Spurs manager to defy medics and return to work in less than a month

Harry Redknapp hopes to resume his full responsibilities as Tottenham Hotspur manager more quickly than his doctors have recommended, with the 64-year-old insisting he will be back in less than a month.

Redknapp watched his side's 3-1 win against Fulham from the comfort of his own home after undergoing minor heart surgery on Wednesday. The former Portsmouth manager had two stents inserted into his coronary arteries and remained under observation for 48 hours.

But while he has been advised not to return to action too quickly – by both his own doctors and his employers, who remain adamant he should take all the time required to ensure he is fully recovered – Redknapp is hopeful of being back on the touchline by the end of the month. "The doctor's telling me I shouldn't even think about [returning] for at least four to five weeks, but I hope to be back before then," Redknapp said yesterday as he recuperated at his home in Sandbanks, Dorset.

With the international break coming up, Tottenham do not now have a game for a fortnight. "That's handy," he said. "After that I'll be back in at Tottenham and back on the training pitch.

"This isn't going to stop me doing the job I love. I love my football and won't be walking away any time soon. I can assure everyone I'm doing OK. It won't stop me running – I might even do the marathon one day."

Goals from Gareth Bale, Aaron Lennon and Jermain Defoe ensured a seventh victory in eight Premier League games and lifted Spurs into fifth position in the division with a game in hand. Joe Jordan, who led the team in Redknapp's absence, intimated that his manager "had two weeks to recover" from the operation before he was expected back. Tottenham face Aston Villa two weeks today after the international break.

He will return to a club very much on the up, according to his assistant. "We had to be resilient here," said Jordan. "We were really hanging on in the last half an hour and, to be honest, going into it I did not think we would be getting a third goal. We did not play particularly well and we had to dig in. But it is at grounds like this that we maybe would not have won in the past, and that shows how far we have come."