da marjack bet： Former Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp has been strongly linked with replacing current QPR boss Mark Hughes after the west London club’s slow start to the new Premier League season, but is he really the right man to take over the reins should they ever consider ditching the Welshman?
da blaze casino： The main point to take from the team’s battling draw against ten-man Everton at the weekend was that the club narrowly avoided the now infamous ‘two points from eight games’ shtick which Redknapp plugged to death when lauding Tottenham’s progress under his tenure after he inherited a deeply inconsistent outfit from the sacked Juande Ramos. Thank heavens for that.
However, there’s an altogether more serious point to look at and it seems to be one that’s been glossed over by the large majority of the mainstream media when discussing Redknapp’s credentials, would he even be the right man to turn things around at Loftus Road?
It’s worth noting that despite picking up just three points from their opening eight league games this season, which sees the side currently sitting bottom of the table, that QPR have not yet been cut adrift and they are still only one victory away from the heady heights of 15th in the league, so while there must surely be cause for concern, particularly after the investment involved, they are far from a dead cert to go down as of yet.
The club’s outspoken owner Tony Fernandes has repeatedly backed Hughes in the press, reasonably claiming that the league season is a marathon and not a sprint and that he simply won’t be making a rash decision based on a sloppy start, but that doesn’t mean that Hughes isn’t under increasing pressure to get results.
It’s become abundantly clear, first by championing his cause to replace Fabio Capello as England boss, then the widespread dismay that followed when he was sacked by Tottenham and replaced by Andre Villas-Boas that Redknapp has friends in high places and that the media are not shy in pushing claims for their man to get the next big job going, whether he is right for it or not.
To his credit at least, Redknapp has distanced himself with reports claiming that his appointment is a sure thing, telling Sky Sports News earlier this month: “None whatsoever, not a chance. Mark Hughes is a top manager, I have heard nothing from anybody.”
But this was then quickly followed up with the caveat: “I have had lots of offers to go abroad and work. I have had some fantastic offers but I am very happy living where we live so it would be difficult for me to move away. It would have to be something special to make me go abroad and work. I’ll just wait and see what comes up” which has inevitably led to the stories continuing.
It’s not as if Redknapp has a poor pedigree either, having done well near the bottom of the league with West Ham in the past and establishing them as a solid upper mid-table side, but the fact that he spent recklessly at Portsmouth which subsequently led the club to go in free-fall, spiralling ever closer to financial oblivion and got Southampton relegated means he’s far from ideal at the same time.
Hughes has taken a gigantic gamble this term by plowing money into ageing players with little to no sell-on value that will need replacing within two years. It’s a gamble because it also attracts mercenary figures like Jose Bosingwa and Julio Cesar, while naming Park Ji-Sung as skipper was a silly move. There is clearly a lot wrong with the side, but would a manager like Redknapp, entering the twilight of his own career, really fancy taking on the long-term and potentially reputation-damaging risks that the QPR job would come with?
We should not forget that it was Redknapp’s short-term, stop-gap signings of Louis Saha and Ryan Nelson in January which failed to re-ignite a stuttering title challenge and that Steven Pienaar, Vedran Corluka and Sebastien Bassong left them short of cover at the back and out wide after being sent out on loan, robbing his squad of any depth at a time when they needed it the most. He marginalised Niko Kranjcar and Giovanni Dos Santos, while comparing Darren Bent in the past to his wife when asked about his finishing ability, going some way to dispelling the near mythic man-management skills that he’s so often praised for.
By selling Peter Crouch, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Robbie Keane inside a year and then bringing only Emmanuel Adebayor in on loan last term, by the end of the season and after his departure, he left with squad with only one recognised striker. The point that I’m trying to convey is that when it comes to squad builders, he’s hardly the best around.
This is not to say that Hughes will remain as manager for much longer, though, for his over-inflated sense of self-worth and the giant chip he carries around on his shoulder due to the misplaced sense of injustice over his sacking from Manchester City grate equally as much as Redknapp’s media-friendly, quote-happy style, but you have to question the wisdom of ditching a manager such as Hughes, who seems tail0r-made to forging teams that are difficult to beat with a man as self-serving as his anointed heir is.
The season is far from over and with an owner seemingly patient to keep faith in the man he backed heavily in the summer, there’s no reason why Hughes cannot turn things around, but should they aim to replace him if results don’t improve, despite the all-consuming Pravda-style party line that ‘their man’ Harry is the best placed to take over simply because he doesn’t have a job at the minute, if you dig a little deeper then that bold claim simply doesn’t add up.
You can follow me on Twitter @JamesMcManus1
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