QPR'S Harry Redknapp: We need to make changes and shift some players "We need some good lads, some leaders, the right mix," Redknapp explains. So that when they see the ones who are not with us, they isolate them. They don't want to know, they ignore them. At the moment if people are followers and go along with the ones who are not such good lads you end up with no football team. Redknapp names no names but among those left behind from the pre-season tour to Austria were Joey Barton, Anton Ferdinand, Adel Taarabt, Luke Young and Samba Diakiké, while several others are also up for sale and can go. Jose Bosingwa was left behind and is poised to join Trabzonspor, while Jamie Mackie has joined Nottingham Forest. Just before this interview the 66-year-old has undergone another session of physiotherapy as he recovers from the knee surgery that has left him on crutches and ruled him out of the Austrian trip. Redknapp has also used the recuperating time to hit the phones. To work on deals. He went under the knife; now he is applying the scalpel to the club - scoffing, again, at the suggestion they will be regarded as Championship favourites for the forthcoming campaign and recalling QPR's first two summer friendlies. "We went to Exeter and drew 0-0 and never had a shot on goal," Redknapp says. We went to Peterborough and got beat 1-0 and I think (manager) Darren Ferguson put about eight of his youth team on with 20 minutes to go. We need to improve. And we can improve. They (the club) have got to let me get on and push hard for the players that I want. At least QPR managed a 3-1 win at Southend on Friday. "There are a lot of big clubs in the league - bigger clubs than QPR," said Redknapp. Derby, Nottingham Forest, Leicester, Bolton, Blackburn - all clubs who've won titles in years gone by. At the moment we might be a big scalp because we came down but if you look where we are, the stadium only holds 18,000, so it's not as if we are one of the big clubs in English football. We are a good club and they've had some good teams here over the years. As you walk out of the dressing room at the training ground they've got a team up on the wall - look at that team, it's the most amazing group of players: Gerry Francis, Frank McLintock, Stan Bowles, David Webb, Johnny Hollins, Dave Thomas, Dave Clement, Ian Gillard, Don Masson, Phil Parkes, the whole group of them was just incredible. Good God, look at that team! What would you give for that team now? They could have won the league that year (1975-76), they got done on the last day of the season, so they've had some good teams for sure and we've got to build another good team now. Building a team, Redknapp states, is "what it's all about." It is his craft; at times his alchemy. He loves fitting the "pieces of the jigsaw together," working on combinations, the right mix. "That is probably the biggest art of all," Redknapp adds. Being the judge of a player and fitting a team together that can do the job. There are a million people out there who can't do that. They might think they are great coaches but they are not good judges of players. Cloughie (Brian Clough) was the best in the world at doing that. He was a genius but he wasn't a coach. There is a form of precedent for Redknapp in what he is about to embark upon. Ten years ago he won promotion with Portsmouth, guiding them to the Championship title. "It won't be easy but the one year I had in the Championship was great," he says. I spoke to Paul Merson the other week about it and Merse said it was one of the best years of his career, a year he would never forget. We had a great time. Portsmouth had finished fourth from bottom four years running, or something, and we put a team together - Arjan de Zeeuw, a free transfer from Wigan, a great player, a great character, who was a big centre-half and we took Merse from Aston Villa, who paid three-quarters of his wages, and we did the same type of deal with Steve Stone. They were big players who came in and worked hard - they didn't moan about the awful training ground that we had, with no hot water for six months, they just got on with it every day. That's what I want now. I want to have a go. I like to attack teams and love to see attacking players. I love going to watch players with flair, I want players who can make a difference, who can do a Merson for me. But what about Redknapp himself, how does he feel little more than two years after facing Real Madrid with Tottenham Hotspur in the quarter-finals of the Champions League to be preparing for league trips to Yeovil Town and Barnsley? Or has his knee problem, following on from relegation, the emergency heart surgery he underwent two years ago, made him think he might, well, be getting too old for this? "I never look back in life and regret," Redknapp says. If it doesn't work out, then what can you do? That's life. I love football but it's also just football. It's not life or death. But I've still got the hunger also, otherwise I would not be doing it. I'm desperate to do well.