Tottenham's best chance to reach the top four - 7M sport

Tottenham's best chance to reach the top four



Posted Monday, April 19, 2010 by theguardian.com

Tottenham's best chance to reach the top four

Tottenham's manager, Harry Redknapp, gives the thumbs-up to his side in Saturday's defeat of Chelsea.

Harry Redknapp feels that this season offers Tottenham Hotspur their best opportunity to break into the Champions League with the Spurs manager expecting Manchester City, now two points adrift in fifth place, to mount coherent title challenges in the years ahead.

Tottenham had recovered from their demoralising FA Cup semi-final defeat to Portsmouth, "an all-time low" according to Redknapp, to register a first Premier League victory over Arsenal in 11 years before Saturday's outstanding dismissal of the leaders, Chelsea. Those wins have produced a slight advantage over City, whom they meet at Eastlands in the penultimate game of the season, with the Londoners hopeful of capitalising before the Abu Dhabi United Group strengthen the first-team squad further in the summer.

"It's only a matter of time before City win the championship if they continue with the same owners," said Redknapp. "They're going to go out again in the summer and bring in another three or four world-class players, aren't they, and will keep improving. This is probably the best year that you'll ever get to have a good chance.

"Remember Liverpool have had a poor season by their standards, too. They lost two games last year, and I don't know how many this time around [10], so it certainly gives someone a chance to get into the top four.

"I think people would like to see someone else getting into the Champions League. It's like someone else winning the Cup.If, every year, you get the same old teams qualifying … no, it'd be nice to have someone new. Before the Chelsea game I honestly still felt Liverpool and Aston Villa could still finish fourth. Looking at Villa's fixtures, I thought they could still go on a run and finish fourth. But now it's going to be difficult for them. It really looks as if it should be between us and Manchester City.

"It would be great for us, a nice thing to achieve. You get into the knockout phase [of the Champions League] and anything could happen. You could last two minutes as well, of course. But just to get fourth position would be a fantastic achievement."

Spurs appear to have greater depth to their squad now than when they most recently challenged for the top four, losing out on the final day of the 2005-06 season to Arsenal, though their options will be tested when they visit Manchester United – where they have not won in the league since 1989 – on Saturday. Regardless, their recovery from the Portsmouth setback has taken even their manager by surprise.

"It was an all-time low last Sunday night, but to have bounced back like we have has been great," added Redknapp whose chairman, Daniel Levy, missed this victory having been stranded in the United States while this country remains blanketed in a volcanic dust cloud. "We've got good players here. Gareth Bale is an improving player who's coming through. He got so much hype at Southampton, came here and it was difficult. I never considered selling him: it would have scared me to death to have done that. I knew what we had. It was just a case of him growing up a little bit, getting a bit stronger, and he's done that.

"He's tougher now. Every time he'd get a knock in training he'd lie down or limp off. But that doesn't happen any more. He's growing up fast and he's got everything really. He's a 6ft 1in left winger, who can score goals, head the ball, cross the ball and has the ability to run all day. It was only a matter of time before they changed the right-back today, to be fair. I didn't think [Paulo Ferreira] was going to get to half-time at one point.

"Then there's [Michael] Dawson. He's been absolutely brilliant but, at the start of the year, I'd have been a liar if I'd said he'd be in my team. I had Jonathan Woodgate and Ledley King, who I thought were as good as any pair in the country. They were up there with John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho, Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand. We've ended up with Dawson and Sébastien Bassong and we're still where we are."



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