Harry’s Houdini act fails as QPR plan for life in Championship

QPR 0 Stoke City 2

Harry’s Houdini-style ability to get out of near impossible situations has failed him this time, with his arrival at Loftus Road last November coming too late to rescue a club left in a mess by previous manager Mark Hughes. Too many overpaid and under performing players and too few points meant survival was always going to be an uphill task. Ultimately it proved too much for Redknapp, who transformed Tottenham from the relegation zone to the Champions League in 18 months not so long ago.

At White Hart Lane, Redknapp inherited a squad including Luka Modric and Gareth Bale, but at QPR he is woefully short of such talent. He thought he had added firepower by signing Loic Remy from Marseille in January, but the Frenchman has not been able to forge the partnership with Bobby Zamora that Redknapp envisaged.

Remy has scored five goals in ten games, but as Redknapp pointed out, needs a bigger striker to play off. Zamora has been beset by injury and suspension in recent weeks, and even yesterday QPR lost Adel Taarabt and Andros Townsend through injury.

“Adel did well in the first half until he was injured, as well as Townsend. We lost the two players who could run with the ball, go at people and that was a big blow to us.

“I thought when I put Remy and Zamora together we had a pair at last, but when Bobby got sent off at Fulham it become a lot more difficult.”

Redknapp regrets missing out on Peter Odemwingie, who infamously turned up on transfer deadline day believing his move from West Brom had gone through.

“I’d have probably tried harder to get Odemwingie. He might have really given us something up there and scored the four or five goals to make a difference.”

Odemwingie must be relieved he will be playing Premier League football next season, while Redknapp knows he has a juggling act – trying to keep his best players, while offloading those who have let him down.

He knows what is required – a wholesale clearout and injection of players with more character. “You would like to bring in a few players. When I went to Portsmouth that first year I was lucky that quite a lot of players were out of contract and I could change things around.

“I brought characters into the club, people like Arjan De Zeeuw who was an absolute leader of men, a fantastic person. You need people like that. I took Paul Merson for £5,000 a week. Villa were paying the rest of his wages and he changed the club around with his ability and wanting to play and his enthusiasm.”

While admitting he would rather be rebuilding in the Premier League than outside it, he added: “If I had started at the beginning of the season and we’d have ended where we are now, I’d have gone ‘yeah I put the team together lads and I’m sorry I’ve put a bad team together and that’s where we are’. But this is where we are. I’ve tried my best with what we’ve had and it’s not been good enough.

Peter Crouch, who started at QPR and was signed by Redknapp for both Portsmouth and Tottenham, scored the opening goal and was brought down for the penalty from which Jon Walters made it 2-0 in the 77th minute, sparking Stoke supporters to start singing ‘We are staying up’.

Pulis has been under pressure despite leading Stoke into the Premier League, but his assistant, Dave Kemp said: ”

“You’re there to be shot at. It can be quite harsh, but if you want to be popular, don’t be a manager.”

It is a lesson Redknapp knows all too well.