Harry Redknapp furious with 'disgusting story'
Saturday 02 March 2013
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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."
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