Read Always Managing: My Autobiography for Free Online

me. Had they said, ‘No, Harry’s our manager, he got us into Europe and we want him to stay,’ there would have been no quibble from me. But that wasn’t going to happen.
    So I arrived, Phil arrived, and he and Daniel went away to talk money, while I waited. Phil came back, told me what the deal was – it wasn’t that much improvement from my salary at Portsmouth – and said that Daniel wanted me to take charge of a home match against Bolton Wanderers the next day. I accepted, but with more of a deep intake of breath and a resigned sigh than a jump for joy. Tottenham were bottom, with two points from eight matches, and had to win. OK, here we go then. We did the deal. Phil negotiated a good bonus for keeping them up and I felt certain I could do that, but if I ever wanted to leave for another club, Tottenham’s compensation package was huge, certainly several times more than it would cost Tottenham to sack me. Phil’s lawyer and the League Managers Association looked at it and the consensus was that it would not stand up in law because it was so heavily weighted on Tottenham’s side. We asked the club to change it and they refused, but, nonetheless, it was decided to go ahead and sign.
    And I am not saying that was why I did not get the England job. For all I know, on the day Capello left, Roy may have been their first choice, but it would have taken one telephone call to find out my contractual situation, after which the FA would know they would have to go to war with Daniel Levy. Did they fancy that? I know I wouldn’t. Daniel loves a fight about money: he’s a very hard-nosed businessman. Get him on a bad day and I would have ended up far more expensive than Capello – and the FA were already getting a lot of criticism over Capello’s £6-million-a-year salary. Of all the reasons doing the rounds for me not becoming England manager, the compensation issue makes most sense. And, in the end, it was probably for the best. The England job suits Roy.He’s a good man, he’s their man; they got the guy that fitted and I can only wish him well.
    Yet these thoughts come with hindsight. On the day Capello walked away from England, everybody was saying there was only one man for the job and, at that moment, all obstacles seemed surmountable.
    The England job had become vacant previously, of course, not least in 2007 when Steve McClaren failed to get the team to the European Championship finals in Austria and Switzerland. I never paid much attention at the time. We all know the qualification level to be our national manager, and no current English-born coach had reached that mark. I wouldn’t have put myself in the frame then, and I wouldn’t have put many others in, either. English managers were just not getting the big club jobs and therefore weren’t experiencing high-level international competition. We weren’t the ones competing in the Champions League every other week. Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger had been at Manchester United and Arsenal for ever, and the other clubs put their faith in foreign bosses: Rafael Benítez followed Gérard Houllier into Liverpool; Chelsea had appointed José Mourinho and then Avram Grant. No one was giving an Englishman a chance to have a tilt at the Champions League, or even establish a decent winning record in the Premier League. Look at how long David Moyes had to wait at Everton before getting a chance to manage Manchester United.
    Yet for me, four years on from McClaren’s departure, it felt different. I had won a major trophy, the FA Cup with Portsmouth, I had taken Tottenham to the quarter-finals of the Champions League and established them as a club capable of finishing in the top four. We had beaten Inter Milan, knocked out AC Milan; I hadhandled good international players and improved others, such as Gareth Bale. There was a groundswell of support for me and I felt it wherever I went. Every time I got in a taxi, every time I went to a football match, the people