ON the face of it, Rupert Lowe and Harry Redknapp don't seem particularly suited to each other.

Lowe the public school educated former City businessman, Redknapp the cockney ex-pro with a knack of transfer market wheeling and dealing.

And Redknapp, one of the last remaining 'old school' managers in the game, in no way fits the stereotype of those Lowe has appointed in the past.

"We like to give young English managers a chance," he has said after bringing in Dave Jones, Stuart Gray and Steve Wigley.

Experience, though, counts for a lot.

Look at the teams who have come up this season - both Sunderland (Mick McCarthy) and Wigan (Paul Jewell) have experience of the top level.

The Championship is also full of managers like Joe Royle, Glenn Hoddle, Neil Warnock, Peter Taylor, Steve Coppell and George Burley.

And in many ways Saints, and certainly Lowe, needed Redknapp to commit his future to the club.

To have to search for a fifth manager - or head coach - in 15 months would just serve to further reduce Saints' once proud image in the eyes of the national media.

So it was obvious why Lowe was desperate for Redknapp to stay.

Harry, too, surely didn't want to leave football on the sour note of relegation, though as only the latest man through the revolving door of the Saints manager's office he wasn't tainted with the drop half as much as his chairman has been.

Redknapp rebuilt the Pompey squad en route to Championship title success only two years ago, so he's proven at the level Saints now find themselves. But his job at St Mary's will almost certainly be carried out in a different fashion.

He is starting from a better platform, for example. Saints have better players than Pompey did when he began his Fratton Park cull.

At Pompey he used barely half the £5m he got from selling Peter Crouch to Aston Villa on transfer fees.

What he did do was bring in the likes of Paul Merson, Steve Stone, Tim Sherwood, Shaka Hislop and Gianluca Festa.

They might have been frees, but they all arrived from Premiership clubs and would be paid accordingly.

With Saints' players having had their wages sliced in half, no first team squad player will now be on more than £8,000 a week.

Can Redknapp attract the experienced players he likes with that sort of wage cap in place?

At Saints Redknapp certainly has experience - Telfer, Delap, Oakley, Phillips, Niemi, Dodd.

But they might either be sold or considered not good enough by a manager who has confessed that drastic surgery is needed on the top-heavy squad that got relegated.

Yes, the SAME squad Lowe said the day after relegation was the best in Saints' recent history.

That remarkable difference of opinion is just one facet of the Lowe-Redknapp relationship which will be fascinating to watch - and then there's the Sir Clive Woodward situation as well to consider.

Rumours persist that Woodward's involvement will impact on the first team squad, but until the rugby legend is appointed after the Lions tour and given a title any talk regarding him is just that - talk.

It is all very well Lowe telling Redknapp that Saints don't have to sell their best players, but we are talking about a chairman who has always stated that he won't stand in the way of players who want to leave.

Fitz Hall, anyone?

And Redknapp, not long after arriving at Saints, told the media it would be madness to lose James Beattie; a few weeks later the player was sold.

Unlike at Pompey, Redknapp might be under no pressure to sell Crouch. But if the player has Premiership football (and wages) dangled in front of him, his loyalty will be tested.

Lowe has already said he believes the players who took Saints down should do the "honourable thing" and stay.

But this is professional football we are talking about.

The assurances Redknapp really needs are from players like Niemi and Crouch saying they will definitely STAY.

If Saints' crown jewels are sold for decent fees, then all fans would ask for is for Redknapp to be allowed similarly reasonable sums to bring in replacements.

A lack of investment in the playing squad has resulted in the club finding themselves in the Championship.

Previous mistakes can't be repeated if Saints want to get back where they feel they belong and, more importantly, stay there.

After all, only Charlton and Blackburn have ever been relegated from the Premiership, come back up, and then NOT been demoted again.

The manager HAS to be allowed to manage the playing side how HE wants it.

If Lowe can agree to that, there could yet to be a successful silver lining to the appalling cloud relegation has cast over Southampton FC.