QPR legend Rodney Marsh believes Harry Redknapp has a better player in Niko Kranjcar than Adel Taarabt.

Redknapp signed Croatia international Kranjcar on loan from Dynamo Kiev in the final hours of transfer deadline day, in light of Taarabt’s move to Fulham on a season-long loan.

The manager has since indicated his desire to see the Moroccan remain at Craven Cottage on a permanent deal.

Kranjcar, meanwhile, has made an impressive start to his QPR career, and former Rs No10 Marsh believes he has all the attributes missing from Taarabt’s game.

“I think Taarabt is one of those fantastically skilled players that will end up in his career scoring about 20 goals total,” said Marsh.

“It has always been the same in football. It is not enough to be talented. You have to apply yourself to your career and you have to apply yourself to playing football matches and you have to produce.

“Some players will produce a hell of a lot more than others. Some will average 20 goals a season throughout their careers.

“One year in the Championship he was fantastic and rightly got all the credit but the bottom line is you have to do that over a 10 or 15-year career and I just don’t see him doing that. I do like him though. He is similar to me without the production.

“Whereas Kranjcar is a much more productive player in general terms. I think he is a top quality player.”

Marsh is surprised that no Premier League side came in for Kranjcar, who recently admitted he was desperate to return to England after an unhappy season in Ukraine.

“When he was at Spurs he scored some fantastic goals and I don’t think he got a fair shake there,” added Marsh.

“I don’t know if that’s because of managers coming and going but now he is with a team that likes him.”

Marsh believes that his old side have the quality to achieve promotion this season, but must avoid a repetition of the mistakes that hampered their two previous seasons in the Premier League.

He added: “The squad of players that QPR have got at the moment is certainly good enough to get automatic promotion back into the Premier League but I don’t look at it as one year at a time.

“I’ve said this for years and years and years, I look at it in a three, five and seven-year plan.

“If I was the owners of QPR I wouldn’t be looking at this season. I’d be looking at next season and the season beyond that.

“The definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same thing and doing the same thing, and expecting a different outcome.

“I fully expect QPR – should they go up – to make the changes that they failed to do under Mark Hughes.

“I think when you re-evaluate your squad you have to bring in the type of player that isn’t just coming for money alone.

“I like players like Clint Hill – they are my type of players. Now you have to have the flair players – people who can create and score goals as well but they have to be joining for the right reasons.

“Under Mark Hughes there were 13 or 14 players and most of them only just came for the money.

“In my earlier days I would have looked at Mark Hughes or whoever the manager was but as you get long in the tooth you realise that ultimately the buck stops with the owner and chairman.

“If they screw up and they don’t make the necessary decisions then you end up with what happened at QPR.”