Filed under: QPR, Championship, Premier League, Football
Put down your champagne glasses, QPR fans, it's time for a ponder. Amid the euphoria of Rangers securing the Championship title, there is a big question that needs answering: is Adel Taarabt, the talisman of Rangers' season, good enough for the top flight?Taarabt has been the standout player at Loftus Road - and by extension, the league - weighing in with 19 goals, putting him fifth in the scoring charts. But he also tops the list in assists with 16 for the season, two more than second-placed Grant Holt.
So on pure talent, the answer is simple: yes, he would be able to hack it in the Premier League. Players of far less skill have enjoyed long if unspectacular stints in the top flight.
But any assessment of the mercurial Moroccan cannot be done with mere statistics or measuring of talent.
Taarabt arrived at QPR on loan from Tottenham with the reputation as a player with an attitude problem - one whose self-belief surpassed their own ability.
He has thrived at QPR partly because of that natural talent, but also largely because of Neil Warnock's managerial skills. Under previous managers at Loftus Road he was far from the first name on the teamsheet, such as last season when he made 32 starts under four different bosses.
Even under Warnock - who after almost every game claimed that "a few years ago he wouldn't have been my type of player" - he has had his diva moments. Such as Hull away in January, when he flounced off the field in protest at being substituted, when he was having little impact on a dour, resolute Tigers side.
Or there is the way he arrived at Loftus Road in the first place. Warnock made it clear to Taarabt at the end of last season that he wanted to sign him permanently from Tottenham, but the playmaker refused to give him an answer - even after the manager had spelled out his ambitions for the campaign.
Warnock even went to Morocco to speak with his family to try and convince Taarabt that QPR was the right place for him - and was kept waiting for five days before he was granted an audience with the player.
The Rangers manager has said throughout the season that Taarabt is a player that makes him and the rest of the players tear their hair out, both on the training pitch and in matches. Another often repeated post-match line from the manager was: "If I were playing against him, I would kick him. And his team mates frequently do in training."
Taarabt will encounter far more difficult matches next season, where fellow teams with a priotory on securing safety such as Norwich, Wigan and Blackburn will do their best to stop him from playing. He will get less time on the ball and fewer chances to score.
And if Warnock has anything to do with it, there will be far more caveats on what he is and isn't allowed to do.
Because there were occasions this season where he kept the ball when he should have passed, or tried a trick where a side-foot to avoid a defender would have sufficed. This year he got away with most of them. Next year he will find that things that worked at Barnsley may not come off so well at Bolton.
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Source: http://www.fanhouse.co.uk/2011/05/09/adel-taarabt-will-thrive-in-premier-league-if-he-listens-to/
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