Redknapp and England

Clad in facemasks and latex gloves, the F.A will pick through train-wreck that was England’s World Cup campaign this week and decide who exactly is to blame for its position strewn across the floor in several million ugly pieces. The players have enough to answer for- from purring game-cats to thumb-sucking kittens in the time it takes to cross a continent, it’s been one long, drawn-out sigh after another. Rooney, with the weight of a nation on his shoulders, looked as if he was doing just that. Lumbering, sweating and more often than not, sinking. Gerrard and Lampard? We’d have had more luck with Armstrong and Miller.

In spite of this, it looks as if the bods at HQ are looking steadfastly in the direction of Don Capello; the whole 30 to 23 squad trimming fiasco, the emergence of factions at Rustenbury boot camp, the handling of Robert Green, the excessive use of Heskey- indeed, the list runs long. If this is the case, then, and Capello’s number is being called over the Tannoy, there’s already talk of our man Harry Redknapp being a sturdy frontrunner.

Understandable, I suppose. Much like Spurs fans were demanding in the midst of our Ramostrophe, Joe Public are aching for some no nonsense bravado. Someone who can use one arm to coax the obvious potential from a bewildered squad- with ceaseless support and guidance- and the other to shake the flavourless berks into line. The comparisons between Tottenham and England are glaring, and, perhaps, all too clear for the men in suits over at Wembley. They’d love the kind of turn around we enjoyed at The Lane last season. And, with the mess being made of the job in recent years, the bar’s not exactly been set high.

Rather worryingly, Redknapp has done little to squash any such rumours. In fact he’s all but whipped out a concertina fan and wafted the bloomin’ flames:

“I’m English, who wouldn’t want to manage England?

“There’s not an Englishman – whether it’s me, Roy Hodgson or Sam Allardyce – who would turn the job down because it’s our country and we want to manage our country.”

“No-one is ever going to turn that job down”

Fingers betwixt that Capello is spared, then.