The next England manager:
"I write like a two-year-old and I can't spell."
"I couldn't even fill a team sheet in."
"I am the most disorganised person, I am ashamed to say, in the world."
For all their clamouring of ''Arry for England', the chaps in the tabs must be praying that he doesn't have to fill in an application form.
While I don't want Redknapp to be the next England manager, there's a nagging logic to it. That Henry James' defence in court was largely based on the grounds of stupidity is the same reason why he should be Sir Harry of Lionhearts, our knight in shining armour.
It shouldn't make any sense to have a manager who doesn't do tactics sending the England team out to face the other finely-tuned European heavyweights. But Redknapp's refusal - or inability - to over-complicate matters is his biggest asset.
Rafael van der Vaart said of the Tottenham manager's style last season, "There are no long and boring speeches about tactics...there is a clipboard in our dressing room but Harry doesn't write anything on it." We know why he doesn't write anything on it, and this simple, rudimentary approach is exactly what we need. If it can get Spurs into the quarter-finals of the Champions League, just think of how it could work with England.
Have England players ever before voiced their opinion of who the new manager should be? Roy Keane is right; Wayne Rooney has no place to be suggesting candidates, especially given his performances at World Cup 2010. But it says a lot that both he and Rio Ferdinand have immediately jumped on the Redknapp bandwagon.
When Ferdinand talks of how England "don't need anything else lost in translation" it's not Fabio Capello's struggles with English that mattered - it was that he doesn't speak 'brain-dead-English-footballer.' A peculiar language, its roots are based in self-implosion, chest-thumping and disastrous penalty kicks. In fact, there are very few words at all, and 'Arry is one of the most fluent tongues.
No diamond formations, no wing-backs and definitely no false nines - Redknapp's methods will come as a relief to the England players. Imagine the dressing room team-talk on June 11:
"So you just want us to tackle them when they have the ball, boss?"
"That's it, Wayne."
"And when we have it we should kick it in the goal?"
"You've got it lads. Let's show plenty of passion out there."
England 5-0 France.
It's going to work, isn't it? It might seem a demotion in sense to change Scott Parker's role from being a holding midfielder to 'the bloke in the middle who does the tackling', but if anyone can get through to this England team it's Redknapp. He might think inverting the pyramid is a position from the Kama Sutra (try not to picture it), but he knows how to tap into the players' complex minds.
The good news for the FA is that he'll cost a damn sight less than £6million a year as well. Redknapp hasn't looked at a wage slip in 10 years, didn't know he'd been given a £70,000 bonus from Tottenham and was unaware that The Sun hadn't paid him for his column for 18 months. It's a win-win situation. Redknapp is England's saviour until proven otherwise.
Matthew Stanger - visit his Twitter page, please
Post Comment
