It was almost a fairytale story for Harry Redknapp. At the start of the year he was seen, by many, as the best English manager in football and everything seemed to be going his way.
Tottenham Hotspur were on top of their game, noted for their fluent and extremely attractive playing style that even the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson publicly admired, even if he could wind up Mancini in the process, and sitting pretty in third place, ten points clear of their fierce North London rivals and on course for another spell in Europe’s top stage.
Redknapp’s year only got better, with himself, his old chairman and even his dog being cleared of all tax evasion charges. But it didn’t stop there, after ongoing talks and speculation over the future of the England boss, Fabio Capello resigned as manager and with Redknapp being the fans favourite for the job it seemed the door was well and truly open for him.
But now the fairytale story has a completely different ending with Spurs having to settle for Europa League football and poor old Harry is without a job.
With pressure growing on the FA to pick a new manager it seemed the bookmaker’s favourite was overlooked for the England job and West Brom’s Roy Hodgson was given the lead role instead.
Pressure also grew on Harry and Tottenham, the stunning football that we saw from the North London club at the start of the season was stalling and Arsenal and Newcastle’s late run of form made the battle for Champions League football go down to the wire.
Redknapp had to settle for a bitter fourth place fourth after their rivals crept up on their ten point gap and celebrated St Totteringham’s Day on the very last day of the season.
And there still didn’t seem to be any sign of a happy ending when Chelsea, who finished their worst season in ten years (6th), astonishingly won the Champions League final against Bayern Munich and pushed Spurs out of the European cut and back into Europa League status for another season.
With the stubborn Daniel Levy insisting on Champions League football speculation started to grow over Redknapp’s future. With rumours of Redknapp not surviving the summer and with only 12 months left on his contract, Redknapp wanted security with the aim to finish his career at Spurs. But with no forthcoming talks with Levy over a new contract and just days after he shunned all talks of him resigning from the club his time at Spurs was up.
Now let’s not take anything away from Harry Redknapp, you would be a fool not to recognise his managerial ability, he himself and many Tottenham fans would feel a sense of injustice with his removal.
And it is hard to see how Spurs could do better in a managerial aspect. Redknapp saved Spurs from the bottom of the Premier League and automatically started the incline at the club. Redknapp gathered a team of pace and poise and took them from fourth bottom to Champions League football, with wins over the great AC Milan in the process, and even showed realistic hopes to push Spurs further than a third place finish.
However, it would take a brave man to say that this is the end for Redknapp, he still has a few years of football yet and with Redknapp coming out of Tottenham with his vast reputation still very much in-tact any club would feel privileged to have Redknapp at their helm.
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I have it on very good authority that Johnny Vegas is to be the new Spurs manager, assisted by Vanessa Feltz as fitness coach?
with the group of players spurs had i can not see how everyone goes on about Rednapp saving spurs from relegation, any decent manager would have avioded relegation with the squad that Rednapp inherited. I concede that Rednapp installed confidence into the players to perform on a higher level , but Bale was nearly kicked out of the first team by Rednapp most of the signings Rednapp wanted not the ones Levy brought in failed to light up the pitch at the lane, and eventually rednapps refusal to rotate tiring players his lack of attacking football against 3 of the lower teams towards the end of the season ,trying to be clever and play players out of position, also his wondering mind on the England job and his refusal to commit to tottenham and finally his lack of tactics with plan no B cost him his multi million pound a year job. All Rednapp needed to do was keep fully focused on spurs and now he would be in the CL with a still high profile job. There is no doubt that at times under rednapp the play was sublime, and as a spurs fan it saddened me to watch the demise of the team towards the latter part of the season,and with mixed feelings i feel Levy was left with little choice to oust Rednapp unlike when Jol was sacked.
Only a Gooner can write this Shite, worry about your own crap team who got third place with the help of the WBA
Harry did not ‘save’ us from relegation – he took over a team that had started the season badly because the players had lost faith in Ramos. Saving a club from relegation is what you do with 8 games left, not 8 games gone! We then had three good seasons, finishing 4th, 5th and 4th – but in those last two years, we blew the chances of finishing higher due to some strange management decisions and tactics. Levy isnt blameless – he was never going to get Tevez but surely we could do better than Saha? The players arent blameless – we looked mentally flimsy (away at Arsenal we surrendered). But the chief problem was ‘Arry. No rotation, letting good squad players go, playing Modric and others out of position, no effective substitutions, no bottle when it mattered (would Man Utd have played for a draw at Villa?) and too much focus on the England job. We knew he’d take it if offered – he’d tipped off his media mates to that – and that ‘end of term’ feeling seeped through the whole squad as a result. Harry did a good job overall but, unlike Arsenal, we arent satisfied with 3rd/4th and want to try to go higher – maybe we’ll fail but at least we’re going to have a go. When RVP leaves The Effeminates this summer, Gooners will only be dreaming of 3rd/4th spot next season!
…..Levy sacked Redcrapp because he cant trust him anymore!! Simple as that! Levy along with quite a few others suspect Arry took a bung from Arsenal to lose the 10 point lead as soon as Arry thought he was going to be the next Engloid manager!!! The collapse of our form was so sudden and coincided exactly with Crapello “vacating” the Engloid job it screams suspicious!!!! Urry up Arry took a nice 5 mill bung from the Arse, plus Levy has to give him 3 mill compo to sack the cuzt, so Arry has a nice little off-shore dodgy doggy bank account this year with 8 million smackers in it!!! Nice work if you can get it!!!
Top article. I’ve followed spurs since I was 5 and Harry redknapp has put together one of the best spurs sides for decades! He’s been treated like dirt by levy!
Great article! Well played Tom Vietch!