I know we've all had a say on what we the club fans think of Adel and his actions of late but l thought it interesting to read an independents view. These comments from Martin Samuel, out of the DM. I think his comments, whether like them or not, are accurate. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Footballers are invariably surrounded by people too smitten or beholden to challenge or contradict them. Take a lightweight like Taarabt. Even if Harry Redknapp’s three-stone-over jibe was more euphemism than Speak Your Weight machine, there remains a case to answer. Taarabt is 85kg and 1.78m tall, making him 5kg heavier than Cristiano Ronaldo, who is 7cm taller, and 12kg heavier than Gareth Bale, who is 5cm taller. Sources at QPR say he is the same weight as Kevin Bond, a 57-year-old former centre half. Consider also how easy it is to make QPR’s starting XI right now. This isn’t Chelsea. Taarabt does not have to displace Cesc Fabregas or Eden Hazard. QPR are bottom of the league. They are going down. Redknapp is desperate for a match-winner, as the delusional Taarabt feels he is. He kept Robinho and Kaka out of the AC Milan team; he is the natural heir to Stan Bowles. Yet, bizarrely, Taarabt cannot get a game despite the doom. Last week, when a reserve match was laid on specifically to test his readiness for the fixture with Liverpool, he admitted not playing well. ‘Maybe I didn’t perform like I could because it was a reserve team game and I was protecting myself,’ he mused. Protecting himself from what exactly? He doesn’t play. This was Taarabt’s chance to show he merited a place in the team. ‘My job is to create, to bring goals,’ he added. ‘Maybe the manager expects me to make more tackles. I am not this type of player.’ Just what you need for a relegation battle: a forward who thinks he is too precious for a shift. As for goals, Taarabt had 90 minutes to score or create one against Burton Albion in the Capital One Cup this season. QPR lost 1-0. He went to Fulham on loan for half of last season and scored once (against Burton in the Capital One Cup, coincidentally). His last Premier League goal was on April 1, 2013, the season Rangers went down, when he scored five in total. He scored twice in 2011-12. The only prolific season of his career — 19 goals in 44 matches — was in 2010-11, in the Championship. So instead of feeding the fantasy that he deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Kaka, Robinho and Bowles, those closest to Taarabt need to tell him to shape up, work hard, get fit and stay that way. He isn’t vital enough not to tackle. He isn’t prolific enough to stroll about. He talks up his loan at AC Milan but the club could have made the move permanent this summer, and did not. His is a floundering career. At his peak, Matt Le Tissier scored 24, 23, 15, 18, 25, 30 and 16 goals in consecutive seasons for Southampton. He was forgiven poor defensive work. Taarabt’s record since leaving Tottenham Hotspur, where he did not score in three seasons, is one, seven, 19, two, five and five. In that time he has made 190 appearances. It isn’t good enough. Yet who will say it?
Acurate factual post Aussie...Just wait for the excuses to start rolling in........ My bet is they blame MS for something...Lets see eh?
Itâs an article by one of Harryâs mateâs whoâs career has been helped by Harry whoring himself of to journoâs like him for decades. Despite that itâs a weak argument. Again with Adel the marker for whether he is good for QPR now in 2014 is somehow related to: - a comparison with one of the best creative players England has ever produced during the peak of his career in a team that was built around him for all those years. He even chucks in pathetic lines like Cristiano Ronaldo, probably the greatest athlete in the history of football is 5kg lighter than Adel and basically the same height?!?!!? Hahahaha 5kg difference with a man a completely different build. But aghain note the trend to compare Adel only with all time greats. â And a retrospective look back at stats with more focus on stats relating to a 17 year old kid arriving in a foreign country, where he doesnât speak the language. Raather than his most recent performances in Serie A and Champions League where he shone. Instead MS focuses on a historic seasons where he made few appearances often as a substitute then onto 3 seasons at teams that were a complete shambles for reasons igger and unconnected to him and he compares all this against a great like Le Tissierâs peak?!?!!?!? He then massages these already skewed stats in a way that will fool people who arenât very bright. He does this by for example saying he hadnât scored in those 3 seasons- well in those three seasons which began when he was 17!!! He played 7 times probably mainly from the bench in part because he was a teenager adjusting to a foreign country at a time when the trend was for clubs to keep players in house playing reserve matches instead of the loan system which is the focus today. MS uses goal tally of 1 in first season he quotes about Adel scoring⦠He compares this against a season where Le Tissier settled into a his hometown team, who were good enough to finish 7th that year and a year he won PFA player of the year aying 44 games⦠this compared against a season Adel played 7 games on loan to us that year. The comparison is in itself absolute bollox. And nothing more than skewed propaganda to support Redknappâs smoke screen So Queens answer me this⦠Why is it relevant to compare Adel against all time greats? Would you agree it is in actual fact more relevant and more appropriate to compare him with Junior Hoilett, Bobby Zamora, Matty Phillips, Krancjar and Armand Traore?
It's articles like this that brainwash people … Why is Le Tissier mentioned and cherry picked? comparisons? 0.36 goals a game for Le God … 0.21 goals for Taarabt … 176 appearances since leaving Spurs. Le God is 46 and i doubt if he will improve on that ratio Taarabt is 25 and could well match or beat that figure. The data in this report is incorrect and selective. Le god was a brilliant player a pure genius so i can understand the stupid comparison with our genius … both are gifted. I agree that you can never be fit enough and Taarabt should look to always better himself … Think of what Le god could of done at a bigger club
Queens hates Taarabt it's fine and I respect that I as a QPR supporter have waited a long time to get a genius at our club but at least the article admits he is on a comparison with Le god Complete rubbish from down under
Good response from Aussie.... I am constantly going backwards and forwards re: Adel. Ultimately just want him to get in shape and give it a real go. His stock value has gone down over the past couple of years and has severely damaged his reputation because of his attitude and antics. Let's hope that Harry throws down the gauntlet and gives him a bash really soon, then leave it up to Adel to silence the critics. He has the chance to become a legend. Over to you Tubbs!
I think that's a very interesting article from Martin Samuel, even if the conspiracy theorists think he's hand in glove with our manager. I have long been a supporter of Adel and been, at best, unconvinced by Harry. Now, you can pick a few holes in Samuel's argument but I think he's got the basic conclusion absolutely right: (1) 85kg is too heavy for a professional footballer and Adel does usually look overweight (I am the same weight and height, big framed..... and 61) ; (2) He should be capable of/willing to put in a shift and, god forbid, make a few tackles; and (3) He does not score enough goals at the highest level to justify his overblown assessment of his own ability. And this is from an Adel fan.
What a load of tosh re: 85kg being too heavy for a footballer. Utter nonsense. BMI is massively flawed. Virtually useless when talking about 'athletes'. Adel has never been a slow player, much more athletic with his ability than most. Niko is a lot slower and shows what ability can do for an average paced (or less) player. Lastly, was Harry really surprised at Adel and his lack of effort in a reserve game? I'm not. Goes to show how little he knows about his players.
Toad in the hole brilliant post … Harold doesn't like people answering back to him … As said on another post the man who continued to play Bosingwa after he refused to drop to the bench. The man who purchased Chris Samba and proclaimed he was quick and fast .. terrific lad who wanted to join Rangers for the right reasons… The manager who offloaded a player with Rangers in his blood and heart who tried his hardest Jamie Mackie … then off loaded Simpson … FFS the list is endless
Actually I don't have a problem with Taarabt being a little over 13 stone in weight, he appears to have a low center of gravity and it tends to make him extremely difficult for defenders to knock him off the ball.....I think we can all remember the game at Stamford Bridge when SWP scored and how Taarabt played the false 9 role, they could hardly get the ball off him because off his overall strength and I doubt he was very much lighter in weight then to what he is now. All he really needs to do is get his conditioning and fitness right to last 90 minutes, he does not really need a dramatic weight lose....
To be a geek - centre of mas is relative to height and is something we cannot change. It can be affected by stance and dribbling position though. Good point about being heavier being helpful. Ephraim used to be a decent midfielder but was always too lightweight. Lastly, I agree, that in principle and injury free pro footballer should definitely be able to last 90 mins, but we don't seem to have an issue with OBZ lasting 65 mins (I realise he has a hip issue) - we just let him play within his capacity and accept it. Why can't Harry let Adel play the same time if he is so worried about fitness? Idiot.
In addition - carry body fat does not necessarily have an effect on muscular endurance. Fat is an energy source. Not healthy to be 3-5% body fat. Just look at a bodybuilder in competition. They are knocking on deaths door when they get like that. More like Harry took lack of effort as a sign of fitness levels. Which begs the question about what his fitness staff are doing?!
It sickens me that this is all being played out in public. It shows me that our manager is self interested and more concerned about servin himself than our club; he why is all this in the public gaze I hate him more than before ...
So you disagree with me about my point (1), which I stand by, but how do you feel about my points (2) and (3).
Question we have to ask is will Adel contribute more than Hoilett and Phillips... Unless the answer to that is no then this is a stupid debate and nothing more than a smoke screen. Harry knows Adel is the only topic fans are more interested in than sacking him
Um, I can live with him not being such a great defender. It's part of the deal. There aren't usually issues with effort regarding players with defensive ability as it goes hand in hand. Scholes couldn't tackle for ****, but was great going forward. That's why we have Henry and Sandro. He does tackle, just not best part of his game. He can't counter if he is on the floor! 2nd point - he is a match winner. And sometimes a luxury player. But he isn't properly tested in the prem with a solid team. The first year in the prem was decent, but we had a real mix of players and loads who were clearly poor aquisitions. With a stronger, more settled team he could do very well IMHO. But am unsure if we will ever see that......
As expected, this thread has descended into a predictable "Yah-boo sucks" battle between the worshippers and the haters. Just like the in-fighting at the club it's infecting everyone, as Roller says I just wish they'd both bugger off and give our club it's respect back...
Trouble is Soup I honestly and passionately believe Adel on the pitch could restore everything QPR within a couple of matches Off the pitch his mind seems very slow On it another matter ... He is not an ordinary player by any terms He unlocks stuff in a split second and can hold onto the ball like a limpet I have fingers crossed because the team around him currently is ideal as a platform to play QPR football as I hope we all agree it should be played Harold in a nutshell: Buy a load of players for loads of money chuck them on a pitch and gamble
The height/ weight thing can be misleading in respect of fitness just look at the weight height ratio of top rugby plays. Loads over 14 stone. The key is level of fitness. Gerry Francis would do the bleep test on a regular basis with players as a fitness indicator so on the info in the public domain is contradictory and exaggerated. Would love to know which players would be worse than adel
Sooper - isn't this what a forum is about? I'm interested in other supporters opinions (the Mrs ain't interested in talking about it!) - it's all being done in a respectful way, so game on i say. Would be quite dull otherwise.
