A second half brace from Sam Field ensured the home side collected all three points, but it was a tame attacking performance from United, who managed just one shot on target throughout the game.

The U’s have now won just one of their last 14 Sky Bet Championship matches, and dropped to 20th in the table ahead of Saturday’s home clash against 12th-placed Sheffield Wednesday.

Buckingham said after the Loftus Road defeat: “We played some really good football and got into the final third several times, and just lacked that cutting edge in the final third, which comes back to haunt you, whether it’s a mistake for the goal or otherwise. 

“You make it a bit more difficult for yourselves, but there were some really good moments, certainly in the first half when we got into the areas we wanted to get into.

“There just wasn’t that crispness that we’ve seen in previous games.

“When their first goal goes in, especially when we had what we felt was good control in the game, certainly in that first half until the 53rd minute when their goal went in. 

“It changes the momentum of the game and changes what the game looks like, and you almost feel like you’ve been hard done by. 

“It’s about making sure you keep doing what you’re good at, and what’s got you to that. 

“We concede a very sloppy second goal and then change a few things to try and get ourselves back in the game.

“It becomes scrappy and it’s not the result that we wanted. What we do need to do is make sure that good build-up play that we had, we have to add that final third to it, and there’s an opportunity to do that on Saturday.

“We don’t want to lose any game. We’ve come to a team that have picked up in the last four games and have picked up some good results.

“We came here on Saturday and watched them play, they beat Norwich 3-0 and saw what they can do.

“But we’ve got a long way to go this season. What we can’t do is sit and feel sorry for ourselves, and beat ourselves up.

“We have to stick together and this is what this group is very good at. We need to make sure we add the final bits in.

“From a performance point of view, the most important is the goalscoring element to it.”