James Perch believes that QPR have made giant strides heading into the west London derby with Brentford.
On October 30 last year, the Bees claimed a 1-0 win at Griffin Park in the final days of Chris Ramsey's reign.
Rangers removed the boss from first team duties the following week with Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink taking over in December.
Brentford, on the other hand, had interim head coach Lee Carsley in the dugout that night with Dean Smith appointed in November.
Rangers bagged the bragging rights at Loftus Road in March, winning 3-0, and Perch believes that QPR are in a much better position than they were this time last year.
He said: “We’ve moved forward with everything. I don’t think the young lads would have come through then (under that regime).
“Them coming through now is massive for the club. In the English game we need more clubs doing that.
“In terms of our league position is obviously very similar, but as players we feel a lot better and are a lot more confident definitely.
“It’s a younger, fresh squad and a better dressing room. If you’ve got a good manager in place and someone who knows what he wants to do and puts it on the plate to the players.
“We weren’t playing well and losing so it makes the mood a lot different, whereas the gaffer was really upbeat after Saturday’s game (against Sheffield Wednesday) as we put in a good performance and were unlucky to lose.
“So we were losing last year in the wrong way, and this when we’ve lost on the whole, of course we never want to, we’ve done it in the right way and taken credit from the game.”
QPR are now on a run of emerging victorious in west London derbies and it all started with that win over the Bees in March and, while Perch hopes that will be an advantage, he knows how quickly football can turn.
“It was the first time we had beaten a local team in a while, I think that’ll play a big part in the game on Friday. They’ll still remember it and they’ll be wanting revenge against us,” he explained.
“We had two different managers. The first one was with Chris (Ramsey) and we lost 1-0 – we got battered that game.
“It was quite comfortable at our place and nice to make it up to the fans after such a poor performance at their place.”
Perch will be happy man after returning to action after he avoided serious injury earlier this season when he was stretchered off in the defeat to Newcastle.
He said: “I thought it was worse than it was definitely - the pain I was in. But after a couple of days it settled down well which was quite good.
“I was out for four or five weeks, which I’ll take all day week considering how bad I felt when I went down.”
