Profile: Harry Redknapp, Tottenham Hotspur manager

By PAUL FORSYTH
Published on Sunday 12 February 2012 03:25

WHEN Harry Redknapp became the manager of Tottenham Hotspur, one of his first priorities was to change the players’ diet.

On hearing that Juande Ramos, his predecessor, had banned them from having sauce on their pasta, he promptly demanded that the chef serve each of them a plate of burger and chips, together with a large dollop of tomato ketchup.

“I don’t give a f*** what you eat as long as you play well for me on a Saturday,” said Redknapp to a squad of pleasantly-surprised professionals. “You can f****** have burger and chips every night as long as you do the business.”

At least, that’s how Steve Lomas tells it. The St Johnstone manager, who was Redknapp’s captain at West Ham United, keeps in touch with his old boss, and says that the sauce story is “typical Harry”. Redknapp was not inviting his new players to drop their standards. He was demonstrating his trust in them. He was treating them like adults.

“He wasn’t expecting them to go and have burger and chips three times a day,” says Lomas. “He was saying ‘listen, you are professionals. You are the ones who got yourselves here. You know what’s good for you and what’s not’. If you’re a manager, you have to give the players some responsibility for their careers. After all, they’re only at the club for three hours a day.”

If, as expected, Redknapp is given the England job, that way of thinking will come in handy. Where Fabio Capello, who resigned last week, was supposed to be a strict disciplinarian, a control freak who wanted to change the players, the man destined to be his successor has made a career of leaving well alone. If it works for him at Spurs, where he manages some of football’s biggest egos, why not England?

“With every respect to Harry Redknapp, he can’t tell Steve Gerrard how to play the midfield role,” says Lomas.

“He can’t teach these guys to be any better in the three days he has them at international level. What Harry is good at is picking the right team. He knows how to pick the right formation, and the right players for that formation.”

All of which compounds his image as an old-fashioned tactophobe in the Kevin Keegan mould.

When Rafael Van der Vaart arrived at White Hart Lane in 2010, the Dutchman was surprised to find that there were no complex training drills, no elaborate pre-game instructions, just a quick pep-talk, and a tactics board on which Redknapp never wrote a word. “It’s not that we do nothing, but it’s close to that,” said the player.

Some would regard that as an insult, but not Redknapp, who has no desire to be another Claudio Ranieri, branded “the tinkerman” for his meddling at Chelsea.

And that it works was proved beyond doubt last night with the 5-0 defeat of a hitherto competent Newcastle side, with two goals from recent signing Louis Saha confirming Redknapp’s transfer sagacity.

Richard Hughes, pictured right, the former Scotland international who played for five years under Redknapp at Portsmouth, says that, if his manager’s tactics were not especially sophisticated, it was because they didn’t have to be. “He very quickly had players performing in the way he wanted, so that it was just a question of keeping things ticking over rather than finding new ways to make things work. They were working already.”

Hughes says that there are two keys to the Redknapp story. First, his judgment of players is peerless, as repeated successes in the transfer market demonstrate. Second, he knows how to get the most from them. Hughes reels off a string of ageing players, including Paul Merson, Tim Sherwood and Steve Stone, whose second wind helped Portsmouth to secure promotion in 2003.

Hughes was among the beneficiaries. One of Redknapp’s earliest signings for Portsmouth, he had nine years at Fratton Park, covering the manager’s two spells there. “Harry always knows what to expect and demand from players, and because it so often tallies with the players’ own opinion, it means that they have confidence in him.”

A mutual respect exists between Redknapp and his squad. They want to play for him. If he gives them a hard time, it is because they deserve it. At every one of his clubs, his fairness has manifested itself in a team spirit that England could do with right now. Gary Neville said that, for many players, representing their country had become a burden. It was no longer enjoyable. They were crippled by a fear of failure.

Hughes, who earned five Scotland caps, is convinced that, under Redknapp, their enthusiasm would be restored. “He would make it fun,” says the Scot. “Players would want to play for their country again. They would be able to focus on the positive rather than complain about being stuck in a hotel with nothing to do.”

Redknapp’s popularity knows no bounds. The players like him, as do the supporters, and perhaps most significantly of all, the media. Not only will that earn him breathing space if results are slow to come by, there is just a chance that, when the knives come out after another quarter-final exit, he will be the first England manager not to be made a scapegoat for what happened. “He is the people’s choice, the press’s choice, and if there are shortcomings on the pitch, maybe they will be addressed in a more calculated manner,” says Hughes. That said, it is a long time since any England manager emerged from the job with his reputation enhanced.

Given how difficult it will be to satisfy a nation that demands victory in a major tournament, Hughes wonders if the historic achievements Redknapp is threatening to pull off at White Hart Lane might cause him to think twice about accepting. “It should be his job if he wants it – that’s a no-brainer – but I think it’s a tougher decision for him than some are making out.”

Redknapp, though, is unlikely to turn it down. Just a few years back, when he was seen as a crafty Cockney who disguised tactical limitations by wheeling and dealing in the transfer market, he could not have imagined that he would one day be the England manager. He could not have anticipated that he would help Portsmouth to win the FA Cup, and lead Spurs into a title race with the biggest-spending club in the world.

Lomas loathes the snobbery with which his former manager has been portrayed. He says that Redknapp has an understanding of the game, and how to be successful at it, that is just as precious as any coaching manual. The 64-year-old has proved himself at every level. He could not have brought the success he did to the contrasting environments of Bournemouth, West Ham United, Portsmouth and Spurs without demonstrating a range of managerial skills, including tactical awareness.

“I’m delighted that a chance is finally being given to someone who has earned it,” says Lomas. “I’m not saying Capello didn’t earn it, but he earned it at clubs with unbelievable budgets. That brings its own sort of pressure, but you can’t tell me that it’s not easier when you have money. Harry’s not just gone in at a top club, and stayed there. When Bournemouth beat Manchester United [in the 1984 FA Cup], he said himself: ‘God knows how we did it with a bunch of panel-beaters’.”

Redknapp has adapted his style since then, but much about him has remained the same. As he admitted in court recently, where he was cleared of tax evasion, he struggles with technology. And although he has mastered the art of flattering the modern player, there are still occasions when he resorts to “traditional” methods, as Lomas can testify. “One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen was when he was so upset that he kicked a tray of sandwiches. Marc Vivien-Foe, God rest his soul, had just signed, and one of the sandwiches landed on his head.” Messrs, Gerrard, Lampard and Terry, you have been warned.

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