Ainsworth expects at least one more QPR signing

Gareth Ainsworth expects QPR to make at least one signing before next weekend’s game at Cardiff.

Rangers, beaten 4-0 at Watford on Saturday, want to sign Nottingham Forest centre-back Steve Cook, but wages are a potential barrier. 

Several alternative signings are also on the radar and the need for reinforcements in that position is obvious as Jimmy Dunne and Jake Clarke-Salter are both out injured.

“We’re definitely trying to get one in,” said boss Ainsworth, who last week missed out on the signing of Jack Whatmough, who opted to join Preston after leaving Wigan.

“With Jimmy and Jake being injured it’s really tough at the moment. We’re trying to get reinforcements in that area.

“It’s quite tough, but I think we can get another couple of free transfers in, which would be great, or even some for some small fees.

“Hopefully by next Saturday we’ll have made another signing, maybe another couple.”

Ainsworth admitted Rangers were no match for Watford, who scored all their goals in a totally one-sided first half.

He said: “Sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say we weren’t good enough.

“The boys gave everything and that’s what everyone’s asked [for]. They did give everything.

“On the day, Watford were much better than us. I think they played really well.”

Rangers stayed up by six points under boss Ainsworth last season and are among the favourites to go down this term.

They certainly looked like relegation material on Saturday.

But Ainsworth insisted they will avoid the drop.

He said: “We played a good side. I don’t know where Watford are going to finish but I expect them to be up and around it.

“On the flip side, we know where we are. We’re favourites for relegation, favourites for bottom of the league.

“If we’d have been favourites for the play-offs or favourites for promotion I would have been really struggling and thinking ‘What the hell’s gone on today?’

“But we’re building where we build [from], and we have been for one or two seasons now – I think we were one of the favourites for relegation last season as well. We scraped it, and I tell you what: we’ll get out of it again, no problem.

“I think we can be better than we were last season, but it’s going to take a bit of time and a bit of patience and probably one or two more players coming through the door, which will happen.”