HARRY REDKNAPP has made his managerial name by wheeling and dealing in the transfer market.

He has carved out a reputation as a man who brings in players and ships them out at a rate some chairmen wouldn't believe.

Rupert Lowe can probably be included among that list of chairmen, but all that could soon change.

Don't be surprised if Redknapp's reshaping of the Saints squad isn't as brutal as it was at Fratton Park, where he signed more than 30 players and sold or released as many again in two and a half years in charge.

At Pompey he didn't have an academy system in place to back up the first team squad. He had to bring in loan players and experienced frees such as Paul Merson, Teddy Sheringham, Patrik Berger and Tim Sherwood.

At Saints he inherits an academy he sung the praises of following Pompey's loss at St Mary's a month ago.

Redknapp is nobody's fool, and he won't want to risk the development of the likes of Blackstock, Best, Cranie, Mills and Walcott by cramming his squad full of unknowns from all parts of Europe.

Anyone who claims Redknapp just signs obscure foreigners or players coming towards the end of their careers is wrong.

Don't forget the part he played in the grooming of such stars as Rio Ferdinand, Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and Jermain Defoe at West Ham.

When Rupert Lowe says Saints are structurally sound, he isn't far wrong.

His appointment of Steve Wigley as head coach made a lot of sense in some ways.

Indeed, if Lowe is guilty of one thing it is of looking too far into the future instead of the here and now.

The chairman could see ahead to 2006 and 2007 with Wigley picking a first team including the players mentioned above.

That was all well and good, but he obviously believed the short-term would take care of itself, which patently it hasn't.

All businessmen would like long-term success as well as short-term benefits; before Redknapp's arrival, Lowe could be accused of concentrating too much on the former at the expense of the latter.

But all that has changed.

As he said, Saints have the structure below the first team squad in place. Now, with Redknapp, they have the man to get that bit, the most important bit of all, right.