When Harry Redknapp infamously told Roman Pavlyuchenko to simply ‘run about’ during a substitute appearance for Tottenham Hotspur, Joe Cole probably found himself reminiscing about his debut in a West Ham United shirt.
Nine years earlier, a teenage talent who had been turning heads in East London for a while already at that stage stepped onto the turf as a first-team player.
And while Joe Cole reflects fondly on his Hammers bow during an FA Cup clash with Swansea City back in 1999 – especially because it allowed him to share a pitch with his boyhood idol, Ian Wright – the former England international was understandably pretty nervous before entering the fray for the very first time.
How would he perform? Would he live up to all those expectations at West Ham United? Even more pertinently, just where on earth was he supposed to be playing?
Cole remembers making the journey to South Wales with no real idea what Harry Redknapp’s instructions were. Or, indeed, what sort of a role he was going to occupy.
And when the manager finally spoke to his 17-year-old starlet, Cole kind of received the Pavlyuchenko treatment.
Joe Cole on what Harry Redknapp told him before his West Ham United debut
Because Pavlyuchenko was new to English football, and did not have a particularly great grasp on the language, Redknapp opted to keep it simple when introducing the Tottenham number nine off the bench during a Premier League meeting with Liverpool.
“I just said to him at half-time, ‘just run about’. That’s the truth,” Redknapp said at the time. “I can’t claim to be tactically cleverer than that. That’s all I said to him. To put himself about a bit. If he could. Please.”
Pavyluchenko, of course, would go on to score a late winner on that November afternoon in 2008.
Nearly a decade previously, Redknapp’s instructions to a baby-faced Joe Cole were as simple as telling him to go out there, play from the heart, do what he was good at, and try and impersonate Chelsea icon Gianfranco Zola if he could.
“I think the great managers understand [that sometimes less is more]. When I made my debut for West Ham, Harry Redknapp was there,” Cole says opposite newly-appointed Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche.
“It’s a massive day for you [when making your debut], and he hadn’t spoken to me! I didn’t know what position I was playing.
“He came up to me and went, ‘Who’s your favourite player, son?’. I went, ‘Oh, Gianfranco Zola’. And he went, ‘Just go out there and play like him’.
“I was [relieved]. I got the ball and tried. Everyone thinks [players need so much information]. You see the managers with the clipboards…”
Cole was starstruck when West Ham signed Arsenal legend Ian Wright
Redknapp himself would later admit that Sir Alex Ferguson was desperate to sign Joe Cole for Manchester United shortly before the West Ham whizzkid burst onto the scene in his beloved claret and blue.
Among his teammates at the time were Rio Ferdinand, John Hartson, Trevor Sinclair, Frank Lampard, Paolo di Canio and, of course, a certain England international who arrived having broken records aplenty down the road at Arsenal.
“I remember he walked into Chadwell Heath. I’m sitting there and I could hear his voice coming in. I’m like, ‘wow, it’s Ian Wright!’” Cole told The Good, the Bad, and the Football podcast recently.
“And he’s come in and gone, ‘where’s the wonderkid? Where is he?’ And I’m going, ‘oh, he’s talking about me, man!’ And I even think I said, ‘I’m here, Ian’. I called him Ian!
“He said something like, ‘I can’t wait to play with you’. I was just buzzing. I went home and told the boys.
“I made my debut with Ian Wright! I came on the pitch against Swansea, got the ball, looked up, he’s made a run. I’ve gone to play it and thought, ‘it’s not on’, and he just abused me.
“That got me ready for first-team football!”
