Harry Redknapp

I was recently talking to a QPR fan about the plight of his side this season and what has been a disastrous nine months or so for The Hoops. Joey Barton on final day of last season aside, most QPR fans thought that with sensible investment, the difficult days of a relegation threatened season after promotion would be behind them. This, in their case, was unfortunately to be misguided optimism. Whereas there had been investment from the owner, Tony Fernandes, results didn’t change and this season has been considerably worse. Many blame Mark Hughes, but one person who seems to have slipped under the radar and come out of this unscathed is Harry Redknapp.

Now, as we know, a shade over a year ago, ‘Arry was being courted by the media to become the new England manager. Roy Hodgson eventually took that position and after being unceremoniously sacked by Tottenham, Redknapp was out of a job. Taking over as QPR manager from the hugely unpopular Mark Hughes, Harry was brought in on November 24th. Though his appointment was popular, the aim, to keep the side in The Premiership, failed. Is this something though that should come as such a big surprise?

As touched upon above, the media have a love affair with Redknapp. He’s eloquent, always has a ready quip and entertains with his lovable rogue demeanor. On the unfortunate disappointing signing Paulo Futre for West Ham in 1996, Redkanpp claimed that Futre had told him that it had been his ‘dream as a youngster to play for West Ham’ and played ‘in the backstreets of Lisbon in his West Ham replica shirt while growing up’ and thus making it more of a shame that the move didn’t work out. Of course, His tongue was firmly in his cheek as these claims were made and the media lapped it up. He was becoming a media darling. Similar of course the failed experiment with Dumitrescu and Raducioiu, who on struggling to make an impact and going AWOL caused Redknapp to wryly claim he would ‘never buy Romanian again’ with a smirk on his face. All well and good I suppose, as when our side was guaranteed Premiership status us fans saw the funny side.

Harry of course left after falling out with the board due to remarks he made in a fanzine. In 2007 he admitted it was because of what he said but at the time of his dismissal he made out that he was the victim.  A brief history lesson tells us that he has since managed Portsmouth (twice), Southampton, Tottenham and now QPR. At Portsmouth he of course won promotion, and, after consolidating their place in the top flight, won the FA Cup against them. These successes were done over two spells. Between them was a brief managerial sojourn at Pompey’s neighbours and rivals Southampton. In that time Southampton were relegated and before he could gain promotion, he was back in the Fratton Park hotseat. From Pompey it was on to Tottenham. In his time here he guided Tottenham to the Champions League for the first time, before leaving last summer shortly after being linked with the England job. Now of course, he is QPR manager.

Now, though I’m admittedly being very negative and one-sided about Harry, I’ve based it on opinion and statistics. He left Portsmouth and Southampton after spending beyond his means and finances, both sides going into administration soon after his departure. At West Ham, yes he did bring in some great players, the likes of Paolo di Canio and Hartson great examples. But he also bought in the likes of Ian Wright and Davor Suker. Two strikers who would have been high earners, but very rarely played. Then there’s Spurs…… Taking over when Spurs were bottom of the table and moving them up the league is true BUT apart from the one season he qualified for The Champions League, he pretty much kept them in similar positions to where they had been progress. Yes, had Chelsea have not won The Champions League then they would have qualified last season, but for the outlay of money from Harry, there was no real progress. Harry even admitted himself that the job was easy and that any manager could do it compared to the QPR job. Now, we see him at QPR, and after having well over half the season to save them and being bankrolled in January by Tony Fernandes, he still sees himself as the manager of a relegated side. Is he this great manager we’re all led to believe he is? Or is he in fact better suited to having money at his disposal to throw at problems whenever they come along? There is no denying he took an unfancied Portsmouth team to Wembley for the FA Cup final, but then so did Avram Grant. There is also no denying that Portsmouth and Southampton were left in financial dire straits when he left the respective clubs and that Tottenham didn’t progress quite as much as he’ll lead you to believe.

A great character? Definitely. A great manager? I’m not so sure.

But these are just MY opinions

Peace out

Smudgy

@TheRobTaylor32