Jamie Redknapp says 'Spurs Miles away from top four'

Jamie Redknapp has always liked to have his say on Spurs and his comments have become more negative since his Dad was given the Levy bullet.
With the Arsenal game now upon us, Redknapp has stated that Spurs are 'miles away' from being a top four team and are still too far behind Arsenal to challenge their seemingly guaranteed place in the Premier League's top four.
It would be easy to say that Redknapp has sour grapes over how his Dad was removed from the White Hart Lane hot seat, but what does he base this statement on?

Transfer Mayhem

Redknapp says that Spurs must re think their transfer philosophy is they are to progress and lays a lot of blame for the current policy at WHL at the door of football director, Franco Baldini;

" The director of football, Franco Baldini, has brought a lot of players in but you can’t just throw them together and expect it to work, you need a system. Spurs need to re-think their structure and how they sign players. "

It is interesting that Redknapp makes little reference to AVB in these comments and a lot of Spur fans on this very forum have stated that Baldini is someone who seems exempt from any wrongdoing, when it appears that he holds the cards when it comes to signing players. He certainly seemed to be heavily involved in the spending of the money from the sale of Bale to Real Madrid.
Redknapp makes an interesting point about not having a system, and he particularly points to the fact that Spurs have still not replaced Bale;

" they sold Gareth Bale and haven’t replaced him with a left-sided player; they’ve got Erik Lamela, Andros Townsend and Aaron Lennon who all want to play on the right. "

I am not sure that those players ( he has forgotten Chadli too ) all want to play on the right hand side, but rather our last two managers and the current incumbent, seem obsessed with playing inverted wingers. In his final season, it would be unfair to say that Bale was a wholly left sided player anyway as AVB played him in a very free role, and that is why he excelled in that last season as he was difficult to pick up, and by then had built up his physique to become strong as well as skilfully superb.
Trying to replace a player like Bale, who single handedly scored goals to win games in that season, was always going to be a nigh on impossible task, but I do agree that we went about things the wrong way by signing 7 players and trying to integrate them straight away and expecting positive results.

Error prone Spurs

An error prone Spurs are not a new beast. Even at their very best, Spurs have always had the ability to press the self destruct button and in defence, those issues are still ever present. Redknapp picks out Younes Kaboul for criticism here;

" I’ve lost count of the amount of times he’s made huge mistakes in big games and cost the team."

This is something that has been discussed at length right here and not ground I am going to cover again , but the defence does need to be tighter and my personal back four for the trip to the Emirates would be: Dier, Fazio, Vertonghen and Rose. Danny Rose is still not everybody's cup of tea and I have given him plenty of criticism in the past, but he started to look better this season, and one reason for playing him, is that he does overlap on the wing well, and if we are going to play with inverted wingers again, having that overlap is essential. The problem I have with inverted wingers, especially ones that can only use one foot ( with players like Waddle and Ginola for example it was not as much of an issue ) is that they tend to get round the back but then have to cut back onto their favoured foot to put in a cross. By turning back, this gives the defenders chance to get back behind the ball and reduces the chances of creating a clear goalscoring opportunity. I have always felt it is a tactic to be used sparingly, and I still believe it is a tactic that shows poor management.
The defence, whatever it may be will need to be on top of its game against the Gunners, as if not, the likes of Sanchez and the signing we missed out on, Danny Welbeck, will punish us and punish us severely.

The pressing issue of pressure

Redknapp hopes that Tottenham provide Pochettino with time as if Spurs were to lose on Saturday tea time, the pressure is going to be cranked up on him and " Daniel Levy has set a precedent with how he sacks managers."
An interesting point that Redknapp goes on to make is that at Southampton, the high intensity pressing football was very much evident and even though Spurs have better quality players, there has been little evidence of that high pressing game so far this season.

" The midfield at Southampton had high energy compared to the likes of Etienne Capoue, who wants to play at his own pace. It’s just completely different for Pochettino at Spurs and I think he’s finding it very difficult."

Capoue has put in some good performances but I do take the point that Capoue is quite casual in his coming out from the defensive areas. I alluded in my analysis of the Forest game that when Mason came on on Wednesday night, he immediately had his head up and was looking to move the ball forward as quickly as possible, giving the defence little time to get back. So far this season, Spurs have allowed teams to get men behind the ball and made it very difficult for themselves. It is one reason why I would like to see Mason start on Saturday evening, although I think MP will play the same team he played against West Brom in our last league home game.

Catch me if you can...

Whether you agree or not with Jamie Redknapp, he does make some accurate observations, although none of them are that hard to make.
The defence does need to be shored up. We need to play out and out wingers.
We do need to be wiser in the transfer market and it must be made clear as to who is in charge of our policy. Is it Levy, Baldini, Baldini and Levy or Pochettino. My thoughts on transfers will never change as I strongly feel that the only person who should make transfer choices is the man who spends his time with the team and he is the one that needs to create the team in his vision, not the chairman's and certainly not the director of football's.

We are not a top four team, but if we can make the right decisions in regard to transfers and team selection, then there is no reason at all why we cannot become one. This season, I still believe we will finish 6th at best and to that end, Redknapp is correct that we are a long way off being a top four team.
The frustrating thing is how far we still are after 14 years of ENIC, behind the red and white Woolwich lot who have set up a camp down the road. We should be finishing above them by now and the longer the wait goes on, the more it seems that they are moving forward while we tread water, or worse still move backward.

The North London Derby is always massive and this one will be no different. For Tottenham and Pochettino though, it will tell us a lot about the direction of this season, and we need the players to stand up and be counted, show passion, desire and we also need to see the managerial skill of our new manager. The one criticism aimed at him in his Southampton days was that he never had a plan B. If we are to get anything at all at The Emirates, we will need a plan B.

The noise will be loud and as ever, let's all get behind the real North London club and remember we are TOTTENHAM TILL WE DIE AND COME ON YOU SPURS!!

 

Poch needs time. He needs to get individuals and the team understanding what he wants, and hopefully the cohesion and understanding will come. Players will slow (hopefully) understand what the strengths and weaknesses are, what runs a player like to make, where they like the ball to played etc. I don't think that Chadli, Eriksen and Lamela played that often last year so it will take them to time to gel. If the players are unable to fit into the system, then I am sure at some time Poch will need to makes the changes.

 

Jamie Redknap is still bitter at the way his dad lost his job. He's like his dad... Talks for the sake of it. Redknap senior is the same... Both media whores....

 

Someone needs to tell Wetnap all his bitterness is not a good look he cant purr enough about Liverpool but mention Spurs and he like many pundits cannot wait to put the boot in.
Everything that he and his father say all revolves around 'brand Redknap' and always will do.
Although i do agree with some of his points, his bitterness just makes him look stupid.
As for the match not overly confident we have the game plan or players capable of carrying out a game plan good enough to contain or out play the Scum. Our best bet is to pack the midfield out with power, break their play up and make it ugly.

 

Redknap is absolutely correct and so is Matt. Thank you very much for very good posting.
The only thing I object, Matt, is MP will not start ALL the XI losers to WBA. He might go with Mason and Davies at left side. Davies is better defensive FB than Rose and not to concede in first half or even first quarter of the match is in order for Emirates game. Rose could come on if we need to come back after 60 to provide better attacking support.
Mason seems to be the only one who still remembers Poch's teachings. The rest kind of shook 'em off and back into last season groove.
I predict a draw.
Come On You Spurs!!!

 

Good article Matt and completely agree, wether we like JR or not, or if his views come from some resentments towards the club is irrelevant as all the points made are obvious and easy points to make at this time, the only real question is, is what are Spurs going to do about it?

 

Well, so pleased Danny Rose and Kaboul prooved that they are better than their opposite numbers who play for the other team who claim to be from north London. I think Naughton did well also. I'm still not sure Vertongen is right for us even though he is a fantastic player.
Redknapp's might be bitter, but they do know their football and whatever they feel now, they did do OK for Spurs. I'd rather take a bit of critism from them then Shearer or the Neville's. Let's take the critism and go forward, because today we were lucky and shows how desparate we are for a forward who can score goals.

 

Jamie Redknapp says...bitter about Daddy, much? LoL

It's like human reasoning, only practiced by lower primates LoL