The general consensus in football is that change doesn’t guarantee success, just ask Charlton fans who thought that the ‘grass would be greener’ without Alan Curbishley, or ask Roman Abramovich who also appears to be no closer to world domination since the sacking of Jose Mourinho.
There are exceptions to the rule though, and there’s no better example than our rivals Arsenal. Six years without a trophy tells its own story. Many fans are calling for the manager’s head and now they’ve lost their best two midfielders.
From competing in the final of the Champions League a few years ago, to a fight for fourth place last season, highlights how quick the tides can turn.
Of course Man City bought their way into the top four, but Arsenal’s demise should be a stark warning to Daniel Levy that ‘if you stand still, you’ll be left behind’.
Harry was definitely the right appointment when he joined, but now Spurs have recovered, maybe a different appointment is required to take us forward to the next level.
The recent improvements of Man City and Liverpool have made Champions League qualification even harder and I worry that Harry has his mind on the England job rather than the Spurs job.
The appointment of a new manager/coach with a strong reputation would attract top players to the Lane again and rejuvenate the squad much in the same way the appointment of Owen Coyle did at Bolton.
With a talented group of players to work with the new coach could abandon the outdated 4-4-2 formation and adopt a modern shape that would utilise the talent of the squad.
Fans will argue that we made this mistake when Juande Ramos replaced Martin Jol; personally I believe that the language barrier was the main reason for Ramos failure and its obvious Daniel Levy would never appoint another manager that wasn’t fluent in English.
When Ramos arrived at the Lane his reputation was high following an impressive stint at Seville, this was crucial in the signing of Luka Modric and Giovanni Dos Santos who were both coveted by various clubs. In contrast, I wonder if Harry’s reputation is responsible for the rejections Spurs continue to receive in the transfer market?
It’s common knowledge that Harry tends to favour players he’s worked with before, but are Harry’s signings good enough? Based on last season it would appear not, as our stand out performers Dawson, Bale, Sandro, Modric, and Van der Vart had nothing to do with Harry.
Fans will point to the fact that he secured Champions League qualification for the first time in Spurs’ history. The facts don’t lie and he did a sterling job. Some fans would also argue that based on Harry’s achievements he deserves more time, but that same attitude and misguided loyalty has prevented Arsenal winning a trophy for six years.
Daniel Levy must decide if Harry has the credentials to take us to the next level, or whether Harry has served his purpose and should we now separate amicably so he can fulfil his England ambitions.
Different managers have different strengths. Wenger develops youth and looks to play free flowing football. Ferguson creates togetherness within the squad and his teams are known to fight until the final whistle.
Harry Redknapp has an eye for a bargain, can resurrect a player’s career and can blend a group of players to perform well and secure results, but maybe now Spurs need a champion rather than a challenger.
As you say, Redknapp fulfilled a purpose at that particular time but those days are long gone.
The big question is who do we get who has the necesssary experience at the required level, to replace him? A short term appointment is in no one’s interest. We have the players to succeed but definitely do not have the manager; anyone who thinks it is tactically astute to play Crouch against Vidic ‘n’ Ferdinand is a complete and utter f++++wit. Sorry Redknapp, but your time is up and if we are being brutally honest it was up a season or two ago.
Champions League “an adventure’? Speaks volumes!
I think I am leaning towards the argument you put out,..
‘Arry has done a really good job for us,. He motivated someone else’s players to acieve 4th, and had a great cup run.
( Its well know these are his greatest strength’s as a manager.)
But,..
Reading this reminded me of the press conference before the run of 12 odd games at the end of last season..
When Harry said it would be miracle if we got fourth.
This was going into a game against blackpool,which, if we had won,. we had have been 3rd!..
I felt really confused and pissed off with him after that, he’d got 4th the year before on the merit of our squad.
Harry built the confidence in the club, I was pleased when he said we could win the title!..knowing full well that we probably couldnt, but I felt it was the right sort of message, because we have been building well for years!
On this basis, i think its fair to say he had a chance at spurs, to develop from dirty dozen style relegation specialist to something more, but we just needed the players to put teams to the sword and take whats was ours,. he bottled it and went for the underdog line,…
I expect soe of the p
Harry is performing well under difficult circumstances….every good player we can get we cant offer the wage to match. We play good attacking football and have made progress. The board sound like they are working hard on a new stadium in Tottenham which will be a few years away but only when we have 56000 at every game bringing in nearly 3 mil will we actually match the wages………so I would like to push on a bit, get regular champions league and really compete soon….with Arry, however I think that he will be the next national manager and the outstanding candidate would be Moyes in my opinion
best article i have read for a long time.maybe harry is on the brink of the chop now. could levy be waiting to see if harry gets his come uppings in court. that way would certainly save spurs a large amount of cash. ( roll on ROY HODGSON )
FORWARDS or BACKWARDS???
As far as any manager not given an open chequebook – 4th/3rd at best. The sad thing is that even if we won the league, players would still leave because of the relative “pittance” they get st Spurs compared to what they could earn at Chelsea/Utd/City.
By the way, what is all this bollocks about Harry having nowt to do with VdV??? Harry has already said that he has the last word on signings, just because Levy instigated the deal, doesn’t mean that Harry didn’t ratify it.
Just seen the worst performance ever from tottenham. Bale and Lennon just don’t want to play for starters.
Redknapp just doesn’t know what he’s doing. He say’s he wants to add quiality? where was he when dzeko was available? We sign Adebayour what a joke. Parker a 30year old coming to the end! Redknapp and Levy need to sort this out it’s crap…REDKNAPP SHOULD GO NOW!!! HE DOES NOT KNOW WHAT HE’S DOING! we qualified for champs league with one winger and one coming in. a holding player of palacios. Palacios is good but he never get s arun any more? why? I REPEAT REDKNAPP MUST GO AND SORT THE DEEEEFFFFEEENNNCCCEE OUT YOU WASTE OF TIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
its only the start of the season luckly we can still add a few more players but the wake up call is there now for redknapp to see we need quality defenders we got ageing and unfit defenders we need already developed players like cahill or samba or even rodwell
as a fan of over 30 yrs i`m worried for us this season.redknapp is totally out of his depth,he defends crouch ,defoe when we all know the are poor and cannot score against decent teams.we`ve gone backwards and the modric situation is having a negative impact on the team.lennon`s body language around redknapp when he came off spoke volumes today.levy`s got to get him out because all redknapp thinks about is harry redknapp and calling all spurs fans morons was well out of order.this guy will f;;k us up bigtime ,danny boy act now
we are supposed to be closing the gap but the manc sides have demonstrated that we are no nearer now than we have ever been. we have no chance of 4th place this year. this is not early season panick, this is realisation that Harry really has taken us as far as he can. I would rather have Hodgson,Ancelotti,O’neil,Rijkaard,Coyle,Moyes, or even Scolari. we will lose bale,VDV,Modders, etc unless a top coach comes in