The south coast soap opera

By John May

Saints unveil Redknapp

Adversity makes for strange bedfellows as the rocking, rolling, South coast soccer soap opera proves yet again.

If you had suggested to anyone a month ago in either the red or blue half of Hampshire that Harry Redknapp would leave Portsmouth and take over at Southampton, you would have been dunked in the Solent to cool off.

But in a scene that makes Bobby Ewing's reincarnation in a Dallas shower totally believable, Redknapp has pitched up at St Mary's two weeks after he walked out of Fratton Park, pledging to Pompey fans that he would never defect to the enemy.

His appearance like a Cold War spy turning up on the other side of the Iron Curtain is all the more remarkable when you consider what he has left and what he is walking into.

To put it bluntly, Redknapp and chairman Rupert Lowe are not so much chalk and cheese as strawberries and strychnine, and people are still rubbing their eyes in disbelief that they have teamed up.

Bringing in Velimir Zajec pushed Harry all the way - it was the final straw Redknapp's former assistant Jim Smith Zajec move 'forced out Redknapp'

On the surface, the pair appear poles apart in just about everything.

Flash 'Arry, the Cockney with the barrow-boy outlook, and Rupert Lowe the patrician country gent.

Redknapp the archetypal football wheeler-dealer, Lowe the prudent businessman.

Redknapp's is the type of old school management style of turning players over quickly that sits ill at ease with Lowe's desire for long-term commitment and continuity.

At the heart of Redknapp's long-running and very public dispute with Pompey chairman Milan Mandaric was fear that his managerial independence was being undermined.

While Lowe's reputation for meddling is undeserved as he does let his managers manage, he does not give them licence to spend recklessly and plunge the club into debt.

Before Saints turned to Gordon Strachan, several managers ago, Redknapp was given the most informal of interviews at Southampton, more out of courtesy than anything as he had expressed an interest in the vacancy.

Redknapp quits as Portsmouth boss

Both parties came away muttering that they had agreed to disagree and go their separate ways.

But for a club that has gone through managers at a similar rate to Zsa Zsa Gabor and husbands, Southampton may have had to swallow a few lumps.

And for Redknapp to be able to bounce back into the game so quickly at another Premiership club must have taken some hard talk on both sides.

Southampton will be hoping Redknapp can motivate and galvanise a squad of players that stand charged with under-performing for head coach Steve Wigley.

Lowe desperately wanted Wigley to succeed, if only to prove his theory that young domestic coaches will only come through if clubs are prepared to look outside of the line-up of managerial Usual Suspects.

At least we have a chance of surviving relegation with Harry - with Wigley we were going down From Southampton fan Have your say on 606

Redknapp's appointment again proves that when it suits, people in football have the wonderful gift of short-term memory loss.

At the same time as Redknapp was reassuring Pompey fans he was not going to jump ship to join the enemy, Lowe was firmly nailing his colours to Wigley's mast as the man who - along with Christian Damiano - would be in charge for the rest of the season.

Unfortunately, in football all bets are off when it comes to results, and Lowe felt he had to act as Saints won just once during Wigley's 14 Premiership games in charge - ironically against Portsmouth.

Having begun his managerial career on the other side of the New Forest at Bournemouth, Redknapp - who still lives in nearby Poole - has now collected a hat-trick of South coast clubs.

Redknapp hints at buying Bournemouth

But his defection has not gone down well at Portsmouth, where they suspect it was not the spontaneous act to take a break, prompted by the appointment of Velimir Zajec.

There are dark mutterings from the eastern end of the M27 that there might have been an air of pre-meditation about it.

By pitching up in the enemy camp Redknapp can certainly expect a warm reception when the sides meet at Fratton Park on 24 April.

The South Coast soap opera rumbles on - and do not be too surprised if the scriptwriters have even more twists and turns planned.