A guest blog from Daniel Woodley to provide some rare balance to my usual bile…
It HAS BEEN a roller-coaster ride for one of English football’s most likeable characters. Earlier this week Harry Redknapp announced his resignation as manager of Queens Park Rangers citing medical reasons for doing so.
A managerial career that has spun 32 years, taking him from Bournemouth to Queens Park Rangers, with spells at West Ham, Southampton, Portsmouth and Tottenham Hotspur in between, it has certainly been an interesting ride for the 67-year old.
His finest achievement in the game has to be leading Spurs into the 2010-2011 UEFA Champions League season. After initially taking over in 2008, with Tottenham bottom of the Premier League, he turned the fortunes of the North London club around, and took them to Europe’s Elite competition. After memorable wins over both Milan clubs, AC and Inter, Spurs were eventually knocked out by Spanish giants Real Madrid in the quarter-finals. Spurs fans look back on that season with fondness but both the clubs and Harry’s fortunes have changed since then.
Redknapp’s dismissal at White Hart Lane was met with shock during the summer of 2012, but it shouldn’t have done so. After Tottenham Chairman Daniel Levy had stuck with the Poplar-born manager during his tax evasion court case in February 2012, Harry refused to commit his future to the club, due to media reports that he was favourite for the England job. Tottenham’s end of season fortunes took a turn for the worse, with the club picking up only six points from 27 available during the court case. That run of form meant Spurs dropped from 3rd place to 4th and they missed out on Champions League football due to Chelsea winning the trophy.
On May 1st Roy Hodgson was confirmed as the new manager of the national side and Redknapp wanted an improved contract in North London. He immediately went to the Spurs board demanding a new deal, and rightly so his demands were swiftly rejected. His exit was confirmed on 13 June.
His move to Queens Park Rangers in November 2012 was expected to galvanise the struggling club but after a 0-0 draw with Reading in April they were relegated to the Championship. The following campaign they reached the play-off final at Wembley and defeated Steve McClaren’s Derby County 1-0 thanks to a late Bobby Zamora goal.
Redknapp drew many plaudits for taking the club back into the Premier League at the first time of asking but in truth they should have gone up automatically, what with the playing squad and finances at their disposal. A team boasting the likes of Charlie Austin, Joey Barton, Richard Dunne, Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Rob Green, Jermaine Jenas, Niko Kranjcar, Nedum Onuoha, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Bobby Zamora should not have had to rely on the play-offs to get promoted.
In effect Redknapp, even though gaining promotion, had done a poor job that season. The promoted sides that did go up automatically, Burnley and Leicester City, did so on a much smaller budget. QPR finished a staggering 22 points behind The Foxes, and 13 behind Sean Dyche’s Burnley.
Heading into this season Redknapp further invested in his squad with the additions of Steven Caulker, Leroy Fer, Rio Ferdinand, Mauricio Isla, Sandro, Eduardo Vargas and Mauro Zarate.
QPR have one of the biggest wage bills in the Barclays Premier League and a squad with tonnes of experience at the top level of domestic and international football yet they find themselves struggling near the bottom.
There has been questions over the past few weeks about whether or not Redknapp could survive in the hot seat at Loftus Road any longer. The cost of relegation these days is estimated at around £40m and with the high wages paid to many of their players, QPR simply can’t afford to go down.
Many feel that Redknapp has taken the easy way out and used his upcoming knee operation as an excuse. Some will say that is disrespectful and somewhat hurtful to one of the game’s most respected characters, however, there is some foundation to their claims.
QPR are currently languishing in 19th place in the Premier League and have failed to secure a single point on the road this season. With their home form also patchy it is vital they start to pick up valuable points on the road. A 3-1 defeat to Stoke City last weekend saw the first signs of a broken man. Harry was cut a forlorn figure after the game and his mood hadn’t changed on Monday night.
Harry Redknapp and Transfer Deadline Day have been a match made in heaven for many years. Who can forget the signing of Rafael Van der Vaart from Real Madrid during his Spurs days? But earlier this week it was a much different story. Redknapp looked frustrated, somewhat fed up, and appeared to take a swipe at Les Ferdinand, Head of Football Operations (at the time) due to his inability to bring players in. You could see something was wrong.
Then at 5.30am the very next morning Redknapp phoned the owner of QPR, Tony Fernandes, to resign from the club.
That alone is not something a person resigning on “medical grounds” would do. Who goes to visit a surgeon at 5.30am? Is there even a surgeon in the UK open at that time of the morning?
It seems a strange coincidence that Harry resigns a few hours after Transfer Deadline Day when the club failed to make a signing even though their manager had reportedly been at the training ground for 13 hours.
Redknapp resigned, in my opinion and for many others, due to the clubs failure to back him during the transfer window. And after spending so much on transfers over the past couple of years who can blame them? With so many players brought in, with a mixture of youth and experience, on big wages it’s no surprise that QPR were reluctant to hand more money to a manager that was probably on his way out of the club in the summer anyway.
Add the fact that the South London side are struggling, with the squad bereft of confidence, then you can see why Redknapp has decided to call it a day.
There will be those in support of Harry’s decision based on his medical condition but as Jacqui Oatley said yesterday: “Lucky for Harry that QPR weren’t on the brink of a Champions League place as he’d have been gutted about having to leave for a knee op”.
Some will say that’s cynical but the BBC and ITV presenter makes a very good point. Spurs fans will be wondering “what if Harry had left the club during his trial”. Could they have finished 3rd and ahead of Arsenal?
Let’s be honest about this. It was always going to end ugly for QPR and Redknapp. Their relationship over the past two and a half years has appeared strained at times. Fernandes himself has had to come out on a regular basis to dismiss rumours of a rift between the pair.
Even after selling Jordan Mutch to Crystal Palace for £4.5m last week the club didn’t want to invest that back in the playing squad. That shows the lack of confidence and support they had for Redknapp, mainly due to his track record in the market since his arrival at the club.
Harry’s knee replacement could spark the end of his career in football management. With the game evolving, both on and off the pitch, it remains to be seen whether his ideas and philosophy can work again in the future. With many younger managers now having to change their styles to keep up with the changes; Redknapp’s record over the past couple of years suggests that maybe his managerial career has run out of legs.
