Harry Redknapp: I'll carry on spending

yiddo

from te sunday times 11 january

Harry Redknapp: I’ll carry on spending
Two months after the Tottenham chairman said there was no cash for new signings, his manager has persuaded him to dig deep

Joe Lovejoy

They call him Harry Houdini but not even the doyen of escapologists could slip out of such a financial straitjacket. Less than two months after the Tottenham chairman insisted there was no money for new signings in the January transfer window, Harry Redknapp has persuaded him to dig deep and come up with £15m for Jermain Defoe, with the promise of the same again if Middlesbrough reverse their decision not to sell Stewart Downing. Redknapp’s powers of persuasion are legendary after a 25-year managerial career that will be celebrated tonight at a tribute dinner staged by the Football Writers’ Association.

Hotfoot from this afternoon’s match at Wigan, the archetypal “geezer”, 61 years young, will be drinking Night Nurse shandies to counter the effects of a cold as heavy as the one Spurs caught at West Brom over Christmas. By way of an aperitif, he held forth in characteristic Redknapp fashion on a broad range of subjects, from Defoe’s nascent partnership with the unintelligible Roman Pavlyuchenko to the “musical chairs” that is the Premier League table and his attitude to next Sunday’s visit from Ports-mouth, the club he left 11 weeks ago.

At that time, Tottenham had taken a miserable two points from their first eight league games under the unlamented Juande Ramos. Enter Redknapp, to conjure 11 wins from 19 matches in all competitions, and the odds-on prospect of another trip to Wembley in defence of the Carling Cup. ’Arry Boy is working his magic again, as Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal will testify after trying, and failing, to outwit him. In the past nine days, Spurs have scored seven goals in two cup ties, against Wigan and Burnley, yet Redknapp moved heaven and earth to bring back Defoe, the England striker he took from White Hart Lane to Portsmouth 12 months ago. It seemed as good a place as any to start.

Redknapp said: “Jermain will play at the JJB and he will definitely play against Pompey next week. There’s no question of leaving him out because it’s them. What will he bring us? He’s a goalscorer, simple as that. We’ve had a couple of league games where we should have finished teams off and not doing it cost us dear. He will do that.”

The plan was to use Defoe alongside Pavlyuchenko. “Roman has got better since I’ve been here,” added Redknapp. “I’m pleased with him. He has scored some terrific goals and is in good form.” The Russian’s lack of English, however, continued to be a problem. Chuckling, his manager said: “On the training ground this morning, I thought there was a defender behind him, man-marking, but it turned out to be his interpreter, telling him what we were saying to him. Conversation between him and Jermain should be interesting but I see them as a good pair. I think they’ll work well together. Jermain needs to play with a partner. He’s not a lone striker.”

Signing Defoe for a third time had aggravated Redknapp’s unpopularity with Pompey fans, many of whom are not inclined to forgive him for quitting twice to manage elsewhere, but he is unapologetic, saying: “At the end of the day, Portsmouth sold a player last week for £20m who I bought for £5m 12 months ago, they’ve had a big profit on Defoe and got compensation for me coming here. When I went there they were bottom of the Championship, when I left they were sixth in the Premier League after winning the FA Cup. I don’t owe them anything. I walked away with my head held high, leaving them in a good position. I could have taken Glen Johnson off them, but I didn’t. Defoe was different, they wanted to sell him.

“People said I was disrespectful to Tony Adams by signing Defoe, but I wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t cause him problems. We knew they wanted to sell Jermain because we were told. He got left out of the team against Liverpool and Arsenal and got pulled off against West Ham. Tony wanted to change things around.”

Redknapp was looking for “one, maybe two players to thicken the squad up”, and said: “The money is there. We tried to get Downing but Middlesbrough didn’t want to sell him, so that’s dead now. It’s not going to change, so we move on. We need a left-footer to give us balance. Jamie O’Hara came on there against Burnley and did well, and Gareth Bale can move forward one from left-back and do the job, so we’re not desperate, but Downing would give us that bit more.”

Where did that leave David Bentley, another England player, in the scheme of things? Redknapp was offering no assurances. “David’s future is the same as anybody else’s,” he said. “If you play well, you’re in; if you don’t play well, you’re out. Jenas and Huddlestone are both fit this week, suddenly we’ve got real competition in the middle of the park, so somebody is not going to play. It has been difficult for David because I’ve played him on his wrong side.

“Because I wanted Aaron on the right, I’ve tried to fit him in on the left, but it’s not easy for him. It’s not his position. Basically, he’s a right-footed crosser of the ball from the other side, but I had nobody else to play on the left and I wanted to get the two of them in the team. But it wasn’t doing David any favours.” The same was true when Lennon was used on the left. “Aaron can play there better,” said Redknapp. “He can get to the byline but prefers to come inside as well, so it is a problem position.”

At one stage he had been looking to replace Heurelho Gomes in goal but that was no longer the case. The Brazilian recruit from PSV Eindhoven endured a traumatic start to his career in England but recovered impressively. “The guy has shown unbelievable character to come through what he has had to deal with. He has never hidden. He had hand and wrist injuries, which could have given him a break from it, the physios kept telling me he shouldn’t play, but he stayed in there and is improving as he gets used to English football.

“I could sell him tomorrow, there’s another club who would give us our money back, but he’s been outstanding lately and he’s staying. He’s a good lad and he’s shown real bottle.”

Today’s opponents, Wigan, are nicely placed in the top half of the table, with Tottenham fourth from bottom but only eight points behind them. “It’s all very close,” said Redknapp. “Fourteen teams are much of a muchness, stuck in a relegation battle, and it will be a case of who’s in that bottom three when the music stops.” Spurs, with eight England internationals on the books, ought to survive. “Yeah, I’m sure we’ll be okay,” said Redknapp.

The priority was staying in the Premier League and after that the Carling Cup, where Spurs go into the second leg of their semi-final at Burnley with a 4-1 lead. “I’m not saying the Carling is more important than the FA Cup, because it’s not, but it’s a real opportunity for us to win something,” he said. “We’ll go to Manchester United and give it our best shot, but really we’ve got enough on our plate in the league and the Carling Cup.”

Meanwhile, there’s plenty to get the old “Hampsteads” into, with sirloin of beef on the menu tonight.