Glenn Gibbons: Harry Redknapp’s test of mettle

WHATEVER else may be said of Fabio Capello’s marriage-ending squabble with the Football Association, it tended to reinforce the widely-held view that principles, by and large, are the preserve of the rich.

Standing your ground is rather similar to first-class travel – everyone would follow the practice if they could afford it.

The Italian’s faintly obscene £6 million annual salary having made him wealthy beyond sense, it would be a simple matter to take issue with his employers over their decision to strip the England captaincy from John Terry. Severing his connection with employment, after all, would not exactly take the food from his family’s table – or even devalue by a single euro his reputedly £10m collection of fine art.

It is, however, this very readiness to walk away which makes it easy to suspect that the Terry affair was a smokescreen, contrived to ensure the kind of confrontation from which someone of Capello’s reputation, history and self-awareness would believe there could be no backing down.

The manager’s perceived failures at the World Cup in South Africa just over 18 months ago were not the sole source of discontent at the FA. There has been, for most of his tenure, a general dissatisfaction with his application to the job, particularly his apparent refusal to master English sufficiently to engage properly with players, media and fans.

Confirmation of dressing-room discontent in this regard could be gleaned from this week’s tweet from Rio Ferdinand, in which the Manchester United defender underlined his plea for a native-born and raised successor to Capello with the damning, “no more ‘lost in translation.’ It has to be an English manager.”

But, while there is no doubt that Capello did not distinguish himself at the last World Cup, too much of the criticism which followed the entire exercise was hurled in his direction, with not enough reserved for a squad of 23 players whose man-by-man marks out of ten would not have added up to three figures. Like the jury which acquitted Harry Redknapp of a charge of income tax evasion, the population south of the border appear to be unanimous that the Tottenham Hotspur manager is the only credible English candidate for the succession.

Redknapp’s record makes his claim irresistible but, in the event of accepting the appointment, he will surely have to be prepared for the discovery made by all of his most recent predecessors. That is that the standard of player at his disposal is nothing like as high as most observers and commentators in England seem to believe.

The commonest phenomenon in the wake of each succeeding failure at the major events is the puzzlement of “experts” with unsound judgment.

“I can’t understand it,” the average TV pundit is heard to say. “I mean, we have absolutely top-class players. There’s no doubt about that. What happens to them on these occasions?”.

What has happened to them in recent years has been their exposure as relatively moderate.

Does anyone seriously believe that the Premier League is the world’s most watched, most popular and most lucrative because of its English players?

Redknapp at least is clearly astute enough not to fall for the ill-founded propaganda.

If he takes the job, he will realise from the start that he will not have access to a Gareth Bale, a Luka Modric or Benoit Assou-Ekotto, among others, at the national team.

In such circumstances, managers are required to inspire ordinary players to extraordinary achievement and to maximise their effectiveness with shrewd planning and productive execution.

Redknapp seems properly equipped. His willingness, however, won’t come cheap.

There’s something very odds going on. . .

FOOTBALL is never short of purveyors of unfathomable logic – one need think only of the average player or manager trying to rationalise a defeat – but it is something of a surprise to discover that that the affliction can be potent enough to invade the rigidly cogent world of bookmaking.

The onset of a curious departure from normal reasoning by the profession’s odds compilers probably best explains the puzzling betting now available about the outcomes of a couple of forthcoming Scottish Cup quarter-finals. This is a market in which the prices, unusually, appear to be based on status and reputation, as opposed to any actuarial probability.

For example, Hearts, who are themselves charged with the daunting assignment of beating St Johnstone in their fifth-round replay in Perth, would, in the event of progressing, face the winners of the replay in Dingwall between Ross County and St Mirren.

The provisional odds for that last-eight fixture make Paulo Sergio’s side 4-7 to beat the team from Paisley, but a prohibitive 1-3 should they face the Highlanders. Similarly, Motherwell, who will be opposed by the winners of the Queen of the South versus Aberdeen replay at Palmerston, are marked up at evens should they be paired with Craig Brown’s team but a virtually unbackable 2-7 should their opponents in the last eight be the First Division representatives.

None of this appears to take account of the significance of the various results that are required to bring about the projected pairings. Should Ross County dispose of St Mirren (and they have already held them away from home), it would suggest to anyone making a logical appraisal that County should be more difficult to overcome than the team they have beaten.

The same analysis would apply to the victors between Queen of the South and Aberdeen. No size of anomaly in the odds, of course, will make it any easier to back a winner. But the implied insult could be just the spur to drive the lower division sides past their SPL visitors and into the advanced stages of the competition.