Hansen on Spurs push for 4th.

Alan Hansen, BBC pundit and Telegraph columnist, believes that Tottenham are the
equipped side to break into the top four and anything other than a
Champions League place will be seen as a letdown.
Hansen said: “there is a vast
chasm between fourth and fifth that does not exist, say, between fifth
and sixth. Finishing fourth represents a fantastic campaign, increasing a
club’s revenue streams and enabling the manager to go out and buy
better players. Fifth can be seen only as a disappointment.”
“Though both Spurs
and Manchester
City, their closest challengers, have the look of sides
who could become realistic, regular challengers for both the top
four and even the Premier
League title over the next few seasons, at the moment it is Harry
Redknapp’s side who are the more impressive.
“They have the better players,
the better team and their strength in depth is as good as there is in
the league.” (Daily
Telegraph)

The Spurs
faithful would obviously be downhearted to see their side finish below
fourth as they are now in pole position with their destiny in their
hands, but will other football fans consider them to be failures if they
didn’t?
I’m not so sure they would and they will probably point towards
Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan’s chequebook at Manchester City
as the main reason. But the Sheikh has spent over £200m trying to make
the Citizens a top four club. However, considering they cannot even
muster a title challenge after spending that kind of cash is something
of a joke if you take into account the apparent decline – judging by the
amount of losses this season – of Chelsea, Manchester
United and most drastically Liverpool.
In their own defence Spurs’ fans
will also point out that they should already have broken the top four
only to fall victim of a dodgy lasagne. They would also highlight the
achievement of Harry Redknapp, who has done an amazing job considering
the White Hart Lane were at the wrong end of the table when
he arrived and the fact they are in the position they are is a fantastic
achievement. It now looks likely that the race for fourth is between Tottenham and Manchester
City, with the likely decider being their clash at the City of
Manchester Stadium on May 5.
We all know about City’s billions and the investment they have put
into their squad, but does anybody really think they are a better side
than Tottenham right now?
I do not think they are. Sure the Sky Blues have impressive talents
such as Carlos Tevez, Adam Johnson, Nigel De Jong and Vicent Kompany
amongst their ranks not to mention a few more. But Spurs are
blessed with talent too (many of which didn’t come so cheap either)
Jermain Defoe, Ledley King, Gareth Bale, David Bentley and Luca Modric,
who I suspect is the sort of playmaker Man City would love to have.
Such is City’s spending power someone will get it right eventually –
maybe even the wally who wear scarves in April – so Tottenham’s time will have to be this season if they are
to earn that much coveted fourth spot, right?
The Eastlands outfit has so far spent a lot of money trying to
attract the world’s best, but because they lack Champions League status
the Kaka’s, Samuel Eto’o’s and Dimitar Berbatov’s have all shunned the
Sky Blues for clubs competing in UEFA’s flagship tournament. Now, if
they were to qualify for the competition they crave so much to be in
then in theory they will be able to attract a much higher standard of
player like Chelsea were able to do as they were already a Champions
League side before Roman Abramovich arrived.
If Harry Redknapp doesn’t see his side into the top four this season
then he undoubtedly faces a much harder task to do it next year. I doubt
whether Man United,
Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool
will collectively lose as many games as they have done this season and
as I have already mentioned City will be likely to invest heavily this
summer.