Redknapp holds fire on Saints decision
Harry Redknapp will hold talks with under-fire Southampton chairman Rupert Lowe before deciding whether to retire from football – or try to bring the Saints back up to the Barclays Premiership.
Having arrived in mid-December to a club in turmoil, Redknapp was unable to prevent Southampton's slide into the Championship.
Indeed, despite clawing their way to potential safety for more than an hour of yesterday’s dramatic final day, they eventually lost 2-1 to Manchester United and finished bottom.
Redknapp revealed: “I’ll have a short break and then chat with the chairman and decide what we’re going to do. If I didn’t stay here, I would finish in the game completely. I’d never get a better job than this, even if I took time out. It’s a good club with good people.
“Last time, I had two weeks out of football but I got upset with things that were being said. I knew what I’d done at Portsmouth and I got hurt by that.
“Then this offer came up and I took it. But if I left here, I wouldn’t come back again, for sure.”
After goals by Ruud van Nistelrooy and Darren Fletcher had confirmed Southampton’s fate, Redknapp added: “Jim Smith just said to me ’I’ve never seen anybody in my whole career take it as badly as you do’.
“I think that’s a problem. It isn’t good for anyone around you, it affects me badly. You can’t get as low as I get with it at times, or care as much as I do. It’s not healthy to do it. But it’s the way you are and you can’t change that.”
Having said that, Redknapp appreciates there is a challenge ahead in attempting to bring the club straight back up and he also believes there must start to be some managerial stability at the club.
Indeed, the fans’ anger was turned on Lowe at the final whistle, with thousands chanting for him to go, having appointed eight coaches in seven years.
Redknapp backed Lowe as a “nice man” but accepted that “they have had a lot of managers here and they’ve gathered too many players”.
The former West Ham boss, who revealed that Lowe almost appointed him before he went to Portsmouth, added: “I’ve never seen so many players in my life at a club. They’re everywhere but short of quality and I don’t know where half of them have come from.”
Many of the peripheral figures will now leave, while others, such as Peter Crouch, Kevin Phillips, Antti Niemi and Nigel Quashie, may have to be sacrificed to balance the books.
It had all looked so different at 3.10pm, when Southampton seized the lead through an own goal by John O’Shea after Graeme Le Saux’s cross had flicked past Roy Carroll and off Danny Higginbotham.
Even when Fletcher equalised with a header from O’Shea’s cross nine minutes later, Saints were still safe as Norwich were losing and West Brom were drawing.
However, their fortunes turned as West Brom went ahead against South Coast rivals Portsmouth, while van Nistelrooy headed home Alan Smith’s cross to put United 2-1 up at St Mary’s.
Redknapp admitted it would be “very hard” for Southampton to come straight back up without major surgery on the team, but insisted it was not the lowest point of his career.
He concluded: “I’m gutted but I met one of my former players here today and his little boy has four weeks to live, so what’s life all about?”
