Redknapp ready for England job

Tottenham Hotspur boss Harry Redknapp said Monday he would relish the chance to take over from Fabio Capello as England manager should the Italian quit after the team’s World Cup exit.

England’s lacklustre campaign in South Africa ended with a 4-1 last 16 loss to arch-rivals Germany in Bloemfontein on Sunday.

Defeat immediately led to calls for Capello to resign and the Italian, under contract with England’s Football Association until 2012, admitted he was considering his position.

Capello has been in charge since 2008 and, should he quit or be sacked, Redknapp said that as a proud Englishman he would jump at the chance to manage the national side.

“I’m English, who wouldn’t want to manage England?,” Redknapp told Talk Sport radio on Monday.

“There’s not an Englishman — whether it’s me, (Fulham manager) Roy Hodgson or (Blackburn Rovers boss) 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.”

With both Capello and Sweden’s Sven-Goran Eriksson having been in charge of England recently, Redknapp said it was time for the job to revert to an Englishman even though Steve McClaren, the last ‘home grown’ manager’ of the national side, had an ill-fated and brief reign as boss of the Three Lions in between the two foreign appointments.

“Could you imagine an Englishman managing the Italian national team? It doesn’t happen,” said the 63-year-old Redknapp, whose own hopes of becoming England manager could yet be scuppered by the, as yet, unresolved court action brought against him by British tax authorities.

“The Germans are the same, they have a German manager. We’ve ended up with two foreign managers.

“This guy (Capello) has a fantastic record at club level. But look, we’ve had a go with it now. When he finally moves on, in four years or whatever, surely there has to be a young guy or somebody in this country, surely we have to find a manager from England, an English manager.

“I’m not talking about a Scottish manager or an Irish manager, I’m talking about an English manager because this is where we’re from, this is our country.

“We should be able to produce someone who can manage the England football team and let’s be honest, they can’t do any worse than what they’ve (Eriksson and Capello) done.”

But Redknapp said the players had to take their share of the blame after coming up against Germany as a result of failing to top a group where their opponents were all tournament outsiders.

England won just one out of three group games, drawing with the United States and Algeria while only beating Slovenia 1-0.

“The players haven’t performed,” Redknapp said.

“The whole package hasn’t worked in this World Cup. I was England all the way and really thought it was our big chance, the best chance we’ve had of winning the World Cup since 1966. It’s been a massive disappointment.

“We were average against the USA. We were disgusting against Algeria. We were better against Slovenia, but what a poor team they were. They’d be lucky to survive in the Championship.”