Southampton: Saints tweet hilarious response to Harry Redknapp claim

Former Southampton manager Harry Redknapp has claimed that he wants to “buy a football club” once Coronavirus lockdown measures have been lifted.

After hearing this via the BBC Radio Solent Twitter account (original quotes via That Peter Crouch Podcast), Saints have made their stance very clear with a hilarious response.

Their tweet (below) features a well-known GIF of Homer Simpson disappearing into a hedge as not to be seen, but Saints have added their club crest into the mix to show that they really want no further involvement from Redknapp.

The 73-year-old took charge at St Mary’s back in 2004 but his time on the South Coast will not be fondly remembered and Saints fans will always see him as a fierce enemy.

This is because he failed to keep the club in the Premier League and subsequently moved back into top-flight management with Saints’ arch rivals Portsmouth.

Annoyingly for Saints fans, it is with Portsmouth that he had his most success across two spells.

He led them to promotion to the Premier League back in 2003 and then an FA Cup win in 2008, which then brought European football to Fratton Park.

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Since leaving football behind, he has appeared on TV advertisements and won the 2018 series of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!

As mentioned before though, he is not thought of highly at St Mary’s.

In all, he was in charge at Saints for around 12 months and left midway through the 2005/06 season having only won 13 of his 49 matches as boss – a win percentage of just 26% and the 8th-worst record of any permanent Saints manager.

Given what he had done beforehand, Saints made a calculated choice to hand him the job 16 years ago, but now it can be seen as a bad appointment from then chairman Rupert Lowe.

Joining after his time at Portsmouth always meant that Redknapp was going to have to win the Saints fans over quickly, and the fact that he never did that and never seemed to fit in led to relegation and further problems for the club.

Plunging out of the top-flight saw financial difficulties crop up and the threat of liquidation was a real one before Marcus Liebherr bought the club back in 2009.