Redknapp must go

[West Mids QPR]

Quite simply, the best post I've seen for a long long while Godfather... You should be applauded mate, and as a neutral to the politics here on WATRB, I'm shocked at the responses tbh...

Very considered, very articulate and imho, the truth...

For a manager of his considerable experience, Harry makes some mystifying decisions.

The idea of dropping Henry and not starting with Zamora was mystifying to me.

Furthermore, I'm tired and more than a little embarrased at our away form.

[brightonr]

Can't really argue with much of what the OP has said.

I would be very interested to hear just why those who think he is any good at all, feel the way they do. Redknapps record with us in the top division is a disgrace, so it can't be that. It's hardly glittering with anyone else, bar a couple of seasons at Spurs. Finishing fourth last season was a huge under achievement, bearing in mind what we were up against and the amount we spent in comparison to other teams.

[Rangers77]

Too long an OP.

[Ed the Ball]

When we were celebrating at Wembley I turned to a mate and said "I still think Redknapp should go, we need a young hungry manager" someone like Eddie Howe (who would never leave Bournemouth anyway). Sorry Harry your time is up, go and relax at sandbanks and give yourself and us a break.

[Ross]

Excellent post, exactly how I & many other supporters see it as well. Admittedly our home form has been very good of late but to be honest the away form is beyond a joke. Would give Redknapp till the summer but we definitely need a young motivated manager with fresh ideas who has ambition. We we're extremely lucky to go up last season & as you said the football was woeful.

[Tarbie]

I never liked Harry Redknapp. In fact, before his appointment at QPR, I hated him. My view was always the same; a fraud of a manager, a master of media manipulation, a managerial dinosaur blessed with a remarkable ability to deflect blame. I used to think if he were caught red-handed funding terrorists he'd come out with something like 'nah just thought they were triffic, passionate lads to be honest. Couldn't tell they was terrorists, they was wearing balaclavas'. Then there was his footballing record, all that money spent and just a single FA Cup to his name. Two clubs left in financial ruin. Excuses, excuses, excuses. The undisputed lord of BS.

Despite my reservations about his appointment after Hughes' calamitous spell, I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Something within me thought 'Arry might work his magic and engineer a miraculous escape. Perhaps I was brainwashed by the genuflection of the media, which involved cheesy headlines like 'king Harry returns', 'Harry Houdini' being plastered over the back pages. Sure, there were moments when I was optimistic; the home win over Fulham, SWP's winner at Chelsea, the January big-money signings, Remy, Samba, those 'top, top pros'. We'd be OK, wouldn't we? Yet the promises of change on the pitch, the big-money signings and Fernandes' PR campaign weren't enough. In reality, the performances actually deteriorated. We finished bottom, despite 'Arry having told a journalist a few weeks before the end of the season 'we won't finish bottom, stick that in your notepad'. Whoops.

Never mind, it wasn't Redknapp's fault, was it? It was Hughes' squad, after all. Nah, 'Arry would get us back up, he's a '####ing brilliant manager', remember. And, sure, that's what he ended up doing. To his credit he bought well in the summer and got rid of a lot of the rubbish, Mbia, Granero, Diakite, to name but a few. He assembled a perfect Championship squad, blending experience with youth, brawn with flair. I thought we'd walk the league in the same way Newcastle did. Yet it wasn't to be. Leicester and Burnley surged ahead, despite having much smaller wage budgets. Plus, the football was bad. Really bad. Admittedly we won lots of games, which of course was satisfying, but it was possibly the most tedious campaign I've ever experienced in many years of supporting the Rs. The football was unimaginative, one-paced, uninspiring and frustrating. The result was a passionless atmosphere - people around me in the Ellerslie Road Stand seemed more interested in getting up for a mid-half pie and chips than watching the game and, at times, I couldn't blame them. Without wishing to sound like a negative misery guts, the truth was there were only a couple of moments that got me truly excited across that whole season, both of which came in the play-offs (I'm sure you can guess which events they were).

In the end, I felt we were tremendously lucky to end up in the Premiership. For me, promotion was achieved in spite of rather than because of Redknapp. Indeed, it was Clint Hill who made the critical tactical decision which got us into the Premiership. It was Gary O'Neil who chose to get himself sent off and 'take one for the team'. Not Redknapp, who by the end was looking a tired, frail old man who had run out of ideas. In fact, prior to that Play-Off Final I thought to myself - 'you know what, if we lose, at least Redknapp can go and we can start afresh'. I bet I wasn't the only one who had similar thoughts.

But of course we did win that match thanks to King Bobby's outstanding finish - and, caught up in the elation of that moment, I was once again prepared to give Redknapp another chance. Now he's got the opportunity to prepare his own Premiership squad, I thought to myself. Build solid foundations, establish QPR as a PL club. Invest in young, hungry players, play a bit of attractive, entertaining football. I was pleased with the signings of Mutch, Fer and Caulker. In fact, when I looked at the back of the matchday programme on the opening day of the campaign, I thought 'we've actually got a decent side here'.

Yet the performances this season, on the most part, have been poor. Yes, OK, we've secured a few wins at home, but the away form has been absolutely diabolical - frankly, inexcusable. If we hadn't invested in the squad I would have perhaps understood, but I believe we do have quality, certainly compared to the likes of Palace, Hull, West Brom, Burnley and Aston Villa. The team is underperforming, and I blame Redknapp. He's an old-style manager who relies on motivational skills rather than tactical astuteness. I'm afraid football has moved on. He seems incapable of coaching players to be 'better'. Instead, every transfer window he'll sign one of his ageing Pompey/Spurs favourites who'll subsequently get injured, providing him with another excuse in his post-match press conferences. With Redknapp, it's like a never-ending cycle of excuses, dodgy deals, mind-numbing football, unimaginative tactics and injured, ageing 'top, top pros'. Unless it stops, we will go down. TF needs to be brave and get rid of him before it's too late.

Tonight just about summed him up. 2-0 down at half-time and he decides to leave it as it is. We go 3-0 down and only then does he make attacking substitutions. To put the icing on the cake, he claims that 'we played well' in the post-match interview! Everton were poor, yet brushed us aside with ease!

The fact is that Redknapp's PL win percentage with QPR is below 20%. I'm sorry, but that is dreadful. I can sort of understand where the 'pro-Redknappers' are coming from - 'we need stability' etc - but it's obvious that he doesn't have what it takes to save us from relegation. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but Redknapp must go.

Whilst your thoughts on Redknapp mirror mine almost identically, I don't agree that now is the time to sack him. Performances are improving, we are moving up the table and we have a lot of winnable games coming up. Also as a few other posters have mentioned, we were very unlucky to lose 3-1 last night.

Personally given where we are I would give Harry until the end of the season, unless of course our form deteriorates and we start slipping backwards. I really do hope that all this talk of a new contract has been scrapped now though, a younger manager with fresh ideas is a definite must for next season!

[Tarbie]

Once again, people hop on the blame redknapp bandwagon when we lose away from home. The fact that the lowest placed side in the league we have played was Everton should highlight the difficulty of our away start. In fact, there is only 1 team who we have yet to play away from home in the top half of the home table and that is man city. Everyone, including Everton we have played is in the top half of the home table, with the only exception being Tottenham. When Redknapp was playing a solid defensively team with the aim of getting a point against the big teams, he gets marauded on here. When he changes the style and panders to the armchair managers and loses because it clearly could never work, HE and not the players get the brunt of the blame. With us not having a set of consecutive home matches, how can he constantly play Bobby Zamora at this point of the season like people want him to. We can say he should have bought a Zamora replacement but who honestly thought that we would use him as well as we have. SO come January, I believe Redknapp will get someone in his style of play to replace him away from home.

Next is the fact that we have played some - and I highlight the use of the word some - teams as things change for them. Look at Spurs when they started the season and how well they were playing, Man Utd as they had made their Marquee signings, Southampton near the top of the table, West Ham during the turn of their renaissance, Newcastle during their unstoppable winning run. Yes, the performances haven't been great but to blame that on Redknapp when no matter what he does, we can't win perhaps that is the wrong thing to focus on. Perhaps we have to look at the poor performances on the pitch during those matches.

At Tottenham, our defense and in particular Isla were poor, at Man Utd it was Ferdinand, the same can be said for Southampton, West Ham was the entire team being poor, we actually played well against Chelsea and deserved more, same goes for Newcastle, at Swansea Barton was disappointing but needed recovery time from his injury and today, Dunne and Green had off games while Mutch and Phillips were purely unacceptable. So perhaps look at them rather than the manager. Everyone during the match when we concede will go and blame a player and they are right to, it is individual mistakes that cost us, not the manager. All I hear is Barton misplaced this, Green miskicked that, X should have defended Y better. Fair enough, but then the same people go to blame the manager for individual errors? It just seems really harsh to me.

People complain about no attacking, we had more shots than Everton by four and only one less on target than them. We gave away unnecessary free kicks around the box and that cost us because not only did they score from one, but it broke up the rhythm when it happened. The manager didn't concede those fouls, the players did. Thats my opinion anyways

Not sure we can point at the fact our away games so far this season have been difficult, we have never been able to win away in the Premiership under Harry Redknapp. Am I right in thinking that Chelsea away in December 2012 is our only Premiership away victory since Harry took over? I can't remember another one if there is one!

[Ronnie Rangers]

We Win At Home = Silence
We Lose Away = Harry Out
Every single week so far this season.
Never ever see the people so vocal after away games saying anything positive after the home games, so it shows its just purely based on personal opinion of a man, not a manager.

Ain't that the truth!
Jan transfer on the boil and people want to change manager, #### sake

[californiahoop]

7-8 games + ago, I would have 100% agreed with your post, but for the first time in 2 odd years I and can see what HR is trying to achieve, we didn't look to bad at all, at the end of that game I just smiled, we are, at last, moving in the right direction, WE WILL BE FINE!!!!

It will be interesting to see what he does in the market, if he nails it, we are going to have a great second half of the season, we played football last night, Barton and Phillips apart, we looked good, onwards and upwards!

[Kirill]

The Godfather, welcome back. The fact that you kept so quiet for so long despite your dislike of Redknapp only lends further credence to your well-formulated argument!

[maidstone_hoop]

I think it would be very harsh to get rid of Harry now. We are still very much in contention to stay up and that's where we should be. We have no divine right to be sitting mid table.
Yes are away from is shocking but so what our home form is pretty good.. We have also played pretty much the best teams in this league away from home.

Come the second half of the season we will be playng most of our arrival away from home and the best 8 or 9 teams at home, we could easily see the roles reversed.

Imo I look at the league and see us on 15 points after 16 games, its not the end of the world. We know if we beat West brom at the weekend we got above them and out of the relagtion zone sitting on 18 points.

Why sack a manager whos doing everything we should expect. We are a small club in the prem competing well atm.

What do you think Eddie Howe or anyone else will do at this particular moment in time.

[Yousef]

I think the main reason we lost is the technical limiatation of our wingers (Hoilett and Phillips). They are just not good enough and need to be replaced. Nothing wrong with Harry's tactics he had no other choices. He can't keep the same style of defending like the previous games. He had to try a new thing.

[Buffalo]

I think it would be very harsh to get rid of Harry now. We are still very much in contention to stay up and that's where we should be. We have no divine right to be sitting mid table.
Yes are away from is shocking but so what our home form is pretty good.. We have also played pretty much the best teams in this league away from home.

Come the second half of the season we will be playng most of our arrival away from home and the best 8 or 9 teams at home, we could easily see the roles reversed.

Imo I look at the league and see us on 15 points after 16 games, its not the end of the world. We know if we beat West brom at the weekend we got above them and out of the relagtion zone sitting on 18 points.

Why sack a manager whos doing everything we should expect. We are a small club in the prem competing well atm.

What do you think Eddie Howe or anyone else will do at this particular moment in time.

I dont think you are looking close enough.....

[CroydonCaptainJack]

We Win At Home = Silence
We Lose Away = Harry Out
Every single week so far this season.
Never ever see the people so vocal after away games saying anything positive after the home games, so it shows its just purely based on personal opinion of a man, not a manager.

Spot on Kevin. Relentless isn't it. Perhaps we should be like Reading or Wigan or Bolton...........oh hold on!!

[CroydonCaptainJack]

The Godfather, welcome back. The fact that you kept so quiet for so long despite your dislike of Redknapp only lends further credence to your well-formulated argument!

Surprise, surprise.
Does that mean your relentless criticism of him bears no credence then