Harry Redknapp trusts his ‘brilliant lads’ to avoid last time’s in-fighting
Redknapp believes unified squad will serve QPR well
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Your support makes all the difference.Harry Redknapp is confident that Queen’s Park Rangers can put years of discord behind them with a newly unified squad in the Premier League this season.
Rangers’ last two-year spell in the top flight ended with serious questions about the motivation and character of some of their players, many of whom have moved on as Redknapp has tried to rebuild a group with more commitment to the cause.
QPR take on Hull City at Loftus Road this afternoon and Redknapp believes that this side will give him far more in their battle to stay in the top flight, especially thanks to his summer signings Rio Ferdinand, Steve Caulker, Jordon Mutch and Mauricio Isla.
“Any manager would get people in who they know, good lads who they know are going to do a good job,” Redknapp explained. “When I brought some of the players in, three of them I know about, the Chilean boy [Isla] I’ve only met once but he just seems like a fantastic boy, he’s going to be very low maintenance.”
Redknapp was delighted with the change in atmosphere after the infighting that poisoned their 2012-13 season, when they were relegated from the Premier League.
“What you want, every day, when you come into work, is to see a good lot of lads, don’t you? I don’t want to walk in and see a bunch of toerags. Life’s too short, I’d rather pack up and go home. Someone on £35,000 a week, moaning every day, I don’t need that. With brilliant lads, you’re looking forward to seeing them. It keeps you going.”
The problems that season, when Redknapp replaced Mark Hughes after a dismal start, were so deep-rooted that they could not be solved, even with the expensive additions of Loïc Rémy and Christopher Samba in January 2013.
“That wasn’t a bad squad, it was a decent enough group of players,” Redknapp remembered. “It was a badly balanced squad, short of strikers, but individually there were lots of good players there. They got off to such a bad start it was difficult, obviously the spirit drops and people then start blaming everybody. Once I walked in, and they had had that start, it was very difficult.”
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