Redknapp on QPR: Inside the most toxic dressing room in football
Harry Redknapp and Queens Park Rangers are playing excellent football in the Championship this season.
Led by Joey Barton, Charlie Austin and Andy Johnson, QPR sits in first place after nine fixtures with 23 points. Redknapp has brought in some talented players, including Benoit-Assou-Ekotto, Tom Carroll and Niko Kranjacar. Their chances of moving back into the Premier League look good at the moment.
Only a few months ago the club was in shambles. A dysfunctional dressing room full of overpaid, middling players led to relegation for the denizens of Loftus Road.
In his autobiography, currently being serialized by the Daily Mail, Redknapp reveals just how bad it was.
"The problem was, he [referring to malcontent Jose Bosingwa] wasn’t the only one. It was scary. Within weeks I had worked out that my best player was Ryan Nelsen, a 35-year-old New Zealand international — and he couldn’t wait to get out.
‘You’ve got no chance,’ he told me. ‘Not a prayer. This is the worst dressing room I’ve ever been in in my life. You haven’t got a hope with this lot. I don’t know how you solve it.’
The attitude stank. Attitude towards the game, attitude towards training. I can’t remember a worse one — and behaviour like that cannot be altered overnight."
Redknapp also spoke of his players and their hard partying ways.
"One day I heard that one of our players had been out until 4.30am at a casino in London, when we were playing Manchester United at 3pm the next day. When I called him into my office and confronted him with this information he seemed genuinely puzzled.
‘Friday?’ he said. ‘I don’t think it was Friday. Maybe it was Thursday.’ That annoyed me even more. I was expecting him to be angry at the mere suggestion of it.
I was expecting a real row and to go back to my source with a load more questions.
Instead, this idiot genuinely couldn’t remember if he was out until dawn on the Thursday or the Friday — clearly there was a chance he was out both nights!"
It was bad. Redknapp began fearing for his health. Adel Tararabt began acting up. Redknapp made his priority to get rid of the team's troublemakers.
Though it's still early, it looks like ol 'Arry got rid of the right players.