One thing seems to be united around Southampton Football Club at the moment and that is the supporters dont want Harry Redknapp Back.

Speculation is mounting that Nigel Adkins will carry the can for the sides poor start to the season and the bookies at least feel that if/when he is sacked the man who will be replacing him will be the man that took Saints down from the Premier league last time Harry Redknapp.

To say that would not be a popular choice amongst the fans would be an understatement, from looking around the message boards and speaking to Saints supporters I would hazard a guess that it would be around a 95% majority who would not welcome Redknapp back to the club.

This would be for several reasons, firstly there would be the memories of his last tenure, most back then thought that Redknapp should have kept Saints up, although they were struggling when he arrived, they had some good players in the squad, by the time of the final run in Redknapp had lost the plot, players who would have battled to save the club were left out, whilst on loan mercenaries brought in by Harry put in lacklustre performances, most Saints fans would concur that forgetting prejudices, Redknapp's heart just wasnt in Saints and the job he did here was poor.

Secondly there is of course the Pompey connection, in itself thats not a deal breaker, after all Alan Ball like Redknapp sandwiched the Saints job in between spells at Pompey and although he tainted his copybook was respected for the job he did at the Dell, but with Redknapp its different, he arrived at St Mary's for one reason only and that was to stick two fingers up at Milan Mandaric and in doing so did the same to the Pompey fans, he was willing to jeapordise both Saints and for that matter Pompey in order to feather his own nest, although we alll realise there is little loyalty in football nowadays, the fact is Redknapp took this too new lows, never has a manager took a job for such a wrong reason and never has a manager cared so little about what he is doing.

But if getting Saints relegated wasnt bad enough, it was the way Redknapp hung around the following season, disinterested and just waiting for his pay off, people forget that Saints actually still had a decent squad when they started the campaign back in the Championship in 2005/06 they still had Antti Niemi in goal, they still had Lundekvam, Higginbotham, Quashie, Oakley Prutton & Delap even Michael Svensson for a few games, add to that youngsters like Kenwynne Jones and Theo Walcott & new signings like Dennis Wise and Ricardo Fuller and you had a squad that should have been challenging for promotion, indeed by the end of the season after Redknapp had left the likes of Surman, Baird,Bale, Mills & Dyer were breaking through all players ignored by Redknapp apart from hanging them out to dry at Mansfield to prove a point to Lowe, if Harry had got us relegated the previous season his sulking helped us little in this year.

Finally the way he skulked off back to Fratton, willing to sell his soul again to the bigges paymaster regardless of the trail of chaos he had left behind him.

Harry Redknapp has shown he can manage in the premier when he is given a chunk of money to spend, perhaps we will now offer him that chance again, however if we do so it will rip out the work we have been doing so far, last time we were implementing a similar plan of action under Rupert Lowe, he had Sir Clive Woodward and Nicola Cortese has Les Reed, its fair to say Arry wont be able to work under what is effectively the same system, so we will now see if the fabled five year plan is a serious thing or whether we are prepared to rip it up to see if we can stay up under Redknapp, will we stand firm or will history repeat itself.         

Photo: Action Images

stmichael added 10:34 - Oct 23 To be honest Nick most of the above is a matter of opinion. I am sure Harry cared very much because at the end of the day he would not want a relegation on his CV. My biggest problem with Harry is that he failed to get a point a game which was all he needed to do to keep us up. How can you get relegated with a front 2 of Phillips and Beattie? The rest of it is stupid muddling chairman , the Clive Woodward experiment etc etc What cant be denied is that Harry is a proven premiership manager and if we get rid of NA he is odds on favourite to be installed. I also like his backroom staff , Joe Jordan , Kevin Bond , real football people. Dont misunderstand me I want NA to stay. In fact I would want him to stay if we get relegated with 12 points. I crave stability for this club and I know NA will get better and better as a manager even thiough he will mess up along the way. However if Cortese acts we should be careful about kicking up a fuss over Harry. It happened before over Hoddle and I said the same thing then. Not appointing Hoddle got us relegated. I dont think Cortese will be as weak as Lowe in bending to the fans demands.

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philbinns added 10:42 - Oct 23 100% agree with you st michael - it's as if I wrote that
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SaintNick added 10:43 - Oct 23 Harry didnt get relegated with a front two of Beattie and Phillips, Beattie was off within weeks of Harry arriving and Phillips was often sidelined with Crouch and Camara his choices. Yes Harry is a proven Premiership manager, but he is a short term fix manager, who works in a certain way, total control of everything and he has to have money to spend, which as he proved here he doesnt always spend well, you quote a meddling chairman and clive woodward as the main cause of why Harry got Saints relegated, well we are implementing exactly the same system now, would harry be happy at being told he has to play 4-5-1, would he be happy at Les Reed's input, would he be happy at the current chairmans input Its deja vu

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geezershoong added 10:45 - Oct 23 I wouldn't step foot in the ground if Redknapp is appointed.
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Boris1977 added 10:50 - Oct 23 That mercenary would never be able to work with NC. If Saints had have signed a couple of appropriate defenders over the summer Saints would be mid table at the moment and there would be no issue. Saints are not in crisis and the worst that can happen is relegation at the end of the season. That mercenary should not be allowed near the club in any capacity other than opposition manager should the day come. NA is a proper southampton manager - descreet, positive, playing football the right way, a great motivator,and at the moment, despite the problems Sainst are facing on the pitch, the only man for the job and like his players he is learning about doing his job in a new enviroment. My abiding memory of the mercenary is in the light of the 5-1 loss v spurs during the season we went down, openly blaming the players, getting rid of Jason Dodd and complaing that we had no leaders on the pitch. Our club is too good for that nasty, selfish little turd. I buy the argument that not appointing Hoddle got us relegated - but by actually appointing the mercenary not only were we relegated the spirit was crushed.

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LostBoys added 11:10 - Oct 23 My dad took me to the Dell on his shoulders when I was three which is nearly 60 years ago. I do not want to put my views on Redknapp on record but they echo those above and I would seriously have to consider whether I could continue. However I think the club have replacements in mind as Nigel represented a commercial risk in the premiership irrespective of his immense success in the lower leagues. I think it will be one of the others on the list as the club would not want a repeat of the Branfoot debacle

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TreeHugger added 11:32 - Oct 23 To be fair, we would have stayed up with Harry if it wasn’t for 2 games. First was the 2-2 draw with boro. 1 minute left and 2-0 up…..ended up drawing 2-2 The other was against Everton, 1-0 up with a minute to go. crouch had the ball and decided that taking it into the corner flag was a rubbish idea so had a shot from a ridiculous angle. Keeper caught it, kicked it long, bent took a touch and hit it straight in the corner….full time whistle blew straight after -1-1 I thought camara was a good bit of business at the time. I think he thought he could keep us up and just didn’t want to manage in the championship when we were relegated. Obviously the Portsmouth links made it harder to swallow. NA is the man…lets give him our support on Sunday. I’m expecting us to lose so let’s just show the team we are behind them no matter what. They will turn it around.

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bstokesaint added 12:32 - Oct 23 I don't think I could watch Saints play under Redknapp. It would break my heart, but Redknapp stands for everyone that is wrong with the game. He is a money grabbing scumbag.
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ElSanto added 12:35 - Oct 23 I would really like to give Nigel a chance, and I think he deserves it after back to back promotions. However, my issue, is that, if we got relegated, we would have to sell our best preforming stars from this season for a lower price and start all over again trying to build a squad capable of reaching Europe. We would lose our top-class players like Ramirez, Lallana, and maybe even Clyne and Spiderman. In my opinion, I think we have invested too much money this year to even entertain the idea of relegation.

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Boris1977 added 12:47 - Oct 23 TreeHugger - you last para is the spirit 100% and the spirit that has been rebuilt ever since Lowe left.
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simmo400 added 13:00 - Oct 23 Can you lot put me right ? Wasnt it the fans that said no to Glen Hoddle returning ?
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SaintNick added 13:06 - Oct 23 The fans were undoubtably split on it probably about 35% would have had him back but a big majority wouldnt, Hoddle was ready to put pen to paper and the board wouldnt rubber stamp it, Lowe once admitted that this was his big mistake at Saints he should have said that either Hoddle was appointed or that he Lowe would walk The rest as they say is history
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sidsaint added 18:53 - Oct 23 I agree with ElSanto. Relegation might see a number of players go and we would be back to square one having spent a lot. If he keeps faith with NA I think it will be November, like it was when we were relegated from the prem 7 years ago, that will seal his fate. I remember thinking then that we had a comparatively easy month but we failed to pick up points. November this time offers Swansea, Norwich and Newcastle at home plus QPR and WBA away plus Ramirez coming back - a possible 8-9 points? I hope NA's still in place to tackle November, if he is and he fails then I think he will have to go and the chairman will go for a foreign manager.

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landsdownsaint added 19:34 - Oct 23 When 'Arry' said he was back at his "spiritual home' Pompey said it all! Surely we don't want him back?... Adkins is the man, we all know he's made mistakes to please his chairman but he's a good honest man and that's what our clubs about.
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