Taarabt hits back at QPR boss Redknapp over unfit claim and slams his coaching methods

Adel Taarabt has hit back at Harry Redknapp over claims he is overweight and not fit enough to play for the club and criticised his management of QPR.

Redknapp launched an attack on the Moroccan midfielder after Sunday’s defeat to Liverpool as he explained why he continues to leave him on the sidelines.

He said of the 25-year-old: "He's not fit to play football unfortunately. He played in a reserve game the other day and I could have run about more than he did.

“I can't keep protecting people who don't want to run about and train, who are about three stone overweight."

Taarabt has chosen to respond to those comments in a newspaper interview, insisting Redknapp is wrong to question his professionalism and even posing shirtless to prove he is in good shape.

"I am a professional - this is not about retaliation, this is about protecting my reputation," Taarabt said in the Daily Mail.

"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...

"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, who has made only three appearances for the club this season after finishing the last campaign on loan at AC Milan, went to blast Redknapp’s work on the training ground.

QPR are bottom of the Premier League after eight games and, according to Taarabt, the poor form is down to Redknapp's management style.

"The training sessions aren't the same standard as Milan, or what I would expect under another manager," he said.

"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'...

"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."