Harry Redknapp watched Tottenham win his first game in charge, and their first Premier League match this season, before revealing how he would have ”regretted it for the rest of his life” if he’d turned them down.
Redknapp left his position as manager of top-flight Portsmouth on Saturday to replace Spanish coach Juande Ramos at White Hart Lane, who was sacked after the club made their worst start to a season.
Under Ramos, Tottenham took two points from their opening eight league games this term.
In one match alone Redknapp surpassed that total with goals from Roman Pavlyuchenko and Darren Bent securing a 2-0 win over Bolton at White Hart Lane.
Last season, Redknapp was linked with a high-profile move to Spurs’s fellow strugglers Newcastle before deciding to remain on the south coast.
But the 61-year-old London-born Redknapp didn’t think twice about returning to the capital with Tottenham who, even after Sunday’s win, remained bottom.
”Tottenham is a big club, even though they are bottom of the league, you see the stadium and set up,” Redknapp said.
”I never went to Newcastle and people said maybe I didn’t fancy the pressure of a big club,” the former West Ham manager, who last season guided Portsmouth to FA Cup glory, added.
”But I could not really have turned this offer down. I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.”
Explaining his decision to quit Fratton Park, where he achieved heroic status among Pompey fans, Redknapp said: ”I just feel at the moment things are going to get a little bit tighter at Portsmouth. The ground can only hold 20 000 people and they need a new stadium and training ground.”
Redknapp has been assured he will be given complete control of his players at Tottenham and that he will not suffer the same level of interference from the White Hart Lane hierarchy which cost Ramos his job.
Ramos’s position at the club was undermined by former sporting director Damien Comolli, who also lost his job in the huge backroom shake-up instituted by chairperson Daniel Levy.
The club have since scrapped the idea of a sporting director and Redknapp insists he is in complete control of first-team affairs.
”I’m going to be in charge of picking the players. The chairman is in charge of completing the transfer deals.
”If he can deliver them within our budget, then great, but as far as picking players, I would not let anyone do that.
”The last word on transfers has to be with the manager. If managers are given players they don’t want, then it’s very difficult. I never asked for him [Comolli] to be sacked. The chairman said he wanted to let a few people go and give me a clean start.”
Ramos’s compensation deal for being sacked is estimated at about £10-million. Then there is the five million pounds ‘transfer’ fee Spurs have shelled out to Portsmouth.
But Levy was in no doubt that it was all money well spent.
”At this stage, where Tottenham are, we need a fighter — someone that has inspiration,” Levy said.
”I’m a Spurs fan and it’s a sickening feeling to see Spurs where they are. We want to be back up where we belong.” Bolton manager Gary Megson said his team, hovering above the relegation zone, didn’t deserve to have Gavin McCann sent-off for two
bookable offences after receiving a second yellow card for a foul on Tom Huddlestone.
”I don’t think the sending off was fair. I have seen the DVD and there was not much contact. It wasn’t malicious and took the wind out of our sails.” – AFP
