“I just told him to tell Pavlyuchenko to fucking run around a bit.” —Harry Redknapp
The thing you have to realize is that Harry Redknapp is coaching on a level at which direct tactical instruction would be blinding.ARTICLE PRÉCIS
Some say Harry Redknapp’s tactics are simplistic. Others are like, “no they’re not.” Still others are barely even paying attention. When your mere presence is food and light to the players who trail in your wake, you don’t just blunder into a room and start garrumphing about wingers who cut inside in the 4-3-3. The Benítezzes and Mourinhos of this world live like they’re auditioning for Zonal Marking or trying to prove that they know more than the pundits. Well, get one thing straight: Knowing more than the pundits isn’t Harry’s game. For him, it’s a glance, a word, a touch—in desperate times, maybe an entire sentence, filtered through Dr. Jay Kettle-Williams for safety—that makes his players respond. We’ve always known this, but now Rafael van der Vaart has made the truth explicit:
Harry is a very special man, that’s why I already feel at home at Spurs. It feels like I’m back on the street. There are no long and boring speeches about tactics, like I was used to at Real Madrid. There is a clipboard in our dressing room but Harry doesn’t write anything on it! It’s very relaxed. The gaffer gives us the line-up 20 minutes before we go out to do our warm-up. And the only words he speaks to me are ‘You play left or right, work hard, have fun and show the fans your best’. Then the defenders get an instruction about who to mark at corners and free-kicks – and that’s it.
There is a clipboard in the dressing room, but Harry doesn’t write anything on it. And why would he? Live like a baron, play your Wii and beat Inter on the weekends. Harry Redknapp’s greatest tactical innovation is the life-tactic he’s given us all.
Read More: Harry Redknapp
by Brian Phillips · November 17, 2010
I’m afraid you’ve got that Zonal Marking link all wrong, but I’m worried it might be due to some blog blood feud I’m not hip to and I should have maybe just kept my mouth shut.
@Tim Whoops! That’s fixed, thanks.
“Live like a baron, play your Wii and beat Inter on the weekends. ”
That hits me right where I live.
The more Harry is successful the more the football intelligentsia froth and wail, proving the futility of their existence.
What are you trying to say about Goodluck Jonathan? *angry face*
@Jonathan Hey, look, Harry Redknapp hasn’t gotten his country almost kicked out of FIFA. Yet. That we know of.
Reminds me of when Aussie Rules coach Kevin Sheedy instructed one of his players to “Fuck off and go do something.” Said player did, and Essendon came back and won that game.
Harry left Portsmouth as FA Cup winners in administration, and Spurs increased gross revenue but now operate at a loss. So, yeah, binge spending on players can make tactics slightly less relevant – although bad tactics and man-management can turn a treble-winner into a Rafa Benitez team.
Is ‘Arry this relaxed about all facets of life? Does a complex coq au vin recipe get met with pox-faced yells of “just fucking simmer it about,” or does his procreation technique—the ginger gyrations that led to Jamie Redknapp—consist of “just fucking stick it in”?
One has to suspect yes, right?
a) I think Redknapp is perfectly tactically aware – he just knows when to adopt a laissez faire approach and when not to (he can change a formation and bring on subs when required with the best of them) and b) the litany of gaffers who were supposedly meticulous tacticians includes some real negatives: look at Don Revie, reviled for his “dossiers” – successful with an up and coming team in Leeds but more often than not coming up short in the big games – then, an outright failure with England.
Not a fan of ‘Arry’s record off the park and the wasteful spending but he knows how to motivate a team on a given day and you don’t do that with a chalkboard. Look how he’s turned round Gareth Bale, who at point looked like he was going to go the way of Nii Lamptey and Freddy Adu.
Long time reader. This is probably my favorite thing I’ve read here. Always been fond of the Portraits and BAFC too though, when will they be back?
The Montreal Canadiens Ice Hockey Team had a coach who was in the league for over 2 decades, was general manager of certain teams and in charge of contracts and trades and then became a tv personality and then politicians and was later found out to be illiterate which makes you think that there are plenty of available jobs out there for people who cant read or write.
Those that dont involve ice hockey probably involve football and Englands own Forrest Gump will one day be national team manager and probably made a Lord or Lard or some other upper class twit title.
There is a need for an Arry, to give us that glimmer of “Hey, Im just as dumb as he is, even I could coach an EPL team!!”.
Wenger makes us feel inferior while listening to Arry’s gems makes us feel better about ourselves.
@James T Classic. You just can’t imagine much effort having been put into the making of Jamie Redknapp.
@Tim Lovejoy Jacques Demers
“Wenger makes us feel inferior”
You poor thing. Imagine how bad you’d feel if he won something.
@kt I like the effective use of ‘if’
I like to think that Harry leaves that clipboard blank, but on display, as some profound metaphor that would be impossible to explain using mere “words”