standings.