Nahki Wells’s Queens Park Rangers suffered their first defeat in six matches in all competitions after losing 1-0 away to Sheffield United in the Sky Bet Championship on Saturday.

David McGoldrick scored his tenth goal of the season to help United move into second place in the table, while QPR are in eleventh position, four points adrift of the play-offs.

McGoldrick scored the winner before the interval, heading home Ollie Norwood’s cross past Joe Lumley, the QPR goalkeeper.

Steve McClaren’s side rarely threatened to score an equaliser, with John Egan going the closets to making it 2-0 late on when he headed wide at the far post.

Luke Freeman’s wayward effort and Wells’s attempt in added time — which ended up hitting the Bramall Lane scoreboard — summed up their efforts in attack.

McClaren, the QPR manager, said: “I thought you saw two very good teams go toe-to-toe and really slug it out. There wasn’t a great deal in the game and both defences did well to restrict chances so it was always going to be a one-goal game.

“We’re disappointed to concede because I think it was from their only shot on target in the whole game so I thought our shape and the way we defended without the ball was very good.

“We’ll dust ourselves down and go again at Preston [North End] next week.”

Chris Wilder, the United manager, said: “It was a good, solid performance. It wasn’t spectacular, there’s a lot of plaudits for our work with the ball, but today I also thought we did well without it, we looked really solid.

“We limited a side that have had some good results on the road recently to not many chances. After a really good Christmas period, it was important we started the new year on the right foot. We have to compete first and play second. We’ve done that today in difficult conditions at times and, along the way, we’ll have these games where we have to be nice and composed and patient to get the right result.”

Jonté Smith, the Bermuda striker, came on in the 62nd minute in Lewes’ 4-3 win away to Worthing in the Bostik League Premier Division on Saturday.

Callum Overton, Luke Blewden, Charlie Coppola and James Hammond scored for Lewes, while a brace from Oliver Pearce, including a penalty, and a Jalen Jones strike accounted for Worthing’s goals.