Ex-Tottenham pair Harry Redknapp and Adel Taarabt have both raised the stakes in their savage war of words against each other at Queens Park Rangers.
The QPR boss delivered a withering assessment of the attacker’s condition by saying he was three stone overweight following the weekend defeat to Liverpool.
But after learning of Redknapp’s brutal comments, Taarabt, who spent the second half of last season on loan at Milan, struck back by mocking the former West Ham boss.
“When I was playing at Milan, sometimes Kaka or Robinho weren’t getting in the team,” Taraabt told The Daily Mail.
“Then I come to QPR, and that’s not to disrespect my teammates because I have a good relationship with them, but I was surprised I was not in the squad.
“I just think that obviously at QPR the fans love me, I love QPR and I love the fans. They are my club. You can’t break the relationship with me and the fans. He wants to get the fans against me.”
Taraabt went on to goad Redknapp for his poor training sessions.
“The training sessions aren’t the same standard as Milan, or what I would expect under another manager. They are not as intense, the players aren’t as motivated.
“When we played West Ham he told the players ‘you’re not fit, you’re not this, you’re not that’.
“I said ‘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’.”
Redknapp, though, has now hit back.
“The only reason he has lost weight is because he has had tonsillitis. That’s the only way we could get any weight off of him,” he told the Sun.
“He is not fit to play a game, that’s the truth. He is the worst professional I have ever come across and I have been his only ally at QPR for the past three years.
“He doesn’t try and I have protected him for too long.”
