Harry Redknapp, the Portsmouth manager, intends to buy British this summer, although his bid to sign Richard Dunne for £5 million from Manchester City is in jeopardy. Peter Storrie, the Portsmouth chief executive, has informed Redknapp that the proposed deal has hit a snag.

Dunne, the Ireland defender, is also a target for Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur. Redknapp is ready to move for Shaun Wright-Phillips, of Chelsea, and Peter Crouch, the Liverpool striker, but has yet to make formal contact with the clubs. After winning the FA Cup last month with an exotic lineup, Redknapp wants to play safe in the transfer market.

“If you said I could sign four players now, they’d all be English – or Irish – and all play in the Premier League,” Redknapp said. “The main reason for that is I know they’re good players and I know they’re ready.”

Redknapp’s intentions come despite reports that he will dismiss four unnamed young English players for drunken behaviour on the day of the FA Cup Final.

A week after he won a High Court battle that proved a police raid on his home last November was illegal, Redknapp appears to be both a man and a manager vindicated, but as he anticipates frantic European nights at Fratton Park, he has tucked his FA Cup winner’s medal away in his sock drawer, ready for new challenges.

Winning at Wembley last month may turn out to be the pinnacle of a colourful career, but Redknapp was deeply gratified when he saw four of his protégés competing in the Champions League final a couple of weeks later. Redknapp, as befits an ambassador of this weekend’s Grass Roots Football Live event at the NEC, Birmingham, is more concerned with development than completion. So when Rio Ferdinand and Michael Carrick, of Manchester United, and Frank Lampard and Joe Cole, of Chelsea, battled for the title of European champions in Moscow, the former West Ham United manager found satisfaction competing with a renewed appetite to produce another generation of young home-grown stars.

“I don’t get too carried away with myself,” he said. “We signed good players this year, we had a good team and it was great to do it. But I don’t think I had anything to prove to anyone. I took a great deal of pride in watching four boys I signed at a really young age playing in the Champions League final. That would always mean a lot to me, seeing them become top players.

“I’m looking forward to European nights at Fratton Park – you just know the atmosphere will be fantastic. The owner [Alexandre Gaydamak] has been really supportive. People try all their lives to win an FA Cup and he comes in and, within two years, he’s seen it done.

“So the club’s in great shape. Paul Hart did great things with the kids at Leeds United, then at Nottingham Forest, and now he’s with us. We’re looking to produce some more great young players at this club.”

Last week, the Redknapps won £1,000 in damages in the High Court after judges ruled that a police raid did not follow correct procedure. Redknapp remains on bail, along with Milan Mandaric, the former Portsmouth chairman, and Storrie, over an agent’s alleged payments to players.

“The whole issue is a farce,” Redknapp said. “I do feel personally vindicated by last week’s verdict, but this saga has tarnished my name. It will be resolved because there’s nothing to answer.”