'We were doing well and we had confidence we could carry on doing well,' said Benitez as he reflected on the Christmas and New Year games.

'We changed some players but from those only Marko Marin was not playing regularly. In the last games Moses had been playing, Oscar has been playing too. You could see that some players were a little bit tired, we were not precise in possession, we were not passing the ball with the accuracy and the high tempo we were expecting, and at the end we made a mistake and we gave them this chance - too many things together that were not working for us.

'QPR were sitting deep and they were waiting, and for them it was just to play counter attack and maybe a set piece - and that was the difference in the end.

'We can't carry on with the same players every game. If you are playing against a team that is bottom of the table at home then you have to trust your players and I trust them.

'I thought they were doing well and I thought that would be fine, but maybe in odd areas we were tired. You could see we didn't have the intensity and the pace on the pass and the movement that we were expecting.'