 Thursday, 5th Aug 2010 12:39 by Clive Whittingham Adel Taarabt has finally completed a permanent move to QPR, signing a three year contract in a cut price transfer from Tottenham Hotspur. Facts Taarabt originally signed for Spurs in 2007 from RC Lens in France for a fee rising to £3m. The Moroccan international, who now has seven caps and three goals for his country, was brought to White Hart Lane when former QPR scout Mel Johnson was leading Spurs’ European Scouting network and has been praised by Harry Redknapp as one of the most skilful players he has ever worked with. Tottenham could never really find a proper position for him within their team though and he has therefore been restricted to 15 appearances for them, all from the bench. The majority of the senior appearances in taarabt’s career have come at QPR who he spent a short spell on loan with in 2008/09, the entire season on loan in 2009/10, and has now signed permanently on a three year contract for an initial fee of £600,000, rising to £1m based on appearances and achievements. Earlier this summer Neil Warnock flew to Taarabt’s home in Morocco to try and persuade the player to sign for QPR this season. Traabt started 32 games for Rangers last season and came off the bench on ten occasions. He scored nine goals, including the club’s goal of the season at home to Preston in the league in October. He has been assigned the number seven shirt at Rangers after completing his move today. Reaction R’s manager Neil Warnock said: “I'm glad to have finally tied Adel up. He's a player who has got a unique talent and I'm hoping that we can channel it for the good of QPR. I've been very patient and I've probably worn him down over the past few months. We're delighted to have him on board and he gives us that little bit of quality that you need. I think it's good for him that he knows where he's going to be permanently now. Long-term, his target is still to play at the very top level, and I'm hoping that we can help him to achieve that. “He's a player with a unique talent that can win games and that's what we're hoping that he does. I've told him that I think it's in his best interests at his age to play games. I think that he could pull the hair out of a few managers' heads, and I'm sure I'll have my moments this year, but that's part of the challenge. You've got to focus more on his good points, than what he doesn't do. “I've been after two or three strikers for a while now. I've been patient and have finally been rewarded. Hopefully I can get my other target in the next week or so.” qpr.co.uk Taarabt said: “I'm delighted to be back, I had options to go elsewhere, but what Neil said to me was very positive and I've made the decision to join QPR. Over the past year, everyone at the Club has been great to me - it feels like home here. This is the first time in my life that I've had ambition. Before, I'd play football just to enjoy it, but now I've come to an age where I have to step up. I don't think there's a Manager that wants me as much as the Neil does. I feel the Club will move forward under him - I've come here because next year I want to play in the Premier League.” qpr.co.uk Opinion This is the second summer in a row that we’ve secured the signing of Adel Taarabt at the last minute after a protracted chase. This time last year we’d had a brief taste of his talents during a short term loan under Paulo Sousa and there was such a clamour for his signature among the support base that when it was finally made a week before the start of the campaign optimism levels soared. I remember frantically making last minute alterations to the LoftforWords season preview, lifting us from tenth to seventh in my predicted league table solely on the basis of his signing. Ultimately even with Taarabt, and Jay Simpson who came later, we could still only manage 13th. That’s the thing with Taarabt, mercurial player though he is he won’t win us every game by himself. Occasionally, when he’s in the mood, he does have the ability to win us points by himself – his team mates had little to do with the 2-2 draw at Preston last season where Adel hauled us back from two goals down with an outstanding performance. But this summer the mood has been a lot calmer with regards to the Moroccan. Some are not even convinced we should be signing him at all, although if the quoted price is correct then I’m sure even his harshest critics would concede we’ve done a very good deal. Hopefully expectations will be a little more tapered this season when it comes to Taarabt. Twice last season supporters barracked him at games to the point where he responded with offensive gestures towards them, and once he even demanded that Neil Warnock substitute him. That sort of behaviour is unforgiveable and cannot be repeated this season. Having spent the second half of last season and most of the summer talking of his impending move to La Liga hopefully the reality of having to step down to the Championship and sign with QPR again will just check Taarabt’s ego slightly and his behaviour, and game, may improve as a result. But from a supporters’ point of view, I think we have to change our attitude towards him as well. Taarabt will score some really special goals for us this season. Last term he beat four Preston players on a jinking run from the halfway line that ended with him curling the ball into the top corner. We marvelled at the skill and craft involved in the goal. However the incidents where he gestured towards the Loft came when he tried to beat four or five men on his own rather than passing the ball to a team mate in a better position. Now for me this is where the fans’ attitude has to change – if you want to see Adel score spectacular goals then you have to let him try. His attraction lies not in his ability to beat four men and score every single time, but in his ability to beat four men and score more times than anybody else we currently have in our team. If all our players tried to do what Taarabt did against Preston at home last season a thousand times, only a handful of them would manage to do it once. Taarabt may succeed ten or even 15 times. It’s almost hypocritical to stand and applaud and cheer Taarabt when it comes off and abuse him when it doesn’t. The videos of George Best and Rodney Marsh and Stan Bowles focus on the brilliance they produced, but were they brilliant for the entire game? No, they were just more brilliant than everybody else more of the time. No I’m not comparing Taarabt to those three before I get letters, he’s like a Championship version of them. Taarabt’s shots to goals ratio is awful, and he will shoot when he should pass, and he will take people on when he should pass, and he will lose the ball in bad areas. But sometimes he will ghost past four men and rip the ball straight into the top corner as if the keeper isn’t even there. Now I can say the former about most of our players, but I can’t say the latter about anybody else currently on our books. In my opinion we should just put up with the former because it’s a necessary evil to enjoy the latter. To beat four players and score you must first take on four players, and if you do that regularly as Taarabt does then you cannot possibly expect to beat them every time. Taarabt will have to change his own attitude as well though. Sometimes there simply is no other option than to pass the ball and you can look just as good and be just as effective playing a killer pass as scoring the goal yourself. Taarabt didn’t score at Deepdale last season, but there was only one person everybody was talking about afterwards and hopefully that was a sign of Warnock’s influence taking effect. Sometimes supporters will lose their rag and criticise, instead of waving arms and gesturing at them Taarabt must simply accept that they’ve paid a lot of money to be there and have a right to have a say. Most of all though Taarabt must now accept, having been sold off on the cheap by Spurs to a Championship club, that he’s really not as good as he thinks he is. He cannot simply come out after bad games and say “well I’m off to La Liga next season anyway” because he’s not. La Liga had its chance this summer and left him well alone. Arsenal aren’t interested either. He’s undoubtedly supremely talented so he has to ask himself why he’s wound up back with us which, whatever he says, was clearly his last choice. Hopefully this move will inject some humility, Neil Warnock’s experienced hand can guide him, and a permanent deal at QPR will improve his attitude towards the club and its fans. Certainly his quotes about new found ambition and his thoughts on Warnock suggest that he’s heading in the right direction attitude wide. If so, we’ll have a superb player on our hands. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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