Harry Redknapp puts Tottenham's victory down to his team selection

Harry Redknapp hailed Tottenham's win over Twente as just reward for his adventurous management. Redknapp said he knew his decision to deploy two strikers in front of an attack-minded midfield would leave his defence exposed but concluded that his team's potency meant the risk was worth running.

"We picked an open team, we went for it," said Redknapp. "They had an extra man in midfield and we knew there'd be spells where they'd hit us on the counterattack but that's how we decided to play. You've got to look at the opposition and see where their strengths are and where you can hurt them.

"We decided to press them high up the park with our two centre-forwards to stop them playing out from the back and it worked well. That's what it's about: picking the right team. I picked the right team and we won 4-1. Not a problem."

Redknapp's Twente counterpart, however, believed Tottenham's win could partially be attributed to factors other than their manager's tactical mastery. Michel Preud'homme complained about the Norwegian referee, Terje Hauge, who punished his team with three penalties, two of which were converted to tilt the game irrevocably in Tottenham's favour.

He was particularly annoyed by Tottenham's third penalty, awarded after a Roman Pavlyuchenko shot crashed into the arm of Peter Wisgerhof, who seemed too close to take evasive action. Moments earlier Hauge had waved away Twente penalty appeals after Peter Crouch had blocked a Theo Janssen shot with his hand from similar range.

"If you give a penalty to one side you have to give it to the other," said Preud'homme, who had spent much of the second half shaking his head in apparent disbelief at the referee's performance. "I was upset because you feel that the players don't believe some of the things that were happening. We took all the risk and made the tactical decisions to come back into the game but that third penalty cut everything."

Redknapp admitted "the third penalty was soft but I've seen them given". He also said that "the first two were blatant fouls, you couldn't argue with them" and suggested that Tottenham's first penalty, which Rafael van der Vaart failed to convert, should have been retaken. "The keeper's two yards off his line when he saved it, I don't know how [the referee] didn't see that."

Redknapp did not quibble with the referee's decision to send off Van der Vaart in the 61st minute for a second bookable offence and said he had considered substituting the Dutchman after he collected his first yellow card.

"Van der Vaart will now be suspended for [the game at] Inter Milan," said Redknapp. "I was thinking about subbing him just before he got sent off because he'd made a bit of a rash challenge on the other side and I was concerned that, if he made one more mistimed challenge, he'd be sent off. As I was contemplating he made not a malicious challenge but a typical bad forward's tackle, I suppose."

http://www.guardian.co.uk