Peace breaks out at Pompey
Harry Redknapp has no plans to leave Portsmouth despite speculation about the future of his assistant Jim Smith.
The former West Ham boss was reported to be unsettled amid speculation that Pompey chairman Milan Mandaric was looking to replace Smith after he admitted he was looking at plans for a “reorganisation” at the club.
But Redknapp told Sky Sports News: “I’m not walking away. I’ve had the two best footballing years of my life here and I wouldn’t walk away from that.
“The whole thing has got blown out of proportion. He (Mandaric) would like to bring in another coach to help with the coaching and you can’t have too many coaches.
“At the end of the day we do what is best for the football club.”
Redknapp’s comments appear to be a retreat from a harder line he took yesterday when he admitted to being “disappointed” by Mandaric’s plans.
He said: “We are a team and I do not see why the chairman wants to change things now.
“No-one could have done more than we have over the last two seasons and Jim has not done anything wrong.”
Mandaric denied that he was planning Smith’s departure but he did say: “We have to sit down and talk about the reorganisation of the club.
“I have tremendous respect for Jim Smith but I have to look at what is best, not for me or Jim Smith, but for the club.”
Mandaric did admit to telling Redknapp he would like to see greater emphasis on coaching and developing young players in future rather than assembling a squad by wheeling and dealing in the transfer market.
“We don’t have any individual in mind, I’m just trying to see if there is another way, or any additions we can make to the coaching staff,” he said.
“Our youth programme is isolated. This season we did it [stayed up] by bringing in a lot of players, in future I’d like to do it with more coaching, simple as that.
“What I said to Harry is ‘let’s reorganise things, let’s do a little more coaching, let’s look at youth programmes’ and then all of a sudden I hear that Jim is gone and Kevin is going to be fired. It doesn’t work that way.
“Harry and I had a constructive meeting, there wasn’t anything unfriendly or anything like that, it is something we will have to continue.”
