Redknaap who has been out of a Managerial job since his sack at Tottenham Hotspurs where he led the team to an Europa spot was appointed as the new manager of QPR after former manager Mark Hughes left the team rock bottom of the premiership log with no single victory in 12 games.
With the arrival of Harry Redknaap many will be tempted to ask" Can Harry Save QPR"?
Harry Redknaap's Tottenham were bottom, too, when Redknapp took over in 2008 and set in motion their transformation into a top-four club. Redknapp's restorative powers were evident in both his spells at Portsmouth. Southampton, sandwiched in between, was a pretty dismal time. Yet it is the one blemish on his CV.
AT WEST HAM
Redknapp helped to establish the club in the Premier League and introduced a number of young players from the club's academy, including Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and his nephew Frank Lampard coming through the ranks. The signings of Stuart Pearce, Paolo Di Canio and Trevor Sinclair helped them reestablish their careers having been signed by Redknapp.
Nevertheless, West Ham finished eighth in 1998, and then enjoyed their second best ever top flight finish of fifth place and qualification for the Intertoto Cup. In the 1999–2000 season West Ham won the Intertoto Cup and qualified for the UEFA Cup but failed to match their performances in the league, which could be put down to the extra games played.
AT PORTSMOUTH
Redknapp re-emerged as Director of Football at Portsmouth in summer 2001, and when the Leicester City manager's job became vacant with the dismissal of Peter Taylor that autumn, Redknapp was widely tipped to take over at the East Midlands club, but stayed loyal to Pompey and the Leicester job went to Dave Bassett. Ironically, it was reported in the national media that had Redknapp taken over, Bassett would have been on his coaching staff at the East Midlands club.
However, after the club's poor form he replaced manager Graham Rix in March 2002. Redknapp managed the club to the Division One title in the 2002–03 season, gaining promotion to the Premier League, replacing his former club West Ham.
Redknapp kept Portsmouth in the Premier League in the 2003–04 season.
AT SOUTHAMPTON
A few weeks after his departure at Portsmouth, Redknapp became manager of Southampton, a move which infuriated Portsmouth's supporters as the two clubs are fierce local rivals. Some fans even bore T-shirts which referred to Redknapp as "Scummer" and "Judas" and called for him to "Rot In Hell".
Redknapp was tasked with keeping Southampton in the Premier League – a similar task to the one Redknapp was facing with Portsmouth, and a familiar one at the club over the previous 15 years, which he would have faced had he accepted the offer to take over a decade earlier – but ultimately was unable to achieve this, ending Southampton's 27 year spell in the top flight. Redknapp remained in charge for the 2005–06 Championship season but was unable to establish consistency needed to make Southampton promotion contenders. Redknapp was also unhappy with chairman Rupert Lowe's appointment of Sir Clive Woodward to the club's coaching staff. After being repeatedly linked with a return to Portsmouth after they sacked Alain Perrin, Redknapp resigned as Southampton's manager in early December 2005. Lowe quoted Redknapp as referring to Portsmouth as his "spiritual home".
RETURN TO PORTSMOUTH
Redknapp returned to Portsmouth on 7 December 2005 with the club threatened by relegation to the Championship, although not in the relegation zone. At first it looked like Redknapp would be heading for a second successive relegation, but a fine run of form at the end of the season, aided by the takeover of Portsmouth by Alexandre Gaydamak (which provided Redknapp with more money), ensured Portsmouth's survival. In the following season, Redknapp led Portsmouth to a ninth placed finish which was the club's highest league finish since the 1950s. In October 2007, Redknapp signed a new contract at Portsmouth lasting until 2011.
In January 2008 it emerged through the media that Redknapp was offered the vacant manager's job at Newcastle United following the sacking of Sam Allardyce. Redknapp had apparently declined the job, stating "I have a job to do to take this club forward and to walk away would not have been the right thing to do." It was later stated by Newcastle chairman Christopher Mort that Redknapp "was interviewed for the job but he was only one of a number of people we were speaking to at that time", and at the time of Redknapp's interview the club had already been in secret talks with the eventual appointee, Kevin Keegan, for a week.
On 8 March, he led Portsmouth to an FA Cup quarter final victory over Manchester United, completing a hat-trick of FA Cup wins over Manchester United, and followed this with a semi-final victory over West Bromwich Albion at Wembley Stadium on 5 April. He guided the club to their first FA Cup Final in 69 years, where they beat Cardiff City, on 17 May 2008, to win The FA Cup 1–0, thanks to a goal scored by Nwankwo Kanu.
Redknapp returned to Portsmouth to receive the Freedom of the City in a ceremony on 28 October 2008. As this event took place two days after his departure for Tottenham, he received a mixed reception from the Portsmouth fans, despite having led the club to a long-awaited trophy in the 2008 FA Cup.
AT TOTTENHAM
On October 2008, following the sacking of Juande Ramos by Tottenham Hotspur, the club announced that Redknapp had agreed to take over as the new manager at Spurs. Tottenham paid £5 million in compensation to Portsmouth for letting Redknapp go.Spurs had secured only two points from the first eight games of the season prior to Redknapp's arrival and lay bottom of the league, but in his first two weeks in charge he took the club out of the relegation zone, winning ten out of the twelve points available with wins against Bolton Wanderers, Liverpool and Manchester City and a remarkable 4–4 draw against North London rivals Arsenal. In January 2009, Redknapp signed five new players in order to add quality and much-needed depth to his squad. He brought back Jermain Defoe from his old club Portsmouth for £15.75 million and Honduran midfielder Wilson Palacios from Wigan Athletic for £12 million. Long-serving Chelsea keeper Carlo Cudicini also joined on a free transfer, former Spurs player Pascal Chimbonda returned to White Hart Lane from Sunderland for a fee in the region of £3 million and Robbie Keane, who like Chimbonda and Defoe had only left Spurs within the last year, re-joined after an unsuccessful spell at Liverpool for an initial fee of £12 million.
In the second half of the season, Spurs gradually moved up the league table after a significant improvement in form. In March 2009, Redknapp led Spurs to the League Cup final, which they lost on penalties to Manchester United. Spurs eventually finished in eighth position with 51 points, narrowly missing out on a Europa League place.
Redknapp made significant alterations to the squad in the summer of 2009. Striker Darren Bent was sold to Sunderland for an initial fee of £10 million, while midfielder Didier Zokora departed for Sevilla for £7.75 million. In came England striker Peter Crouch and Croatia midfielder Niko Kranjčar from Portsmouth for £9 million and £2 million respectively along with defender Sébastien Bassong from Newcastle United for £8 million.
In 2009–10, his first full campaign with the club, Redknapp guided Spurs to their most successful Premier League season to date. Beginning with four consecutive wins, Spurs went on to finish in fourth place with 70 points, thus gaining the chance to qualify for the Champions League by means of a play-off. As a result of his efforts he won the Premier League Manager of the Year award, only the second manager to do so in a season when his side did not win the title.
On 13 July 2010, it was confirmed that Spurs had extended Redknapp's contract until the end of the 2013 season.
On 25 August 2010, Spurs confirmed their position in the Champions League group stages by overturning a first-leg deficit to defeat Swiss team Young Boys at White Hart Lane in the Champions League play-off.[51] After a surprising run to the quarter-finals, they were knocked out in April 2011, after a 5–0 aggregate defeat to Real Madrid. Spurs ended the 2010–11 Premier League in fifth position with 62 points. Although not enough to secure a second year of Champions League football, this finish instead meant that Redknapp's Spurs qualified for the Europa League.
In the 2011–12 season, Redknapp signed 40-year old goalkeeper Brad Friedel, after his contract expired with Aston Villa. He also made a season-long loan move for Manchester City striker, Emmanuel Adebayor. On transfer deadline day, he signed English midfielder Scott Parker for an undisclosed fee from West Ham United.Redknapp then went on to win the Manager of the Month award for September and November.
And lead Tottenham to their second fourth-placed finish in three years, missing out on Champions League qualification due to Chelsea winning the competition.
Harry Redknapp who resume training with his new team on sunday has said that the players have only themselves to blame for their current position on the Log.
With Harry's restorative powers I can confidently say that Harry Redknapp has what it takes to Save QPR from their doom situation.
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