'Arry gone

So 'Arry Redknapp has departed QPR because, he claims, surgery on his knee means that he wouldn't be able to do the job properly.

For me, 19 points from 23 games this season indicates he hasn't been doing the job properly in any case, but then what do I know?

Hilarious.

Complete and utter charlatan.

Quoted from Maringer

So 'Arry Redknapp has departed QPR because, he claims, surgery on his knee means that he wouldn't be able to do the job properly.

For me, 19 points from 23 games this season indicates he hasn't been doing the job properly in any case, but then what do I know?

As much as Harry by the sound of that record.

Strange state of affairs, Tony Fernandes stating no signings on deadline day, I read the financial play rules had something to do with it.

They failed to sign anyone even on-loan on transfer deadline day, Redknapp resigns next day at 5:30am.  All them players they could of got on loan from abroad etc.

QPR 180 million in debt, yet Tony Fernandes is worth 650 million huh.

Feel quite smug / grateful, Grimsby Town made 3 signings in the January transfer window, QPR - Premiership 0 lol.

In February and QPR have amassed 0 points away from home, zilch all season!

Has his dog left too?

It might come as a disappointment to some but no I haven't.

The bloke is finally getting found out. Bit of a tosser imo.

He must be saving himself for the England job when Roy gets the boot

Quoted from Theimperialcoroner

The bloke is finally getting found out. Bit of a tosser imo.

I resemble that remark.

There'll be fireworks if they come down, they owe MILLIONS and the first thing the League will want is payment. Failure to do so and they get sent straight to the Tinpot League

Sounds like he's got an excuse in to leave before he get's a relegation on his CV.

Quoted from arryarryarry

It might come as a disappointment to some but no I haven't.

Rats !!!!! lol

Spurs must be the only club in which has not had major financial problems after he has left them.

To be fair they were in a financial mess before he went. Players on huge wages doing ... all

Quoted from Freemoash88

Sounds like he's got an excuse in to leave before he get's a relegation on his CV.

Apart from the last time QPR went down!

Quoted from Abdul19

Apart from the last time QPR went down!

And when he took Southampton down.

How is he a charlatan or finally being found out?

He's had a successful career as a manager in the top two tiers of English football, won the FA cup and taken Spurs to some of their best finishes in 50 odd years.

He's clearly a bit of a wide boy and this seems to wind some up but there aren't many English managers in the game with a record to match.

Don't forget that Redknapp won the F.A. Cup (his only major trophy) almost by default. If you remember, Portsmouth only played one Premiership team on the way to the final when they somewhat flukily beat Moanyoo in the semi-final. The easiest run of games that I can remember for an F.A. Cup winner for some years.

For me, he's always been enormously overrated in part because he had so many friends in the media. He's spent a fortune everywhere he's been in recent years and his enormous expenditure at Portsmouth completely knackered the club. Not surprised he's failed so miserably at QPR this season, to tell the truth.

If I was 'Arry I wouldn't worry about the knee op affecting his ability to do the job. I think the lack of ability is a bigger handicap.

Quoted from cardiffmariner

How is he a charlatan or finally being found out?

He's had a successful career as a manager in the top two tiers of English football, won the FA cup and taken Spurs to some of their best finishes in 50 odd years.

He's clearly a bit of a wide boy and this seems to wind some up but there aren't many English managers in the game with a record to match.

How much money does he have to chuck at teams before he gets success though? Most managers would have achieved as much, if not more, if they had the same amount of cash to spend. He's extremely limited when it comes to the tactical side of the game and has won 1 trophy in 30 years which was a bit of a fluke as Maringer pointed out. He's clearly a great man manager and players obviously enjoy playing for him. But he's not the amazing manager some people like to paint him as.

If people are claiming Redknapp is a successful English manager then we really have got problems.

The man is clearly just a wide boy. Everything he touches ends up in a mess. His arm around the shoulder approach is ok if the players you have have some ability but when at Southampton and now at QPR they haven't therefore it is no good. You actually need some tactical nouse.

Sadly there are still people who think he should've been England manager. He'd never have been good enough and he would never have wanted it. Harry has scammed millions by buying and selling players to old clubs and back his current clubs for years. He writes clauses in contracts so he makes money and then avoids paying tax or claiming his dog has stuff to do with it.

May be that is why he has left QPR,if he can't sign anyone he can't make any dodgy cash.

Hopefully it is the last we see of him in management.

My favourite story about 'Arry was from the other year when he was on trial for tax evasion. As part of his evidence, he claimed he didn't even know how to send a text message on his phone or use a computer because he wasn't tech savvy. Apparently, a number of the reporters in court were chuckling at this because they had text messages from him on their phones as they sat there! Some of the quotes from his evidence in that case are priceless, though he was found not guilty.

As with all managers in  the most successful teams, Harry was a cheque book manager and bought his way to what little success he achieved, he would be absolute pants managing GTFC

It seems some are unable to separate the man from the manager.

He's been managing since 1983, and has been relatively successful over that time. He won the FA cup, regardless of opposition/luck. Are we really going to start judging worthy FA cup wins against 'default' wins. Bonkers.

He also took Spurs to the last 16 of the Champions League at their first attempt. No one else had done that. And they beat teams along the way who had spent much more money.

As for the money, he's had no more or less than many less successful managers in the Premier League. He wasn't responsible for sanctioning the cheques at Pompey, and if you want to go down that route perhaps we should blame the players for being so greedy and selfish in accepting the incredible deals they were offered. But that would be a silly argument, it was those at the top of the club who bled it dry.

And last but not least, it seems some value tactical nouse over man management skills. Personally, I don't care how a manager gets the best out of his players, as long as he does - that's what managing is and Rednapp was clearly good at it. I don't even think its a particularly accurate criticism. He didn't have success at Bournemouth, West Ham, Portsmouth and Spurs by simply say 'off you go lads, just do what feels right when you're out there yeah'.

The guy is a wide boy, possibly a crook and annoys plenty of people. But he has proved himself to be a good manager over the last 22 years.

Jamie R  

Success at Bournemouth? He was in charge there for 9 seasons, was promoted once and relegated once. Hardly earth-shattering success!

He did well at West Ham but, I would say, was a little lucky there in that he had players such as Ferdinand, Cole, Carrick and Lampard coming through from the academy at the time and they all went for good money, of course. Not bad at Spurs, either, but I certainly wouldn't say he's worthy much of the praise some wish to heap on him.

If you remember back, some of his mates in the press were almost outraged that Hodgson was given the England job ahead of him, but if you compare their respective records, there really is no argument as to who was the better option, even if you know Hodgson isn't going to be playing the most scintillating brand of football.

In his three full seasons at Spurs covering transfer windows he actually spent 10.5 million quid less than he brought in from transfers out of the club.  Even if you include the summer before he joined then he spent 8.5 millin quid more than he brought in from sales.  He took over a team bottom and in his full seasons led them to 4th, 5th then 4th again as well as the fore-mentioned run in the Champions League.  They were also the most exciting team I have watched in the Premier League since Arsenal's last peak.

He found a left-back who had yet to play in a game for Spurs and win, turned him into one of  the best wingers in the World, 1 year after he left the club Bale became the most expensive player in the world.  

Any streotype of him as a fraud who could only spend his way to success is surely ridiculously unfair?

Erm, Bale signed for Spurs the season before Redknapp took over in October 2008 (around 20 appearances for Spurs under his belt by that point) and had been pretty much an ever-present in the team under Ramos when fit. He continued to play at full-back in 2008/09 and the next, was dropped in 2009/10 in favour of Assou-Ekotto and only began to play left-wing intermittently at a later date. It wasn't until three years after the arrival of Redknapp that he began to play regularly was a winger!

By all means, give Redknapp some credt for his work at Spurs, but don't try to make out that it was some kind of act of genius to develop Bale into a multi-million pound striker, especially when the facts don't follow this narrative!

On the Bale subject, it was AVB who then gave Bale a more central role which in many eyes cemented as the real deal rather than a bit of a flash-in-the-pan.  Of course, 'Arry tries to take credit for this one too.

He denies it but 'Arry was heavily rumoured to be ready to offload Bale to Birmingham for something like £5million at the height of the hysteria that Bale was a jinx who Spurs couldn't win with in the team.

Credit is due for his time at Spurs where he did play an exciting style of football and it was a joy to watch Spurs give bloody noses to some of Europe's bigger teams.  Nothing quite beats a side just going for it and not worrying about the opposition.  However he took over with Spurs in a ridiculously false position in the bottom 3 and built on the decent base already established by Ramos, he didn't build that team from scratch. Far from it.

I think the majority of people have a gripe with the fact that Redknapp is adored by his mates in the media rather than the bloke himself.  

It's a fair point to say he can't be blamed for the financial position he leaves clubs in, that is down to the men who sign the cheques.  Ultimately though he's a walking time-bomb in terms of financial stability.  I wouldn't want him anywhere near my club.

Quoted from Maringer

Erm, Bale signed for Spurs the season before Redknapp took over in October 2008 (around 20 appearances for Spurs under his belt by that point) and had been pretty much an ever-present in the team under Ramos when fit. He continued to play at full-back in 2008/09 and the next, was dropped in 2009/10 in favour of Assou-Ekotto and only began to play left-wing intermittently at a later date. It wasn't until three years after the arrival of Redknapp that he began to play regularly was a winger!

By all means, give Redknapp some credt for his work at Spurs, but don't try to make out that it was some kind of act of genius to develop Bale into a multi-million pound striker, especially when the facts don't follow this narrative!

I am not making out Redkanpp to be a genius, but surely if you are saying that he was a left-back under Redknapp at first but 3 years later was a winger tearing apart a right-back believed to be one of the best right-backs in the world, surely you have to give Redknapp credit for that?  I am not twisting the facts at all, that is why I prevented the facts as clearly as I did in my post.  But I can make them clearer:

Gareth Bale was a promising left-back who through injuries did not seem to progress as people were hoping, by the time Harry Redknapp was sacked he was a leading international footballer.  I think Harry has to take a lot of credit for this.  Personally I think you have a narrative that he threw lots of money at clubs to achieve very limited success and you are determined to only use facts that suggest this.  If you look at his career as a whole I think he has clearly shown he is a very good manager who gets teams to play exciting attacking football.  Is his record unblemished?  No he clearly failed at Southmapton and has been mediocre at best with QPR, but if you can find me more than 5 managers who have a perfect record of nothing but success I will be quite surprised, espically in the modern game.            

Well, my views are certainly coloured as I also think he's a bit of a dodgy geezer. I've heard one or two stories from people who should be in the know which would indicate he was more than a little bit lucky to get away with it a couple of years ago.

Erm, allegedly.  

As a manager, I think he's OK, but doesn't deserve anywhere near the credit he receives and his record does stand for itself - no great achievements anywhere he's been and, as DHM notes above, he didn't exactly inherit a weak squad at Spurs. I was pretty disgusted by some of the press coverage when he wasn't appointed England manager - some proper hatchet jobs on Hodgson and Redknapp's mates in the press continued to harp on about it for some time, as did 'Arry in his autobiography the other year.

Quoted from diehardmariner

On the Bale subject, it was AVB who then gave Bale a more central role which in many eyes cemented as the real deal rather than a bit of a flash-in-the-pan.  Of course, 'Arry tries to take credit for this one too.

He denies it but 'Arry was heavily rumoured to be ready to offload Bale to Birmingham for something like £5million at the height of the hysteria that Bale was a jinx who Spurs couldn't win with in the team.

Credit is due for his time at Spurs where he did play an exciting style of football and it was a joy to watch Spurs give bloody noses to some of Europe's bigger teams.  Nothing quite beats a side just going for it and not worrying about the opposition.  However he took over with Spurs in a ridiculously false position in the bottom 3 and built on the decent base already established by Ramos, he didn't build that team from scratch. Far from it.

I think the majority of people have a gripe with the fact that Redknapp is adored by his mates in the media rather than the bloke himself.  

It's a fair point to say he can't be blamed for the financial position he leaves clubs in, that is down to the men who sign the cheques.  Ultimately though he's a walking time-bomb in terms of financial stability.  I wouldn't want him anywhere near my club.

That is a fair enough point about Bale, I am not trying to suggest he should take all the credit and I heard that about Harry trying to sell him early on whcih would have been a blunder, often makes me think how many potential stars teams have missed out on.  Also to be fair while I really don't like AVB he does have to take huge credit for moving Bale into the middle.

See your point about the media as well, I think I am quite defensive of him though as we seem very much more willing to bash English managers for any failure and embrace foriegn managers at a moments notice.

It's not that we're ready to embrace foreign managers at a moment's notice, it's just that we're so much more badly served with our home grown crop. If 'Arry's our best, gawd 'ell us.

Quoted from Caesar

See your point about the media as well, I think I am quite defensive of him though as we seem very much more willing to bash English managers for any failure and embrace foriegn managers at a moments notice.

Not sure I agree with that.

I think the vast majority of football fans are delighted to see the likes of Sean Dyche in the Premiership.  Whilst I'd agree that big name foreign managers are often fawned over with every word hung onto,  Mourinho a classic example, I get the impression there's a general apathy to the influx of unheard of foreign managers.

Quoted from diehardmariner

Not sure I agree with that.

I think the vast majority of football fans are delighted to see the likes of Sean Dyche in the Premiership.  Whilst I'd agree that big name foreign managers are often fawned over with every word hung onto,  Mourinho a classic example, I get the impression there's a general apathy to the influx of unheard of foreign managers.

Evidenced by the reaction when West Brom appointed Pepe Mel last year.

http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/harrys-game.html

Interesting read on the way 'Arry operates. Christ, he's one spiv.