QPR must look with jealousy at Sheffield Wednesday and Fulham: View | OneFootball

Marti Cifuentes has managed to turn Queens Park Rangers from a team that looked certain to be relegated to League One, to a team that now looks likely to escape the drop.

After starting the season with Gareth Ainsworth, the former Wycombe Wanderers boss was relieved of his duties after six straight defeats at the end of October, and was swiftly replaced by Cifuentes.

Arriving from Hammarby in Sweden, many were wary as to whether Cifuentes would be able to get a tune out of an ageing team who were built in the summer to play a very different style of play to the way Cifuentes wanted to implement.

But the Spaniard has done an amazing job, with the R’s now four points clear of the relegation zone with four games to go.

One area which QPR have struggled is when it comes to scoring goals, and two of their reported January targets have now been excelling at their respective club, which will have QPR envious.

QPR’s attacking troubles

QPR are one of the teams that have scored the least amount of goals out of anyone in the Championship, with only Rotherham United, Sheffield Wednesday and Millwall scoring less than them so far.

They have only scored three or more goals in a match once, in a 4-2 win over Stoke City in November.

Their current top scorer, Ilias Chair, has only scored five goals this season.

One of the main issues behind their attack is the lack of a lethal, clinical finisher up front. QPR currently have three options when it comes to strikers, in Lyndon Dykes, Sinclair Armstrong and Michael Frey.

Frey joined in January from Royal Antwerp, whilst the other two have been at Loftus Road the whole season. Between the three of them though, they only managed eight goals.

Cifuentes saw that this was a problem in January, and looked to recruit a new striker up front who could bang in the goals that they so desperately needed.

However, some of the other strikers that they were linked with have gone on to do better than he has for different teams.

January targets Muniz and Ugbo shining in the second half of the season

QPR in the end signed Frey, but they were linked with signing two other strikers in Fulham’s Rodrigo Muniz, and Troyes’ Ike Ugbo.

Muniz was used as more of a backup striker at Fulham during the first half of the season, which led to him being linked with a move away from the club to QPR and Bristol City in January.

Since then, the Brazilian has now become a prolific goal scorer in the Premier League.

He has scored eight goals in his last ten games, becoming one of the most in-form players in the division right now. His brilliant run of form means he is also now Fulham’s top scorer.

Ugbo, on the other hand, was linked with a move to Loftus Road having spent the first half of the season on loan at Cardiff City, in a poor spell.

His loan was then terminated, and French side Troyes loaned him out once again to QPR’s relegation rivals Sheffield Wednesday for the rest of the season.

Ugbo has now excelled with the Owls, being a key part in their great escape under Danny Rohl. He has already scored more of them in eight fewer appearances than he did at Cardiff, scoring six goals in 14 Championship appearances.

Those goals have been pivotal too - he scored the only goal in a 1-0 win over bitter rivals Rotherham, and both goals in a 2-1 win against Bristol City, with his poacher instincts coming in clutch.

Whilst QPR have done tremendously well in this second half of the season to drag themselves away from the bottom three, they must be thinking that if they had signed either of these two players, they would surely be safe already.