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Sunday, December 23, 2012

QPR Report Sunday - Frightening Words from QPR Manager Harry Redknapp...Newcastle...Taarabt Profile...Next: WBA








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WEST LONDON SPORT/Matt Barrett

QPR boss hits out at highly-paid flops

QPR manager Harry Redknapp criticised the club’s high-earning under-performers following the defeat against Newcastle.
The 1-0 loss at St James’ Park means Rangers, who are one off the bottom of the table, will complete 2012 without a single away victory,
That despite massive spending by the Tony Fernandes-led regime, who are set to sign yet more players in January in another attempt to turn things around.
One of those high-earning flops, Jose Bosingwa, was fined for refusing to be a substitute for last weekend’s derby against Fulham.
And Redknapp said: “I fined a player last week and he’s earning more than anyone at Tottenham.
“You shouldn’t be paying massive wages when you have 18,000 people. This club [Newcastle] holds 55,000 people and I bet their players aren’t earning as much as some of ours.
“There are players [at QPR] who earn far too much money for what they are. Far, far, far too much money for their ability and what they give to the club.
“I don’t really want to see the owners have their pants taken down like they have in the past. There’s a lot of agents who made money out of them.” West London Sport



Manager Harry Redknapp blasts QPR players' wages
Updated: Saturday, 22 Dec 2012 20:58

Harry Redknapp has hinted he will offload Jose Bosingwa

QPR boss Harry Redknapp has launched a scathing attack on some of the players he inherited from Mark Hughes.

The former Tottenham manager hit out after this afternoon's 1-0 Barclays Premier League defeat at Newcastle.

Asked about his plans for the January transfer window, Redknapp said: "I don't want to spend their [the club's] money, to be honest with you.

"There are a lot of players at this club who earn far too much money for what they are; far, far, far too much money for their ability and what they give to the club.

"I don't really want to see the owners have their pants taken down like they have in the past. There's a lot of agents made money out of them.

"I fined a player last week and he was earning more than any player earned at Tottenham.

"You shouldn't be paying massive wages when you've got a stadium that holds 18,000 people.

"This club [Newcastle] holds 52,000 and most of their players will be nowhere near some of the wages some of the players are earning here."

Redknapp also confirmed that full-back Jose Bosingwa had been fined a fortnight's wages after refusing to sit on the bench for last weekend's 2-1 victory over Fulham.

He said: "He didn't want to be on the bench and didn't want to be a substitute, so he went home.

"He has been fined two weeks' wages, £130,000. Not too bad for two weeks, decent isn't it? Not too bad for playing on a Saturday, it's okay."

Asked how he might handle a player like that, Redknapp said: "We'll find out in January."

Rangers are one of a series of clubs to have been linked with Newcastle striker Demba Ba, whose well-publicised release-clause could spark a scramble for his signature.

But Redknapp said: "We've not got £7million to spend on a player, I'd have thought." http://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/english/2....r-player-wag
PUBLISHED
18:00 22nd December 2012
QPR OFFICIAL SITE - R's boss reflects on first defeat in charge ...


HARRY REDKNAPP was left frustrated after Newcastle inflicted his first defeat as QPR manager on Saturday.

Rangers looked on course for a hard-earned point after defending resolutely throughout but Shola Ameobi's 81st minute strike snatched victory for the Magpies.

“I thought we could hang on and nick a draw,” Redknapp told www.qpr.co.uk.

“If we’d have held on then we would have gone away with a good point.

“But it just wasn’t to be.”

The R's battled tirelessly to find a late equaliser but found clear-cut chances hard to come by as Redknapp rued his side’s inefficiencies in the final third.

“They worked hard again today,” Redknapp added.

“We fought for our lives, defended well and gave it everything we had.

“I felt we just lacked that little bit of quality in the right areas to win the game."

Defeat signalled the end to Redknapp’s four-game unbeaten start in charge after last weekend’s victory over Fulham lifted Rangers off the foot of the table.

Despite leaving Tyneside empty-handed, the R’s manager remains hopeful his side can beat the drop and took solace from the battling qualities displayed by his centre-back pairing of Ryan Nelsen and Clint Hill.

He added: “We defended hard.

“The two centre halves gave everything, they’re great competitors. 

“If I could find a few more like them we’ve got a chance [of staying up].” QPR




West London Sport/Matt Barrett

Rangers beaten by late Ameobi winner

Substitute Shola Ameobi’s late goal condemned struggling QPR to their first defeat under Harry Redknapp.
They were nine minutes away from a rare clean sheet when good work from Davide Santon led to the deadlock being broken.
Santon ran at the visiting defence and found James Perch, whose pass set Ameobi up for a well taken goal.
The striker cut inside the challenge of Adel Taarabt and sent a curling shot beyond keeper Rob Green and into the corner of the net.
Rangers, with Fabio, Anton Ferdinand and Esteban Granero brought into the starting line-up, spent much of the game soaking up pressure but had managed to restrict their opponents to the odd chance.
Numerous clearances from the ever-dependable Ryan Nelsen helped keep Newcastle at bay in the first half and Fabio’s challenge denied Papiss Cisse as he bore down on goal.
In the second half, Cisse headed wide from Jonas Gutierrez’s left-wing cross and Demba Ba had a weak header saved by Green before Ameobi netted.
QPR: Green, Ferdinand, Nelsen, Hill, Fabio, Granero (Wright-Phillips 56), Mbia, Faurlin (Derry 78),  Mackie, Taarabt, Cisse (Hoilett 64).
Subs not used: Murphy, Diakite, Traore, Onuoha. West London Sport
Jason Burt/The Telegraph

 l Taarabt won over by Queens Park Rangers manager Harry Redknapp, who once called him a ‘fruitcake’

 So what goes on in the mercurial mind of Adel Taarabt when he is out on the football pitch? “Before I get the ball, I know what’s going on,” he says. “So when I receive it, I know someone is ‘on’ and I can pass it.
Adel Taarabt won over by Queens Park Rangers manager Harry Redknapp, who called him a ‘fruitcake’

 11:59PM GMT 22 Dec 2012

 “I know already if I’m going to shoot or turn or dribble. I know that before I get the ball. I know exactly what I’m going to do and I feel very calm. All the time I feel calm when I have the ball. In football it’s important that your first touch is good because, then, nothing bad can happen to you.”

 Calmness has not always been a quality associated with Taarabt, whose career has, at times, been as volatile as the club he now plays for – Queens Park Rangers. He has played under eight managers at Loftus Road and, aged just 23 and having joined less than four years ago, he is now the longest serving first-team player.

 There is more. Taarabt has often divided opinion, and drawn some colourful and bold descriptions and comparisons — from Zinedine Zidane to Paolo Di Canio. Genius or fruitcake (Harry Redknapp has called Taarabt both)? wizard (as Martin Jol declared him) or simply not up to it (as Juande Ramos flatly observed before refusing to give him a squad number)? No one has doubted the Moroccan’s ability but several have seriously doubted whether they – or he – can properly harness it.

 Taarabt himself is clear – even if he looks momentarily confused when reminded that Redknapp, when he was Tottenham Hotspur manager, labelled him a “complete fruitcake” as a teenager at White Hart Lane. “What’s a fruitcake?” Taarabt says. “Ah, I’ve got a strong character and if I’m not happy, I say things. Maybe some other players will keep it to themselves.

 “But me, I don’t like injustice. If I see something that’s not good – with a manager or a player – I tell them. I can’t just say ‘OK, tomorrow is another day, I will leave it’. I’d rather have it out there, face-to-face. It’s simple.”

 Taarabt has already had “face-to-face” conversations with Redknapp, now in charge at QPR, and a man he deeply admires, just as he calls his predecessor, Mark Hughes, “a great manager”.

 “He has something that not a lot of managers have,” Taarabt says of Redknapp. “A lot of managers can organise the team and so on but Harry wants a player to feel he is the best.”

 Taarabt gives a simple example – before last weekend’s 2-1 victory at home to Fulham, QPR’s first win of the season in the Premier League, at the 17th attempt. Taarabt scored both goals. “He came to see me and said, ‘I think you’ve nothing to learn from Berbatov because I think you can be better than him’.

 “So I’m thinking, ‘If he thinks that then I’m going to show him he’s right and that I am better’. And this is Harry. He will tell you, ‘I won’t change you for anyone’. And not just me. He’s said the same to the other players and when a manager says this to you and you go on the pitch you want to show him he was right.

 “I saw it at Tottenham also. Modric was there and Juande Ramos didn’t play him. We played at Stoke and Luka was put on the floor. He wanted a free kick and Ramos turned and said, ‘He’s not a player for English football’. Harry arrived and just said ‘fantastic player’. And after that Luka, game after game, wow.”

 Taarabt also has that ‘wow’ factor, which was honed on the streets from the age of four.

 Born in Morocco, his family moved to Berre-l’Etang near Marseille in the south of France as his father, a builder, pursued work. “I didn’t learn my skills in a football academy,” he says. “They taught me to turn this way, that way, control. But they didn’t teach me step-overs, nutmegs. They were natural. They came from God, I think.”

 Balls were improvised, scrounged – and sometimes stolen. Taarabt and his friends would stand outside the wall of the local football club and any wayward shot meant a ball was lost – and taken to the nearby high rises where the boys played four v four day after day. “Five or six teams, three goals and you stayed on,” Taarabt says. “You hated to lose. When you went out you knew it would be 20, 30 minutes before you played again. You would go crazy.”

 From Lens, his first club, he went to Spurs in January 2007. There, after Jol and Ramos, Redknapp encouraged Taarabt to go on loan to QPR, who he helped finally raise from the Championship and save from relegation last season.

 The situation had appeared dire — and although it appears even more perilous this campaign, Taarabt says he would not swap the scenarios.

 “Last year with the last 10 games you saw the teams we were going to play, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester City, and everyone thought ‘no chance’. But now we have more than 20 games left and I prefer that,” he says, drawing hope from last weekend’s win.

 Taarabt explains what that victory felt like – and the frustration at the team’s mistakes this campaign. “You are playing, lose a goal and then you are watching the time – 75 minutes, 80 minutes and, ah, it’s hard,” he says. “When you are winning 1-0 you control the game, you are calm.”

 That run of matches without a victory added to the pressure he felt to make a difference. “Everyone is waiting for you to do something but it’s not easy to go past three or four players and score,” Taarabt says. “And sometimes it’s not ‘on’ and you should not do it but you try to do it because you are thinking ‘but I have to do something’.

 “It means you end up ‘forcing’ your game and you should never do that.”

 That, he says, is changing. Maturity means he is more aware of when and when not to run with the ball. “I think I’ve improved a lot,” Taarabt says. “When I was 17 it was dribble, dribble, dribble. Now I’m mixing it much more. I think I’ve improved a lot and that’s normal. I’m getting older.”

 There is frustration that QPR have given away “too many cheap goals”. “It’s been too easy for the opponent and it’s been like that all season,” he says. “If you play against Man United and Rooney or Van Persie put one in the top corner then fair enough but if you concede two goals at set pieces then that’s not acceptable. Concede to a piece of magic but not a set-piece.”

 Taarabt feels a crucial part of QPR. He has been continually linked with moves away – Paris St-Germain and more recently Manchester United – but states emphatically: “I’ve given to this club but this club gives me a lot. Every season people say ‘he’s going to leave’ but I am still here.

 “For me, coming here was the best decision I’ve made in my career and I hope, I think, I can do more for the club I feel important and want to continue to be so – to score goals, win games.

 “It’s been a very difficult season but we’re still in there with a chance. Everyone was thinking we were maybe out of it but I think we can do it.” Telegraph


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