Championship difficult but QPR can succeed

BBC News

4 days ago

Queens Park Rangers must focus on their own strategy rather than the big-spending clubs around them, but they can still enjoy success this season says chief executive officer Christian Nourry.The Rs have awarded new contracts to core first-team players Jonathan Varane, Sam Field and Jimmy Dunne, who was named club captain earlier this month, as well as emerging talents Rayan Kolli and Kieran Morgan.Former boss Marti Cifuentes has moved to Leicester City and has been replaced by Julien Stephan, while players including Amadou Mbengue and Kealey Adamson from Reading and Sydney-based Macarthur, as well as winger Kwame Poku from Peterborough United have come in."What we have taken a conscious decision to attempt to achieve, in the last 12 months, is to put ourselves in a position where we have a number of core players who commit themselves to the long term for this football club, to start to create an environment where we're all in this journey together," Nourry told BBC Radio London."We've looked to reward young players breaking through and when they had the opportunity, seizing that. "And hopefully also put them in now the best possible positions to succeed and continue to develop, hopefully rapidly as they get more and more and more first team exposure – players like Kieran Morgan, Rayan Kolli and others."
QPR finished a turbulent season that saw Cifuentes put on gardening leave after the penultimate game, a 5-0 thrashing at home to Burnley, 15th in the Championship table.Nourry said the club had made progress under Cifuentes, who took over from Gareth Ainsworth in October 2023, and felt the Hoops would continue to improve under former Rennes boss Stephan."I think it's way too early to tell [how well we can do this season]," he said. "I think it's going to be a difficult division. You have teams who have been coming up, who are really, really strong. You have teams that are spending a significantly greater amount of money, responding to that perhaps, than they have ever spent before."So we know that we can only focus on what we do in this building every day to try to maximise the results that we can get with the quality of staff and players that we think is strong, we think is exciting, but is also constantly developing."Ultimately, until the transfer window shuts it's very difficult to know where we might match up but I know that we're going to have 1,000% commitment and I believe very, very strongly in everyone in this building that if we stick together, work hard, we can have success this season."QPR begin the new Championship season at home to Preston North End on Saturday, 9 August.