Redknapp's liking for old-school 'characters' like Paul Scholes carries the danger of rolling back recent advances
Harry Redknapp doesn't buy the golden generation thing. He doesn't see a bunch of discredited guys in their 30s who had more chances than they deserved and blew the lot. He sees individual footballers with whose abilities he is thoroughly familiar and who may be of use to him if and when he takes over the job of England manager. And he is one of the very few people – perhaps, since Brian Clough is no longer with us, the only one – who could get away with it.
Should Redknapp take the job, which would entail abandoning the tempting prospect of leading Tottenham Hotspur to even greater heights, he will not approach the finals of Euro 2012 as the first stage of a process of reconstruction. He will want to win the thing. And he will pick whichever players he believes are most likely to help him achieve that ambition. Even if they are 37 years old.
Paul Scholes retired from international football eight years ago, a few months before turning 30. He was fed up with being required to play out of position and had glimpsed the opportunity to spend more time with his young family. Most people thought that his withdrawal was premature, and two years ago Fabio Capello made a vain attempt to persuade him back into the fold in time for the World Cup in South Africa. Right now, after a successful return to the Manchester United side, the chances look rather better that Scholes will be unretired from international duty in time to play a part in Ukraine and Poland this summer. And Redknapp – the preferred candidate, we should bear in mind, of Sir Alex Ferguson – might be just the man to make the offer seem attractive.
"Let's be honest, you'd love to have Paul Scholes in the Euros this year," Redknapp said at the weekend, having been drawn into a conversation that other men might have avoided at a time when their suitability for the England job was under scrutiny. The readiness to appear unguarded is one of the characteristics that endears Redknapp to journalists, although closer inspection reveals that he seldom ventures a genuine indiscretion.
Anyway, to the delight of his listeners, there was more. "You need men in your side," he said. "You need characters if you're going to win anything. Frank [Lampard, his nephew] is still a top player. You write Frank off at your peril. Stevie Gerrard is still a top-class player."
The name of Gerrard was also on his lips when he discussed the problem of who might be England's next captain, as was that of Scott Parker, his skipper at White Hart Lane. "Gerrard is a good candidate," Redknapp said. "Stevie Gerrard is a fantastic player. There are one or two who could do it. Scottie could do it, for sure, but so could Steve."
Gerrard it is, then – and one imagines it would be considerably easier to break the news to Parker that Gerrard was to be the new England captain than to explain to Gerrard, who has 89 caps and led the side in South Africa 18 months ago, that Parker, another 31-year-old, whose total of caps finally reached double figures against Spain in November, was being awarded the armband for a major international tournament.
The tone of Redknapp's words suggests that we can also anticipate the presence of John Terry, Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole alongside that of Scholes, Lampard and Gerrard, and maybe even the return of Joe Cole and Peter Crouch, two players with whom he has worked successfully. Perhaps not that of David Beckham, a fellow East London boy – although were the calendar reversed to allow Becks to showcase his form in the Olympic football tournament before the final decisions on the squad for the European Championship, who knows?
The trouble is that the one good thing Fabio Capello did for England, albeit very belatedly, was to spend his last year introducing a group of younger players who showed every sign of supplanting the underachieving veterans. The Italian seemed to recognise that the big names were unlikely to get any better, and the debuts of Jack Wilshere, Kyle Walker, Chris Smalling, Andy Carroll, Phil Jones, Gary Cahill, Jack Rodwell, Danny Welbeck and Daniel Sturridge, along with the consolidation of the roles of Ashley Young, Joe Hart and Theo Walcott, brought a fresh mood to the squad.
If he decides to accept the FA's offer, Redknapp will take the job on a flood tide of goodwill. But it would be flecked with disappointment were he to roll back the advances of the past 12 months in favour of creating his very own Dad's Army through the restoration of the golden oldies en masse. It might even be a mistake. Scholes has been making an important contribution to Manchester United's title defence but when his work against Liverpool was isolated for praise during Saturday's Match of the Day it was evident that he was playing his laser-guided passes under little pressure, which would not be the case at international level.
It will be the job of the next England manager to blend players of experience with players of promise and the country would probably prefer him to err on the side of the latter. And if Parker is a better captain than Gerrard, he should get the job.
richard.williams@guardian.co.uk twitter.com/@rwilliams1947