Hoddle, who left Saints in acrimonious circumstances to return to his 'spiritual home' Spurs, is currently manager of Wolves on a rolling contract.
In yesterday's press conference, Rupert Lowe spoke of looking to set up a Saints management structure for the short term and the long term. In the short term, Dennis Wise and Dave Bassett are viable options to maintain continuity at Southampton.
However, Lowe's vision for the club is to have a talented coach on board, backed by Clive Woodward's organisational and motivational skills. Hoddle's potential return was the talk of the press pack at St. Mary's, with follow up articles appearing in The Sunday Times and on Sky Sports. In truth, the signs have been there that Hoddle could make a return to the south coast.
First at the AGM the board said that their one regret was not recalling Hoddle to the Saints hot seat having backed down after an outpouring of discontent from the fans, an act which set in motion of series of disastrous management appointments, culminating in Redknapp.
Lowe himself then said that Hoddle was the manager he had got on best with and it is no secret that he was in favour of bringing Hoddle back to St. Mary's, only for the board to be split, resulting in the ill-fated appointment of Paul Sturrock.
For all of his utterances of surprise, Rupert Lowe has known that a change of manager has been on the cards for some long time, with no talk of renewing Redknapp's contract which was due to expire at the end of the season. Certainly his body language at the press conference led this correspondent to believe that he has a plan of action in mind.
As Redknapp himself commented he was just 'keeping the seat warm' for someone else. While Woodward is part of that equation, the real vacancy at St. Mary's is for a top quality coach and Glenn Hoddle has both the experience and the senior backing to fit the bill.
It is of course early days and who could have predicted even a few months ago that Redknapp would be returning to Portsmouth. As Rupert Lowe said in the press conference: 'Very often in football, truth is weirder than fiction and that is certainly the case'.
If lightening does indeed strike twice on the south coast, Eastenders and its dwindling ratings may well have to watch its back.