Jake Bidwell has reflected on Queens Park Rangers' narrow defeat to Aston Villa on Saturday and believes there are positives to take before tonight's trip to Derby County, writes Mark Ritson.
Rangers are a couple of wins away from making their presence felt towards the top six, but Derby have that in their sights as well and could enter the play-off positions with a win.
Bidwell had a good test up against Robert Snodgrass at the weekend and didn't think there was too much difference between QPR and Villa.
"We were disappointed and we felt it was a harsh penalty for their equaliser," he said, speaking to Get West London.
"That gave them a bit of momentum as if we could have seen that out to half-time it might have been a different game.
"Apart from that I didn't think there was much in it. A little bit of quality won it for them.
"But in terms of performance, it was much better than last time out against Nottingham Forest, so we have positives to build on before playing Derby."
Boss Ian Holloway was forced into a change at the break, taking Massimo Luongo off, but Ryan Manning and later substitute Idrissa Sylla failed to really influence the game.
"We made changes and you have to try things to get back into the game," added Bidwell.
"You look at some games, it's worked for us. You think back to Millwall, where we came back from behind.
"It didn't quite work out for us on Saturday but the performance on the whole was still not where we want it to be, but a lot better than two weeks ago at Forest.
"We have to move on to face Derby now."
Jamie Mackie put Rangers ahead on Saturday from very close range and he'll be hoping to find a run of form now with another strike in the East Midlands this evening.
"If that gets him up and running, because he hasn't scored for a couple of weeks, to get two, three or four on the bounce then great," said Bidwell.
"Hopefully that will be a little kickstart for him and he can go on a bit of a run."
