Should we feel sorry for Harry Redknapp? Beloved good 'ol fashioned English manager with no regard for fancy opta statistics, numerous sport scientists or even just sophisticated tactics. Hailed as the king of man management, dealing with egos, motivating prixmadonnas and charming the media, yet since his sacking from Tottenham last summer, his crown as the darling of English managers finally appears to be slipping.
QPR currently find themselves rooted to the foot of the table, 4 points adrift from Wigan and 7 from safety. Harry has taken on a thankless task. Safety would of course reinstate Harry as the king of current English football managers but if you compared the quality of his squad to that of Wigan, Villa, Norwich and Southampton we will all reflect that it should never have been that difficult in the first place. However, take them down and Harry could find himself on a sinking ship the size of the Titanic and players on wages as much as £100,000 a week could potentially pull the club into a black hole the likes of Leeds Utd and Bradford City know all too well about.
His relationship with the media still appears untouchable yet it is the players that still haven't bought into his ideas as he slated his squad for being overpaid and humiliated the club in the FA Cup. January was still not as fruitful as he would hoped bringing in proven quality in Christopher Samba, all be it on gargantuan wages, and Loic Remy who always looked a little too good for Ligue 1, yet bringing a few Tottenham rejects such as Jenas and Townsend can hardly inspire the hoops fans that Harry has called in the cavalry.
The Peter Odemwingie fiasco also heightened the idea that Redknapp is running a circus. A known 'wheeler-dealer', are we to believe that Harry had nothing to do with giving the West Brom forward an inkling that a deal could be done? More puzzling, it is thought that the real stumbling block in the move was Junior Hoillet's refusal to move up to the Black Country preferring to sit on his high wages and move on when the eventual relegation finally happens. The odd paradox of a player desperately wanting to move to a relegation threatened club from a West Brom that have enjoyed an unexpected run and a QPR player, who would rather sink clutching on to his gold like some possessed pirate than be pulled up to safety by Steve Clarke and his safe and steady Hawthorns, is alarming. If anything the recent transfer window has only highlighted just how gross and uncontrollable the power of players and lure of money has become.
Despite Redknapp's undoubted charm it appears that despite all his efforts, the jig was probably up before he got there but despite QPR turning 4-0 thrashings into turgid 0-0's it's been goals and wins that have been absent all season which Redknapp still hasnt produced and the further on we go the more its seems their shock 1-0 victory over Chelsea was nothing short of a fluke.
So if Redknapp fails to keep QPR up does he leave the club with a free pass in terms of his reputation? It would be admirable if he decided to stay on to get Rangers back into the prem as soon as possible but no doubt Harry feels he has another big job in him, after all it was his ego that brought him to Loftus Road in the first place, that and the paycheque.
In the end I do feel sorry for Redknapp he took on a challenge much like challenges you can take on Football Manager: bottom at Christmas, can you save them? Of course we all relish the challenge on the computer.
However, for poor Harry, the difficulties been set much higher than he realised.
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