Marti Cifuentes fires new QPR warning despite Wednesday night developments | OneFootball

The R's gave themselves a nice cushion to the bottom three with their midweek win over Oxford.

Queens Park Rangers boss Marti Cifuentes has urged his team not to take their foot off the gas following their 3-1 win over Oxford United, as they look to avoid dropping into the relegation zone.

Another three points on Wednesday night gave the R's an extra buffer to the teams below them. With five games to play they are now seven points clear of the bottom three and should probably be safe.

This isn't the scenario that Cifuentes and his QPR side would have expected themselves to be in at this stage of the season. Things started to really pick up for them around Christmas when they got up and away from the relegation picture. But a recent run of just two wins since the end of January, prior to Wednesday, sunk them back down towards the danger zone.

Marti Cifuentes sends demanding QPR messages after Oxford win

Winning against Gary Rowett's U's, who are also embroiled in the battle to avoid going down to League One, was essential to stop QPR's slide. It's put them in a much better position to see out the remainder of the campaign, but their boss doesn't want any complacency to creep into his team in the remaining weeks of the season.

Speaking post-match, Cifuentes said, via the South London Press: "I’m very happy about the performance, about the result and for the fans who came here. Hopefully they can be happy about the result, but the job is not done.

"Yesterday I received a lot of messages about how unlucky we are with Luton scoring in the last minute [in a 1-1 draw at Stoke] and Cardiff scoring in the last minute [in a 2-2 draw at Preston].

"I saw today’s game as an opportunity to increase the distance [to the relegation zone] by two points and that’s exactly what the team did. We need to keep pushing, there’s five games left."

QPR must build on their current base this summer

The R's weren't able to take advantage of the good form and momentum that they had at the end of last season. They struggled to get out of the blocks in this campaign, which, despite their strong mid-season performances, has contributed to them being in the position that they are now.

The aim for QPR should be gradual development; slowly climbing the ranks until they are in a position to challenge with a manager that a lot of people are high on. Keeping the core of talented, young players that they have intact will be key to that, as will plugging the holes in the squad.

If they can be slightly better next season, and again the season after that, soon enough they will find themselves in a much more stable position in the division and able to have real top-six aspirations.