Spurs boss Redknapp cools England talk

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp has played down talk of him succeeding Fabio Capello as England coach.

Owen Coyle, whose Bolton side host Redknapp’s Spurs in the Premier League on Saturday, has described the 63-year-old as the “perfect” candidate to replace Capello when the Italian’s contract expires in 2012.

Redknapp’s stock has never been higher following Tuesday’s thrilling Champions League win over holders Inter Milan and he has always admitted he would be proud to manage his country, but he has no intention of getting ahead of himself.

“It’s very nice for him (Coyle) to say that but it’s two years down the line,” Redknapp said.

“You know what this game’s like: you’re flavour of the month this month; next month, they want to bin you. That’s football.

“If I’m doing great people’ll talk about me; if I’m not doing well I’ll be out, forgotten.

“I appreciate Owen’s comments, for sure, but no one knows where you are in six weeks’ time in this game, let alone two years.

“There might be one or two young managers who come along in a year, 18 months, English lads.

“I’d like to see an Englishman get the job. Whether it’d be me in the frame in two years, who knows?”

Redknapp also expects Gareth Bale to thrive on the attention given to him following his sensational display against Inter at White Hart Lane this week.

Bale, who scored a hat-trick against Inter in the San Siro two weeks ago, once again tormented right-back Maicon and Redknapp hopes for another confident display from the Welsh winger at Bolton.

“It must be great to go on a football pitch knowing that the crowd absolutely love him and everybody in football’s talking about him. His confidence is sky high,” Redknapp said.

“But tomorrow, he goes to Bolton; they’ve got a good right-back, who’ll get tight to him I’m sure, and try to stop him playing and do everything in his power to prove, ‘I can do a job on him’. He’s got to play well to show his top form.”

Redknapp insisted there was no chance of Bale’s head being turned by the praise lavished on him this week.

“I haven’t got to worry about what he was doing on Wednesday night,” he said. “You know where he was – he’ll have been at home.”

But he also admitted he would be powerless to prevent chairman Daniel Levy accepting a mega-money bid for the 21-year-old.

He said: “If he comes in and says to me, ‘Look, Harry, someone’s offered whatever, I don’t know, and we want to sell him’, then the club would sell him.

“Daniel tells me we don’t want to sell him, so hopefully we can keep him here for a good few years to come.”