London: Adel Taarabt had just completed a 90-minute workout against Wolves at QPR’s west London training centre when he was approached by QPR manager Harry Redknapp.
“He spends most of the time in his office, but when he gets off the phone he comes down to watch for five or ten minutes — he never takes a session,” revealed Taarabt. “That’s when he said he had it in mind to start me against Liverpool.”
Instead Taraabt didn’t even make the bench on Sunday and learnt of Redknapp’s stinging criticism of his physical condition — claiming the Moroccan is “about three stones overweight” — when he was at home watching Stoke v Swansea.
“I am a professional — this is not about retaliation, this is about protecting my reputation,” said Taarabt. “I played in that reserve game for 90 minutes and if he didn’t think I was running he could have taken me off. Maybe I didn’t perform like I could because it was a reserve team game and I was protecting myself.
“Just because we are losing games I am not going to kick the ball in the stands. My job is to create, bring goals to the team. Maybe he expects me to make more tackles. I am not this type of player. I can only get fitness playing Premier League. You can train six or seven hours, but you won’t be fit.”
Taarabt paints a picture of a chaotic training regime as QPR adjust to life back in the Barclays Premier League. When he arrives in west London for this interview straight after training on Monday, he announced his arrival by lifting his T-shirt. It has to be said he looks in good shape.
Taarabt has made just three appearances for the club this season since he returned from a loan spell at AC Milan.
He said: “The training sessions aren’t the same standard as Milan, or what I would expect under another manager. They are not as intense, the players aren’t as motivated. It is the same as we used to do at Tottenham years ago. When we played West Ham, he told the players ‘you’re not fit, you’re not this, you’re not that’.
“I said ‘but the problem is we don’t have any plan in the game, we don’t know how to press as a team. It’s not about just running around, you need to play with your brain’.
“I was thinking that West Ham didn’t have better players than us, but they were well organised.
“Almost every time we lose the ball, the opposition score. We need to do something about it.
“If you work as a team, you run less. If somebody sprints 100 metres they play a triangle round him and you are never going to get the ball.
“If everybody runs ten metres, ten metres, ten metres, then you are in shape, but we never do that. He doesn’t understand that. The coaches don’t have any influence on Harry — none. They are there just to be there.
“Glenn Hoddle loves me, but I don’t know if Harry listens to him.
“After West Ham he said all of the team is not fit. After Liverpool, because the performance was so good, he said everything was perfect — what, in one week, he changed the fitness? Impossible.”
‘Eat healthily’
Despite his exclusion on Sunday, Taarabt insists he has the backing of the club’s new director of football operations Les Ferdinand after talks between them last week.
Taarabt, 25, added: “I spoke with Les Ferdinand and he told me ‘what a player you are — you should be in the team every time. I followed you at Milan and you were fantastic’.
“Les doesn’t speak to us in training, but he watches us and then goes to watch the kids as well. He knows me from my days at Tottenham so we have a good relationship.”
So, Adel, are you fat? That is why we are here. “I don’t like the food at the training ground, but eat healthily like every other player. Simple.
“My heaviest weight at Milan was 86kg [13st 8lb], my lightest 84kg — now I’m 85kg. It’s not true to say I’m not fit. He tried to give an excuse.”