Redknapp: We can finish in top four

Redknapp: We can finish in top four
(PA) Saturday 20 February 2010
Print
Email my friend
Share

Harry Redknapp has insisted Tottenham Hotspur are still in the race for a UEFA Champions League place, despite seeing the goals dry up in recent weeks. Liverpool and Manchester City have overtaken Spurs in the Premier League, with the 62-year-old manager challenging his players to find the prolific form they were in before Christmas.

"We have as good a chance as anyone else," said Redknapp. "We have goalscorers and you'd expect us to score. We just need one or two more to weigh in with a goal or two.
We have as good a chance as anyone else. We have goalscorers and you'd expect us to score. We just need one or two more to weigh in with a goal or two.
Harry Redknapp on Tottenham Hotspur's chances of a top-four finish

"Man City can't beat ten-man Stoke the other day and were lucky to get a draw. It's hard to win football matches. We're all struggling. Liverpool are clawing out results as you'd expect them to.

"We're not taking advantage of their slip-ups. Everyone is struggling to get wins. There are no easy games. Stoke, Bolton, wherever you go, there are no gimmes in this division."

Nine-goal nightmare
Tottenham face a Wigan Athletic team they beat 9-1 earlier this season tomorrow. Redknapp knows all about conceding nine after his first match as a manager, in charge of Bournemouth.

"It wasn't a freak result when we lost 9-0," he said. "The team was just useless. We lost 5-0 the week after, so we did improve. The pitch was like an ice-skating rink - never, ever playable.

"The only boots we had, because we were skint, were with long nylon studs. When they went for a kickabout they were all falling over. The Lincoln players had the new boots with the pimple studs. They were gliding around and I thought, 'oh my God'.

"We were 8-0 down and we had a corner with half an hour to go. The old trainer John Kirk was shouting for our centre-backs to get up. I said 'get up? What are we going to win 9-8?' They got the ninth with 20 minutes to go and I thought, 'this could be 15'."

Redknapp has come a long way since his first match as a manager, with his finest moment coming when he won the FA Cup with Portsmouth in 2008. Pompey have been in freefall since Redknapp's departure and their future still remains uncertain after four owners this season.

"They keep coming up with these people, saying this man's one of the richest Arabs in the world and this one's Sheikh somebody or other," Redknapp said. "Solomon someone or the other, sitting there eating a big hamburger with holes in his jeans. The next thing someone else comes in."