King lauds Redknapp’s leadership and hopes he stays put

Redknapp is the overwhelming favourite to succeed Fabio Capello as England manager after the Italian’s shock resignation last Wednesday.

The Spurs boss admits he considers the position as the “ultimate” job in football for any English manager and he did his chances no harm by masterminding a resounding 5-0 hammering of Newcastle on Saturday.

A double from Louis Saha on his full debut, and strikes from Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Niko Kranjcar and Emmanuel Adebayor saw the Londoners stroll to victory with a performance full of flair, power and pace.

Tottenham’s supporters made their feelings towards Redknapp clear by chanting “We want you to stay”, and King echoed their sentiments by saying: “As a group of players we love him and hopefully he will stay.

“This sort of speculation always happens in football, but we would love to keep him.

“Harry has brought the club on massively. We were bottom of the league when he first came in and the results picked up immediately.

“Straight away he showed his people skills, his ability to lift players even when their confidence was low.

“He has gone from strength to strength, brought in some good players, experienced players who know what it takes. It has been really good.”

The Football Association draw up a shortlist of possible candidates to replace Capello on Friday and after being cleared of tax evasion on Wednesday, there appears to be little preventing Redknapp from taking the job.

Redknapp is likely to remain in his current role until the end of the season, however, after admitting that it would be almost impossible to combine the two roles.

Having seen the club climb to third in the Barclays Premier League, King is determined not to let talk of Redknapp taking the England job distract him and his team-mates in their quest for Spurs’ first title since 1961.

“We need to keep our focus until the end of the season. What will happen in the summer will happen,” the defender said.

That Sven Goran Eriksson and Capello were needed either side of the debacle of Steve McClaren’s reign – at a total cost of £50m – emphasises the desperate need for better English coaches, which must emerge from a more professional attitude to the whole system of qualifications.

Club England managing director Adrian Bevington said: “We have to ensure everyone is taking coaching qualifications seriously as a profession.

“In every other major footballing nation, players aspire to achieve footballing qualifications when they retire if they want to go into management.

“We want to create a professional culture in that area.”