| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 13:16 - Aug 22 with 669 views | wombat |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 13:03 - Aug 22 by BrianMcCarthy |
All very true.
I really like him, but if the supporters lose patience at any stage the manager/head coach is always the first one sacrificed by the board. Toeing the board's line will be quickly forgotten if they need to sacrifice him. |
not sure in this case it will be the manager who goes first , hes nourries man so he would have to admit failiure , and so far nourry dosnt amdit to ever making any mistake of any kind, Williams being a prime example of being taen for a mug .
id say if/ when this get worse Belk will be the first name on the chopping block. he set him up at the forum as having a lot more power than he had before , when all i can see is hes doing what hes told , find cheap players who fit what we are supposedly looking for. whos telling hiw what players to look for ? yep nourry and its a one stop shop now hes taken over all the roles at the top , hes not got methodology and the defensive coash reporting to him and by passing the manager . not bad going for somebody whos never been involved in football or indeed running a company in his lifetime , if this heads in a downward direction as it might just do , whos gonna be stupid enough to say hang on i can turn this lot aroiund ? |  |
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 13:18 - Aug 22 with 663 views | francisbowles |
We've been continually tearing up the plan, or part of it, and starting again.
Warburton getting Johansen and Austin.
Beale getting to keep everyone and bring some in.
Ainsworth trying to change the 'method'.
Marti let go after almost two seasons of getting to know the Championship and the capabilities of the players.
We really need some stability to build on. Meanwhile we try again. Just spend the Eze money wisely and spread over the three year FFP cycle. [Post edited 22 Aug 13:19]
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 13:21 - Aug 22 with 633 views | kropotkin41 |
It's one thing to despise the Nourry plan and translate that into criticism or, by November, condemnation of the manager, it's another entirely to have a realistic alternative plan.
Maybe finishing in the bottom half the Championship and being told that how we play doesn't matter upsets people but the only alternative might be being owned by the fans and learning to love League One or Two. |  |
| ‘morbid curiosity about where this is all going’ |
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 13:29 - Aug 22 with 598 views | Stainrod |
It’s a very tricky balancing act - we do need performances and results on the pitch for all the reasons stated. Even Nourry acknowledged that at the fan’s forum. And even for the “project” to work as we won’t continue to attract bright talent if we don’t start climbing the table.
But equally, I STILL have no answer to the question: what is the alternative? We tried short-termism under Warbs and Beale and it left us with a lot of aged crocks.
The board are stumping up the 39m every 3 years but can’t do much more. It’s up to Nourry and the manager to generate additional revenue.
I get the frustration - but the problem is not that the strategy doesn’t work but that this is probably the first window when it has been remorselessly applied.
For me the issue is not player recruitment this window (last summer: very different story) but potentially manager recruitment. Am not criticising Stephan personally but the fact we had to change manager. If you listen to Gallen on the WLS podcast he rightly attacks the naivety of the team selection v Watford. We are having to go through the same losing streak we suffered twice under Marti through trying to play in a purist style when we simply aren’t good enough yet.
Three in midfield tomorrow. No Madsen. We aren’t strong enough to carry him. Grind out an ugly draw. Start from boring basics. Hopefully Stéphan is a quick learner. We have some pretty good players now, the most exciting crop for some years. With a really good number 8 Iike the Watford player (Louisa?) which might now be possible thanks to Eze and this team could suddenly look quite good.
If the club work on that hopefully the fans will stay patient. | | | |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 13:36 - Aug 22 with 575 views | ytt28 |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 10:31 - Aug 22 by BostonR |
I suspect our great leader is working on the premise that us “old farts” don’t really count anymore. Better to play to a part of the house that’s excited by the spin of doing something which sounds new which us “old farts” know is nothing of the sort.
My guess is he will win this round given the use of social media in playing this up has a far greater impact on the younger fan base rather than message boards frequented by cynical and right-minded “old farts”
Essentially, he doesn’t give a shit about the fan base over 45’’s he’s playing to a different audience and he wants us to know in.
As an aside I see Amanda Staveley, her husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi and Jamie Reuben were spotted in Mayfair this week. Now, I wonder what R’s Director has his base in Mayfair? Another project perhaps? |
Bhattia/Mittal buying NUFC? :) | | | |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 13:41 - Aug 22 with 558 views | wombat |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 13:36 - Aug 22 by ytt28 |
Bhattia/Mittal buying NUFC? :) |
do belive jamie ruben also has large offices in the area so wouldnt read much into that , we have blown any chance of a local stadium being built anywhere close to loftus road so that also wont be happening | |
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 14:08 - Aug 22 with 495 views | 7374Ranger |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 10:28 - Aug 22 by ozexile |
There's many things I don't understand about it. But this is the main one. If you wanna sell your youngsters then prospective buyers need to actually see them do it at the right end of the table where there is pressure and ad accountability. Or suprise suprise in a cup game against premier opposition. No one's paying millions for someone who has a good 20 minutes against PNE once a year. |
Yes, that is how Brentford were doing it when selling the likes of Maupay, Watkins, Benrahma and before them .
Had Smithies and Freeman helped QPR reach the playoffs they would probably have been sold for 50% more than they were.
If QPR continues this trend of selling one or. two players for £5-8m each summer without making league table progress, it risks becoming another Crewe Alexandra that sold players like Platt, Savage and Hignett before the conveyor belt stopped and is now in L2.. [Post edited 22 Aug 14:10]
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 14:22 - Aug 22 with 420 views | Northernr |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 13:09 - Aug 22 by stevenagehoop |
Think you’re being kind Northern - long-standing supporters have been fed up for a long time now - regretfully loads of us have voted with our feet and not moved from our sofas for a number of years and the sad thing about it is we haven’t missed it enough to want to come back.
Apart from the Leeds victory a couple of seasons ago imo we’ve rarely put in a 90 minute show to kick us up the backside into renewing our season tickets. |
Haha, I like it on here where I'm told I'm being too kind. On Twitter I'm "a cancer on the club" and "responsible for turning the support base toxic"  |  | | |
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 14:37 - Aug 22 with 386 views | NorthantsHoop |
I went to my first QPR game at Loftus Road as a 9 year old in October 1972, I went to my last game at Loftus Road on 9 August 2025 against Preston as a 61 year old in both games we were in the 2nd tier . My point is that our club is firmly entrenched as a 2nd tier club and when we lost our Premier status in 1996 after a solid 13 years in the top flight was probably the point where the mountain got harder to climb. Some things are starting to work, but whether we can get out of this league that looks increasingly difficult with all the barriers that clubs like ours face. But if you look at the majority of the clubs in the Championship they are pretty much all in the same position, the only real outriders to break the restrictions and force their way to the top tier in last 10 years probably Brighton, Bournemouth, Burnley, Brentford and Palace. [Post edited 22 Aug 14:38]
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 14:37 - Aug 22 with 381 views | Gloucs_R |
Lose tomorrow (which we will imo) and Charlton becomes a MASSIVE game.
I can see LR becoming toxic very quickly this season.
PS - Bllx to this "Project" speak. Most Championship clubs need to buy, develop and sell. |  |
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 14:44 - Aug 22 with 347 views | Hunterhoop |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 13:29 - Aug 22 by Stainrod |
It’s a very tricky balancing act - we do need performances and results on the pitch for all the reasons stated. Even Nourry acknowledged that at the fan’s forum. And even for the “project” to work as we won’t continue to attract bright talent if we don’t start climbing the table.
But equally, I STILL have no answer to the question: what is the alternative? We tried short-termism under Warbs and Beale and it left us with a lot of aged crocks.
The board are stumping up the 39m every 3 years but can’t do much more. It’s up to Nourry and the manager to generate additional revenue.
I get the frustration - but the problem is not that the strategy doesn’t work but that this is probably the first window when it has been remorselessly applied.
For me the issue is not player recruitment this window (last summer: very different story) but potentially manager recruitment. Am not criticising Stephan personally but the fact we had to change manager. If you listen to Gallen on the WLS podcast he rightly attacks the naivety of the team selection v Watford. We are having to go through the same losing streak we suffered twice under Marti through trying to play in a purist style when we simply aren’t good enough yet.
Three in midfield tomorrow. No Madsen. We aren’t strong enough to carry him. Grind out an ugly draw. Start from boring basics. Hopefully Stéphan is a quick learner. We have some pretty good players now, the most exciting crop for some years. With a really good number 8 Iike the Watford player (Louisa?) which might now be possible thanks to Eze and this team could suddenly look quite good.
If the club work on that hopefully the fans will stay patient. |
Fundamentally, winning, progressing up the league table, promotion, establishing ourselves in the top league, and pushing for a place in Europe should always be the short, medium, and long term objectives.
HOW we get there - the strategy if you will (for a club like us) - needs to be buy low (and very well), and sell high, reinvest and continue that strategy with continually increasing revenue so we can continually compete the higher we go.
That strategy is just as valid in the Prem as it is here (see Brighton) but the amounts are all relative.
However it’s a means to achieve an objective, a vision…it isn’t the objective,
Years back I criticised Hoos for a lack of vision in his last few years as CEO. Without one, it’s very hard to unite everyone because people don’t know what it’s all for. They don’t become motivated and excited.
Nourry, unsurprisingly for someone with his experience, is falling into the same trap. Absolutely zero communication or clarity on the vision or the short, medium, and long term objectives. Just some insight into a plan…but not what it is designed to achieve.
Partly, I think that is because if you set and communicate objectives (short, medium, long) you can be held accountable to them. And Nourry very clearly hates accountability. I believe he doesn’t think it’s for people like him. I’m convinced this is the real reason why we don’t communicate injuries and contract lengths. Hard to be held to account by others for a transfer deal if no one knows if the player had 6 months left or 18 months.
The “how” is absolutely fine. I think everyone is behind it.
The vision/objectices is the issue. We have no idea what they are. If we had them, and they were the ultimate goal, then results would matter. They would be more important than player profit. Player profit would be the means to achieve the medium and long term goal, but we wouldn’t lose sight of what it is to be a professional football club.
In answer to Clive’s question, the ONLY way the club can sell the plan is by sharing and selling a vision for what the football club will be (and where it will be) in 2, 5, and 10 years. If it’s a short, medium, and long term vision we can all get behind, the fans will support it. If we’re on track with it, kudos to Nourry! No doubt he’ll move onto bigger and better things. If we’re off track, the Board will need to act, sack him, and get someone in who can achieve the vision.
At present, Nourry (and Hoos) can’t fail if they don’t have publicly communicated objectives. Not with an owner living in Malaysia. [Post edited 22 Aug 15:05]
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 15:00 - Aug 22 with 286 views | Rsole |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 14:22 - Aug 22 by Northernr |
Haha, I like it on here where I'm told I'm being too kind. On Twitter I'm "a cancer on the club" and "responsible for turning the support base toxic" |
Power to the people, Wolfie Whittingham !
Long live the TPF.
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| Those possessed by devils, try and keep them under control a bit, can't you ?
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 15:15 - Aug 22 with 257 views | NorthantsHoop |
The only worry I have about Mr Stephan as our new head coach is that he might be a bit too nice. Still let's see? | | | |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 15:48 - Aug 22 with 199 views | stainrods_elbow |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 14:22 - Aug 22 by Northernr |
Haha, I like it on here where I'm told I'm being too kind. On Twitter I'm "a cancer on the club" and "responsible for turning the support base toxic" |
As a fellow abusee by some sad sacks on LfW, I empathise, believe me, when your passionate/monetised hobby is turned into a stick to beat you with. |  |
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 15:50 - Aug 22 with 197 views | baz_qpr |
What is the alternative to the word project? strategy? its a bit less concrete.
The bottom line is simple whether you like it or not. In the modern game with FFP apart from the rare occasion league position equates with spend and spend has to equate with revenue. We cannot get revenue any other way than player sales. Unfortunately we started this journey and hit the buffers with Covid which broke the transfer market at championship level that is now starting to adjust again. But the hard cold reality is that unless we by some form of miracle have a golden generation of Eze's or hire the new Pep we can't compete unless we go through this process, and it might not work but if it is going to work its going to need to delayed gratification and that is hard for people to take. |  | | |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 16:04 - Aug 22 with 144 views | Stainrod |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 14:44 - Aug 22 by Hunterhoop |
Fundamentally, winning, progressing up the league table, promotion, establishing ourselves in the top league, and pushing for a place in Europe should always be the short, medium, and long term objectives.
HOW we get there - the strategy if you will (for a club like us) - needs to be buy low (and very well), and sell high, reinvest and continue that strategy with continually increasing revenue so we can continually compete the higher we go.
That strategy is just as valid in the Prem as it is here (see Brighton) but the amounts are all relative.
However it’s a means to achieve an objective, a vision…it isn’t the objective,
Years back I criticised Hoos for a lack of vision in his last few years as CEO. Without one, it’s very hard to unite everyone because people don’t know what it’s all for. They don’t become motivated and excited.
Nourry, unsurprisingly for someone with his experience, is falling into the same trap. Absolutely zero communication or clarity on the vision or the short, medium, and long term objectives. Just some insight into a plan…but not what it is designed to achieve.
Partly, I think that is because if you set and communicate objectives (short, medium, long) you can be held accountable to them. And Nourry very clearly hates accountability. I believe he doesn’t think it’s for people like him. I’m convinced this is the real reason why we don’t communicate injuries and contract lengths. Hard to be held to account by others for a transfer deal if no one knows if the player had 6 months left or 18 months.
The “how” is absolutely fine. I think everyone is behind it.
The vision/objectices is the issue. We have no idea what they are. If we had them, and they were the ultimate goal, then results would matter. They would be more important than player profit. Player profit would be the means to achieve the medium and long term goal, but we wouldn’t lose sight of what it is to be a professional football club.
In answer to Clive’s question, the ONLY way the club can sell the plan is by sharing and selling a vision for what the football club will be (and where it will be) in 2, 5, and 10 years. If it’s a short, medium, and long term vision we can all get behind, the fans will support it. If we’re on track with it, kudos to Nourry! No doubt he’ll move onto bigger and better things. If we’re off track, the Board will need to act, sack him, and get someone in who can achieve the vision.
At present, Nourry (and Hoos) can’t fail if they don’t have publicly communicated objectives. Not with an owner living in Malaysia. [Post edited 22 Aug 15:05]
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We are in close agreement the way I see it.
On a thread about "the project" recently I argued that the strategy was broadly right, the comms were poor. You seem to be saying similar. I was getting a lot of blow back and eventually gave up because (it seemed to me) a number of posters were conflating the strategy itself with how the club talks about that strategy. Because Nourry is bad at the second part he was also getting attacked (by some) for the first part.
I guess the only area where we differ (more on emphasis) is I believe that getting the actual strategy right is so much more important. So much better to have a great product and a poor marketing campaign than the other way round. And that's because the messaging is so much easier to fix than the other stuff.
All the criticisms you make about Nourry's failure to sell a journey to the fanbase are fair. But maybe its because I work in marketing / comms, these problems are just so much more solvable than, say, achieving year on year league progression while also selling players for chunky fees.
I guarantee you if I worked for Nourry for a few weeks gratis I could repair a lot of this stuff - that's not me arrogantly making myself out to be a genius, I'm far from that, but literally any bog standard comms professional probably could sort this fairly quickly. The proviso being that Nourry was open to taking constructive criticism and advice, and would act on it.
And by the way, a successful comms strategy is not simply telling the "customer" whatever they want to hear: the 4 year plan talked of competing in Europe. Such talk is cheap, and audiences have grown way more cynical. To be genuinely successful, the message has to be positive, but true to what you are actually doing.
It would involve treating the fans as grown ups and setting goals that we could get behind but that are also realistic.
Lets also cut him a little slack given he is 27: if he were 47 with 20 years senior management experience he would be way better at articulating that vision. But then he probably wouldn't be running QPR at its current level. If Hoos is still chairman, maybe he should be doing that (but then I always found his comms skills even worse).
I also suspect with Nourry there is an element of "I'm going to tell them how tough it is so they don't criticise": keep in mind that there have long been fans of the "just sign a f*cking striker" persuasion who have limited appreciation for the financial high wire act it is to keep a club like ours in the Championship, let alone progress it. So he has been explaining, too aggressively and without much charm I grant you, how we have to do that.
Give me good strategy over good comms any day. I could even face listening to whoever that ars*hole was at the fans forum who said that QPR would be judged in five years in terms on whether their policies had been "consistent". Utter boll*cks what he said, obviously. But I'd suffer ALL of that and more than go back to hiring Ainsworth, Begovic, Fox etc. | | | |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 16:42 - Aug 22 with 48 views | Rsole |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 15:50 - Aug 22 by baz_qpr |
What is the alternative to the word project? strategy? its a bit less concrete.
The bottom line is simple whether you like it or not. In the modern game with FFP apart from the rare occasion league position equates with spend and spend has to equate with revenue. We cannot get revenue any other way than player sales. Unfortunately we started this journey and hit the buffers with Covid which broke the transfer market at championship level that is now starting to adjust again. But the hard cold reality is that unless we by some form of miracle have a golden generation of Eze's or hire the new Pep we can't compete unless we go through this process, and it might not work but if it is going to work its going to need to delayed gratification and that is hard for people to take. |
Baz - I’m not sure the name of whatever it is/should be forms the main issue across posts.
Personally, I feel that it’s the lack of any shared definition and objectives that causes confusion and questions. Combine that with a lack of experience and communication at times, it gets more and more opaque and questionable very quickly for fans.
If there was a clear, well articulated plan with a set of objectives, that are communicated to everyone with regular updates and some simple metrics I feel we would all get much more behind it.
I don’t expect all of the details and certainly wouldn’t expect sensitive information to be shared but it would be smart if the club got everyone behind them and bought-in rather than the division we have today.
Personally, I’d settle for something along the lines of:
Having studied various other clubs, we’ve decided that the best course of action is:
Smart follow - Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth etc
Double down on facilities and specialist coaching
Improve the league position incrementally each year
Develop 2-3 assets each season for resale at increased value without impacting squad depth or league position
Move or improve the stadium to top of championship standards within X years
Ensure there is a succession plan for every senior role in the club (including CEO, DOG, Manager, coaches etc)
Here’s how we are going to measure each of the objectives and here’s the timeframe we expect to see improvements. Bear with us in the meantime and we’ll report back regularly on progress and try to ensure we succeed on all fronts.
That’s a far more balanced approach than just buying and selling players without considering the wider impact and I would hope most of us would be able to get behind it better.
Maybe that all exists and we just don’t know it. If so, I think it would be a simple fix to share it if that was the case.
Meantime, the default position/expectation is to trust a process, when we don’t even know what the process is. That’s not a palatable alternative for many and it feels that is why the reactions to results, selection and formations have become relatively strong this season. The Marti factor being a force multiplier, especially for those that liked/rated him.
In the absence of more clarity and sharing, I’d just like us to get better results and compete for 90mins and I’ll take the entertainment that goes with it - ups and downs. Frustratingly, we know how to get results based on last season’s efforts but seemingly refuse to play that way anymore. That’s a real head scratcher too. | |
| Those possessed by devils, try and keep them under control a bit, can't you ?
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| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 16:55 - Aug 22 with 12 views | Gloucs_R |
| Julien Stephan - BBC London interview on 14:22 - Aug 22 by Northernr |
Haha, I like it on here where I'm told I'm being too kind. On Twitter I'm "a cancer on the club" and "responsible for turning the support base toxic" |
Feels like the club are running their own social bots at the moment and have paid off some influential X posters. | |
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