Why Harry Redknapp is the last of a dying breed and will be missed when he’s gone By Seb Stafford-Bloor Posted on January 20, 2015 image: http://www.squawka.com/news/wp-cont...0x555x4364508.jpg.pagespeed.ic.8WY_GIymJy.jpg please log in to view this image Advertisement Tony Fernandes confirms QPR manager Harry Redknapp will stay in charge When quizzed about what early termination of his QPR contract might mean, the former Tottenham manager embarked on a peculiar monologue, referencing long afternoons spent outside coffee shops and a life stripped of its direction. It was strangely wistful and a fleeting moment of vulnerability. Redknapp, of course, is masterfully manipulative. Behind the chummy, everyman facade lies an astute comprehension of how to navigate football’s peripheries and he has controlled the narrative around him better than almost any of his contemporaries over the last few decades. That’s a point of irritation with some. Before there was a Sam Allardyce and before Alan Pardew was a glint in a chairman’s eye, there was Harry Redknapp and – for better or worse – he is the modern patriarch of all the cliches of the typical British manager. Redknapp has always been an arm-around-the-shoulder sort of coach. He is a motivator, a players’ manager and someone who has survived by relying on an intangible feel for how the game is played. For him, squad-rotation is a modern luxury, praise is to be hoarded and blame is to redistributed rather than owned. Imagine all the characteristics of an English football manager and you picture Harry Redknapp. He’s often presented as a relic of a different era and, typically, as an analogue personality in a digital age. His fondness for transfer dealings, dressing-room bluster and binary tactics provide a stark contrast with the ProZone-loving, statistics-digesting 21st Century head-coach, but maybe he’s never quite got the right amount of acclaim for his longevity. image: http://i.imgur.com/VnKd7To.png please log in to view this image QPR have created 233 chances this season Premier League management is a ferociously competitive business. Redknapp has periodically dropped into the football league over the past twenty years, but he has really been one of the top-flight’s constants since 1992. Whether you admire his body of work or not, that’s worthy of some recognition. He is not an example of someone who has constantly reinvented himself or updated his thinking, but he has somehow remained relevant at a time when managers who shared his skill-set have been aggressively marginalised. Go back to the mid-1990s and appreciate how few of that generation are still coaching in visible positions. Brand Redknapp a dinosaur if you wish, but acknowledge that he did at least survive the meteor’s impact and that, while Brian Little, Howard Wilkinson, John Gregory and all the rest have long since fossilised, Good Old ‘Arry is still lumbering around the new world. …and you might just miss him when he’s gone. image: http://www.squawka.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/800x601x4535855.jpg.pagespeed.ic.d-793udm5T.jpg please log in to view this image Twelve months from now, his grating self-promotion will still be too vivid, but in five or ten years his memory will be tinted by nostalgia. The game’s perpetual growth continues to belittle those who appreciate its more simple qualities. Enjoying ambitious, attacking play and caring more for aesthetics than tactical detail are seen as symptoms of being a footballing Luddite and, in time, there will be a backlash against that mentality. The Premier League has come at many costs, obviously, but one of the most pronounced is the loss of British football’s true identity. There are obvious stylistic differences to the various European leagues but, culturally, the game is becoming more homogenised. The punditry is the same, the buzz-phrases are all too familiar and managers may speak in different accents and languages, but all with the same guarded banality. Harry Redknapp never conformed too that. The criticisms of him are all valid and history will remember him for his self-mythologising, but he has also been quirky and fun and while his sides have often been flawed, they’ve frequently been very watchable. He is the last of a species that will soon be extinct and he serves as a reminder of the almost amateurish qualities that were once associated with British managers. Commercialism has necessitated a greater complexity to the sport and that old type of coach is becoming obsolete for a reason, but when Redknapp departs he will take with him a set of qualities that the game will be poorer without. Behind all the excuse-mongering and press-manipulation was a set of quintessentially English traits and, for the sake of preserving some tradition, we shouldn’t be overly-eager to see the back of them Read more at http://www.squawka.com/news/why-har...ssed-when-hes-gone/277527#11xhESGi9qsIYrYx.99
The issue with the above - is that we are not seeing attacking football. We are seeing clueless tactic - strikers played out of position - etc etc etc etc. I am not nostalgic. Maybe for dino apologists - what exactly do you see in him. I know change is bad and I kinda respect TF for sticking with his man and say - I will let you fight to die with dignity. It's kinda romantic. But the above article is off base - if only Harry had been given more $$$ to buy some strikers maybe we might have seen the beautiful game - it is difficult though
It even implies that nostalgia will look fondly on him because we'll have forgotten all the bad. Might take a good few years....
Very good article. I'll certainly miss him. I'm so eager for him to turn Rangers around because I'm more fond of him personality wise than any Manager we've had, including Ollie. I love his Press Conferences and interviews. His ducking and diving, where irksome to some, is endearing to me. His bullsh*t makes me like him all the more (although I'll admit, when we're losing it can be incredibly annoying). He's the Del Boy of football and I love him for it. Fu*k the knockers and begrudgers 'Arry and go show 'em how its done son
"blame is to be redistributed rather than owned" Nice line. I think I like that article. Is it saying "Harry's a right old ****, but we'll miss him when he's gone"? I'll miss him all right. Just like I miss smallpox and typhus.
Let's set the record straight on Redknapp shall we? West Ham - Best place finish 5th, rest of the time mid table, even with all the Academy players (Ferdinand, Cole, Lampard, Carrick, Defoe) all coming through at the same time. No trophy - Appraisal - Acceptable at best, no Sir Alex Ferguson. Left when they wouldn't give him any more money. Portsmouth - Got them promoted as champions spending some serious money and then consolidated them in the Division, Appraisal - Good job - any better than Fat Sam or a Pulis? Southampton - Took over a team heading for relegation and left them about 8 months later in a worse state then he found them! - sound familiar? Appraisal - Disaster Portsmouth - Won the FA Cup with them which is great but we all know at what cost to the club ultimately. Appraisal - The trophy counts for him as a positive. Tottenham - Took over a side containing Modric, Berbatov, Woodgate, King Lennon, Bale, Corluka etc. All he talked about for the whole season was how Spurs had only 2 points from 8 games - were they really heading down? He got 2 4th place finishes out of them and an acceptable CL run only to be mullered by Real Madrid. Appraisal - Good job - hardly earth shattering. Us - Took over a team with 26 games left in the Season - only needed 36 points from those 26 - Didn't manage it employing crap football. Low moral in club taken even further down. - Got the highest spending team in Championship incl wages promoted by the skin of our teeth playing crap football - We are where we are today playing crap football. So reporter is implying that because Redknapp has lasted longer than dinosaurs such as Little, Wilkinson & Gregory he should be respected and missed when he's gone - well here's a little fact for the reporter, during their respective careers, the dinosaurs achieved: Redknapp - 1 FA Cup Winners, 2 4th place finshes (League). Little - 1 League Cup Winners, 1 3rd place finish, 1 4th place finish (League) Wilkinson - League Champions, 1 3rd place finish (League) Gregory - 1 5th place finish, 1 6th place finish, kept us in the Championship after replacing Waddock!! So all in all really impressive No.s for all the years that Ol Dino chops has been literally hanging around.
By jove I've got it!! - You're an OFAH addict who sees himself as Del himself, hence all the baiting (very funny) of our very own Rodney. May I just interject here and point out that you appear to be more of a Boycie - a bit of a shady voyeur not minding of his Missus getting it somewhere else!!
I liked the old Redknapp. The one who had fire in his belly. The one who could motivate his players. The one who encouraged attacking, attractive football. I don't like the one we're lumbered with and he is indeed a dinosaur who's lack of tactical nous gets shown up more and more as tactically aware coaches dominate the Premier League.
I think we got his digital doppleganger and it's a few circuits short of a silicon chip, either that or Rosie has eaten his remote control...
