Subject: Death to the Harry Redknapp Myth

When he took over QPR, I said that if he managed to avoid relegation with them, I might change my opinion of his "skills." As he has a worse record than both Mark Hughes and Neil Warnock, I feel vindicated in retaining my view of him.

He's got no skills at all, and all he does is attempt to get better players at whatever cost and ignores the financial sensibilities of whatever club he's at. £12 mill for Samba? And wages on top of that. It's a good job that was the only signing Harry made at QPR or they'd be totally screwed if they got relegated. No wait...
To be fair to him, it's the first time (since Bournemouth, West Ham, Portsmouth, Southampton and Potsmouth again) that he's financially ruined a club. I find it amazing that the only club he hasn't financially ruined is Spurs, who are widely recognised as having one of the best chairmen in terms of financial control going, Daniel Levy. Not that I thought he'd ruin them, too, but that any club gives him a chance. And to think, England were considering giving him a go. Did they think he'd just buy in a load of African midfielders that belong to his Sports agency firm and naturalise them?

I'd better end my rant there before I do a tangential rant about the FA and their fitness for purpose (clue: they aren't).

I completely disagree. I think he is a top manager, says it as it is, and has done pretty miraculously at most of his clubs. There have been some expensive buys but you can hardly attribute that to him. How is that different to any other club?

The wake of ruined clubs he leaves behind.

Why would a "top manager" of his age have taken that QPR job on? Greed? Doubled up by being able to sign up footballers who are on the books of his sporting agency? Post Spurs, with his reputation as high as it had ever been with all the money he had squirrelled away in offshore accounts depriving the country of x nurses/schools/hospitals (whichever alternative unit of currency you wish to use), would have been the time to retire, go take Rosie for a walk, and find out if his missus really could have scored that goal that Bent missed.

He's a charlatan who's never had any managerial nous beyond being able to gee his players up by a pat on the back and something similar to "go out and 'ave some fun, lads."

When his name was mentioned in the England manager's frame, my blood ran cold. Thankfully, the end of that season was a reversion to type in terms of Harry's ability and common sense was restored. Did we want a geezer who's never ventured further north than Tottenham to be the ambassador for our global game? Or a multilingual, cup winning, championship winning, international team experienced intellectual? The clamour for the former says an awful lot about the average football fan.

Harry's Purchases (apologies for any omissions/erroneous inclusions)

QPR
Jermaine Jenas (undisc.)
Christopher Samba (12 500k)
Suk Young Yun (950k)
Loic Remy (8 000k)
QPR TOTAL: ~21 mill Position on taking the job: 20 Position on finishing: 21 or greater Total places risen: -1 or more

SPURS
Robbie Keane (12 mill)
Cesar Sanchez (undiscl)
Jermain Defoe (15 mill)
Wilson Palacios (12 mill)
Roman Pavlyuchenko (14 mill)
David Bentley (15 mill)
John Bostock (0.7 mill) First year total (~70 mill !)

Kyle Naughton (5 mill)
Kyle Walker (3 mill)
Peter Crouch (9 mill)
Sebastien Bassong (8 mill)
Niko Krancjar (2 mill)
Younes Kaboul (5 mill) Second year total (~32 mill)

Sandro (6 mill)
Rafael vd Vaart (8 mill)
Bongani Khumalo (1.5 mill)
Steven Pienaar (3 mill) Third year Total (~18 mill)

Souleymane Coulibaly (2 mill)
Scott Parker (6 mill) Final year total (~8 mill)

SPURS TOTAL ~128 mill (of those players that Harry also sold, he lost 6 mill on the Pavlyuchenko deal, 4 mill on the Palacios deals and over 7 mill on the Keane deals. He did however, manage a 1 mill profit on Crouchie to offset all this. Players he signed that have been sold, admittedly without the influence of his "wheeler dealing" include: Corluka, Pienaar, vd Vaart, Bassong at a loss of three mill)
Position at appointment: 20 (famously and unexpectedly) Position at sacking: 4 Places Risen: 16

Pompey Second Spell
Collins Mbesuma (Free)
Benjani (4.1 mill)
Pedro Mendes (2.5 mill)
Sean Davis (2.5 mill)
Noe Pamarot (2.5 mill) First season back in charge total ~11 mill

David James (1.2 mill)
Andy Cole (0.5 mill)
Niko Krancjar (3.5 mill)
Djimi Traore (1 mill)
Lauren (0.5 mill)
Sulley Muntari (7 mill) Second season back in charge total ~13.5 mill

David Nugent (6 mill)
John Utaka (7 mill)
Glen Johnson (4 mill)
Lassana Diarra (5.5 mill)
Jermain Defoe (7.5 mill) Last season at Pompey total ~30 mill
Pompey second spell total: ~54 mill
Position on appointment: 18 Position on leaving: 8 Places Risen: 10

Soton:
Nigel Quashie (2.1 mill)
Soton total ~2 mill (I must admit I'd expected more)
Position on arrival: 18 Position on departure: 32 (12th in second tier) Places risen: -14

Portsmouth First Time Round (this is a tricky one owing to his director of football role)
His net expenditure was approx zero (about a million either way), but in that time made about two dozen signings (with the comparatively higher wages that brings), and he also signed Aliou Cisse for 300k. I'll let you work out for yourselves why I've bothered to mention him and why I've only named one of his career free signings.
Position on appointment: 38 (18th in second tier) Position at departure: 9 Places Risen: 29

Total Spend since West Ham ~200 mill
Total Places risen 41

I've only gone back as far as West Ham, as prices were much more mundane back then (only two transfers of note would make a dent in that 200 mill) and that much of the money he recouped was by selling his own family.

He has this image of a wheeler dealer to the wider footballing world. Having just looked through his transfers (using the excellent [link=http://www.transferleague.co.uk]Transfer League[/link], by the way) I can see why he's keen not to have that label: It's just totally untrue. Most players he loses money on. He signs lots of free transfers so as not to hurt analyses like this one (brief though it is) and he can then hide away their massive salaries in the balance sheets that the likes of myself won't bother looking at. He also signs the same players over and over. A case of familiarity, perhaps? Or something more sinister?

What I'd expect of a "top manager" is to leave a club in a better state than when he or she took over. And when you analyse Redknapp, it's not only difficult to build a case for that, it's extremely easy to point at each club and say that he left them far worse off. How long did he bang on about Spurs being bottom of the league with only two points when he took them over? It's to get away from the fact that the end of the previous season they finished 5th. After 128 mill of investment over the period he was there, he managed to get them up to 4th. He banged on about being bottom to create a myth around himself.


Spurs have progressed far more under Chelsea reject AVB than they did under Redknapp.
Pompey have been financially ruined and sunk two divisions after entering administration.
Southampton parted company with Harry in December 2005. It's taken them eight years to get back to where they were, after entering administration and were relegated two divisions (hang on, haven't I typed that already?)
West Ham and Harry's joint history seems less bad. However, they parted company after a spat. I'll stick my neck out and say it was one involving money; Harry wanted more of it, and West Ham weren't prepared to give him it.



Overall, an over-pally (with the media) manager becomes over-rated having helped create his own myth.

Lol, it's not Harry's fault if a team goes bankrupt.

It's up to the financiers/owners/directors to keep the club in financial control. You can blame him for the players he buys and the results he gets if you like, but to blame him for bankrupting a club is a touch unfair and pushing it a little. He's not an accountant, he just says I want so and so, if the money is not there, the people with the hands on the purse strings should simply not allow him to buy said player.

You really don't like him, do you?

If all his nous was "a pat on the back" as you say then I suggest some other managers use the same technique, as he is a lot more successful than your average manager.

Agree with tcd

Managers will always want to sign new players, offer wages to keep them. Fans always want this too.

Managers are good at setting teams, tactics, training, player management etc. Managers can never fully understand financial situation of a club, commercial deals etc. etc. that is the role of the chairman.....to set out clear transfer and wage criteria that the manager adheres to. . no chairman worth their salt should allow a manager to bankrupt the team. Weak ownership.

Take my rather dire team, whatever the faults of doughty's transfer policy and acquisition team it stopped the manager doing that and provided clear authority levels. This is how arsenal, man united operate too, clearly with much more success.

There's one flaw with the Robbie Keane bit. As he was sold for £20m+ or whatever it was to Liverpool 6 months before being rebought.

Martin O'Neill is a similarly "gifted" manager, but one that also understands finances a little. In terms of liking Redknapp, I'm not bothered about him. But the fact that the journalists writing about him can't be arsed researching him does annoy me. For lazy journalism, see the Mirror piece about Fabio Borini's tribute to Suarez today.

And by whom was he sold? Not Redknapp. Therefore, where is the flaw?

Absolute nonsense. A decent manager would say not go to their chairman and say that Samba at >12 mill and six figures a week is a good deal.
To say that Redknapp's ability to convince successive chairmen that the unjustifiable is not only justifiable, but a good thing should be considered in isolation of his man-management skills is showing the inability to see the whole picture. Much like Harry Redknapp. It's much like asking people to consider Hitler's economic policy in isolation of everything else.

What a decent manager would do in the case of QPR this season is go to the chairman and say "Boss, we're screwed. Let's get in a 22yo centre back and then in two season's time when we're back in the premiership, he'll be 24 with two good seasons of English football under his belt."
(edited)

"Managers are good at setting teams, tactics, training, player management etc. Managers can never fully understand financial situation of a club, commercial deals etc. etc. that is the role of the chairman"

I haven't worked out how to quote posts yet, so forgive me.

What you describe above is the role of a coach. A manager should have a grasp of those things. For exhibit A, I present the two longest standing and most successful managers in the premiership eras, Ferguson and Wenger. Incidentally, the manegers of the two clubs you hold up as having best financial control.

Don't forget that just before Spurs turned to Redknapp, they'd gone down what the British media call the "continental" route and appointed a director of football. Of course, Harry thought he had such a grasp of 'setting teams, tactics, training, player management etc' AND the 'financial situation of a club, commercial deals etc. etc.' that he insisted on being solely in charge. His failure in the financial side are then purely his fault.
(edited)

Ok, you have your opinion on it, however, I can't say that I agree.

No manager should be able to bankrupt any team, if they do so, I would have to say that the structure within that club is all wrong.

With regards to Redknapp trying to keep QPR up, I would imagine the press will quickly forget especially if he promotes them straight back. So I think it's a touch premature to say that the myth is dead. In that case, if he does manage it, they will probably love him even more which I would imagine would thoroughly annoy you (but probably give us all a chuckle on here) ;-)

For my own part, I couldn't give a monkeys for Redknapp or QPR, but what he does have in Fernandes the Chairman is a Chairman fully prepared to bank roll a manager. Therefore, if I were a betting man, I'd say that QPR would probably be strong favourites to bounce right back ... especially as they were basically the favourites to get out of the Championship something like 3 years on the trot until they actually did so!

Regards,
Troy

Let's say you are the CEO of a company. You need some new software to do whatever. You go to your IT guy and tell him what the software needs to do on operational and business levels. He comes back and says you need ABC123 software. ABC123 is far more than you were expecting to pay.
Do you:

a) totally trust your IT guy because he must be ok if you appointed him, right? Right?
b) back your IT guy because to go against him would be to admit that you didn't trust him
c) don't trust him, do all the research he's just done all over again, thus wasting your precious time

Redknapp's that IT guy. Daniel Levy was the only chairman willing to do c).

"No manager should be able to bankrupt any team, if they do so, I would have to say that the structure within that club is all wrong"

And yet he did. Many times. Because the structure of most English clubs is wrong and lends itself to "The Cult of the Manager" (or "coach"). Despite the structure being wrong, Redknapp is supposed to be the expert on player costs and wages. If he's not, he shouldn't be the manager. As a Stock Exchange-y Company (I forget the technical term), to sack him because you realise he's a chancer one month into his contract will harm the stock and embarrass you as a board member or whatever.

I see I'm in a minority. I guess you've all been brainwashed by the media. Wake Up SHEEPLE!
(edited)

You are in the minority because you are bananaas.

That is always a consideration.