QPR’s £1m signing from Spurs will never be forgotten: View
He looked like a risky signing at the time, but Adel Taarabt ended up being one of the best players the Championship has ever seen
Queens Park Rangers haven’t hit the heights of the top flight of English football in recent years, but they are now looking to rebuild under Marti Cifuentes and take the club back to past times.
Having won the Championship in 2011, three of the Hoops’ next four seasons would be spent in the Premier League.
But the R’s were known for spending big on player wages, with two of those three seasons in the top flight ending with the West London side finishing bottom of the league.
Whilst those years for the most part saw players that were past their best and in very high wages wearing the blue and white hoops, there was one player who helped bring them up in the first place – his name is Adel Taarabt.
Adel Taarabt was a joy to watch at Loftus Road
Taarabt arrived at Loftus Road in March 2009, joining on a short-term loan deal until the end of the season from Tottenham Hotspur – the Moroccan scored once in seven appearances but saw his season cut short due to a knee injury.
Despite being signed by Paulo Sousa the season before, Jim Magilton brought Taarabt back on a season-long loan deal for the 2009/10 campaign.
He would go on to score seven and assist seven, as QPR finished 13th, and the volatile nature of the R’s under Flavio Briatore’s ownership would see four managers in the dugout at Loftus Road that season.
The Moroccan would finally sign permanently in the summer of 2010 for QPR – then managed by Neil Warnock – for a fee of £1 million, and his first season as a permanent QPR player would be the one that would go down in Championship folklore.
The 2010-11 season would see QPR win the Championship despite the threat of a late points deduction, meaning they would play in the Premier League for the first time since 1996.
It was Taarabt who stole the show though in that season – with Warnock putting his arm around him, he would score 19 goals and get 17 assists in 44 league games, with his skills and flair making him an exciting player to watch.
His performances that year earned him a place in the Championship Best XI, and he would also win the Championship Player of the Year.
At £1 million, Taarabt has gone down as one of the best bargains in Championship history – and one of the best players the league has seen, just for the 2010-11 season alone.
Commonly labelled as a ‘streets won’t forget’ player, Taarabt’s skill moves and flair is unlike anything anyone had ever seen, and seen since, especially at Championship level.
It is unfortunate though that attitude problems and playing for one of the teams fighting it out near the bottom of the Premier League meant he never really got to showcase his talents on the biggest stage.
His career never quite reached the heights of 2010-11 – he would go on loan to Fulham in 2013 when the R’s were relegated back to the Championship and for the second half of the season he would join A.C. Milan, and after an unsuccessful time under Harry Redknapp at Loftus Road in 2014-15, Taarabt would be sold to Benfica in 2015.
Taarabt somewhat remodelled himself in Portugal to become more of a holding midfielder over the years, showing a bit less of the flair that made him a must-watch player at QPR and more of a professional side to himself.
Now with Al-Nasr in the United Arab Emirates playing as either a striker or attacking midfielder, Taarabt is 34 and seeing out his career.
But the QPR fans – and Championship supporters in general – will never forget how talented Taarabt was, and just how much of a bargain he was.
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