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Football365 Winners & Losers Column



Those Tottenham fans thoroughly underwhelmed by the signings of Louis Saha and Ryan Nelsen and mildy perturbed by the loan exits of Steven Pienaar, Vedran Corluka and Sebastien Bassong could at least look at the Premier League table on the evening of January 31 after a routine victory over Wigan and see their team 11 points clear of fifth-placed Liverpool and a glorious 13 ahead of ars*nal (and, incidentally, Newcastle). Fast-forward less than three months - and just two more Premier League wins - and it becomes clear what an utter ****-up Harry Redknapp made of the January transfer window and his subsequent squad management.

Corluka's exit left Tottenham with just one specialist right-back, Pienaar's exit indirectly led to Luka Modric and Rafael van der Vaart being repeatedly played out of position, Saha's arrival led to a stubborn change to a previously successful shape and Nelsen's arrival has made absolutely no difference to anything at all. Oddly enough, a 34-year-old centre-back who's barely played for year has not provided an awful lot of cover for other ageing, injury-ravaged centre-backs.

Redknapp is very open about 'not doing tactics' but he doesn't do squad management either. Brad Friedel, Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Younes Kaboul, Kyle Walker, Scott Parker, Luka Modric, Gareth Bale and Emmanuel Adebayor have played pretty much every game for which they've been available and they look like spent forces. Meanwhile, Jermain Defoe has done an awful lot of heel-kicking while Pienaar and Niko Kranjcar have both discovered that Redknapp's man-management skills are only really effective if you're one of his men.

And then Redknapp has the nerve to complain about the paucity of options in his squad.

"I had no options forwards-wise on the bench, there was one striker fit and there was no one else to play with him. Really we had no cover at centre-half and no cover up front," he said. "No disrespect to the bench but it is nowhere near the sort of bench we had six to eight weeks ago."

That's kind of what happens when you allow good squad players to leave and bring in ageing players with a history of injury problems, Harry.

At the moment he looks neither the man for England nor the man for Tottenham, where the fans have completely lost faith. The chants of 'Harry for England' at Loftus Road on Saturday were followed by 'Gareth Bale...he plays on the left' as Redknapp brought on Aaron Lennon and immediately switched Bale (who he seems convinced is actually Ronaldo) to the right wing. He might claim that Tottenham have only played badly once in a run of nine games that has brought just one victory but the fans have been watching and they know different. They were awful at QPR but what's worrying is that it was entirely predictable awfulness.

Is it now becoming a possibility that Redknapp will have no job at all in June rather than a heart-wrenching choice?

Bale he plays on the left chant lmao

Well this is the thing, why come to thfc and act as if your still manager of bournemouth fc and not a premiership side, his buy's have always been under scrutiny from the word go , mostof the squad was inherited , parker was a good buy, we all know full well levy bought in vdv , all redknapp was ever interested in was old experienced players , but saying that if we had been 3rd now and 10 points clear we would be saying hes a master tactician

Loughtonlegend wrote:Football365 Winners & Losers Column



Those Tottenham fans thoroughly underwhelmed by the signings of Louis Saha and Ryan Nelsen and mildy perturbed by the loan exits of Steven Pienaar, Vedran Corluka and Sebastien Bassong could at least look at the Premier League table on the evening of January 31 after a routine victory over Wigan and see their team 11 points clear of fifth-placed Liverpool and a glorious 13 ahead of ars*nal (and, incidentally, Newcastle). Fast-forward less than three months - and just two more Premier League wins - and it becomes clear what an utter ****-up Harry Redknapp made of the January transfer window and his subsequent squad management.

Corluka's exit left Tottenham with just one specialist right-back, Pienaar's exit indirectly led to Luka Modric and Rafael van der Vaart being repeatedly played out of position, Saha's arrival led to a stubborn change to a previously successful shape and Nelsen's arrival has made absolutely no difference to anything at all. Oddly enough, a 34-year-old centre-back who's barely played for year has not provided an awful lot of cover for other ageing, injury-ravaged centre-backs.

Redknapp is very open about 'not doing tactics' but he doesn't do squad management either. Brad Friedel, Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Younes Kaboul, Kyle Walker, Scott Parker, Luka Modric, Gareth Bale and Emmanuel Adebayor have played pretty much every game for which they've been available and they look like spent forces. Meanwhile, Jermain Defoe has done an awful lot of heel-kicking while Pienaar and Niko Kranjcar have both discovered that Redknapp's man-management skills are only really effective if you're one of his men.

And then Redknapp has the nerve to complain about the paucity of options in his squad.

"I had no options forwards-wise on the bench, there was one striker fit and there was no one else to play with him. Really we had no cover at centre-half and no cover up front," he said. "No disrespect to the bench but it is nowhere near the sort of bench we had six to eight weeks ago."

That's kind of what happens when you allow good squad players to leave and bring in ageing players with a history of injury problems, Harry.

At the moment he looks neither the man for England nor the man for Tottenham, where the fans have completely lost faith. The chants of 'Harry for England' at Loftus Road on Saturday were followed by 'Gareth Bale...he plays on the left' as Redknapp brought on Aaron Lennon and immediately switched Bale (who he seems convinced is actually Ronaldo) to the right wing. He might claim that Tottenham have only played badly once in a run of nine games that has brought just one victory but the fans have been watching and they know different. They were awful at QPR but what's worrying is that it was entirely predictable awfulness.

Is it now becoming a possibility that Redknapp will have no job at all in June rather than a heart-wrenching choice?

agree with some others i dont who would we have signed or could of in Jan ? but Bale he plays on the left its true

MarkA249 wrote:

Loughtonlegend wrote:Football365 Winners & Losers Column



Those Tottenham fans thoroughly underwhelmed by the signings of Louis Saha and Ryan Nelsen and mildy perturbed by the loan exits of Steven Pienaar, Vedran Corluka and Sebastien Bassong could at least look at the Premier League table on the evening of January 31 after a routine victory over Wigan and see their team 11 points clear of fifth-placed Liverpool and a glorious 13 ahead of ars*nal (and, incidentally, Newcastle). Fast-forward less than three months - and just two more Premier League wins - and it becomes clear what an utter ****-up Harry Redknapp made of the January transfer window and his subsequent squad management.

Corluka's exit left Tottenham with just one specialist right-back, Pienaar's exit indirectly led to Luka Modric and Rafael van der Vaart being repeatedly played out of position, Saha's arrival led to a stubborn change to a previously successful shape and Nelsen's arrival has made absolutely no difference to anything at all. Oddly enough, a 34-year-old centre-back who's barely played for year has not provided an awful lot of cover for other ageing, injury-ravaged centre-backs.

Redknapp is very open about 'not doing tactics' but he doesn't do squad management either. Brad Friedel, Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Younes Kaboul, Kyle Walker, Scott Parker, Luka Modric, Gareth Bale and Emmanuel Adebayor have played pretty much every game for which they've been available and they look like spent forces. Meanwhile, Jermain Defoe has done an awful lot of heel-kicking while Pienaar and Niko Kranjcar have both discovered that Redknapp's man-management skills are only really effective if you're one of his men.

And then Redknapp has the nerve to complain about the paucity of options in his squad.

"I had no options forwards-wise on the bench, there was one striker fit and there was no one else to play with him. Really we had no cover at centre-half and no cover up front," he said. "No disrespect to the bench but it is nowhere near the sort of bench we had six to eight weeks ago."

That's kind of what happens when you allow good squad players to leave and bring in ageing players with a history of injury problems, Harry.

At the moment he looks neither the man for England nor the man for Tottenham, where the fans have completely lost faith. The chants of 'Harry for England' at Loftus Road on Saturday were followed by 'Gareth Bale...he plays on the left' as Redknapp brought on Aaron Lennon and immediately switched Bale (who he seems convinced is actually Ronaldo) to the right wing. He might claim that Tottenham have only played badly once in a run of nine games that has brought just one victory but the fans have been watching and they know different. They were awful at QPR but what's worrying is that it was entirely predictable awfulness.

Is it now becoming a possibility that Redknapp will have no job at all in June rather than a heart-wrenching choice?

agree with some others i dont who would we have signed or could of in Jan ? but Bale he plays on the left its true

Mark, something I agree on with Lought, last summer would have been the time we should have done something, January is a no no for me.