Mark Hughes waits for tide to turn at QPR

Hughes’ men have yet to win a Barclays Premier League match this campaign, collecting just two points from a possible 15 heading into tonight’s clash with London rivals West Ham United.

That indifferent start has seen the pressure begin to mount on Hughes, who the bookmakers make second favourite to be the next top-flight manager to leave his post.

The Welshman, though, is not too concerned with such talk and believes his side will soon start picking up victories, especially when they are able to call upon a number of defenders again.

“Our performances have been fine up to a point,” said Hughes, who will have to do without the injured Anton Ferdinand, Jose Bosingwa, Fabio and Armand Traore this evening. “Obviously we need to see games out. We have selection problems at the moment in a key area of the field in defence.

“We have had too much of a turnover in terms of selection and personnel changes, so that doesn’t lend well to having that continuity of performance.

“We’ve created some decent football in the initial period, but it was always going to take time. We are not going to hide behind the fact it is not the best of starts and the start that we wanted.

“We understood that it could happen and that it would take us time to get the team functioning as we wanted.

“The way I work and my staff work is we don’t get too high and we don’t get too low. What we do every single day is make sure the team is prepared and we give them the best chance to be successful. Over the long term, that has been proved in all the teams I have been involved with. At the moment it is difficult because we cannot get that continuity of selection.”

West Ham midfielder Gary O’Neil has recovered from a knee injury, and Yossi Benayoun could make his first start since moving back to the club on loan. Modibo Maiga could keep his place with on-loan Liverpool striker Andy Carroll (hamstring) still unlikely to play.