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The other games today - 2013/14

JH

by JH
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From Redknapp's Book:

 

I wouldn’t trust the FA to show me a good manager if their lives depended on it. How would they know? What clubs have they ever run? Who do they speak to who really knows the game?

 

This isn’t about them giving the England job to me or Roy Hodgson, but English football being run by people who really haven’t got a clue. And they get to pick the England manager!

 

Everyone said I was the people’s choice, the only choice. All the senior players seemed to be up for me to get the job. I got quite a few text messages at the time from players saying they would love me to manage England: Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry.

 

But the FA went for Roy Hodgson to be the England manager — a man who is more their cup of tea.

 

I have no hard feelings towards Roy. I phoned him to wish him good luck, and I meant it. He has managed some of the biggest clubs in the world. I hope England have the confidence to come up with a blueprint before the tournament in Brazil next summer because the last World Cup was a disaster.

 

We should be better. Doesn’t everyone think that? It is sad, but England can sometimes be quite painful to watch, and I know from some of the players that it is not an enjoyable experience for them, either. I’ve heard a great many wonder about carrying on in international football because they get slaughtered if the result isn’t right or they don’t play well.

 

They leave clubs they love — where everybody is together — go and play for England and find that this faction doesn’t like that lot, and after one off-night everybody gets ripped to pieces.

 

When I was at Tottenham I had plenty of players who said, ‘I don’t want to play, pull me out of the squad, I don’t want to go.’

 

I’m sure it is different with the older players. I can’t imagine Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard or Ashley Cole not wanting to turn out for their country, but I’ve known a lot of younger ones that weren’t interested.

 

Times have changed. My generation would have given their right arm just to be named in the squad, but the younger ones aren’t steeped in that tradition. They can’t be bothered.

 

Without doubt England have underachieved. We are outplayed by nations whose players couldn’t make it in our Premier League.

 

You’re watching a tournament and thinking, ‘Hang on, he was at Blackburn — he was useless,’ or ‘That bloke couldn’t get in West Ham’s team.’

 

How often does that happen?

 

I am amazed we have been so poor. For me, it comes down to identity. We don’t have any.

 

If you look at England against Italy at Euro 2012, and I know it was difficult for Roy because he had just come in, but when your best pass completion statistic is from Joe Hart to Andy Carroll — goalkeeper to big lump of centre-forward, bypassing nine outfield players — you know you’ve got a problem.

 

No other major country would record a stat like that. Don’t we all want to see England play the game properly?

 

The last England manager I can remember who had a firm idea of how he wanted to play was Glenn Hoddle: three centre-halves, a player coming out from the back to overload midfield; there was a plan to what he wanted to do. Since then we’ve bumbled along, a hundred different systems: are we kicking it, or are we passing it?

 

If I had become the England manager I would have taken Brendan Rodgers as my No 2.

 

He had players at Swansea passing it like Franz Beckenbauer. You know how his teams are going to play before you kick off. They are going to pass, they are going to take risks; but England do not have that identity.

 

Now we have Roy Hodgson who will keep England organised, for sure. I just hope he will also be a little bit bold, open up and try to get England playing the type of football we all want to see.

 

Look at Brendan at Liverpool now — he still knows how he wants to play. He got rid of Andy Carroll because he wasn’t in that plan. That is how Spain operate: this is how we play and we don’t compromise.

 

My thinking on Brendan was this: if he can do it with players from the lower leagues at Swansea what can he do with Rio and Terry or Rooney and Gerrard?

 

So when Tottenham played Swansea on April 1, 2012 I pulled Brendan after the game and said that if all the speculation about me and England was true would he consider coming to the European Championships in the summer as my part-time coach?

 

I told him I wanted England to play with as much technical ambition as Swansea. He was up for it.

 

If I got the job, he said, he would speak to the people at Swansea to get their permission. ‘It would be a great experience for you, Brendan,’ I told him. ‘I want England to play like you play. Pass the ball, play and play and play.’

 

Some Tottenham fans might think I was distracted from my club job, but I can assure you the conversation took five minutes. And we beat Swansea 3-1 that day, by the way.

 

It didn’t work out. On April 1, I was contemplating the way forward for England with Brendan Rodgers — and on April 29 the FA offered the job to Roy Hodgson.

 

I’ll admit, I thought it was mine. Everyone seemed so certain, everyone I had met from all parts of the game seemed utterly convinced it was my job.

 

I went to a dinner and Gareth Southgate got me up on stage and interviewed me as if I were the next England manager.

 

I began to think it was almost nailed on if I wanted it. And I did want it.

 

I know some of my positive comments at the time about becoming England manager upset Tottenham, but I was only speaking honestly. I was not revealing any state secrets there. It is the pinnacle of your career.

 

I think Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy felt I was being disloyal for saying this, particularly as Tottenham had offered such fantastic support throughout my tax evasion court case earlier in the year. But that was one of the reasons I didn’t see any harm in making an open statement.

 

Everyone at Tottenham knew how I felt about their backing for me in a crisis. I didn’t think that bond could be damaged by saying that an English manager is always flattered to be linked with managing England.

 

I still don’t see why that came as a slap in the face to them. Then I heard the news on the radio: Roy had been offered the England job.

 

I’m sure the FA would deny they were interested in me anyway, they always like to say they got their No 1 choice, but maybe what helped make their minds up was the thought of writing a cheque in the region of £16million to Levy.

 

He is known for driving a hard bargain at the best of times; get Daniel on a bad day and I would have ended up more expensive than Capello — and the FA were already getting a lot of criticism over his £6m-a-year salary.

 

Of all the reasons doing the rounds for me not becoming England manager, the compensation issue makes most sense.

 

Looking back, perhaps the FA did me a favour. I don’t know how much I would have enjoyed the job as they now see it, spending time with the FA people or at Burton-on-Trent, where the new training centre is based.

 

I’d rather go in every day and see a bunch of footballers than sit around drinking tea with a bloke in a suit.

 

I am still asked quite regularly about what went wrong. I wish I knew for certain. Nobody at the FA has ever explained why I was overlooked and not even asked for an interview.

 

I have heard all the stories about my fractured relationship with Sir Trevor Brooking, but I cannot bring myself to believe that he would have turned the whole of the FA board against me, even if we have never been best friends.

 

Sometimes one face fits and another doesn’t. Simple as that.

 

I think with the FA there are certain managers who are considered a little rough around the edges.If you look at the people from football that get on at the FA, men like Sir Trevor or Gareth Southgate, they do all seem a certain type. The FA offices seem to be the one area of the game where snobbery exists.

 

No disrespect to Roy, but I think we can all see that he is more of an FA man. He came up through the FA’s system and has always been close to the organisers of the game, UEFA and FIFA.

 

He is on their coaching panels at major tournaments. He is just the type that fits the bill.

 

He was one of a generation of players who progressed as a disciple of the coaching principles of Charles Hughes at the FA.

 

There was a bunch of them: Roy, Bob Houghton and Brian Eastick. They came out of non-League football, but from an early age were very interested in coaching. They never quite made it as players, but they thought about the game and were always on the FA courses.

 

For that reason, I don’t see it is a great coincidence that Roy is now the manager of England, and Eastick takes England’s Under 20 team. It is as if they were groomed for the job.

 

I’m not knocking Roy. He’s got great experience, and he ticks the FA’s boxes as England manager just fine.

 

The way I see it now, though, the moment has passed. I couldn’t see myself managing England if the chance arose again.

 

The FA made their decision, they went with Roy and I cannot see me wanting to work for them in the future.

 

If the job came up again, I wouldn’t want to be considered.

 

I’ve given up on it now.

 

Knock Roy out with Ukraine? You bet!

 

The financial package to be the new manager of the Ukraine was tremendous — more than I had ever earned as a manager in the Premier League.

 

Paul Stretford, my agent, had been out there for two days last November. The deal was as good as done.

 

They said I could have my own apartment in Kiev or the best suite in a top hotel; they would give me a driver, credit cards, food and travel expenses and a salary of £5million a year, net, plus bonuses.

 

Obviously, taking the job would have meant playing England — and for Ukraine to go to the World Cup maybe England would have had to miss out, but I decided I could live with that.

 

I love England, and nobody wants to see them do well more than me, but if I was manager of Ukraine I would feel very comfortable knocking them out — just as Fabio Capello would have gone all out to beat Italy.

 

When it’s your job, it’s different. Nobody held it against Jack Charlton that time the Republic of Ireland beat England at the European Championships in 1988. Anyway, England did not want me — so why agonise about working for anybody else?

 

I could travel to Ukraine for matches and stay some weekends when I would scout games. The rest of the time I would work from home.

 

They told me the flight times from London to Kiev and it really wasn’t a worse commute than going from Dorset to Tottenham.

 

It was my idea to include someone like Andriy Shevchenko who knew the country and could perhaps get the fans behind us.

 

Ukraine’s squad has some outstanding players and their problems were not insurmountable.

 

It was an interesting opportunity, new ground for me, and I was about a day away from agreeing the contract when QPR made contact.

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