McClaren admits making ‘a lot of mistakes’ as QPR boss

QPR: Steve McClaren
Steve McClaren’s QPR side have been much improved. [Picture: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire]

Steve McClaren has admitted making mistakes in his first weeks as QPR manager.

Rangers lost their first four league games under McClaren – a run which included a 7-1 humiliation at West Brom followed by a 3-0 defeat at home to Bristol City.

They have been much improved since, losing just three of their subsequent 14 Championship matches.

And McClaren puts the recovery partly down to learning the lessons of what went wrong in those early games.

He has since changed formation and adopted a more direct approach.

He explained: “You come in and you learn, you make your mistakes, you try, you experiment looking for the right formula.

“In the early weeks I made a lot of mistakes. But the key was that we learnt from them.”

McClaren made a miserable start as R’s boss

Rangers are ninth in the table, just four points away from the top six, but McClaren says he is not thinking of a possible challenge for the play-offs.

He insisted: “We’re just building a team and trying to build belief. We need a bit more of that but that’s natural and normal. No targets.

“We’ve got Rotherham on Tuesday and I saw they should have beaten Sheffield United. That isn’t going to be an easy game.

“It will be a different game and isn’t going to be easy for us. We get our feet on the ground and go again.”