Stephan happy with QPR's progress, despite deflation of Loftus Road stalemate

Loftus boss : Picture by @YTJourno

QPR's bid to add a win to a mini run of four undefeated games may have fallen short in Wednesday night's disappointing 0-0 draw with Oxford United, but the boss believes his team are on the right track.

They looked impressive defensively, and if quality in the final third was missing, Julien Stephan is confident his approach of rotating players and carefully managing energy levels is going to pay off this season.

The Loftus Road stalemate at least keeps the run going and the Hoops will travel to Bristol City this weekend in good spirits.

"It's always a process to build something and we have to link that with the confidence, because the confidence is so important for the players," said the Frenchman.

"When you have good results - and we took 11 points the last five weeks - it of course increases the level of confidence of the players but I think we have a margin to improve more, especially in control of the ball and our decisions in the last third.

"But I'm happy with the fact the last three games we didn't concede a lot of danger, defensively. If you are strong defensively, it's important because you can travel [well] after all the season, but I'd like to create more danger than we did tonight."

Stephan continued: "I think in the second half we had the chances to win the game. The first 20-25 minutes probably we could be better but I felt the last 15 minutes, it was better and we had confidence as well because we managed the game well in the last 30 minutes.

"It was important for me to involve different players, with three games in one week. It's just the beginning of the season and we need to do the season with 17, 18, 19, 20 players, not only with 11 or 12 players.

"It was our plan at the beginning - to play fresh players. Oxford decided to start with the same starting XI as the last game, and we could see that physically, at the end of the game we were, I think, above them, and we finished very well.

"It's the plan in for the next games because in three days we play Bristol City, who played yesterday and have one day more to recover and they play at home, while we have to travel on Friday.

"If we play always with the same starting XI, I think in two months I think we will have these players completely dying, probably. If we want to do a good season, we need to have 20 players involved.

"In the second half I think we stayed dominant and we stayed in the opponents' half. We had our chances but sometimes decisions in the last third were not good enough. That's why we didn't score tonight.

"But it's five games unbeaten, a second clean sheet in the last three games and 12 points, so okay, it's not perfect but it's not too bad."

Stephan added that he was satisfied with the development of players plucked from League One like Richard Kone and Amadou Mbengue but said they needed more time to adjust to the demands of the Championship.

"It's a different league, so it's normal," he said. "They need more and more games to know exactly what is the Championship and the rhythm of the Championship. Its physicality is strong and it's difficult against all the teams. Each game, it's difficult. It's difficult to score and a tough challenge for everybody."