Queens Park Rangers vs Bristol City. Sky Bet Championship.
Loftus Road StadiumAttendance17,540.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between QPR and Bristol City at Loftus Road on Saturday | New boss Liam Manning sees his Robins side earn a point in his first game in charge.
Saturday 11 November 2023 18:16, UK
QPR and Bristol City played out a 0-0 draw at Loftus Road, highlighting that their new managers both have work to do.
City defended well in their first match under Liam Manning in a solid but unspectacular start to his reign following his recent arrival from Oxford as successor to Nigel Pearson.
QPR boss Marti Cifuentes will take some encouragement from his team's display in his first home game at the helm.
But the west London side have now gone 11 matches without a win, continue to struggle to create clear-cut chances and remain one off the bottom of the Championship table, having won only once at home in more than a year.
Draws in his first two games represents a reasonable start for Cifuentes given that he inherited a team which had suffered six consecutive defeats, leading to the sacking of Gareth Ainsworth, but Rangers need to pick up wins soon.
They at least look less prone to defensive errors - a problem which constantly plagued them during Ainsworth's troubled spell in charge.
QPR striker Lyndon Dykes had a couple of sights of goal in the first half, heading Kenneth Paal's right-wing corner well over and seeing a shot blocked by Matty James following Paal's free-kick.
The home side also appealed in vain for a penalty when Paul Smyth's cross struck Zak Vyner's arm.
City themselves had appeals for a penalty waved away after the interval when Paal appeared to handle the ball as he challenged Anis Mehmeti.
City then absorbed a period of QPR pressure in which Andre Dozzell shot over and Smyth fired wide of the near post after being found by Dykes.
Cifuentes sent on Sinclair Armstrong in place of Dykes in an attempt to break the deadlock - and the young striker caused City some problems with his pace and power, unsuccessfully appealing for a penalty after going down in the box under a challenge from Vyner.
But the Robins were largely comfortable as QPR, without suspended playmaker Ilias Chair, ran out of ideas in the final stages, with Elijah Dixon-Bonner slicing a shot wide after being teed up by fellow substitute Taylor Richards.
City threatened late on, with Mark Sykes causing problems for QPR on the right flank, but they lacked a cutting edge up front and the draw was very much a fair result.
QPR's Marti Cifuentes:
"There are mixed feelings. Unfortunately we couldn't deliver the victory. It was not the result we wanted but I am looking forward to building the togetherness I saw today. I think we can be really strong in the future. Despite the result, my job is to make sure that we start to win games. I do think it's a step in the right direction. I see a stable team and one that is striving to have a clear identity - how they want to play from the back and have the courage to pass the ball.
"The identity of the team is starting to show. I feel we are taking steps but we have to be critical and say it hasn't been enough to win games. Over time I'm very confident that this style of play can give us the results we're looking for," said the Spaniard. I do think that we have the tools inside the squad to play the football we want to and I'm very confident that this will give us the results we want."
Bristol City's Liam Manning:
"There was some really positive stuff. We've worked on our shape out of possession and we saw that come out. There were a lot of positives with the out-of-possession stuff. We didn't concede a shot on target, so when you look from the defensive side of it there were a lot of good things. In possession, we know that can improve. But we finished the stronger side in the last 20 minutes and got in some terrific areas.
"It's been a whirlwind week but I have to give the players a huge amount of credit for how they've adapted to the work we've asked them to do. A pleasing aspect is the clean sheet and also the behaviours you saw - there were people there who maxed out and were running on empty at the end. If we want to be the best team that we can be, then that's going to be important."
