Originally posted by Stanley76 View Post
Originally posted by Joon View Post
Stanley, upon re-reading the above interview from Derry, it appears that while Derry was still with us, HR was physically present in the training sessions and observing, but not doing much coaching himself. I did misread the part about being present, but not the part about coaching.

In Derry's own words, "“Redknapp does not play much active part in coaching. He is there, watching absolutely everything, every single minute whether he takes the session or not."

Do you get to watch training sessions often? Did the players you interviewed say anything about HR's presence and role during other sessions? I ask because although you have access, you can't be there all the time, so I want to gauge how much direct information and access you have, as your description of HR during training is different from Bosingwa's (and I thought Derry's) descriptions.

Personally, I think that Bosingwa's remarks about HR being confused or delusional (the SAF bit) were very mean-spirited and exaggerated, but I did take note of what he said about HR not being present in most training sessions. I assumed it to be due to HR's bad knee, but from what you are saying, there is no truth to it at all? Were Bosingwa's comments just flat-out lies? Surely, Derry is thinking about Bosingwa's comments and he means to defend Harry's methods, yet he does acknowledge that HR does not do much coaching himself, contrary to your observations. Is it not more likely that HR's involvement in training and coaching has changed since last season and pre-season?

Thursday was already well after Bosingwa responded to HR's book, and HR appeared to be deeply hurt by the words from Bosingwa. Are you sure that HR did not just recently become more involved in coaching during training sessions after it became a hot topic?

HR talks to the media a lot, too much in my opinion, and some of the things he has effectively said include the following which I feel are not appropriate for a manager to say: 1.) his players from last season were not all that talented and in fact just mediocre, 2.) the players were entirely to blame for the relegation, not himself. These types of remarks gave me the impression that HR had no respect for, limited knowledge of and not enough care for many of his players last season, and no desire to accurately identify and make the most of the talents they did have. Furthermore, his words (and those of players) in the media gave me the impression that HR was aloof and distant rather than hands-on as I initially expected he would be.

Assuming that Bosingwa and Derry are both speaking truthfully about it, it could be that HR was less present during training sessions last season than he was during this season and pre-season, and he has increased his involvement in coaching at some point after pre-season.
Joon, it has always been Harry's managerial style to bring in other coaches and get the benefit of different expert opinions. Listen to Brendan Rogers' recent description of him and how he refers to him as a 'great chemist'. Listen also to Harry's press conference yesterday how he describes his methods himself as well as his time with McLaren who he now also plans to replace. This has always been his way, did exactly the same at Spurs and is how he's achieved success. He's very much a people person, loves to listen and get other people's input before making the final decisions himself.

In response to your questions, I observed much of this at Harlington on Thursday as well as picking things up from my questions to Harry, Charlie and Rob at the recent fans's forum and attending regular meetings with the media team. I'll be posting up the interviews I did with Max Ehmer, Tom Hitchcock and Frankie Sutherland tomorrow so you'll have to wait for those but one of the questions I was particularly keen to ask them was how Harry is with the younger players and how it compares with the differing roles of Kevin and Joe. It was reassuring to hear that Harry engages directly with all of them and they said he is very approachable whenever they want to speak one on one. More interviews with players are in the pipeline too.

As for Bosingwa's comments, that all dates back to him refusing to sit on the sub's bench for Harry last season which was obviously totally out of order and which naturally pi$$ed Harry off no end. Rightly or wrongly Harry chose to go public with that at the time which pretty much spelt the end of Bosingwa's career at Rangers. Further revelations came out in Harry's book and in the end Bosingwa defended his name by exercising his right of reply. It has always been a criticism of Harry that he reveals too much to the press but that's just how he's always been and he's never going to change, but at the end of the day he's been a successful manager for 30 years now, one who's hugely respected throughout the game and who we're lucky to have for a club of our size.

As for Bosingwa's accusations of Harry not being present at most training sessions, Harry is now considering legal action against him for that according to The Telegraph, so you can draw your own conclusion from that. My understanding is that the only time he's not attended training is when he was being treated and recovering from his knee operation.

As for what happened last season my feeling is that he was simply brought in too late. It's public knowledge now that there were serious divisions within the squad, a toxic dressing room with an almost non-existent team-spirit. There simply wasn't the time and resources for him to turn things around because there were way too many bad eggs in the camp who were impossible to get rid of until the summer. He was hailed Harry Houdini at the time but simply put, it was an impossible task. You could just tell by Harry's body language and interviews that he knew we were doomed to go down about three games before it being a mathematical certainty.