Roger Moore scores: how much do they want it?

People who love football, love football characters; Ron Atkinson’s jewellery, Motty’s sheepskin coat, Garth Crooks’ questions without subjects, objects, prepositions or suppositions and Jeff ‘the human football almanac’ Stelling.

‘Arry Redknapp is beyond character. In fact, he’s so archetypal football old-school he’s almost caricature – like he’s playing the part of the slightly south of legitimate football manager. Not so much finger on the pulse as toe in every pie.

I couldn’t get to the fan’s forum last week. Truth be told, I didn’t know it was on and frankly I was washing my hair that day anyway. And the idea of asking why Ricardo Fuller warrants more starts than a Morris Minor with a flat battery just isn’t enough motivation to justify the three hour round-trip from home.

But I did like what, through the various internet media reports, I have heard was said. And better still, if I can read between as well as the lines themselves, I like the way ‘Arry said it.

It’s easy to knock Redknapp. He is old-fashioned, however you dress it up. And I honestly believe he could tell you how to ride the old course at Cheltenham easier than he could recount the latest FA instructions on interfering with play. But ‘Arry knows football and he knows football people. Better still, he knows footballers – lots of them, and he’s uncle/Godfather (in every Sicilian sense of the word I suspect) to probably the best midfielder in the world today – Frank Lampard.

Frank Snr, may not have been the most creative on the naming front, but he and ‘Arry have produced one of the best attacking midfielders to play the beautiful game. Some of this is latent talent, no question, but ‘Arry hit the nail squarely on the proverbial this week when he described the one attribute that marks out a Lampard from an also-ran knocking about the lower leagues – he wants it more.

That’s the question which ‘Arry is now throwing at our mix of promising and precocious talent – how much do you boys really want it? In a week when Pele’s favourite player has reminded us what excess of lifestyle can do, all of our fledgling footballers need to remember why they’re in this game and what they want to get out of it – a Lamborghini or a legacy?

Now it has been said before, but I think it’s worth re-iterating for the hard of thinking; if there’s one football manager who can nurture young talent, Redknapp is the man.

We shouldn’t imagine that every one of the names touted by those who watch the youth and reserve matches is a future world-beater, but if they are, there’s no better gaffer to prove it. How does a team including James, Ferdinand, Carrick, Cole, Redknapp, Lampard, Bowyer, and Defoe sound to the average pundit?

How much credit can Redknapp Snr. take? Well surely it was always his team? He must take the lion’s share. Anyone can prepare a soldier for war, they say, but only a General can make him fight.

‘Arry might be from the school of iron-hard knocks, he might duck and dive better than a Stuka and he might shoot from the hip faster than the Lone Ranger, but with any luck, old Redknapposaurus might just evolve the future of Southampton FC before our very eyes.

Let’s hope that asteroid Lowe can stay out of orbit for at least the next year or two…