The 5 most controversial QPR players in history named and ranked by AI | OneFootball

Football League World have asked ChatGPT to identify the 5 most controversial players in the history of Queens Park Rangers, here's what it told us.

Football League World have asked ChatGPT to rank the five most controversial players in the history of Queens Park Rangers, and here's what it told us.

With more than a year and a half in administration between 2001 and 2002, being the first English club to install a highly controversial artificial playing surface in 1981 and a team that finished desperately close to becoming the champions of England in 1976, the history of Queens Park Rangers hasn't been without its controversy.

This extends to their players, too. All football clubs have a history of players who didn't work out or couldn't behave themselves, and Rangers are certainly no exception. With all of this in mind, FLW have called upon ChatGPT to rank the five most controversial QPR players of all-time.

A quick scan of the list says something very telling about the history of this club. Of the five players on it, four of them come from the years between 2010 and 2015. This was, it's reasonable to say, a highly controversial period in the history of the club. In May 2011, an FA investigation involving their acquisition of Alejandro Faurlín over third-party ownership rule breaches resulted in a fine of £875,000.

Later in the same year, Tony Fernandes took ownership of the club. At the end of the 2011-12 season, they were the team that Manchester City beat to claim their first Premier League title, but they were relegated the following season and two years later, having won promotion straight back, were relegated back in bottom place again.

They haven't been a Premier League club since, but at least things have settled down behind the scenes after a lengthy period during which they occasionally looked more like a soap opera than a football club.

Mbia is described by ChatGPT as having been "a key part of the chaotic 2012–13 QPR relegation season", but it's for what happened after the end of that season that he's probably best remembered at Loftus Road.

Having been part of the swap deal which took Joey Barton to Marseille, Mbia landed himself in hot water by sending a Tweet to Barton asking if he wanted to swap places with him again.

Mbia at first denied sending the tweet, claiming to have been hacked, but he later admitted to having sent it himself and was fined by the club. He never got a return to Marseille, but he was loaned out to Sevilla in August 2013 and made the transfer permanent a year later.

Benoît Assou-Ekotto was with Spurs for nine years, but courted controversy throughout his career. He spent the 2013-14 season on loan at Loftus Road, and ChatGPT describes him as being "known for a rebellious streak and inflammatory comments about football being "just a job".

His time with Rangers didn't see the controversy let up. In December 2013, he was charged by the FA for improper conduct over Tweets he sent to Nicolas Anelka relating to gestures that were widely seen as anti-semitic. He also had what could best be described as a strained relationship with the Rangers manager Harry Redknapp, with the manager being openly critical of him towards the end of his time at Loftus Road.

3 ? ? Mark Hateley

ChatGPT states that Mark Hateley was "signed in 1995 for a then-large fee and widely viewed as a transfer mistake" and that he "delivered little impact and became a symbol of poor recruitment".

Hateley arrived at Loftus Road with a big reputation, having played for Milan, Monaco and Rangers prior to his £1.5 million transfer in November 1995, and having also won 32 caps for England. But he just 27 appearances for the club over two seasons before briefly going on loan to Leeds and then re-signing for Rangers.

Whether that makes him more controversial than Benoît Assou-Ekotto or Stéphane Mbia is open to question, and Hateley himself admitted to the Open Goal podcast in 2022 that the decision to move to QPR was a mistake, saying that: "My dad always said to never make a decision when injured, or in ill-health, because invariably it will be the wrong decision, an emotional decision. I knew after literally ten days that it was the wrong move."

2 ? ? Adel Taarabt

It's back to the early 2010s with Adel Taarabt, who ChatGPT describes as "brilliant but unpredictable".

Taarabt had already caused a commotion prior to signing for Rangers, having told the Evening Standard in 2010 that joining his previous club Spurs was a "mistake" and he should have joined Arsenal instead.

Having spent the 2010-11 season on loan at Loftus Road, he made the switch permanent in 2011 for a reported fee of up to £1 million, and unlike several others on this list he did deliver on the pitch, scoring 19 goals and contributing a whopping 21 assists.

But he failed to shine in the Premier League and was publicly criticised by Joey Barton over his attitude after being substituted during a 6-0 defeat for Rangers at Fulham, with Barton telling Absolute Radio: "If I was Adel and I had Adel's ability I'd not be wanting to come up short having not worked hard enough. He was told he was a genius; I've yet to see it, and I don't know whether that's because he doesn't work hard enough or whether he tends to sulk."

Taarabt had loan spells at Fulham and Milan, but when he returned to Loftus Road for the 2014-15 season, the Rangers manager described him as "three stone overweight". He left for Benfica the following summer, having only made seven Premier League appearances for Rangers after returning.

"No QPR controversy list is complete without Joey Barton," says ChatGPT, and it's true to say that controversy has followed him around throughout both his playing career and his post-retirement activities.

Barton joined QPR in August 2011 on a free transfer from Newcastle United, and scored his first goal for them three weeks later against Wolves. Following a confrontation with Wolves' Karl Henry after the goal, Barton called the Wolves midfielder an "idiot" and "inferior". Henry responded by saying that Barton was "embarrassing".

On the final day of the 2011-12 season, with QPR requiring at least a draw from their trip Manchester City or for Bolton Wanderers to not win in order to stay up, Barton was sent off in the 55th minute for violent misconduct after elbowing Carlos Tevez in the face.

Immediately after being shown the red card, he kicked Sergio Agüero in the back of the leg, attempted to headbutt Vincent Kompany and had to be dragged from the pitch. QPR lost the match 3-2 but stayed up because Bolton also lost, but that was far from the end of the story.

Barton received a twelve-match ban, was stripped of the QPR captaincy, fined, and not given a squad number for the following season. After a year on loan in Marseille, during which his anger management issues continued to follow him around, he returned to QPR despite having said that he wouldn't play in the Championship. Rangers were promoted back to the Premier League at the end of the 2013-14 season.

But despite a return to the Premier League, Barton's issues with controlling his temper continued. After picking up the 9th red card of his career for striking Hull City's Tom Huddlestone in February 2015, the new Rangers manager Chris Ramsey suggested anger management therapy for Barton, and at the end of that season, with Queens Park Rangers having been relegated again, he was released and signed for Burnley.