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Reply | QPR Business & strategy Q&A
at 17:48 30 Jan 2026
Hoos may have his faults but he has always come across as a naturally comfortable talker and a good communicator.
Nourry still has a lot to learn in that respect. |
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Reply | QPR Business & strategy Q&A
at 17:45 30 Jan 2026
Great questions but I would be worried about asking the first one on financial sustainability.
The current owners have been saying for years that the long term ambition is for the club to be self sustaining.
Asking them to put a time limit on how long they are willing to keep propping up the club could result in a real squeaky bum moment.
If they're happy, leave them alone! |
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Reply | Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary
at 16:54 30 Jan 2026
I take your point about our small budget and that signing players with poor injury records is always likely to be a risk. And we do have a good few of those when you thing about it. Off the top of my head:
- JCS
- Poku
- Morrison
- Field
But recently we have been losing players who didn't have a bad record for injuries. Chair has missed a lot of games in the last 18 months. Dembele has also missed a lot of games since we signed him. And Burrell looked like an accident waiting to happen for several games before he finally crashed. If the fans in the stands could see that Burrell was fatigued and needed a rest why couldn't the coaches and physios see it? |
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Reply | The magic of the cup....
at 16:47 30 Jan 2026
I wouldn't be too hard on Palace. I don't think they are the villains here.
I guess the rules around irregular payments to opponents (or 'bribes', in plain English) are very strict and the penalties related to it are very severe. So I can understand Palace being cautious.
- And just to be clear I'm not suggesting there was anything improper about the Macclesfield v Palace game!
But I do wonder if it's Man City who 'encouraged' the FA to take a hard line on this. Man City got a lot of flak for not gifting Exeter their share of the gate from their tie, and it might suit them to say their hands were tied and they had to comply with the rules.
On the other hand it could be the bookies who are suggesting this sort of thing should be discouraged.
But I'm sure there have been situations in the past where a club has waived its share of the gate. Will the FA be looking into those cases?
If memory serves, when we played Derby in the 2014 Championship Playoff Final there was talk of an agreement between the clubs that the loser on the day would keep all the gate money as compensation for missing out on promotion. Can we now ask Derby for our money back, with interest? |
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Reply | Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary
at 13:06 30 Jan 2026
No worries.
Maybe I read too much into your first paragraph and missed the point you were making.
"I have certainly seen where a newly appointed MD can do irreparable damage to staff morale though"
We've all been there :-) |
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Reply | Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary
at 11:01 30 Jan 2026
I've got to disagree with your first paragraph.
If QPR were a large multinational it might be fair enough that the CEO doesn't even know what the employees look like never mind trying to foster a good working environment.
But in relatively small businesses the 'culture' (for want of a better word) is important for employees to feel valued and motivated.
Small and medium sized businesses struggle to thrive if employees are unhappy and there's a high turnover of staff.
And if QPR is going to pride itself on being a community club then it has to accept the club employees are also a vital part of that community.
The employees don't have to worship the CEO, but they do need to trust and respect him! |
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Reply | Christian Nourry - Two Year Anniversary
at 13:51 29 Jan 2026
I think you are selling Warburton a little bit short there.
When Warbs arrived in summer 2019 something like 13 players left the club and he had to replace those with very little money to spend. In fact we had to sell our best young prospect Darnell Furlong just to generate some cash.
Nourry was appointed CEO/DoF just as we had got our FFP/P&S situation under control and had money to spend again.
Nourry has been dealt a much better hand than Warbs had to play with. |
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Reply | Christian Pullella
at 10:02 29 Jan 2026
Another possibility is that it's a World Cup year and we did quite well out of FIFA compensation for Chair and Dieng at the last World Cup.
The reason given for Morrison going on loan to Aberdeen is to give him a chance to make the Scotland squad.
Maybe Adamson has a chance of getting into the Australia squad.
If any of our players get to play in the tournament it's a great shop window. And even if they don't play we still get compensation for while they're at the tournament. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 23:35 28 Jan 2026
If he were employed as a doctor, physio, or nutritionist he would be required to prove professional competence and experience in those fields.
We employed Williams into a senior post at a football club when he clearly has very little experience in the sport.
At best it's bold, at worst it's reckless. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 21:35 28 Jan 2026
With regards to your point (a) I could say that since you are in a minority of one on this thread the onus is on you to provide evidence that shows the rest of us are wrong.
However, I know you won't be able to do that because that data is not publicly available.
I believe that in major American sports all the data is owned by the leagues, which is why they have complete transparency about things like the Brooklyn Nets 'shocking' injury data the year Ben Williams was working for them!
By contrast, in English professional football players data is owned by the clubs. And for that reason (in the absence of transparency by the clubs) the best we can do is the evidence of our own eyes and anecdote.
If you want to believe something different from everyone else that's up to you, but neither of us can categorically prove our point.
With regards to your point (b). You have completely ignored everything I said.
Williams had very little experience of football before we gave him full responsibility for the condition of our players. In any industry that would be seen as a bold/reckless decision - delete as you think appropriate.
Even if Williams did an amazing job at Ineos (and I haven't seen any evidence to support that) the simple fact is that cycling, basketball and football are completely different sports, played in very different environments, and by people of very different physiques.
Just because he might have had some success with one of those sports does not mean he is competent to take on all three. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 20:07 28 Jan 2026
I think our shocking injuries record in the last couple of years answers that point.
Even with us giving him two and a half years to learn the sport.
And his one year with Brooklyn Nets also saw a glut of hamstring injuries!
You also completely ignored my main point. We shouldn't have given someone lacking experience in our sport the top job in maintaining our multi-million pound assets.
You mentioned his stint at Nice.
From our own website:
"He consulted with French Ligue 1 outfit OGC Nice during the 2022/23 campaign.
He was a consultant for one season.
Maybe that's the basis on which we should have retained his services!
https://www.qpr.co.uk/players/ [Post edited 28 Jan 20:09]
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 18:17 28 Jan 2026
But not knowledge of football, or footballers.........
??
In principle I'm not against bringing in expertise from outside your own industry to give different insights or perspectives. But you wouldn't normally put that outsider in charge of running a whole department unless they had worked in your industry at some point in their career! [Post edited 28 Jan 18:25]
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 17:48 28 Jan 2026
Cricket is another sport that has copious amounts of performance data, going back well over a hundred years.
Doesn't mean Andy Zaltzman should be picking the QPR team.
Data skills might be transferable from one sport to another but every domain has its specific priorities which need to be understood by the analytics team and the decision makers.
Intensive knowledge of one sport's performance metrics does not automatically make you an expert in any other sport you turn your hand to. |
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Reply | Christian Pullella
at 14:56 28 Jan 2026
An advanced search on Companies House shows that you are right.
I won't go into detail because it appears to be a residential address but there are dozens of businesses registered there. [Post edited 28 Jan 15:08]
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Reply | Christian Pullella
at 14:16 28 Jan 2026
That's a really good spot.
But if you go through the nationalities of that agency's clients they do seem to have a lot of Australians and South Africans, as well as Japanese players:
https://www.transfermarkt.com/
Going through the squad list of QPR players and their agents it looks like there's a reasonable spread of representation:
https://www.transfermarkt.co.u
Maybe some agencies just specialise. Two of our keepers have the same agent, and a quick glance at their client list suggests they have a lot of keepers on their books
https://www.transfermarkt.co.u |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 22:44 27 Jan 2026
Apologies Brian, I mis-read your post.
And yes, Ben Williams was appointed in July 2023:
https://www.qpr.co.uk/players/
I suppose Williams might say that he deliberately prepped the players to start slow and hit peak fitness in the second half of the season.
But I can remember Paolo di Canio trying that approach when he was Sunderland manager, and he was sacked long before his players began to feel the benefit!
Personally I don't subscribe to the slow burn approach. The Championship is fiercely competitive and I don't believe we can afford to start the season slowly and let other clubs get away from us. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 22:25 27 Jan 2026
I think that was partly down to Beale bringing back Willock and Amos before they were ready and seriously aggravating existing problems. And how have the careers of those two young players gone since then?
And without naming names I think we can say that some of those 'injured' players from the Beale/Critchley/Ainsworth season might have had a few motivation problems. |
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Reply | Three-game weeks
at 22:06 27 Jan 2026
But it's not just under Stephan that we have had these injury problems.
It was the same story last season under Cifuentes - The big difference being that Williams was working remotely from Dubai last season.
Whatever the explanation we can't keep going like this or the development/trading model will never get off the ground. The club should be making it a priority to fix this issue. |
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