Ouch Harold - 'he's on the ropes'

Harry Redknapp's Adel Taarabt outburst was preposterous prattle from a panicking manager ... there is no excuse for QPR boss's deliberate ploy to smear the player
Harry Redknapp said Adel Taarabt was 'about three stone overweight'
The QPR manager's outburst came at a press conference last week
Taarabt showed off his trim physique and said he's ready to play
The incident smack of a desperate manager trying to seek a diversion

By PATRICK COLLINS FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
PUBLISHED: 22:55, 25 October 2014 | UPDATED: 12:39, 26 October 2014

Harry Redknapp has been gainfully involved in football management for more than 30 years.
His successes have been few but his employment has been regular. This is because he understands how the game works. In particular, he understands the art of self-preservation.
His performance after QPR’s latest defeat was taken straight from the play-book he helped to write.
QPR are a desperately poor side and two years of Harry’s stewardship has not improved them.

They were unfortunate to lose to Liverpool but the reality is that they are bottom of the Premier League with just four points from 24.
It was time for a desperate manager to seek a diversion and Redknapp found it in an innocent query about his non-selection of Adel Taarabt. The resulting rant deserves to be enshrined in Gothic script.
‘I can’t protect people who don’t want to run and train and are about three stone overweight,’ declared Redknapp.
‘Taarabt’s not injured. He’s not fit to play football, unfortunately. What am I supposed to keep saying? Keep getting your £60,000, £70,000 and don’t train? What’s the game coming to?’
There was more in that populist vein but we sensed, not for the first time, that reality might shortly raise its voice. And Taarabt’s response was devastating. Far from being ‘three stone overweight,’ he was athletically trim. He stepped on the scales and posed for pictures to make his point.
He also added a fascinating insight into Redknapp’s managerial methods: ‘He spends most of the time in his office but, when he gets off the phone, he comes down to watch for five or 10 minutes — he never takes a session. The training sessions aren’t the same standard as Milan, or what I would expect under another manager.’
Taarabt shows off his physique to Sportsmail photographer Andy Hooper
Taarabt hit back at Redknapp's claims he is three stone overweight, but the QPR boss has returned
Taarabt shows off his physique to Sportsmail photographer Andy Hooper in response to Redknapp's insults
Now if you were seeking a standard bearer for the ideal professional, then the unpredictable Adel Taarabt may not be your man. But he does not deserve to have his reputation spitefully smeared by a panicking manager.
By now, Redknapp was pinned to the ropes, yet managed to prattle: ‘The only reason he has lost weight is because he has had tonsillitis — even I could suck my stomach in for a picture and look OK’.
Tonsillitis! Even by Harry’s standards, it was preposterous. Either he had discovered the ultimate slimming aid, or he had been caught out in a fantasy. Judging by the derisive laughter, the public had made up its mind. QPR chairman Tony Fernandes apologised to fans for the ‘embarrassment’ caused by the ludicrous spat and spoke of his ‘disappointment’ with both manager and player.
And we sensed that Fernandes may have found the episode strangely revealing. As the entrepreneurial driving force behind the successful AirAsia budget airline, he clearly has some awareness of the importance of tranquil relationships between employer and employees. Certainly, he will not have been familiar with the 19th-century approach to industrial relations which English football has unthinkingly embraced.
Fuming Harry Redknapp slams 'three stone overweight' Adel Taarabt

Taarabt posted this image on his Instagram showing himself working hard on a bike during training

Taarabt posted this image on his Instagram showing himself working hard on a bike during training
Taarabt attacks the Burton defence during QPR's Capital One Cup second round match in August
Taarabt attacks the Burton defence during QPR's Capital One Cup second round match in August
Ever since Redknapp came into the game, more than half a century ago, he has learned to regard the manager as the ultimate autocrat. His word is law, his authority is absolute. Privately, a player may think him wrong, foolish or simply incompetent, but such thoughts are never voiced. For he is the manager, the ‘boss’, the ‘gaffer’, ordained by custom and practice. And if that gaffer should decide to hurl a few public insults at a player who may have displeased him, well, that is his God-given right.
Those employees are rather better rewarded these days; ‘£60,000, £70,000’, as Redknapp resentfully revealed. But the essential relationship is unchanged; they are still expected to doff their metaphorical cloth caps to the mill-owner, who can make or break them with a single, vengeful phrase. And they are expected to accept this Dickensian code without a whisper of protest.
In truth, it is a feudal system which demeans the players and deludes the managers. But football at large has known no other way and managers like Redknapp are patently content with that situation.
Redknapp's style subscribes to an outdated Dickensian management model that demeans players
+11
Redknapp's style subscribes to an outdated Dickensian management model that demeans players
Mercifully, the worm is starting to turn. The players’ sense of self respect is beginning to match their professional status. The Taarabt case is a poor example, since he has no future with QPR and therefore has little to lose. But other, more reflective, footballers increasingly deplore a system which demands such archaic deference.
It is said that, in the closing years of his time at Old Trafford, Sir Alex Ferguson was steadily moving away from the old methods. Tea cups no longer flew, boots were no longer kicked and the hair-dryer was returned to its case.
Players, in particular foreign players, were not prepared to be routinely insulted in that fashion. And Ferguson was a brilliantly talented, overwhelmingly successful football manager.
If stars such as Ferguson could see the way the game was changing, then functionaries like Redknapp have no excuse for their insulting ignorance. ‘What’s the game coming to?’, he blustered. Perhaps it is time that somebody told him...

Devastating article - seems the tabloids has smelt his blood...... he cannot train / no plan / poor people manager. Excuse after excuse - who's job is it to get the team to gel / train / get fit / have a strategy......
Why did we go up last year - The first 12 games before our real manager at the club then left for Derby....
Does not give a monkey about us -self serving piece of garbage......

 

Sorry this was as far as I got.

Seriously...



'kin hell.

Not quite sure which of the above belongs to either you or Patrick Collins WLLLL, but I'll amend one quote for truth.

'Arry, Mark Hughes, Kia Joorchabian, NW, Mike Rigg, Uncle Tom Cobleigh. Bunch of reprehensible bastards every last one. And utterly irrelevant to any problems we face.

If it were me I'd be looking at the one constant.

Teflon Tone, Foghorn Leghorn himself, strutting and booming around twatter this week:

Quite so. You tell 'em Teflon Tone.

 

I don't get it. Where's the satisfaction in running Caterham and QPR into the ground?

Surely not the best adverts for Air Asia?

 

Well that's a load of old bollocks, thanks for posting!

 

Monkey Business ?

 

Patrick Collins is a dreary old foreskin.

 

As in paying peanuts?

All they need to do is up SWP's wages and he'll turn into a world beater.

 

I just added the last 2 lines - the rest is a cut n paste