Mark Hughes

Mike Rigg wants to repeat Manchester City succes

Mike Rigg insists QPR’s scouting system needs a complete overhaul by the end of next season if they are to compete successfully in the Premier League.

Rangers’ technical director believes the club’s recent methods of player recruitment have been flawed and lacking in structure, with players too often signed merely on the advice of agents.

Rigg was appointed by Hughes in April after spending four years at current Premier League champions Manchester City, where he helped transform the Blues’ scouting set-up and youth system.

Rigg has been charged with ensuring that every one of QPR’s future signings brings value for money.

“One of the most important things is the succession plan of the club. You have a squad of players and then players coming through the system – and they are the future,” said Rigg. “The end purpose has to be four or five players who add value – that’s the purpose of having a youth team.

“You can have the greatest facilities in the world and invest millions into it, but if you haven’t got the right facilities, the right quality of coaches, then it won’t work.

“You have to go out and identify, and the reason a lot of clubs allow agents to identify players is because they have no scouting and recruitment team.

“I look at QPR and I see no structure. It’s like when I walked into Manchester City four years ago. I should have walked into QPR and known what our target list was. But there was no structure. How can a club like QPR not have a strategy behind identification, recruitment and development?

“My job is to put a strategy in place, a structure which, regardless of whether I’m here in the future, will carry on. The next person that comes in improves it, and it continues to work for the next 15 or 20 years.

“We have to recruit personnel. We have just appointed a head coach who will work with the under-18s coach and the under-16s coach.”

That head coach is Glyn Hodges, who worked alongside Rs boss Mark Hughes at Fulham, Manchester City and Blackburn Rovers, and will join the youth set-up alongside Steve Gallen and Marc Bircham.

“That’s just one example,” added Rigg. “There has to be some serious changes. What will it take in terms of number of staff? That’s what I’m working on. Time will tell because it’s a progressive plan.”

Rigg insists that under his guidance, no player will be signed before the club has carried out ‘due diligence’, and ensured that the player will perform to his maximum at Loftus Road.

“There are so many things here which I saw at Manchester City four years ago, but everyone who I have spoken too is receptive to my ideas.

“At City we had around 35 people across the work, in Africa, South America, Europe. Everything was then kept on a system. Before we signed a player, we would produce a dossier of information on that player. We would do the same level of due diligence.

“Everything was recorded and fed into a system, which in turn fed into the succession plan.”