‘Player development is a two-track process’ – QPR chief executive Nourry explains changes to youth infrastructure

Queens Park Rangers chief executive Christian Nourry has identified individual player development as one of his key areas of focus in his first year running the west London club.

Since the end of last season, Rangers have appointed former Southampton coach Andrew Sparkes as head of goalkeeping, ex-Crawley and Arsenal U23 head coach Kevin Betsy as individual development coach and one-time Charlton development coach Jon De Souza as head of methodology.

De Souza’s role focuses on ensuring the club’s ‘game model’ is being applied across the club’s different teams while Betsy pays specific attention to individual players.

“We have changed the minimum standards of what we expect at the football club,” said Nourry.

“There is a more deliberate focus on player development. Every player has a technical and physical individual performance plan that goes alongside group training. That’s something that didn’t exist at this club before.”

Nourry has also set about revamping the club’s youth development system, with an increased emphasis on both recruiting and nurturing young players.

The Rangers chief executive identified Daniel Bennie, an 18-year-old midfielder signed from Perth Glory in the summer, and former Tottenham youngster Kieran Morgan, also 18, as two examples of youth recruits who have already enjoyed involvement with the first team.

The club is still exploring the possibility of becoming a category one academy in the future, although it would require modifications to be made to the club’s training ground in Heston.

“Our wider youth recruitment is becoming more diverse,” Nourry explained. “I think [head of recruitment] Andy Belk and his team previously only dealt with first-team players and now they have a wider per view of players starting with a much younger age group.

“We also have a number of individuals who were hired before I arrived to focus specifically on that 14 to 18-year-old old bracket. There is more of a team effort with youth recruitment.

“We have a small army of volunteer and part-time scouts across different parts of the country that are being repositioned from a strategic perspective from where they were before who are involved in identifying talent we should be looking at.

“The development squad was part one of the transfer window. It’s no coincidence we were quite aggressive with category one releases [from other clubs] in a way we weren’t before and then were looking at market opportunities that we thought were interesting that perhaps couldn’t immediately jump into the first team but had the talent to get there.

“We feel we are on a two-track process of making the quality of our development of talent process the best it can be and being more proactive in youth recruitment to make sure we are getting our message out there.

“If you look at a league table of London teams including Premier League clubs, we are maybe ninth in it at the moment. But actually we might be the most realistic pathway to first-team minutes if you are a promising young player.

“I think it can be a glass half-full [or] glass half-empty approach. The half-full one is you have an opportunity here to get first-team minutes and the half-empty one is you are outgunned and outmatched [by other clubs].

“I don’t really accept that as a view because it undermines the quality of what we have here and the brand of QPR.”

PICTURE: ROB AVIS