Harry’s Parker punt pays

HARRY REDKNAPP has never been the kind of manager who talks about his “philosophy”.

He is an arch-pragmatist who does whatever he thinks is a good idea at the time. The drawback of this approach is a certain short-termism — he is literally making it up as he goes along — and looking back over Redknapp’s career, we can see that he has rarely left clubs on a sounder footing than he found them. But the advantage of embracing pragmatism over principle is that you never allow purely theoretical concerns to scare you off a good idea.

When Redknapp arrived to speak to the media after Spurs’ win over Arsenal, the first few questions were all about Scott Parker. The midfielder has been the difference between the wretched Spurs team that was crushed 5-1 by Manchester City in August and the formidable unit that has beaten Liverpool and Arsenal in successive home games.