Ian Holloway said he left out Jamie Mackie and Ryan Manning against Burton because he was concerned about the number of matches they have been playing.
Mackie recently returned after a long injury lay-off, while Manning, 20, played in four consecutive matches following a sudden call-up to the first team.
Holloway admitted they were badly missed in the 2-1 defeat at Loftus Road, where both players came on as a second-half substitutes.
But with trips to Newcastle and Blackburn to come in the next seven days, the R’s boss felt he needed to make changes.
Holloway explained: “I was very concerned about Jamie playing all those games, and Ryan hadn’t played four games in six months before this.
“The balance of the team wasn’t quite right, so I’ll take full responsibility for that.
“I did it because of the two games we’ve got coming up and the amount of work that those two have being doing.
“It could risk them – Grant Hall has played in all the games and has gone and hurt his Achilles.”
Hall, who was taken off at half-time, is expected to miss the Newcastle game, as is Idrissa Sylla.
This post was last modified on 28/01/2017
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I always thought players were paid to play, to sacrifice what has been a winning formula because the manager wants to rest players is a joke, it shows a lack of judgement, thats why we now have subs during a game. I also question IH judgement in only NOW saying we need a striker, when everyone in the ground has been saying it since the transfer window opened, in truth we need two not one, given we are the joint 2nd lowest goalscorers in the championship.
a strong team today would have taken 3 points and given us the fans some thing to shout for . instead a below parr performance by to many players. why rest players when we could have won rest them against newcastle as we are less likely to win