QPR A New FM24 Series

Inspired by Les Ferdinand

In this video Ferdinand talks about his time as a Director of Football at QPR, How QPR see themselves as a club to develop players to sell basically due to the situation the club found themselves in and the fall outs with certain managers demanding signings of more experienced players.
It gave me some inspiration to have a save with QPR.

The save
I will be approaching the save as a Head Coach, whilst the main focus will be to get results I want to develop youngsters and build a tactical identity with the players we have and bring in. Which leads me on to recruitment, We will adopt a smart recruitment from within UK and Ireland. Looking for young players for little to no money or minimal development fees.
I have start the save with the current results etc from the international break last week. Which sees QPR just outside the relegation zone. This means no intake in the 23/24 season which gives us a year with the players currently at the club.

The board culture fits nicely, Sign players u21 and from the lower levels domestically. Which suits the idea behind the save.

First port of call was to sign a Director of Football and there was only one man for the job

Ferdinand will be in charge of all contracts and transfer negotiations. I will let my recruitment team find targets then ask Ferdinand to complete the deals.

Takeover current situation in March 2024

We start with just 8 games left of the season and 1 point off relegation, so It will be a real jump in the deep end. I have no idea about the current squad so we will need to be flexible over the next 8 games to try and keep the club up.

Wage Bill

£14.23m a year on wages. Our projected turnover for 2024/25 is £12.57m. So that alone is not sustainable. Then we add in the debt, Which is £4.5m a year.

First port of call will be to address the finances. Big earners will have to be moved on for the future of the club and to ensure there’s space for the future talents.

Squad

There is 32 players in the first team squad currently.

2 of them are on loan (Costing £22,500pw on wages and £10,000pm on fees)

16 of our players are out of contract at the end of the season, they count for £57,220pw of the wages. £3.03m per season.

The remaining 14 are mainly the wrong side of 26 to be sellable assets. Ilias Chair aside, he is our most valuable asset

We will look to find a club who could be interested in signing him, As he approaches his 27th birthday and his peak we could get a nice fee.

Recruitment Focus

I’ve set up 4 focuses for my recruitment team.

* Players aged 15-23 in the UK and Ireland
* Players aged 15-20 coming to end of contracts in UK and Ireland
* Free signings any age in UK and Ireland
* Lower League players in UK and Ireland

Hopefully with this they can create a database of talent for us to dive into.

Next up I assessed the squad and there was a selection of players who had 1 year extensions which I triggered to give myself time to decide what to do with each player.

In the next post I will discuss the final 8 games of the season

Planned posts to come are

* Relegation Battle
* Squad Planning & Recruitment
* Tactical Identity
* Player Development

So plenty more to come from this series