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New England manager = Roy Hodgson

A comment about Hodgson...I think he's an excellent choice given who's around. He has shown at various clubs, from Inter to Liverpool, that he can handle the critics, he has clear tactical ideas and he absolutely will not be swayed by public opinion/media pressure. His CV is very very good all things given...
 
The 65-year-old Spurs chief was 1/3 favourite to land the Three Lions post and had overwhelming support across the nation. A friend he confided in told The Sun:

“Harry is a bit bewildered because he was waiting for a call from the FA and it just never came. The longer it went on, he began to wonder if he was top of their list.

"Everyone was telling him he was the only candidate but the phone never rang.

"It has always been a dream for him to manage England but he was torn because he loves the Tottenham job and was aware of the huge expectation and pressure of becoming the national team manager.

"I’m sure he would have taken it had the FA asked.

"It was a bit of a shock when he had heard Roy had been approached but he wishes him all the luck in the world. And at the end of the day he wants Roy to do well because he is an England fan.
 
"But if something happens and Roy opts out Harry won’t be interested. He doesn’t want to be second best.

"He wants to concentrate on being manager of Spurs and is relieved the saga is coming to an end. The hype was very distracting.

"In a weird way, it is a relief. He can now get on with bossing Tottenham.”
 
The Sun are ****s for that headline, disgraceful.

And those quotes confirm why I want Harry gone.

You don't wanna be second best Harry? Well neither do we!!

Pardew crushed interest in him, wasn't interested in the slightest.
 
The 65-year-old Spurs chief was 1/3 favourite to land the Three Lions post and had overwhelming support across the nation. A friend he confided in told The Sun:

“Harry is a bit bewildered because he was waiting for a call from the FA and it just never came. The longer it went on, he began to wonder if he was top of their list.

"Everyone was telling him he was the only candidate but the phone never rang.

"It has always been a dream for him to manage England but he was torn because he loves the Tottenham job and was aware of the huge expectation and pressure of becoming the national team manager.

"I’m sure he would have taken it had the FA asked.

"It was a bit of a shock when he had heard Roy had been approached but he wishes him all the luck in the world. And at the end of the day he wants Roy to do well because he is an England fan.

What a fudging joke

His mind was obviously not in there, no wonder we were on relegation from for 2.5 months.

Now that it's all over - let's hope he can pull it together and rile up the players for one last push although I'm pretty sure some of them would feel indifferent towards him
 
What a fudging joke

His mind was obviously not in there, no wonder we were on relegation from for 2.5 months.

Now that it's all over - let's hope he can pull it together and rile up the players for one last push although I'm pretty sI ure some of them would feel indifferent towards him

Any other story from the Sun where quotes were from 'a friend he confided in' would be ridiculed on here....
 
http://www.kumb.com/article.php?id=3038

Don’t bring Harry... Redknapp


Filed: Tuesday, 1st May 2012
By: Terry Land
I was standing in the away end at the Valley, Charlton, and it was simply hosing it down as West Ham attempted to hold onto a 2-1 lead with a bit over a quarter-of-an-hour on the clock.

Despite an arthritic knee and what pace he ever possessed forever gone former Hammers hero Julian dingdongs had been asked to play in an unfamiliar wingback role and was taking a chasing from Addingdongs right-back Danny Mills. Worse still Charlton boss Alan Curbishley, along with everybody else in the stadium, spotted dingdongs’ distress and doubled up on him by bringing on substitute winger John Robinson.

When I say “everybody” I mean all bar the West Ham manager. Despite having the useful French wide player Marc Keller on the bench he failed to act – Mills banged one in and Andy Hunt and Neil Redfearn grabbed a late one each to give our South London cousins a 4-2 victory. I walked back to the car in Anchor and Hope Lane unable to believe any manager worth his name could have been so tactically inept. Soaked to the bone, angry and confused – that Saturday in October 1998 was the day I stopped believing in Harry Redknapp.

My journey with the man began almost 30 years earlier with a match at Upton Park against Stoke City. Seated with Dad in the recently opened East Stand two memories from my first ever visit to the Boleyn Ground remain. A dull 0-0 draw closed with a woman running onto the pitch to attack the referee. Off the pitch my spectator experience, as it would no doubt be called today, was enhanced by the mainly good-natured but relentless barracking of West Ham’s spindly right-winger.

“Oi Redknapp! Stick yer tongue out – you’ll look like a zip”, they chortled, “How about starching that number seven on yer shirt – give yer some backbone”, they laughed. For me, versed only in primary school banter it was inexplicable how fans might not treat players as heroes. But even at nine-years-old the truth was as obvious to me as it was them. Harry was chicken.

Redknapp hung around the club for a couple of years more before coming to the same conclusion as all his “admirers” and leaving for Division Three side Bournemouth. His return came from the same club – this time in a coaching capacity and following a spell in the United States – as understudy to manager Billy Bonds while the club languished in the second tier. Following an initial struggle Harry’s presence revived the side as they played with energy and enjoyment, gained promotion and consolidated their position with a 13th place finish in the new Premier League. Bonds jumped/was pushed, Harry took over and the club established itself as a mid-table side over the next few seasons.

Even if there were obvious faults to be rectified (our away form and propensity to fall apart under pressure, for instance) Redknapp appeared to be doing a good job. His buys were astute and our home form remained solid. But Harry’s profile in the media seemed to bear an inverse relationship with his ability to manage the club. Journalists loved the crafty ****ney rent-a-quote even if in person he could be extremely brusque and quick to anger.

Along with the fame came a biography and a telling insight into the man – but not in a good way. Ghosted by Derek McGovern it was little more than a series of justifications for a host of allegations many of which were never made in the first place. It was also rather, shall we say, slippery with the facts. Despite claiming to have made “no money out of football” and leaving Bournemouth ?ú2.5million in debt he arrived at West Ham living out of Sandbanks on Poole Harbour, one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the country.

Fortunately the book also went a long way to confirming personality traits I would argue define his subsequent career. As yellow as he may have been on the pitch, H is ruthless on an interpersonal level and extremely difficult to deal with. Examples from the book include spats with friends Barry Fry and Peter Storrie. Even Sir Clive Woodward, author of the England rugby side’s 2003 World Cup win, found him impossible to deal with while attempting a role as Performance Director while both were at Southampton.

Club Chairman at the time Terry Brown claims in Brian Belton’s biography Brown Out Harry was tactically illiterate and he relied heavily on first Frank Burrows then brother-in-law Frank Lampard. As somebody who went to a lot of away games over that period I’d echo those sentiments. Time upon time we would travel with a 3-5-2 formation – used ostensibly to accommodate a playmaker such as Eyal Berkovic or Joe Cole only for it to quickly become 5-3-2 with three static centre-halves as soon as we came under pressure. After yet another heavy defeat Harry would brush off questions about the performance with claims such as, “These lads wouldn’t know how to defend” and expect nobody to question why he had first bought then selected them. Perhaps his behaviour when “accused” of “wheeling and dealing” by a Sky reporter gives us a clue?
As a motivator Harry employed a pretty simple technique. Build a large squad before dividing it into pariahs and teacher’s pets. Given his force of personality nobody would want to be on the wrong end of a Redknapp tongue-lashing. For the huge majority of players there’s nothing worse than being dropped and I’ve heard several top flight managers observe the only way to motivate them is with the threat of not playing. Multiply that by the knowledge falling out with your boss would ensure you’d never be picked and it’s a pretty useful if ruthless technique. A case in point was the previously mentioned Keller – who never enjoyed a run in the team despite some very good one-off performances. Jermain Defoe would no doubt sympathise too.

Perhaps Harry’s vague association with truthfulness was a concern for the FA regarding the England manager’s appointment. When appointed West Ham boss following Redknapp’s sacking, relative unknown Glenn Roeder was asked which attribute he could bring to his new job. “Honesty” was the immediate reply, a declaration that in true Harry style led to a series of putdowns in the press. In truth, it was easy to see Roeder’s point, after a nasty training ground fight between Berkovic and John Hartson denied by Redknapp but filmed by Sky a case in point.

From my vantage I was interested to witness a TV appearance where Redknapp claimed a whole series of events during a game against Bradford that simply never happened. A former colleague of mine worked for the Newham Recorder and shared a good relationship with H. Post-presser the cub would be summoned to Harry’s office to be told. “What I said out there was a load of gonads, this is what’s really going on…” An indication perhaps, the man is less the cheerful duffer the press would have us believe but more ruthless operator.

It surely can’t be coincidence that every club H has departed have been left in severe financial distress. I’m going to have to be very careful what I say here, especially as a recent court case brought by HMRC absolved Redknapp of any tax misdeeds. Suffice to say, the more money H spent at West Ham the less value we seemed to receive from it. Great signings such as Trevor Sinclair from QPR declined and were outweighed by washed-up rubbish like Titi Camara and Gary Charles. As time went by players appeared to be bought to serve not the team but agents.

As an inveterate gambler Harry didn’t seem able to develop from a punt to purchasing solid players. In Tom Bower’s tome "Broken Dreams" Brown is said to become increasingly frustrated with his signings and offers Redknapp a proportion of any money gained above ?ú15million if he would stop buying players. All of which begs the question who was signing the cheques? Scriptwriter and director Tony Grounds is a good mate and pre-match drinking buddy (not that I drink that much) I met through football and would no doubt say his Channel Four film All In The Game about a corrupt football manager had nothing to do with our West Ham. I’d merely invite people to watch it and make up their own mind.

One of Harry’s proudest boasts concerns the players he “brought through” at West Ham. Happy to claim credit for the development of Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard jnr, Joe Cole and Michael Carrick – even Defoe – who played exactly 13 minutes for Redknapp – the sad truth is those players were moulded into what they were by the West Ham Academy Director Tony Carr and with the possible exception of Lampard all needed a different manager to develop.

All these things and more are known by FA committee member Trevor Brooking who was a non-executive director of the club for much of Redknapp’s tenure. So it’s hardly likely he would have been an advocate when it came to the Three Lions job. Privately Harry will be fuming. But I rather wonder if there isn’t a tiny part of him that’s glad.

For the truth is, stripped of the day-to-day involvement of a football club Redknapp may well have been exposed at the top level – especially as to misquote Enoch Powell, “All managerial careers end in failure.” His honeymoon period would undoubtedly have been longer than Roy Hodgson – the man who got the job – but by GHod Harry wouldn’t want to lose the people who’ve been his best ally all these years – the press.


*Terry Land hosts a blog at moxycoxy.wordpress.com. He may also be found on Twitter at twitter.com/#!/AMoCS.
 
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That's an excellent piece from, kumb

Very thought-provocative!

Fully sourced as well with Terry Brown, Billy Bonds and others who knew Harry directly.

I'm just sad that Harry didn't get his dream so the harsh spotlight of the England job could tear his thin skin to shreds.
 
r.e. harr1984,

Well, if that's ture he should come out and deny it, right?

He's already said on countless occassions he's only ever been focused on Spurs job. What's he meant to do, comment on every single story in the press about him regarding the England job?

If asked at a press conference about it he will deny it obviously. None of us know the truth bar Redknapp, but I'm not making any conclusions based on that article...
 
He's already said on countless occassions he's only ever been focused on Spurs job. What's he meant to do, comment on every single story in the press about him regarding the England job?

If asked at a press conference about it he will deny it obviously. None of us know the truth bar Redknapp, but I'm not making any conclusions based on that article...

The things is, harr - I would say it's fairly safe to assume a direct correlation between our relagation form / results and the England job fiasco.

Arry clearly wanted the job (fair dos, no blame there), so did most of the media (naturally supremacist and predictable), and of course - the 'experts' (i.e. random players, managers, analysts, groundsmen, bloggers, etc.) At one point I counted around 17 (seventeen) different article interviews on ssn about 'choosing Arry'. That is despicable, imv. Why didn't he simply come out like Roy and say - 'not interested, got a job already, let's talk again in May'? Most other managers did that.

But he kept ****-teasing at pretty much every opportunity he got to put his Wayne Rover window down. Then came his newspaper columns and even little Jamie shouting from the sidelines, etc. Directly or indirectly - all these factors in my opinion contributed massively to our collapse.

I simply feel he handled it the wrong way and the fact every second question towards Roy last night was about Arry says it all.
 
You'll be pleased (and relieved) to know that someone at the club has a dual-tier plan depending on where we finish...as for Hodgson, a great choice IMHO...

What do you mean by that?

As to Hodgson, technically I think he is a superb appointment, but practically Im yet to be convinced.

I fear the press are gunning for him already and they have far to much impact/power in these situations. He is starting the job, in a tricky phase of transition, at the least opportune time with already an unreasonable amount of pressure on him.

I certainly hope he succeeds, am yet to be convinced he will though...
 
The things is, harr - I would say it's fairly safe to assume a direct correlation between our relagation form / results and the England job fiasco.

Arry clearly wanted the job (fair dos, no blame there), so did most of the media (naturally supremacist and predictable), and of course - the 'experts' (i.e. random players, managers, analysts, groundsmen, bloggers, etc.) At one point I counted around 17 (seventeen) different article interviews on ssn about 'choosing Arry'. That is despicable, imv. Why didn't he simply come out like Roy and say - 'not interested, got a job already, let's talk again in May'? Most other managers did that.

But he kept ****-teasing at pretty much every opportunity he got to put his Wayne Rover window down. Then came his newspaper columns and even little Jamie shouting from the sidelines, etc. Directly or indirectly - all these factors in my opinion contributed massively to our collapse.

I simply feel he handled it the wrong way and the fact every second question towards Roy last night was about Arry says it all.

I'm really not sure what Redknapp should have said/done during all this mate. He was in limbo really. I don't think he knew for definite that he would take the England job (although Im sure was leaning that way) as its clear he enjoys it here. This combined with the fact he was never offered the job, what more could he of said? He couldn't come out and say he's definitely staying with Spurs because he was obviously attracted to the England job whether he'd end up accepting or not. He consistently said I havent been in contact with anyone at the FA, I've got a job to do at Spurs and that's all I'm focusing on etc

Yes, results during this period would suggest it's had an affect. But is that Redknapps doing? Could it not be the media who have done nothing but build up Harry for England, and this uncertainty possibly/probably has had some sort of affect on the players. I personally don't blame Redknapp for this....
 
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