Queens Park Rangers' Toni Leistner has said he 'probably wouldn't go for a beer' with manager Mark Warburton, who stripped him of the captaincy at the start of the season.

Warburton changed a lot of things when he arrived at QPR in the summer. He brought in a host of new players and sent even more packing, and he also chose to give Grant Hall the role of club captain, stripping his centre-back partner Leistner of the responsibility.

Speaking to London Weekly News print edition, (Thursday 12th December, pg. 22), Leistner opened up about the former Brentford boss' decision and how he dealt with it:

"I have a professional relationship with the manager, the kind of 'normal' relationship any player has with his coach. But I doubt that we would ever go for a beer together."

There were rumours of a strained relationship between the two after Leistner began the season on the bench for QPR, and the German has now opened up about Warburton's decision to drop him at the beginning of the season:

"Being dropped was hard because last year I played 47 games for this club and all of them as captain. So it was a new thing for me to be left out of the starting XI, and the gaffer never really explained to me why I wasn't part of his plans. But I took it on the chin and accepted his decision with humility.

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"Apparently the manager needed someone with whom he could communicate more often and that wasn't the case with me. However, I am not a person to hold grudges... I have no hard feelings because every manager has a different philosophy and we players have no choice but to accept it."

Leistner has had some critics this season for his performances in defence but he's proven his importance to the starting line-up with enough solid ones, the last two alongside Grant Hall being some of his best in a QPR shirt.

The verdict

It's a bold decision for a manager to come into a club and right away change the captain. It would've disheartened Leistner who's always given 100% when playing for the club, and who's well-liked by the fan-base.

He's showed his professionalism to work his way back into the team and remain an important player though, and Warburton probably couldn't imagine a defence without him in it now.