"He's got a very, very good knowledge of the game, Harry. I would describe him as an old-fashioned football man. I remember seeing an article by Harry in which he wrote about not understanding a lot of this jargon about modern coaching, and that it's not as complicated as people make it out. I would agree entirely with him. Harry has, as they say in the game, an eye for a player. He's a good judge of a footballer and 80-90 per cent of successful management is about getting the right players in the club. You don't see him complicating it with big tactics or formations." Johnny Giles
After becoming the first Englishman to reach a Champions League quarter-final Harry Redknapp’s stock is rising at the same rate as his face is falling. As he loves to remind us at any break in conversation, when he arrived at White Hart Lane in 2008 Juande Ramos had left him with a side rooted to the bottom of the table having accrued a meagre 2 points from 8 games. To transform a football club to this extent in such a short time frame, it has to be said, is pretty impressive stuff.
So why does he not always get the credit he surely deserves? Why is he seen as some kind of ‘dinosaur’ in the modern game? And how can he not be a shoe-in for the England job when Fabio Cappello finally scurries away from his post in 2012? Sure, his chums in the tabloid press would willingly pick him up and carry him down Wembley Way to his new office themselves if it means getting rid of the foreign muck currently stealing a good, honest Englishman’s job. But what of the more reasoned hacks? Why do they not seem so sure?
The answer to this can be found in the twitchy one’s ‘tactics’ last night. Don’t be fooled, his side was up against a poor AC Milan side, as evidenced by the inclusion in midfield of a man deemed not good enough to play for Tottenham when they were a mid-table team and who turned out for Portsmouth last season. The deployment of Peter Crouch as a lone striker with a half-fit (being generous) Rafa van der Vaart in behind spoke volumes. This told us all we need to know about Jamie’s Dad. He is a limited manager in much the same way as Peter Crouch is a limited striker or Jermaine Jenas is a limited bench-warmer. When Jermain Defoe and Roman Pavlychenko are pulling splinters out their respective backsides it makes the image of Crouch trying desperately to keep his flailing limbs to himself all the more baffling.
Milan were there for the taking at White Hart Lane last night and there should have been no need for the Yid army to be biting their nails at any stage. Defoe, off the back of scoring 2 crackers at the weekend, surely would have relished going up against the creaking legs of Alessandro Nesta. A bit more composure from Robinho or accuracy from Pato and Spurs were in real trouble. But neither of those things were prevalent, Tottenham march on and Harry keeps taking the plaudits (and you’d better believe he takes all the plaudits he gets). His luck will run out, however, and it could well turn out his side’s Premiership form goes out the window in the chase for Champions League glory. They won’t win either with Harry in charge. They may as well throw their passports out after the away leg of the next round because they won’t be in the semi-finals and they certainly won’t be in the competition next season.
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