26/10/2008

Wheelin' dealin' 'Arry To Spurs!

Can you believe that?
"one more than the other lot"-Redknapp is moving to north London.
Wonder how many people saw that coming!

Harry played for us between -64 and -72. I don't have any personal memories of that, but his 7 year period as manager at Upton Park is one I have strong feelings about.

His footballing strategy has been described as "one more than the other lot", and is English style 442.
His managerial idea is to pick up players on the (relatively) cheap.
Mostly the idea is to find someone that is unwanted by others for some other reason. Mostly picking up someone that used to be good and then try to squeeze out a couple of decent last seasons out of him.
This method made us "Past Their Best Ham" for a couple of years with lots of ex-decent players in our side.
One piece of shrewd business was picking up Paulo when no one else would touch him with a 10 foot pole following the "pushing" of referee Paul Alcock.
But his wheelin' ways also gave us Neil Ruddock...

He was sacked in the worst possible way in the spring of-01 (for us that is - no successor lined up) due to a controversy with the board (can't remember why at the moment) and was replaced by youth coach - useless Roeder.

Since -01 he has managed Portsmouth, twice, with a stint at Southampton in between.
As always, building a team with players at knock down prices for one reason or another.

I think this T-ham move is an opportunity for Redknapp to look good and I'm sure he will keep the Spurs up, but one for the future he is not.

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