Harry Redknapp or Harry Enfield? Failure to shed 1980s 'Loadsamoney' image led to 'Arry's downfall at QPR Dodgy spending rather than a dodgy knee prompted Harry Redknapp's Loftus Road exit, writes Jim White. By Eurosport51 minutes agoJim White please log in to view this image Former QPR manager Harry Redknapp struggles without a cheque book. Harry Redknapp has never had the most secure relationship with facts. A bit of seasoning, a touch of lily-gilding with a hint of exaggeration has always been the recipe he has followed when it comes to a yarn, a story, an anecdote. When it came to managerial decisions and transfers too, his approach to disseminating information was on a par with that of the CIA: if possible, don’t reveal anything that might be of use to an enemy. His recent autobiography was full of incidents which did not fall within the strictest parameters of what pedants insist on calling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So it was no real surprise that few were taken in by his insistence yesterday that he was packing in as manager at Queen’s Park Rangers because of his dodgy knee. No, he wasn’t. That is not to suggest for a moment that the knee is not causing him problems, that it is not giving him pain, that he does not need reconstructive surgery. But it is hardly an issue that, in other circumstances, would prevent him doing his job. It is not as if he has been out on the training ground every day this season, kicking a ball around with the players. View gallery . please log in to view this image Harry Redknapp - QPR He stopped doing that sort of thing a while ago. He has long delegated that sort of responsibility to the largest cohort of coaches in the game. Glenn, Les, Kevin, Joe: they do all that for him and have been doing it for years. The fact is, if things were going well in the job, he would have merely taken a couple of weeks off to have his knee sorted before returning, refreshed and ready, to the fray. The knee is a smokescreen, a convenient excuse to hide behind. A more rational reason for his departure was evident at his last pre-match press conference as QPR manager last Friday. He looked as he walked into the room at the club’s borrowed training ground in Harlington frankly exhausted. On borrowed time. He bore the expression of a beaten man, hangdog, red-eyed, defeated. The transfer window, the time when the Harry of old would have come alive at the hustle and bustle of opportunity, he greeted with zero enthusiasm, turning almost monosyllabic when in the past he would have been at his most garrulous. The reporter from Sky television reeled off a list of potential QPR transfer targets to which he merely replied “no” to every one. He then said he could have done without the window, that he took no pleasure from it, that it was a pain in the neck. Could have done without the transfer window? This was Harry Redknapp speaking. To paraphrase Dr Johnson, when Harry Redknapp tires of the transfer window he tires of managerial life. He looked utterly spent. What had clearly removed his enthusiasm was the fact that financial circumstances had precluded his room for manoeuvre. Redknapp has long been a manager who derives momentum and energy from changing his team. He buys and he sells, he brings in the new and dispatches the old: that is the best way he has discovered to energise and re-energise a team. Tony Fernandes, the QPR owner, however, had told him in no uncertain terms that he would have to make do with what he had. There would be no more investment in new recruits. View gallery . please log in to view this image Not with the likelihood of relegation growing with every away defeat. Fernandes did not want once again to sink into the Championship having just signed deals for £100,000 a week wages. He didn’t want another Christopher Samba – Harry’s January signing in 2013 - on the books. He didn’t want Harry’s financial irresponsibility burdening him again. So if Harry could not buy, his main managerial methodology had been taken away from him. There was not much room for manoeuvre. He was fed up, painted into a corner, a couple of his backroom staff were briefing anonymously against him in the media and his knee was hurting. He wanted out. He no longer had the necessary energy. And so he leaves – to be replaced by Tom Sherwood or Paul Clement, though probably not Steve McClaren - with a record that never quite matched the image his supporters in the game liked to paint of him as a modern football great. In his career, he won the FA Cup and he took Spurs to the quarter final of the Champions League. True, that is more than Brendan Rodgers, Alan Pardew or Tony Pulis has ever done, but it is hardly hall of fame entry standard. In all reality, there was nothing like the selection scandal that attached itself to Brian Clough when he was snubbed as England manager. The admirable thing Redknapp has done is survive in the game for over three decades. Thirty years of management is not to be dismissed lightly as an achievement, given that the average tenure for a manager at a football league club is now 18 months. But one of the greats? You’d have to have Harry’s approach to the truth to see it like that. @jimw1
Jim White sees Redknapp for what he is then: "...one of the greats? You’d have to have Harry’s approach to the truth to see it like that"
He's doing well after his OP though........its a farking miracle!!! (With thanks to Brightonhoop on LFT for that)
Jim White has always had it in for Redknapp. Good man. And Jacqui Oatley has gone up in my estimation too. How long before he's photographed on a golf course?
