Oi Arry shut it! (Hotshot’s rant)

Harry Redknapp's comment that the current bunch of West Ham graduates aren’t in the same league as the former ones he managed, and the comment that the club should never have sold the former players, must have boosted his ego, while denting a few on route. I don’t think he’ll be getting wedding invites from the current graduates: Tomkins, Collison, Stanislas, or Sears anytime soon.

Of the four, the first two are potentially world class, showing immense talent, Tomkins is comparable with Rio Ferdinand, and Collison with Michael Carrick, both playing the same positions respectively while displaying maturity beyond their years, as did their former counterparts. Their manager Zola commented, defending the young players, saying that the world is their oyster, if only they keep applying themselves!

Although Rio Ferdinand always showed great poise and skill, when he was first thrust into the West Ham first team, many will remember that he was quite often prone to bad positioning and basic mistakes – which many put down to a lack of concerted concentration; in contrast Tomkins has shown, even at this early stage, that he doesn’t suffer the same problems. By this reasoning it could be argued that Tomkins has the potential to become a better player than Ferdinand, and arrive there sooner in his career.

Collison like Carrick shares the same unassuming personality off the pitch, but on it he shows great maturity, confidence, and skill. As Zola put it “he plays like a veteran”. The Welsh national team manager is in agreement, putting him in the team at only nineteen years of age, nutmegging Capello in the process.

Not being the media’s, or fellow manager’s, favourite, suspected of dodgy dealings, then being cleared, then being accused by a number of managers of tapping up players, publicly saying that he wanted several rival team’s contracted players, why would Harry Redknapp make this kind of comment? And more puzzling who’s working on his PR team - Salmon Rusdie? It seems his comments are a self publicity stunt.

Redknapp went on to say that he had scouted Lampard, Ferdinand, Carrick, Johnson, Joe Cole etc, which doesn’t seem credible seeing that Lampard jnr would have been there as a result of Lampard snr encouraging him to join the youth set up, and Joe Cole joining the club around the time Redknapp became club manager. Yes most of these players emerged while he was club manager, but surely it would have had more to do with the scouting and development of Tony Carr’ s academy team, and the current manager of that time - Billy Bonds?

Carr has brought through many of West Ham’s world class players of late, including Tony Cottee and Paul Ince, so when 'Arry Claptrap' talks about it being his doing, lets get it right – it’s the club’s tradition, and more recently ‘Carr’ that found and developed these players. Since providing England’s backbone to their world cup winning team, West Ham have never ceased to provide world class players in every decade – and one of them now sits on the board of the English Football Association, having been an ambassador for the game over the years – Sir Trevor Brooking.

Lastly and for the record ‘Arry’, didn’t the mass exodus, starting with Rio, begin when you were the manager, then turning into a flood after you got the boot for making a silly remark? Some would see this as mismanagement of a great resource, as could buying the player Marco Boogers - that went missing and was later found sulking in a Dutch caravan park. The team existed before Harry and I am sure will continue bringing immense talent through after him – Harry get over yourself.

Hotshot C