QPR boss Marti Cifuentes felt the switch to a five-man defence was the key to Middlesbrough’s 2-0 victory at Loftus Road yesterday.

Cifuentes’ side went into the game in excellent form, having lost just one of their previous nine matches, but they were outplayed as second-half goals from Emmanuel Latte Lath and Marcus Forss earned Boro a deserved success.

Having played with a flat back four for the vast majority of the season, Michael Carrick switched to a back five for last week’s home win over Norwich and opted to stick with the same formation against QPR.

And while Cifuentes anticipated that Boro would line up with a five-man backline, he accepts his side’s failure to come to grips with the Teessiders’ system was a major factor in determining the final outcome.

“There are many factors,” said the QPR boss. “The first is that they (Boro) defended very well in a back five, which is something they have done in recent games.

“They lost three with a back four and then won two with a back five. We expected them to play that way, but with the fixtures as they were, there was not much time to plan for how to attack that of defence.

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“We struggled to beat them after creating a couple of good chances early on. In the second half, we wanted to introduce a little more energy at a moment that the game was turning but it was not good enough.”

Cifuentes also bemoaned his side’s defending for both of Boro’s goals, with Latte Lath scoring the first after Matt Clarke recycled a cross back into the box and Forss heading home the second after he was left unmarked at the back post.

“The first goal comes from a sloppy goal conceded, and we don’t defend well in the second phase,” he said. “The second goal comes as we’re trying to attack, but there was just no clear way of how to beat that back five that stayed very low, with two fast players at the top of the pitch.

“You have to try and keep that balance to not concede while still trying to chase the game. In the end, it was not a great game.”