Glenn Hoddle is a flawed coach, but Harry Redknapp can help

Certainly, some parts of the press are very excited. The Mirror have giddily hailed “a giant step towards a return to management for Hoddle, rated by many as the outstanding coach of his generation” while the Daily Mail, not to be outdone, proclaimed “Why the next manager of England has just arrived back in the Premier League,” before going on to compare Hoddle’s tactical acumen to that of Rinus Michels and Bob Paisley. The bandwagon’s a-rolling, folks. Look over your shoulder, Roy!

Hoddle has always been something of a curiosity in the broad sweep of the English game. As sublimely skilled a footballer as a nation could ever want, his 53 England caps came across nine years, and while it’s a cliche that England -- sturdy, solid England -- doesn’t trust its flair players, it’s a persistent one because it so often seems to be true. A national debate thrived over Hoddle’s character and his place in the team, and certainly Ron Greenwood, who picked him and dropped him, picked him and dropped him again, never seemed quite to know what do with him.

Though England were knocked out France 98 in the second round, the manner of their exit -- on penalties after a 2-2 draw against Argentina, the game that saw Michael Owen’s wonder goal followed by David Beckham’s silly flick -- meant that Hoddle still retained broad support as manager. Yet he was out of a job just six months later, having been sacked in the midst of a media storm caused by his now-notorious claim made in an interview with the Times:

You and I have been physically given two hands and two legs and half-decent brains. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The karma is working from another lifetime.

It’s worth dwelling on this for a moment, not least because it will almost certainly be the defining moment of his post-playing career. Hoddle’s reputation is as a clever man, a man who approaches football in a thoughtful way, yet his eventual departure from the England team rested on two magnificently stupid decisions. Leaving aside the actual details of his beliefs, take a moment to gaze in awe at the thought “I know! I’m the England manager! I’ll just have a quick chat with this journalist about the karmic underpinnings of disability.”

Coupled with the fact his position had already been weakened by the publication of his World Cup diaries -- “I’m the England manager! I’ll publish a book in which I identify specific players and their shortcomings, in the process totally violating the code of the dressing room and destroying any respect my senior players might have had for me!” -- and you’re left with an act of entirely unnecessary self-destruction. One that suggests that whatever his grasp of the tactical nuances of the game, he was weirdly hopeless at many of the other aspects of the job.

The gripes about Hoddle from his former players -- not all his former players, it should be noted -- all return to one core theme. Some felt that he bungled the dropping of Paul Gascoigne; others that training was stripped of all joy. Over the years, more than a few have referred to his reported habit of needing to be the best on the training ground, which did little for morale. “If he were chocolate,” said one England player, reportedly, “he would eat himself.” The overaching impression is that here is a man who has never achieved the empathy that comes naturally to all great managers. That this is an excellent coach, but an occasionally risible manager.

Since he talked himself out of the biggest job in the English game, he’s been damaged goods. He was sacked by Tottenham in September 2003, having failed to extricate the team from mid-table in the Premier League. He then stepped down from the Wolverhampton Wanderers job in July 2006, in the face of extreme fan opprobrium, having missed out on the Championship playoffs with a side that never really got the hang of scoring goals. Since then, he’s split his time between punditry and establishing an academy in Spain for young players that have fallen out of the English league system.

Until QPR came knocking. As can be seen by the ecstatic welcome afforded his return, like many exiles his reputation has swollen in his absence. His largely deserved reputation as a man in possession of an exceptional footballing brain has come to overshadow the equally deserved and more negative aspects of his managerial make-up. But though coaching work at QPR does not automatically an England manager make, then equally there’s no reason why the club shouldn’t benefit from the work of a man who has plenty of interesting ideas about football in amongst all the other stuff.

It’s not entirely clear what Hoddle’s role in West London will be. Some rumours have suggested that he’s been brought in with a specific mission, to induct QPR’s squad into the mysteries of the newly-resurgent, suddenly-fashionable 3-5-2. Or perhaps he will have a more general brief, which might suggest that Redknapp has recognised that a certain amount of more considered tactical input would be of some benefit. At the very least, it’s a decent remake of The Odd Couple.

Indeed, one suspects it’s a solution to the problem of Hoddle of which the man himself would approve. After all, football is a team game, and the strengths and weaknesses of one player must be offset by the strengths and weaknesses of those around him. Asking Glenn Hoddle the manager to keep his players happy might be as hopeless as, well, asking Glenn Hoddle the player to get stuck in. But the combination of Hoddle, the diffident, difficult tactical maven, and Redknapp, in all his arm-around-the-shoulder you’re-the-best-in-the-world just-fucking-run-about-a-bit mateyness? That might could be a potent partnership. And if Hoddle can pick up a few tricks in the art of being personable, then his stalled managerial career might just have a second act.