Holloway: Maybe I should have settled for a point

QPR boss Ian Holloway admitted his gamble to stay on the front foot against Aston Villa backfired after Jonathan Kodjia’s goal snatched the points late on.

Holloway used like-for-like substitutions at 0-0, bringing on Idrissa Sylla for Conor Washington and Olamide Shodipo for Pawel Wszolek, before sacrificing Tjaronn Chery for an extra striker in Jamie Mackie after they fell behind.

He conceded he may have been better served shoring up the midfield, with Sandro or Ariel Borysiuk, but felt it would have sent out the wrong signals to the team and the home fans.

Holloway said: “Deep down maybe I should have put one of the defensive midfield players and taken Chery off, just to block us up. But I felt we would be good enough still to win it.

“I could’ve put on Sandro, I could’ve put on Ariel, but I still believed we might win. So I’m going to have to look at that and say ‘is that the right decision?’

“We might have got a point, we might not have done. But what message would that have given my team?”

Holloway added he felt his team’s goal drought, which now stretches to 270 minutes, was largely down to a lack of quality from the flanks

“The delivery, which I feel over the last couple of years has been absolutely exceptional at this football club, unfortunately at the minute is not what it was.

“[Jake] Bidwell’s crossing is normally brilliant. He apologised at half-time, but I said ‘don’t be stupid Bids, just miss out that first man’ because there were runners in there.

“In the end, I’ve got two wingers on, Sylla needs a cross, and we hardly got past anybody to get a cross in.

“If we were getting worse and worse, and didn’t want it and didn’t pass it, I’d be saying something, but I can’t fault them for what they’re trying to do.”