Taarabt was told off ahead of derby victory
Adel Taarabt was given a dressing-down by Harry Redknapp ahead of his match-winning performance against Fulham.
The Moroccan produced a brilliant display and scored twice to give QPR their first league win of the season and lift them off the bottom of the table.
It came five days after Taarabt was given a slap on the wrist for his reaction to being substituted at Wigan the previous weekend.
Redknapp explained: “I had a chat to him last Monday because I took him off and then he wasn’t in the best of moods and didn’t behave in the best of ways.
“But I had him in the office on Monday morning and had a good heart-to-heart chat with him and he’s responded to that.
“I’m not going to make out I put my arm around him, because it wasn’t really like that.
“I said to him: ‘Don’t throw your arms up when you lose the ball and don’t stand with your hands on your head. Just get after the ball when you lose it, otherwise everyone sees you’ve made a mistake and you’ve highlighted it to everybody’.”
Taarabt responded with a great display, prompting his manager to compare him to Paolo Di Canio.
Italian maverick Di Canio starred under Redknapp at West Ham and the Loftus Road boss believes Rangers’ number 10 is a similar player.
Redknapp said: “He’s hard work! It’s no use me saying otherwise – he is what he is.
“He can be a bit of a nut at times but his heart’s in the right place and he wants to do well.
“He’s temperamental but he’s an amazing talent. He’s my type of player – I love people with that ability.
“Paolo was difficult to handle too but he was genius who could win you match and Adel is the same.
“He’s like Di Canio, who I thought was a fantastic player – one of the all-time greats at West Ham. This boy’s the same. He can do things nobody else can do.
“He nutmegs people and he goes past two or three and they’re hanging on to him but they can’t get the ball off him. It’s amazing.”
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