The Trouble with Harry

Earlier in the week I went back and watched ESPN’s preview to the Blackpool match last Saturday, which I had recorded. I like ESPN’s coverage of football, but last week one of the pundits was Dion Dublin. Ahead of the game, Dion’s opinion of Spurs was that they had over-achieved this season, and he said another midfielder was the only outfield signing we needed to make in the summer.

Of course this was the usual problem of pundits not really knowing their subject, particularly signified by Dublin’s comments on our squad. More worryingly though, some of the better football writers were also tweeting on Tuesday night, after defeat at Manchester City, that Tottenham had over-achieved this season.

For those of us that do see us week-in, week-out, of course know that is not the case. Expectation is currently high. Unlike many a well-paid football writer, we can make our own mind up, and Redknapp’s comments about going for the League Title were not a factor. In fact Redknapp’s ambition has been a great quality, which is why his comments, justifying Tottenham’s recent slump, are so annoying, coupled with a thinly disguised arrogance, which appear at times to reveal a self-belief that he is better and bigger than the club.

In fact amongst his modern day contemporaries, only Jose Mourinho is a bigger self-publicist who consistently displays a bigger ego at the expense of his a club. A number of Spurs fans have told me they would prefer Mourinho, because he would win things. I wouldn’t. Firstly, there is no guarantee he would win anything; secondly, the football would almost certainly be very negative; thirdly, his stays at club seem to be short-term, and when he leaves, the club is in a worst state; and most importantly of all, no manager is bigger than the club.

One of the golden rules of Project Management is to under sell and over deliver, and the element of Redknapp’s comments regarding next season could be seen as an understandable case of down playing expectations. It could also be seen, as Daniel Taylor commented this week in the Guardian online, as a message to the Chairman that Spurs need to invest in the first-team squad, which few would argue with. But, as he has now regularly used Manchester City’s spending this season as an excuse for our terrible slump in form, it is will be perceived as a case of spin, which seems to work well with his friends in the media.

Being good at PR is not a crime. Redknapp is clearly an engaging speaker, and comes across on television as a very funny bloke. A few years ago, I stopped what I was doing for a couple of hours when I saw he and Jim Smith were the guests on Goals on Sunday, and every story was a gem. And it is no surprise football writers have their favourites, and vice-versa, with the disgusting and unfair treatment Glenn Hoddle has always received a great example.

And the headlines are often misleading; Redknapp didn’t actually say that Spurs fans had no brains yesterday, he said that people that rang into written radio phones didn’t see the games, and had no brains. While not literally true, it is hard to disagree with the sentiment, but it is a dangerous game for him to start having a go at the ill-informed sound-bite, the tool of his biggest defenders.

If anything, Redknapp’s recent comments seem to be from a man under-pressure, desperate to maintain if not his job, his reputation. It is reminiscent in its desperation for reasoning to the two times Martin Jol was under pressure, first when he blamed a slump in form in early 2007 on the absence on Jermaine Jenas and Teemu Tainio, and then later just before his departure in when he was understandably stating his case and defending his record.

But Redknapp’s problem is the way he talks about the club. Always in the third person, and at times almost with disdain. Referring to your club in the third person doesn’t have to be bad thing; Kenny Dalglish always talks about Liverpool in the third person, and is the total opposite – in fact he is so deferential, it is both a little bit boring and at times sickening to the outsider. But if you supported that club, it would be fine.

Of course, we still have Gerry Francis in our memories, who in his opening press conference said how he always wanted to be a manager at a club “…like Spurs or Arsenal”, before then going on to manage the team in a style of a negative Arsenal side, with ridiculous transfer dealings from which it took years to recover.

As Francis went on to talk about taking Tottenham to their highest ever Premier League finish, for years after he left, under the pretence that football only started a few years before he arrived, Redknapp builds up his achievements at Tottenham out of proportion. He is a good manager, and there are no stand out alternatives to him waiting in the wings at the moment, but he would do well to pipe down about being a messiah when the first-team has just had a long costly slump that would have cost many other managers their job, and more crucially may have damaged the progress of the club in building on set of top quality players.

There is a feeling of a wasted opportunity at the moment, and Redknapp no doubt feels that, as do the players as well. And the fact expectation is high, is partly due to the good football we have played since he arrived as manager, as well as the genuine quality players we have.

It is worth noting most of those quality players are ones he inherited, plus a couple that were signed for him; we can though assume he authourised them, even if it meant getting Jamie to check with Ruud Guillit first, as we know happened in one of the cases. And it is what happens in the summer that is key now, keeping our top-class players, strengthening with real quality in the right areas, and just as importantly, having something in place so we are in a stable position for any handover, when Redknapp moves on, which he surely will at some point during the next 14 months.

Redknapp is good a PR, but he is not a master, because if he was he would bear in mind that his messages needs to communicate with all his audiences. He does it effectively with the press and the pundits, and those who just dip in and out (like the people that listen to, work for and phone-in to talk show, ironically). But he is not great at communicating with those of us who do see every game, and whose love for the club is not transient.

We study the detail, we see the bigger picture, and we have longer memories. Redknapp is right to talk about the great football this season, and when we look back on it in years to come it will be remembered for the win at the San Siro, winning at Arsenal, the trip to Madrid, and the great European nights at WHL. But ultimately his job is to work for a Club for which is just a small part of, and he would do well to remember that.
   
MG

My e-book on Tottenham Hotspur's return to the European Cup after 49 seasons is available on Amazon and Smashwords.