Trial took its toll on Redknapp; England job 'the pinnacle'

Harry Redknapp is extremely glad that he will be able to take his place in the Tottenham dugout tomorrow without the prospect of being jailed hanging over his head.

As he fielded questions about the trial and his propsects of getting the England job, the Spurs boss had to admit managing England is the ultimate job.

Redknapp, along with co-defendant Milan Mandaric, was cleared of two charges of tax evasion on Wednesday morning after a 13-day trial at Southwark Crown Court.

The former Portsmouth manager today described the trial, which came eight years after he was originally investigated by HMRC tax authorities, as “the most draining thing I’ve ever been through in my life”.

The Spurs boss, whose team face Newcastle tomorrow, looked haggard today and admitted the trial had taken its toll on him.

The 64-year-old insists he will be back to his usual chirpy self tomorrow, however, when he returns to the home dugout at White Hart Lane having cleared any thoughts about the trial from his mind.

“It’s great to be back,” said Redknapp, who has transformed Spurs from relegation candidates to title contenders despite having the threat of a custodial sentence lingering over him.

“It (the trial) knocked me for six.

“I haven’t felt so good for the last couple of days. I went down with the flu. I was a bit low but I feel good today.

“It was always a case of things were going well on the pitch, but I always had that other thing hanging over me – that was a problem for me. Thankfully it’s gone now so we will move on.”

Within eight hours of his acquittal, Redknapp’s world was turned upside down by Fabio Capello’s resignation.

Redknapp is now the overwhelming favourite to succeed the Italian, but today insisted that although he is interested in the post, his only current focus is tomorrow’s game against the Magpies.

“I’m just getting on with my job,” Redknapp said.

“I am trying to pick a team for tomorrow and then for next week at Stevenage.

“All my focus is just on Tottenham. It’s been hard to get where we are and this is my job. This is what I get paid to do.”

Redknapp missed Monday night’s draw at Liverpool as the private jet which Spurs had chartered to take him to Anfield suffered technical difficulties at the airport.

Without him, the Londoners battled to a gutsy goalless draw which Redknapp saw as a point gained, rather than two lost, due to the injuries that caused him to pick a threadbare team for the game on Merseyside.

Rafael van der Vaart missed the game with a calf problem and will be absent again tomorrow, but Aaron Lennon and Jermain Defoe are fit after overcoming hamstring complaints.

Redknapp, whose team trail league leaders Manchester City by seven points, is expecting a tough game against Newcastle, who have defied all the odds to climb to fifth under Alan Pardew.

“They are playing well so it will be really hard,” Redknapp said.

“It has the makings of a great game. Alan Pardew has done a fantastic job there.

“He wasn’t really wanted when he took over from Chris Hughton, who was popular, but he has won the fans round and you have to give him and (owner) Mike Ashley credit for that.”

After yesterday’s explanations, the Club England board went into lock-down today as they began the process of finding Fabio Capello’s successor.

The Football Association refused to offer any detail on a Wembley meeting between the four men – FA chairman David Bernstein, chief executive Alex Horne, director of football development Sir Trevor Brooking and Club England managing director Adrian Bevington – who must decide the next England manager.

“It has to be,” said Redknapp, when asked if managing England was the ultimate.

“But you also have to understand what a tough job it is.

“No-one has a magic wand and the list of top-class managers who have all gone in full of hope, people like Kevin Keegan, who did a fantastic job at Newcastle, and they all found it very, very difficult.

“It’s certainly not an easy job. Whoever takes that job has a real job on their hands.”

If Redknapp happened to be listening to a radio for any section of the three-hour journey from his Dorset home to Spurs’ Essex base, the whoever would swiftly turn into him.

In the eyes of the press and the public, there is only one choice. The “right choice” as Ferguson put it.

“There’s no doubt Harry’s the best man,” said Ferguson.

“He has good experience, the personality and knowledge of the game. He’s changed the fortunes of every club he’s been at. It’s the right choice.”

If even Ferguson is speaking as if the decision were a fait-accompli, it does not offer Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy much hope of tempting Redknapp to stay.

Levy could plausibly point to the brilliant job Redknapp has done at White Hart Lane and how it would be a shame not to finish what has been started with such staggering success.

However, amid the genuine appreciation for the manner Tottenham have stood by him during the dark times brought by the tax evasion trial came an equally straightforward assessment of football’s transient nature.

“Players are fine,” said Redknapp in response to the difficulty of leaving behind a squad of players so carefully assembled.

“You know what football’s like. Somebody comes. Somebody goes.

“I wouldn’t kid myself. I get on great with the lads here. But they’ve all go their contracts.

“Something happens, a new manager arrives the next day and the players get on with their football.”

It can only be a matter of when, rather than if, he has some pretty big things to consider, which would be done in conjunction with wife Sandra and son Jamie.

“No, it wouldn’t be easy (leaving here),” he said. “It would be very difficult. I’m happy at work.

“But if the opportunity comes, and I get asked, I’ll have to consider it. I’ll have to make a decision, but I have to do what’s right for me and my family.”

However, the one thing Redknapp has already worked out, which Ferguson would confirm from personal experience, is that carrying out the role on a part-time basis is tricky.

The Manchester United boss did it in 1986, following Jock Stein’s death, and found it tough balancing his commitments to Aberdeen and preparing a World Cup campaign.

“It would be very difficult for anybody to try and do two jobs,” he said.

“Managing England is hard enough.”

For all the men who have tried and failed since Alf Ramsey won the World Cup in 1966, few will have come into the job on such a wave of goodwill.

If England triumph at Euro 2012, Redknapp will get all the credit.

Should they fail, the blame will be heaped on the man who has departed in such stunning circumstances.

“I wasn’t escaping,” Capello insisted on to Italian television show Striscia La Notizia.

“I left because there was a misunderstanding. It had been going well but there are times in which you decide to leave.”