I owe these pair a huge debt

The outspoken Brentford manager was given his league debut under Jim Smith at QPR, and finished his career at Pompey after the Bald Eagle snapped him up from West Ham - where he played under Harry Redknapp.

Allen earned the nickname 'Mad Dog' for his days in QPR and West Ham's midfield - as well as his reputation off the field.

Now, after a promising start to his managerial career, he is preparing to pit his wits against the men who taught him so much.

Allen, 39, said: "Harry and Jim were both very good to me. It's every schoolboy footballer's dream to make their league debut and Jim gave me the chance to fulfil that ambition, I'll forever be grateful to him for that.

"At the time it was very brave of him to drop an England international in John Gregory to play me, but he used to pick on me even though I was the youngest.

"He used to eff and blind and at half-time his head would go bright red - you'd be able to see a blue line down the middle of his face and it looked like he would explode!

"He'd often be bursting with anger because of his desire to win, it was incredible and drove everyone on.

"But he was also very fair and very good at building a team."

Allen has turned Brentford's fortunes around since joining as manager from Barnet last March. This time last year the Bees were heading for League Two, but Allen saved them and now the West Londoners are challenging for promotion.

Before that, Allen made 136 appearances for QPR in the 1980s and went on to play 190 games for West Ham.

He added: "Harry was always fair and straight with his players and was also a good coach. But as he says, if you've got awful players it doesn't matter how good a coach you are.

"He is the master at working in the transfer market. He's shown that at Southampton, they've got a very good chance of staying up thanks to the signings he's made.

"They're certainly a lot stronger than they were at the turn of the year.

"He was also very clever at West Ham. It was a very lively dressing room with characters like John Moncur, Don Hutchison, Julian Dicks, Ian Bishop and myself but he turned a blind eye to a lot of what went on and just let us get on with it.

"I wouldn't want to repeat some of the things that we got up to but Harry ignored it so long as we did the business on the pitch.

"He managed us well."

Despite the respect he has for Harry and Jim, Allen will not be sharing a bottle of red wine with the Saints pair after the game.

"That's for the Premiership managers, it's not my scene," he said. "I've never seen the point and there won't be any reason to break the habit on Saturday.

"All I want is for my lads to put on a good performance and concentrate on what we can do.

"If I started worrying about the fact that Southampton are full of internationals and good quality Premiership players and the fact that Harry and Jim have been managing for a long, long time, I probably wouldn't sleep.

"They work brilliantly together and they did a magnificent job at Portsmouth. They turned that place around in 18 months, it was a tremendous achievement, and they're doing the same at Southampton.

"I was at St Mary's for the game against Fulham and the players that have come in have improved them a lot.

"But we'll be treating this game like any other.

"We're in the play off positions and have played live on television this season so we're used to big games - and there's an awful lot more to come from my team."

Redknapp paid tribute to Allen, saying: "There's not many people around like Martin.

"He was known as Mad Dog when he played at West Ham and he is a bit off the wall.

"I see he dived in some river last week and now he's going to swim the Solent.

"Martin was there when I got there and one of quite a mad brigade.

"He's a one off.

"He took all the players to his house one day and if they didn't win a game they had to sleep in his garden or something like that.

"He's different but there's no reason you can't be different, we can't all be the same.

"The game needs characters."