The fable of Harry Redknapp

Michael Foster

Come gather round children, and I’ll tell you the fable of a man named Redknapp. A man of great fortune, beloved by the good people of Spurstown for he brought them great plenty at a time of great need. But such success was not enough for Redknapp, eyeing more wealth from the rulers of the realm of Englandville. Redknapp was much loved by the town criers and news merchants of Englandville, but its rulers put their trust in a wandering soul called Hodgson. His dream crushed, Redknapp returned to Spurstown to find all was not well. Redknapp demanded his old role was reinstated, but Lord Levy was not best pleased with Redknapp’s disloyalty, and cast him out into the wilderness. So the moral of the story children, is to be cautious abandoning one dream for another, for sometimes you may end up with neither.

Putting aside this new addition to Aesop’s fables, Redknapp’s departure as Spurs boss was a surprise when first announced, but in retrospect that surprise is dulled quite considerably. Daniel Levy is as ruthless as he is hungry for success, and he couldn’t have been best impressed with Spurs’ capitulation towards the business end of last season. There was no way, given how brilliantly Harry’s team were playing and how much of a gap they’d built over Arsenal, they should ever have ended up in fourth. Now Spurs face a couple of seasons of intense rebuilding under a new manager, and their now ex-manager must shoulder his share of responsibility.

The spectre that has haunted Spurs the most over this season has actually taken the form of John Terry. Not only did his team embarrass Spurs in the FA Cup Semi Final, and condemn them to Thursday night football by winning the Champions League (I suspect by Abramovich entering a pact with Darth Sidious and learning to use the dark side of the force). But the stripping of his England captaincy was the catalyst that led to Redknapp suddenly becoming the national press’ favourite manager and seemingly a shoe-in to take over from Capello.

He must have wondered, leaving that courtroom a free man, whether he had actually walked through a portal to the afterlife. Everything was coming up roses for him. Cleared of tax evasion, manager of a team challenging for the title and it seemed the job he’d always coveted was just around the corner. He strenuously denied wanting the England job, but there are single celled organisms frozen in the Arctic tundra that knew how badly he wanted it. And as his eyes drifted to Wembley, his back was turned on White Hart Lane, and Spurs’ season imploded.

Redknapp would say misfortune was the only reason Spurs ended up without Champions League football, blaming injuries and unlucky moments like Defoe not being two centimetres taller in the dying moments against Man City when he had that glorious chance to win the game. But the fact remains that Spurs’ end to the season was nothing short of catastrophic. They were painfully short on goals, relying on moments of magic from their midfield which became few and far between. When things weren’t working Redknapp’s tactics grew more and more bizarre, swapping Lennon and Bale onto their weaker flanks and seeming to ignore the in-form Defoe. But perhaps Spurs’ biggest problem was that over the course of a season they lost to Man City twice, Man Utd twice, lost to Chelsea in the cup semi-final and threw away a two goal lead by conceding five against Arsenal. Once again, Spurs simply couldn’t beat the big boys.

Then Redknapp lost his ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card when Hodgson got the nod for England over him. Harry was then forced to resort to plan B, and returned to Daniel Levy demanding a new contract which Levy was not inclined to renew. The Spurs Chairman has always had a, shall we say, tense relationship with his manager. But he couldn’t have been impressed with the media circus surrounding Harry, and the way Spurs threw everything away at the death. Ultimately Levy called Redknapp’s bluff. And maybe he felt the man he brought to White Hart Lane four years ago had simply taken Spurs as far as he could.

Redknapp undoubtedly leaves Spurs a better team than they were when he arrived. He has brought in great players like Van der Vaart and overseen the development of Gareth Bale and Kyle Walker among others. Yet how much further could he have taken them? He had his chance to solidify Spurs as a dominant force in the English game, and become a legend in the process…and you can’t help but feel like he fluffed it.

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