Hart hails Red Devils legend Kidd

Published: 21 Apr 2009 - 14:45:00

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Portsmouth manager Paul Hart has praised his assistant Brian Kidd ahead of Wednesday night's Premier League clash away to Manchester United. Former United and England coach Kidd is having a typically quiet but mightily effective influence in Pompey's end-of-season revival. Kidd, who turns 60 next month, beat prostate cancer to return to football in February 2006 and, after a spell coaching Sheffield United, spent another year out of the game before joining Hart at Pompey. Hart has lost just one game - to Chelsea - of his eight in charge and taken 13 precious points, but pays due credit to his fellow-Mancunian Kidd, saying: "He's been terrific. He's done everything I hoped he would here. "His experience and knowledge on the training field have done us all a lot of good and I think he's been a terrific signing, my only one at Portsmouth. "I have known him for years and he's a great friend. We first met way back when he was playing for Arsenal and Everton and he used to knock me about on the field but we've never been at the same club at the same time." Kidd was with Sir Alex Ferguson for 10 glorious years at Old Trafford before leaving for an unsuccessful year in charge of relegated Blackburn in 1998. He then he signed up as Sven-Goran Eriksson's England assistant after leaving a coaching role at Leeds in 2003 but had to quit just a few weeks before Euro 2004 to have cancer surgery. Since joining Hart at Pompey he has politely declined all approaches to be interviewed about his career but Hart added: "He's always been a great friend and, of course, I used to go and see him when he was ill. "I think it is wonderful now that he's here. I believe his record going back to Old Trafford is pretty good although he doesn't say a lot about it. "He keeps himself to himself largely but he's a legend there and it's great he's got the chance to go back there. "Yet Brian would be the first to say this match is not about him and not even about me. It is about this club and the fact that we still need points to stay up. "Anybody who thinks the 37 points we've got makes us safe already is a fool. So we are not going there to have a jolly up and a night out. "We are keeping hard down on the pedal and I think, even though United are the best team in the world, we can give them problems if we prepare right. "I can't see any reason why, with the players believing in themselves so much again, we can't get something there. "United are out of the FA Cup but still fighting on two fronts and they will have their big guns back, I'm sure. They will be fired up and need the points, but then so do we. "I've heard managers from many other clubs saying they don't expect to get anything when they go to Old Trafford but that's certainly not the way we are approaching it. There's no way we are just going to lie down and roll over for them." Portsmouth won at Old Trafford in the FA Cup quarter-finals last year before going on to lift the trophy, but the current campaign has been a turbulent one, with the club deep in debt, owner Alexandre Gaydamak announcing he wants to sell up and top players like Jermaine Defoe, Sulley Muntari and Lassana Diarra being sold. When Harry Redknapp left for Tottenham, his successor Tony Adams struggled to fill his shoes and was soon replaced by Hart and Kidd, whose early success saw them given an extended stay to the end of the season. Over the last eight games Pompey would be eighth in the table but Hart said: "None of that really matters. "If you keep harking back to previous games you get nowhere, except into an early grave."