QPR vs West Brom preview - Warnock hits out at Taarabt's `advisors'

Posted Saturday, December 03, 2011 by PA

QPR manager Neil Warnock has pleaded with Adel Taarabt to start making the most out of his "great ability".

The 22-year-old was one of the Hoops' star players in last season's Championship and was tipped to shine in the Premier League.

However, Taarabt has failed to live up to his billing this campaign and often found himself making the headlines for the wrong reasons.

The Morocco international was left out of last week's match at Norwich, but Warnock hinted he could feature against West Brom.

"It would be easy to toss him to one side, but I have a lot of time for him and he is a lovely lad," Warnock said.

"Like quite a lot of professionals in the game, especially those from abroad, they get a lot of people around them or what I call 'advisors'.

"As I said to Adel, if you finish in football next week you might find you lose one or two of those 'advisors'.

"But that is life, that is growing up and he is honest for a young lad.

"It is hard for him when people put a lot of things in his mind.

"I have said to him that whatever happens, whether he stays here, goes in January, goes at the end of the season, that he has to work and train for Adel Taarabt, not these people.

"They won't make him better and I think it is a shame.

"Adel can always [make money] but he is better than that. I will be sad if he ends up going to make some money because I think he has great ability.

"He didn't travel last week and trained on his day off last week and trained Saturday morning while we were at Norwich.

"He has looked sharper this week, a lot better, so hopefully he will be involved."

Joey Barton will return to the QPR starting line-up after completing a one-match ban, although Shaun Wright-Phillips is a doubt.

There were fears that the former Manchester City winger had broken his foot last week at Norwich and, while Warnock has confirmed there is not a break, Wright-Phillips could miss the Loftus Road encounter.

Meanwhile, Defender Gareth McAuley admits his first taste of Barclays Premier League football at the age of 31 is even sweeter after revealing a mystery summer stomach virus threatened to end his career.

Northern Ireland skipper McAuley is looking forward to the possibility of a 10th successive start after finally breaking into the side in late September.

He has formed an impressive centre-back partnership alongside Jonas Olsson since a suspension picked up by Gabriel Tamas handed him his opportunity.

But it was almost a different story after McAuley's first chance of top-flight football following a move from Ipswich was put on hold by the illness.

McAuley said: "I couldn't have got a worse start than when I came here and got that virus. For a while I was actually thinking that I was just going to finish.

"It was getting to that stage. By that stage, I'd had the illness for six to eight weeks and I just wasn't getting over it.

"You just wonder where it will end, or if that is the end. That's what I felt.

"Now, when I look back at photos from then, I can see that I was in a bad way.

"I look terrible, really unhealthy, but we didn't know what had caused it or anything like that."

Thankfully for McAuley, the illness eventually subsided.

He said: "I had some tests and they showed everything was okay. They said it was a post-virus reaction.

"For a week we dropped the training right back and gave my body just time to fight back and get the virus out of my system.

"From there it was a matter of hard work, eating the right food to get the weight and the muscle mass back on so that I was strong enough to compete. Fortunately things have picked up from there."