Harry Redknapp furious with 'disgusting story'

 

QPR may have just picked up their third Barclays Premier League win of the season but Harry Redknapp was incandescent with rage this evening, accusing an agent of leaking false information in a bid to destabilise the club.

Reports today alleged the west Londoners' Dubai training camp last month was marred by ill-discipline, with unnamed players likening the behaviour on the trip to a "stag party".

It was hardly the start Redknapp wanted to his 66th birthday but at least it ended positively, with Jay Bothroyd's second-half strike earning QPR a 2-1 win at Southampton.

The Rs boss only had one thing on his mind after the game, though, launching into a tirade when asked about this morning's allegations.

"It was a disgusting story in the paper," Redknapp said. "It was completely full of untruths.

"I took the team away. We arrived at five o'clock in the morning at a hotel in Dubai, trained that morning.

"We trained every morning I was there. We were on the bus at 8.30am for training, we never missed a training session. We were the only club over there that trained every day.

"I let the players have one night out with about four or five other teams out with them that night.

"That was the only night they went out and the next morning they trained. They never missed a session.

"I know where the story come from, I know who done the story and they are trying to make problems for the football club. I know exactly where it has come from."

Asked if he was disappointed that players leaked it, Redknapp retorted: "It wasn't players. It didn't come from players.

"I am sure as I can be that it came from a football agent and I know who did it."

Redknapp refused to name the agent in his post-match interviews as a fine - and rare - win for the Hoops was somewhat overshadowed.

Loic Remy opened the scoring after 14 minutes but Julio Cesar's fumble allowed Gaston Ramirez to level on the stroke of half-time.

QPR rallied after the break and Bothroyd prodded home late on to earn an invaluable three points.

"They answered all the questions," Redknapp said of his players. "They worked their socks off today.

"We worked hard last week against Man United. It was just they had a little bit too much for us.

"We couldn't have worked much harder. We had 14 shots at goal last week and we gave them a game, but they were better than us.

"Today we have come out and worked just as hard again and no-one could have worked harder than the players I took away on the trip.

"That was the hardest I've ever worked the football team in Dubai so when I read that [story] it really hurts me because it is completely and utterly fabricated story that has got no substance and no truth to it whatsoever."

Redknapp was clearly proud of his team after a win in which the only blot was Cesar being forced off injured.

The Rs boss revealed the Brazilian goalkeeper is struggling after a second-half collision, while Saints counterpart Mauricio Pochettino also had to take off several players.

"Adam Lallana had a knock after coming together with another player on the neck and that is why he couldn't continue," said the Argentinian, coincidentally also celebrating his birthday.

"Danny Fox had a knock on (his) quadriceps, which led to him being substituted as well.

"We do not know how serious it is. In the next couple of days we will do the necessary analysis."

The injuries capped a bad day at the office for Southampton, who were outfought at St Mary's.

"We have to accept that because we made some mistakes," Pochettino added.

"We've tried very hard. We've put in a great effort to try and get a different kind of result.

"But because of some mistakes we have made and their goalkeeper's intervention a couple of times we didn't get a positive result."

Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus
Caption competition
Caption competition
News in pictures
World news in pictures
Sport blogs

New day (slowly) rising – As Brasileirão gets underway, Brazilian football stumbles, rather than leaps into the future

The average Serie A crowd last year was 13,000 - comparable to Australia’s A-League.

by James Young

iBet: Mercedes and Hamilton to roar in Monaco

Monaco is a street circuit where driver ability is more important than anywhere else and if we take ...

by Gareth Purnell

On The Road at the Giro d’Italia: It sounds sadistic, but the team live for the mountain stages

Three weeks ago as I drove off the Eurostar, I remember thinking what a very long time it was until ...

by Martin Ayres

       

Day In a Page

Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

In his first interview since 'plebgate', the former Chief Whip opens up just enough to concede that, in politics, you have to take the rough with the smooth
Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

Special report: Met police call for criminal inquiry into former diplomat's Cayman Islands rule
Fallen angel: Winona Ryder on bouncing back from her decade in the wilderness

Fallen angel: Winona Ryder bounces back

She owned the 1990s... but then she disappeared. Now, Ms Ryder is back with quite the bang in her latest role, as the wife of a notorious real-life Mob hitman.
Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

The director's new film, 'Venus in Fur', is one of the raciest on offer
Rev Richard Coles: 'I don’t have any concerns that God is cross with me for being gay and eventually the Church won’t either'

Rev Richard Coles on the Church and homosexuality

The mellifluous, erudite and witty Coles is the nation's most pop-culture-friendly priest
'Baghdad likes to live from crisis to crisis': Civil war looms in Iraq

Patrick Cockburn: Civil war looms in Iraq

The governor of Kirkuk - one of the country's most violent but successful provinces - fears the worst
Written on the body: Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials

Written on the body

Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials
Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

The IoS marks the sixtieth anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reaching the peak of the highest mountain on Earth
A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

Rupert Cornwell: A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

The destructive power of tornadoes will be as nothing once the Great Plains' vast underground water reserve dries up
Every creature's needless death diminshes us all

Philip Hoare: Every creature's needless death diminishes us all

A 60 per cent decline in our national species should alarm us, yet few of us act. But to mind more about animals would reflect well on society
Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground - and the monks at the heart of it

Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground

Six years ago, the world cheered the monks behind Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Now, a horrific new eruption of religious slaughter is being blamed on a 'Buddhist Bin Laden'.
Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

You can’t always depend on the weather – but you can avoid the pitfalls of the British barbecue by preparing an elaborate outdoor feast indoors ahead of time...
The Calvin report: Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance

The Calvin report

Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance
10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

Warren Gatland's squad fly Down Under aiming to do justice to the expectations – and hoping the Wallabies stay in the pub
The Last Word: Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally

The Last Word

Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally