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‘He never told me!’ Harry Redknapp recalls hilarious Rory Delap throw-in story as he disagrees with Arsene Wenger’s kick-in idea
Harry Redknapp has made it clear he disagrees with the idea of replacing throw-ins with kick-ins.
That's despite his former player Rory Delap pulling the wool over his eyes with his during their time together at Southampton.
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The idea was one of the topics debated at the latest meeting of football's law-making body IFAB in Doha on Monday, and the idea has been supported by iconic ex-Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.
"The target is to make the game more spectacular and quicker. Maybe with throw-ins you could play with your feet in a limit of five seconds, for example." Wenger, FIFA's Head of Global Football Development said when justifying his belief in kick-ins last year.
But whilst the change will only be trialled in amateur football for now, Redknapp has made it clear he already completely disagrees with Wenger's point of view.
"How's it going to quicken the game up?" the former Premier League asked on Monday's talkSPORT Breakfast, live from Royal Ascot.
"What you'll do is you'll get a kick-in, the two big centre halves will go plodding up the field, it'll be like when you went to Stoke back in the day.
"They'll send all the bigguns up, it'll take two minutes and then they'll launch it in the box.
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"It's just going to be a game of headers. It'll be boot it in the box and see who can head it."
Redknapp seems to remain in favour of throw-ins and that's despite him being on the receiving end of some deadly ones during his managerial career.
The former Portsmouth boss went on to recall a hilarious story about throw-in specialist ex-Republic of Ireland midfielder Delap.
"Do you know we played them one day at Portsmouth, Stoke, and he tore a hamstring, Rory Delap, 20 minutes to go," he added.
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"Tony [Pulis] left him on to take throw-ins, we're winning 1-0. He left him on the pitch and with about eight minutes to go he limped over from side to side taking throw-ins.
"Couldn't run, his hamstring had gone, he left him on rather than using a sub.
"And he launched one in and they got a flick on at the back post and they scored. Lucky enough we went up the other end and scored with about two minutes to go, but they kept him on that pitch."
Breakfast co-host Ray Parlour then asked Redknapp whether he'd taken advantage of Delap's throw-ins during his time with him at Southampton.
And to make the story even more hilarious, the 75-year-old admitted he had no knowledge of just how good he was at them.
"I didn't know he could throw it a long way at the time," he laughed.
"I swear, he never told me how long he could throw it! It was only when he went to Stoke.
"I didn't realise he could throw the ball in a long way!"
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