Marti Cifuentes endured a miserable return to Queens Park Rangers as they thrashed his Leicester City side to move above the Foxes in the Championship table.

Koki Saito gave the hosts the ideal start, meeting a deflected cross to head home from close range, before Richard Kone pounced on some poor defending on the edge of the penalty area to double the advantage just before the half-hour mark.

Karamoko Dembele found the bottom corner soon after to make it three, and Amadou Mbengue completed the first-half rout with a hopeful cross-turned-shot which managed to beat Foxes goalkeeper Jakub Stolarczyk.

The second half failed to produce the same sort of bedlam at Loftus Road, but when Sam Field handled the ball in the area it allowed Leicester the chance to pull a goal back, which Silko-Amari Thomas eventually did after Bobby De Cordova-Reid hit the post with his spot-kick.

It was five months ago that Cifuentes took the Leicester job after his protracted QPR exit had him see out last season on gardening leave.

The Spaniard reportedly helped get his summer move over the line by personally contributing half the compensation fee, external that the Foxes needed to pay QPR to sign him.

A stuttered run of results in the early months of the campaign had Cifuentes battling to keep his job at the King Power Stadium, but seven points collected in three games to start December had appeared to take the pressure off the 43-year-old before this nightmare trip back to Loftus Road.

While his QPR replacement Julien Stephan made a difficult start to life in west London, waiting five games for a win this season, the Frenchman now has the R's seventh in the table - nine points and seven spots better off than they were after 22 games 12 months ago under Cifuentes.

Putting four past the Foxes in the first half set QPR for their most comprehensive win of the season to date.

Saito sparked the flurry of goals with the opener inside two minutes, while Leicester's inability to deal with a searching free-kick from Nicolas Madsen allowed Kone to control and coolly finish from inside the box.

Dembele had Rangers cruising when he squeezed his effort past Stolarczyk at his near post, but it only got worse for the shot-stopper and the Foxes when Mbengue managed to find the back of the net in first-half stoppage time.

QPR threatened to add even more goals after the break, while a much improved Leicester caused few concerns before the late penalty allowed Thomas to pull a consolation goal back.

Queens Park Rangers head coach Julien Stephan told BBC Radio London:

"It was an outstanding first half. The way they played, how they came onto the pitch, how they moved together – with and without the ball – it's never perfect, but it was very close to perfection.

"To score four goals like this, and to create the atmosphere like this with the fans was probably the best first half and best feeling since I started this job.

"When you live something like this, you have to enjoy it, but you also need to be ready to compete immediately and that is what I said at half-time because the game is not just 45 minutes.

"I think we came out very quick and very good in the first 10 or 15 minutes of the second half, and they didn't have many situations, and we could have scored another one. It's a fantastic win."

Leicester City boss Marti Cifuentes told BBC Radio Leicester:

"I'm really angry and really disappointed about the first half. We played below the standards and got punished.

"Credit to QPR, they did really well and it was exactly the kind of game that we knew they like – they were aggressive, they were strong and eager.

"The way we conceded three goals was very poor, and while the fourth one is a fantastic strike we didn't play well in the first half.

"I'm sad for them (supporters) because we want to do well for them and it's hard for us to now get back to Leicester knowing that there were a lot of people who came here to support us, and that's not what we want for them.

"All I can do is try work harder, put in more hours to make sure that the team improves going into the next one, so hopefully on Boxing Day we can have a strong reaction."