QPR chief executive Nourry: We will stick with game model that led us to Cifuentes
Nourry was appointed midway through last season and oversaw a successful second part to last season in which Rangers avoided relegation to League One.
He was previously part of the Retexo Group football strategy organisation which conducted an audit of the west London club last year, with Nourry also playing a leading role in identifying and recruiting current head coach Marti Cifuentes.
“Back in October before I officially started [as chief executive] we identified the fact that we needed to play some form of 4-3-3, possession-based, mid-block/high press football,” Nourry explained.
“We did that by looking at the last 10 years of the Championship and what won you points and what allowed you sustainability to bring in 16 to 24-year-old players who could play well in the system, develop and be the best players they could possibly be.
“We have a club game model of how we want to play football. That’s a document that is now under the per view of our head of methodology [Jon De Souza], who’s in charge of policing the game model.
“We’re seeing playing principles in our women’s team and U15’s team and in our first team like how we want to play and then Marti and Xavi [Calm, assistant head coach] are helping us evolve that together.
“There is no off-the-shelf solution that we can paste here and bring success but that is the beauty of the challenge. Trying to take some key tenets that have worked at other clubs to achieve sustainability, as that is ultimately the goal that the club ends up being self-sustaining, but ultimately applying them in a way that is unique and specific to QPR.”
The new approach undertaken by the club has developed alongside a successful start to life in W12 for Cifuentes.
The Catalan suffered just four defeats in the final 18 games of last season as QPR finished six points clear of the relegation zone after spending the majority of the first part of the season in the bottom three.
Nourry is adamant that the club will not move away from the game model approach even if the team struggles to get results on the pitch, and it will guide the process of appointing head coaches in the future.
“I think it’s very clear that he’s done a really top job,” said Nourry when asked about the impact Cifuentes has had on the club.
“It’s not easy to come into a job like this in the middle of a campaign. It’s not easy to change style from what was much more direct to some of the possession principles that we want to see.
“I think that’s been a phased process and the thing that’s been so impressive has been how pragmatic he’s been in terms of understanding that last season we weren’t at where we wanted to be in how we played football. We needed to find a way that got results and we did that generally by playing brave football.
“I’m so proud of that and I think the fans are proud of that because there are many ways to get yourself out of a hole in a relegation battle and we chose the ballsy way and it came off.
“I have immense admiration for him and Xavi, and I love working with them every day. We get to have a lot of fun which is not always common in football. We have exceptionally high standards for what we want to achieve and it has been a pleasure to work together.
“I don’t want to think about that (replacing Cifuentes). It’s my job to make sure that whenever bad things or challenges come up that we have a plan in place to address that.
“I don’t want the football club to be going from possession football to direct football to counter-pressing football.
“We’ve got to be consistent at club level with how we want to play – this is where the game model comes in. We have that as a football club and then we are able to be really clear about how we want to play from head coach of the women’s team to youth coaches.”