Marti Cifuentes drops new update on Ilias Chair situation at QPR | OneFootball

The Moroccan international has had a tough time staying on the pitch of late.

Marti Cifuentes has admitted that Queens Park Rangers are going to need to be careful with Ilias Chair as he slowly returns from a long-term back injury.

The week started off with lots of positivity at Loftus Road, with the announcement that the manager, his assistant Xavi Calm and defender Jake Clarke-Salter had all signed new multi-year deals with the club. On top of that, it was announced that Karamoko Dembele would join QPR permanently at the end of the season.

So it was all smiles and joy heading into Tuesday evening; that was until they got knocked back by a 3-1 home defeat to Hull City.

Cifuentes wasn't too despondent after the match: "We need to keep on believing," the Spaniard told the club's website. "We need to make sure we understand where we are in this process with a lot of new players, young players that are adapting to the reality of this league.

"The sooner we understand what is needed to win football games, the faster we are going to start to get the points."

One positive from the game was the return to action for Chair, who had been out for over two months with a back injury. His appearance from the bench was the first of this season.

His presence in the squad will be a long-term boost, but there will need to be some managing of his fitness done, according to the QPR boss.

Marti Cifuentes on Ilias Chair's return from injury

Cifuentes has stated that the Moroccan international is likely to find this time of getting back to fitness tough.

He said, via the South London Press: "He [Chair] is coming from a long injury. It’s been almost 12 weeks without competitive football, so we need to be smart with him. He will notice it is not that easy to come back even if he is the most confident guy in the world.

"We need to give him time to make sure he recovers his highest level but it’s very good news for us, we have been missing him because he’s a very important player.

"It’s true he is a very robust player. Since I came here [in October 2023] he’s had just one small hamstring injury.

"Now it is about helping him to regain this match fitness level. In terms of fitness, he’s good but [to get up to] the tempo of the games you just need to play those minutes.

"We are going to try to help him and then as well he needs to compete because today Koki [Saito] did well and there were some good individual performances as well that proves we have good internal competition all round."

QPR shouldn't be in a rush to get Ilias Chair back to full fitness

Any long-term injury should be taken particular care of because you don't want to risk them coming back to training and match action too early and then causing more problems.

QPR will know this, but the good thing for them is that they have enough options in place already in Chair's position, so they aren't crying out for someone like him.

Dembele and Saito are perfectly capable of manning the ship until they feel the 26-year-old is back to his best. Their quality should allow him to take his time in what is going to be a continuous process to get him fully up and running, figuratively speaking.